Today I am unable to bind the thoughts in words. I do not know why but sometimes it happens. Actually couldn’t make a sitting that is required for thoughts to fully flow into words!
Anyway, I would just like to share a simple story that I like from my favorites list-
Teacher Debbie Moon's first graders were discussing a picture of a family. One little boy in the picture had a different hair color than the other members. One of her students suggested that he was adopted.
A little girl said, 'I know all about adoption, I was adopted....’
'What does it mean to be adopted?' asked another child.
'It means', said the girl, 'that you grew in your mommy's heart instead of her tummy!'
A Happy Tuesday! The reason for happiness is that I got an opportunity to meet Vice President of our product area today. It really excites me when I get an opportunity to meet and have word with corporate biggies. It is so always inspiring to know their views, their thought process at their level. And it really is a boost when they share their success stories.
Our team had hosted lunch for her at the Vivanta by Taj Group. The lunch was awesome and I felt pretty elated for having the lunch at a Five Star hotel. In fact I had a leisure lunch after quite a long time. It was almost 2 hours we spent there. There is no need to describe the hospitality as it was flawless, truly reflecting the brand name of the Taj Group.
After lunch, we had an official meeting with her where all the ongoing projects and the projects in pipeline were discussed. She also acquainted us of the goals and vision for 2010. I was simply awestruck by the way she spoke, by the convincing way she answered all the questions and queries.
The meeting went off quite well and I was happy. I had a couple of meetings more after that and was totally exhausted!
I badly needed a cup of strong tea and went out for a tea break. As soon as I got down, an enchanting aroma, which is my favorite, knocked at my nostrils. Yes! It was the aroma of the first shower on earth! It had rained few minutes back! The sweet scent of mud can’t be described in words! A heavenly feeling! I came back, packed my bags and quickly ran for the 6.50 bus. The smell of mud had really charged me up!
The day was lucky and happy, and to add pinkness to happiness, I just got a sms that my salary has been credited! Yipeee! :-)
Today I went to office completely dressed in business formals. Crisp cotton shirt, well pleated trouser, matching belt and shining shoes! I do not know why but a feeling came to my mind yesterday, that this week I will celebrate formal week for myself. Celebrations don’t need any reasons per se. Just celebrate if you are happy! And celebrate if you are sad also! If you are sad, just remember the following lines from a famous song of the movie “Hum Dono” बरबादियों का शोक मनाना फ़िज़ूल था, बरबादियों का जशन मनाता चला गया!
It had been quite a long time since I last wore complete formals. If I put a little stress on my grey cells, I can say I wore formals last, some 3 months back. The reason for that is my work place doesn’t have restriction on dress code. It however, goes without saying that dressing has to be sensible! Thus, everyday is a Friday, casuals day. Initially, I used to wear formals to office but gradually got too lazy to iron my clothes and started wearing jeans and t-shirts to office. From experience I can say that, a t-shirt is much easier and hassle free to iron than a crumpled cotton shirt. So this thinking, “Why to take pain” eventually phased out the formal clothing for me and I got myself blended in the “All days Fridays” culture!
Now the question is how come common sense prevailed yesterday? Everything happens for a reason, and this too has a one! I was preparing for Monday dressing, fumbling through my wardrobe yesterday for a t-shirt to match my jeans; I found few formal shirts lying in the corner, extremely crumpled and creasy! Out of those, one was my favorite one and it seemed to me that she was saying, “Please wear me, and if not, at least iron me!!!” I felt pity seeing her condition and at time only decided that I will celebrate formal week, this week! The t-shirt that I kept back was sad for obvious reasons!
I took a lot of pain to iron that shirt, almost toiled for 20 minutes to remove all the creases! However,it was worth it and was really a great feeling wearing formal clothing after such a long gap! To be true, formal dressing really generates a feeling of being a corporate gentleman! This however, is not the case with casual clothes! I still feel like a collegian in casual clothes. If you interpret the previous sentence, it implicitly means that “I feel younger” as if I am in my teenage!
Each one has its advantages, and the choice depends on mood and the day! And needless to say, feeling young edges out the feeling of being a corporate gentleman :-)
I was flipping through the pages of my diary when I saw a translation in English of a poem on Krishna by Surdas. I wrote it in my diary about a year back when I saw it on internet.
It is really very nice and if you pay attention to the last two lines, you will enjoy it more! See the amazing Krishna leela, that inspite of being the lord of three worlds, he dances for his butter!
आज सोचा था कुछ अच्छा लिखूंगा किन्तु ऐसा आभास हो रहा है कि आज विचारों की हड़ताल है. मेरे खाली दिमाग रुपी मटके पे कोई विचार आज टंकार मारने को तैयार ही नहीं हो रहा है! सुबह से बैठा हूँ किन्तु बिना किसी नतीजे के.
शायद विचार भी आज रविवार मनाने कि इच्छा रखते हैं. जब हर कोई रविवार को आलस करता है तो विचार क्यों नहीं? कुछ सूझ नहीं पड़ रहा था तो सोचा थोडा साहित्यिक हिंदी कवितायों का अवलोकन कर लूं . अटल बिहारी वाजपेयी द्वारा रचित एक कविता, "ऊँचाई" मुझे बहुत ही प्रिय है. उस कविता कि विशेषकर यह दो पंक्तियाँ बहुत ही भावपूर्ण हैं-
मेरे प्रभु!मुझे इतनी ऊँचाई कभी मत देना, गैरों को गले न लगा सकूँ,इतनी रुखाई कभी मत देना।
I love sleeping because it is the time when you get dreams. And if you do not sleep, you will not get dreams to follow! So sleep basically is a motivation :-)
Jokes apart, sharing few lines that came to my mind some months back when I was travelling to my office in a crowded Mumbai bus!
It always happens with me. I get most of the thoughts at times when I travel from here to there. I guess because then there is nothing else to think about! Anyway, Here I go-
A million dreams in my eyes,
Some small, some big,
Some fulfilled, some yet to be,
But I am happy for what I have achieved,
Because it was also a part of a dream some day,
Some dreams nurture, some dreams die
But I do not stop dreaming,
For dreams come true only for those, who dream
And Believe in their Dreams…
I feel one must always dream big. There is no harm in keeping big dreams. In fact sometimes the success comes in the proportion of the size of your dreams. As a matter of fact, you do not have to pay also for seeing dreams!
Bengaluru is a Happy Place. After moving here I have got a feeling that life is quite relaxed here. Or perhaps, I am feeling so because I have come here from Mumbai, where life moves at the speed of light! Initially, I did feel jitters and Mumbai used to be in my thoughts all the time. It is not easy to leave Mumbai! Once a Mumbaikar is always a Mumbaikar! However gradually I started getting blended in the colors of Bengaluru. And for the time being, I want to adore and enjoy Bengaluru. I have always been fascinated by the scenic beauty of South India. I am posting today the travel account of one of my team outing at a place called Shivasamudra. I wrote it four months back.
Here I go-
Generally speaking for majority of the salaried people, especially, IT people weekends are meant to sleep late and there are only few occasions when you would like to get up early on a weekend and at the end of the day feel ecstatic that it was worth it!
As luck would have it, I just experienced the same last Saturday on December 5, 2009, when my team planned a day trip to Shivasamudra falls.
It was a perfect occasion for me as I have recently shifted to Bangalore and was eager to explore the areas in and around it.
India, our country as a whole, is beautiful in every literal sense of the word, yet I have always been fascinated by the natural and scenic beauty of the south India. When I was in high school, I used to watch the Kerala tourism department advertisement “Visit God’s own country” and wonder when I would get a chance to visit the southern areas of the country. My wish came true when I visited Pollachi, a small town in Tamilnadu for my foundation software training after getting campus recruit. I was so mesmerized with the place that when I was leaving, I wondered when I would get another chance to visit south India. Destiny has mysterious ways of doing things and riding on that mystery I landed in Bangalore for my new job!
To start with, I would like to give a brief introduction of the Shivasamudra falls. And honestly, I would profusely thank Google and Microsoft for that. Google, for you can find information regarding anything on the tip of your fingers. My geography has been weak since my school days, so it helped me in finding the facts related to Shivasamudra. And Microsoft for devising copy and paste. Software Engineers can very well understand the importance of CTL-C and CTL-V!
Shivasamudra is a small town in the Mandya district of the state of Karnataka, India. It is situated on the banks of the river Cauvery and is the location of the first hydro-electric power station in Asia, which was set up in the year 1902.Shivasamudra falls is the second biggest waterfall in India and the sixteenth largest in the world.
The Shivasamudra falls is on the CauveryRiver after the river has wound its way through the rocks and ravines of the Deccan Plateau and drops off to form waterfalls. The island town of Shivasamudra divides the river into twin waterfalls. This creates the fourth largest island in the rivers course.
This is a segmented waterfall. Segmented waterfalls occur where the water flow is broken into two or more channels before dropping over a cliff, resulting in multiple side by side waterfalls. It has an average width of 849 meters, a height of 90 meters, and an average volume of 934 cubic meters / sec. The maximum recorded volume is 18,887 cubic meters / sec. It is a perennial waterfall.
A common misconception about these waterfalls is that the left segment is called Gaganachukki and the right segment is called Bharachukki. In reality the Bharachukki falls are a few kilometers to the south-west of the Gaganachukki falls. This is due to the CauveryRiver itself splitting a few kilometers to the south into western and eastern branches. The western branch results in the twin waterfalls of Gaganachukki, whereas the eastern branch results in the Bharachukki falls.
Though assumption is the mother of all goof-ups, yet I assume the description of the place might tempt anyone to visit there. It was 9.00 am in the morning when we left Bangalore city, picking everyone up from their respective pick up points. We stopped an hour later on the highway, after leaving the city, for having our breakfast. Everybody savored the tasty idlis and wadas brought by Shreedevi. Some vigilant eyes among us saw that we have stopped near a tamarind tree. We plucked few tamarinds to give tangy twist to our taste buds! Minutes later, we marched ahead, playing Antakshari and having doses of laughter, the best medicine. If I say from my experience, Antakshari is the only and best way to enjoy trips when you are travelling!
Our next stop was a small village en route. At the village stop, we got some lemon rice packed for our lunch and moved ahead. After sometime we reached the Gaganachukki falls. The view was awesome and one’s mouth would remain open seeing the spectacular beauty! At the waterfall site, there were coconut water vendors, shop owners selling cold drinks and snacks. There were lots of monkeys at the site, waiting to snatch something to eat from us! I do not know but I speculate that they must be having the feeling that it is their right to snatch things from us as science claims them to be our ancestors. Somebody might have recited the book “Origin of Species” by Charles Darwin in front of them!
There was no scope to get down to the water as the terrain was rough and rocky. Also there was a big CAUTION signboard erected warning not to go near water. There was also a story written below it referring to a person and what happened to him when he did not pay attention to the caution.
Giving due respect to the caution board and thinking that life is precious we just clicked some pictures and marched ahead for the Shivasamudra falls. On the way, we stopped at an aloof KSRTC bus stop to have our lunch. That bus stop would have thanked God that at least somebody visited it! Unfortunately the lemon rice that we had brought got stale. Yet there were lot of delicacies to enjoy, especially Pooris and Shrikhand brought by Aniket and everyone relished the lunch to the maximum. The caravan proceeded further and it was about 2.00 pm when we reached Shivasamudra.
I was mesmerized by the sublime nature and perhaps the majestic feeling cannot be described in words. To reach the base of the waterfall we had to descend a rocky terrain of about 100meters. However nothing comes in the way when you have enthusiasm to the brim and the same was the case with us!
Everybody was so excited that no one gave a thought that as per the laws of physics, ascending is tougher than descending! But for a situation like this, to hell with Physics and Mathematics!
We did not have any intentions to go and get ourselves drenched in water but once we reached there, we could not resist the temptation and got ourselves completely drenched! The water was ice cold but that could not defeat our enthusiasm to enjoy it!
After playing in water and relishing the nature’s beauty, it was the time to move. The uphill task was to ascend back the rocky terrain! When we came up, I just wondered that how our armed forces people live in those rough terrains near border! Real time heroes, I must say.
Our next destination was Somnathpur. Somnathpur is a small village on the banks of the river Cauvery that was founded by the commander of the Hoyasala army, Somnath. The village is famous for its splendid and grand Keshava temple that has been built in the Hoyasala style. The temple is famous for its elaborate and intricate sculpturing. The temple is enclosed in a walled courtyard that has a gate and a porch. The temple is built on an elevated star shaped platform.
The sides of the raised platform are decorated with richly carved friezes, portraying rows of cavalry, elephants and scenes from the epics. The rows above have sculptures of Gods mainly Vishnu in various forms. The shrine has three shrines and three sanctums. The temple has three intricately carved pinnacles and a common Navranga. The northern sanctum has the idol of Lord Janardhana and the southern sanctum has the idol of Lord Venugopala. The main hall has exquisitely turned pillars and ceiling panels.
The temple is an example of the grand and glorious temples built by the Hoyasala rulers. The names of the sculptors are inscribed on their works, which was a common practice during the reign of the Hoyasalas.
We were filled with admiration because of the architecture of the temple. After taking round of the temple and the lush green grass lawn that surrounded it, it was the time to get back to Bangalore.
We started our journey at about 5.15 pm and this time everyone was tired so almost everyone dozed off during the return journey!
I reached home at about 9.30 pm taking with me memories that I would cherish forever. I was dead tired but then sometimes getting tired is fruitful and worth it!
To start with, I am posting two of the motivational quotes that are my favorite. Motivation always helps to get going when the terrain is rocky. How many times have you felt the magic a simple “Well done” or “Good Work” creates! Remember, how these simple words used to inspire us in our school times to perform better and excel more than this time. The teachers used to profusely say that but sadly in this professional world, there is paucity of those simple words! Our managers never seem to understand the power hidden behind those words! How many times have you felt that you have delivered complex projects with precision, and your ears longed forever to hear those simple words!
This gives a very useful lesson in people management-“Always motivate your team, if you want the best out of them.”
I feel one has to motivate himself to get going and overcoming hurdles. Success belongs to the most persevering! I read these thoughts often when I am down, or the situation seems unfathomable. And it really generates the energy!
We humans have been blessed with enormous amount of potential. In fact, if I say the highest, among all the creatures created by God.
So if an ant doesn’t give up even falling 100 times when moving up the wall, so why should we? Come on, we are Humans!
Here I go-
Just believe in yourself!!!! Nothing else Matters!
“The bumblebee’s body is too heavy and its wings span too small…
According to the greatest minds of science, it cannot fly as its wings aren't big enough. Aerodynamics says it is IMPOSSIBLE. The biggest computers in the world all come to the same conclusion, it CAN’T fly. But what does the bumblebee do? It IGNORES the great minds, the skeptics, the computers... and it just GOES AHEAD and FLIES…”
Only Humans do it!!!
“No feat in this world is achieved by other than Humans. Not sure about who created who.....But certainly it was Human who discovered GOD...From the first invention of civilization to today's engineering marvels, all accomplished by the same common looking Human.....
Moral of the story is: When palms become sweaty, heart starts pumping harder, things look difficult to me...I say to myself only HUMANS do it...the same common looking guy.... and I feel STRONGER”
जीवन की आपाधापी में कब वक़्त मिलाकुछ देर कहीं पर बैठ कभी यह सोच सकूँ…
These are the starting lines of a famous Hindi poem by Harivanshrai Bachchan “जीवन की आपाधापीमें” and this perfectly summarizes my excuse for not writing a blog for so long!!!
The thought of writing a blog was knocking the doors of my mind for quite a long time now but do not know why I did not pay any heed to open the door and kept ignoring the knock. I just kept on procrastinating. I guess I am best in this thing-procrastinating! Perhaps it is the only thing you can be best in- without doing anything! Many of my friends insisted me to start blogging, but as I said, I kept saying, “I will” and then used to forget for ages! Considering me as a tough nut to crack, now my friends have stopped saying that also! I hope this blog will bring a zephyr of surprise for them!
I am unable to control the excitement in saying that “I am going to start blogging, finally”! It is always better late than never!
So Ladies and Gentlemen, Here I am, Aditya Kaushal, with my blog- Archisha. You must be wondering, what does that mean? Archisa means a ray of light!
I am another small fish in this whole ocean of blogging but yes I have a belief, I will leave my mark some day. Small steps do make a giant leap one day.
I do not know how frequently I will write but yes I will try my level best to keep this blog updated. I will also try to write in Hindi also. Hindi is my mother tongue, but when it comes to writing I still fumble for words in Hindi. I feel Hindi is easier to speak than to write and vice versa is the case with English! I feel it is better not write the Hindi we speak!
I love to read and write. I believe that if you have book than you do not need anybody in the world. That’s why they are called man’s best friend! I had a flair for writing, since my childhood, but have never been able to fully flourish that passion. Writing actually takes a lot of thinking, which I am unable to put regularly these days because of the nature of my job. The majority of time goes in writing the software code, putting bugs in it and then debugging it! So as and when I manage time well, I do pursue the passion. I sometimes wonder why I took Engineering instead of Arts, if I was so interested in literature. But as like majority of people, I also do not have answers to many of such questions. Life is not a 3 hour “3 Idiots” movie!
Knowledge is eternal and never ending. I keep on learning new things with each passing moment. I think this will give me a platform to learn, share and grow. A thought, an idea sometimes has the power to change the universe!
The release of this blog couldn’t have come at a better day than today. Today is the auspicious occasion of Ramanavmi. श्रीराम शरणं ममः
Another reason is that today is one of my dearest friends, Arpit Namdeo’s Birthday! Happy Birthday Arpit! This is my birthday gift to you! I told you I will keep the promise!!! We had a chat last weekend and he pressed me hard to write. I promised him, keeping in my mind that promises are meant to be broken! But then common sense prevailed and I thought not to miss this chance and kept the promise.
He as a rude PM gave me an estimate of “One” day to complete the task and I as a stern and smart developer cajoled him for “Five”. And just to pull my collar up, I have completed the task in “Three” .Recommendation for an award, anyone?
