Alma Mater

Once while I was in school, I was going through someone's year book. I came upon a term, 'alma mater'... Someone had refered to his college as alma mater...

It was a new term for me. So I looked up into dictionary and found out that alma mater in latin means nourishing mother...

I laughed... Who can call his school or college as his alma mater.

Then, I went to my college, NIT Hamirpur. I not just spent my 4 years there, but I lived them. I enjoyed them. And now I know why that person had called his college his 'alma mater'....

Monetize your ideas...

I learned a very important lesson yesterday... Monetizing....

Monetizing in simple terms is how to make money.... Either u have an idea or a specific skill or any object; n u have to make money from it...

A very popular example for this would be google. Before google, there were a lot of search engines, but searches were done as free services. Then google came and it taught the world that money can be made simply from conducting searches.

Monetizing is one of the most impostant skill one should have, if he wants to be a successful entrepreneur. Enterprise needs money to survive, like humans need food and water. A lot of people have ideas, very good one infact. The world is full of intelligent people, but very few know how to monetize them.

Let me give another example of excellent monetizing. An IIM grad started a firm in ahmedabad. They went from house to house and collected left over food. The food was then distributed to poor people at the price of Rs.1 per person. What an idea to do social service and save waste at the same time, one would think.... But the firm is not just doing social work, it is also making money in the process. Now one would think, how much can one earn by collecting one-one rupee.

The firm's been doing this work from 4 years. Can u imagine what was the turnover of the firm for this year? It ran into crores.... Who would have thought that!!!

Surely monetizing is a very important thing. Atleast for me, it's the first thing in my to do list.

Its raining... Its raining...

It was 5.55 pm yesterday. I was in my bus, back from office. It was about to reach my stop. My building is about half km from the stop.

I looked outside the window. It was raining heavily. As one of my friends would say, it was raining cats and dogs. But still i felt very pleasant by looking at the pouring water, flooded streets... My heart longed to be outside and get wet like everything else outside.

I had a raincoat with me and no bag. I checked my pockets: mobile, headphones, wallet, keys, handkerchief. I put the mobile, headphones n wallet in the raincoat pocket, n folded it nicely to ensure no water can get inside and waited.

The bus reached my stop, people hurried to wear their raincoats. I calmly got down with the folded raincoat in my hand, and felt the cold showers... What a soothing experience... Stood there until i was drenched to the skin. People were looking curiously... A man getting wet in the rain, with a raincoat in his hand... I smiled... Rain makes me happy...

I remembered i had very little money with me. Went to an atm, took out what i would need for the next week. Then i went for a food-shopping... Sitting by the window and eating something hot, is one the best thing one can do when it's raining... I bought a variety of stuff: manchurian, dhokla, chocolates (they are not hot, but who cares... I love them...) I also bought some stuff i would need for cooking my dinner...

Having got everything i would need, I walked towards my building. The streets were almost empty. When i reached, our chowkidar looked at me, then looked at my raincoat and gave me a puzzled look. I just smiled, he understood...

I reached my floor, that is the top one, opened the door, threw all the stuff, took off my shoes, then came out and locked the door. Then i ran to the terrace and felt the showers again...
Ohooooo..... Cold water and cool breeze....

Did i mentioned, there's the Tapi river flowing about 3 kms from my building and that the sea coast is just about 10 km from where i was standing... Though none of them are visible from my terrace due the massive concrete jungle, but it sure cant stop the breeze...

Cool breeze keep flowing through out the day. Add to that the rain showers n it becomes a deadly combination... Lovely deadly i mean... I wanted to dance and jump, but the neighbouring aunty was already staring at me as if i was nuts. If i would have danced, that would. So i just stood there enjoying the rains for about half an hour. Came back to my apartment, dried myself and wrote this blog....

P.S. If you are thinking of trying this yourself, make sure you take a bath afterwards, to avoid any itching after-effects. Also keep yourself warm to avoid cold... I didn't and now that i have caught cold, i think i should have...

The Hence's, the Because's & the Inspite of's

So here i m... In my company's bus again... Arguing with a fool...
Yes, i remember the saying, 'don't argue with a fool. He brings you down to his level and beats you with his experience.' but probably i m fool too.

So when we were discussing a very complicated matter (something i think only fools can discuss, as did we..), i came up with three groups of people who work in this company- the hence's, the because's and the inspite of's.

The hence's are the people about who can be described as 'They are fools, hence they are in this company.' I think that sentence says all that i want to say.

The because's are the people who were not fools when they joined the company, but over the valuable time they spent in the company, the hence's influenced them and converted them into fools. So about because's, we can say, 'They are fools because they are in this company.'

Now the last come the 'inspite of's.' These are the ones who were not fools when they joined the company and are not fools even today. I m not talking about those who are newcomers and hence not influenced enough yet, they will take time to chose a group. But i m talking of those who have spent years in this company and yet have retained their wisdom. I have found just 2-3 of them, but all of them at very powerful positions. How they managed to stay wise is a mystery i have to solve... But they are the ones we can describe as, 'They are not fools inspite of being in this company'.

About me, i have not decided yet which category i want to be in... The because's or the inspite of's....

P.S. I think everyone is born with enough potential and a choice: Be a part of the crowd and become a 'Because' OR fight his way out of the crowd and become an 'Inspite of'.

Feeling like a bird in an iron cage

I always get frustrated when i have to get up in the morning to go to the office. The frustration is even more when the office day comes after a holiday. This frustration then exaggerate when my boss asks me to stay overtime. At that time, my temper rises so much that i turn into a volcano, about to erupt.

I always thought this happened coz i hate my offc so much. But now here i m, sitting by the window of my offc bus. I look outside the window. It's raining. I want to go outside and dance in the rain, i want to jump in the muddy puddles, i want to go to my terrace n shout at the world. Its sound crazy, but i still want to do it. But then i feel some imaginery cage has bound me to my seat. I cant dance in the rain coz i have to go to the offc. I cant do what i want coz i have to do to what my boss wants me to do. I feel like a slave obeying his master for the fear of lashes. I wait for that 5 pm in the clock, so that i could get out of this cage, atleast for a few hours.

I can be free then. I can fly in the open sky as a free bird does.

Why did I miss the bus yesterday?

So I as said in the topic, I missed my bus yesterday... Actually I missed it day before yesterday, but that wouldn't have sounded right in the topic...

Anyways, this is what happened...

At 10 am, I was told that some items needed in my project were ready at the yard and I was to deliver them to the contractor. The task took 20 mins. I just had to arrange a vehicle, get the papers ready and bring the items.

I asked the engg at the yard to get my papers ready and check the items, got permission for the vehicle from transport office. Now only thing remained was to go and get the items. Even then I couldn't do it until 5:10 in the evening and so missed the bus. Why?

1. I couldn't leave the site, so had to asked my subordinate to get the items. But he couldn't reach the driver on his cell neither did he tell me about this untill a 2 pm.

2. The driver had switched off his mobile.

3. Drivers of other vehicles were also unreachable. They all must be planning for a strike.

4. After making some 1024 calls, I found out at 4.15 pm that the driver (along with vehicle) was with my colleague. He needed it for 15 mins.

Great, now i had 40 min.. Can easily catch the bus...

5. The colleague didn't free the vehile after he had finished. Coz that lazy fellow didn't want to walk 100 m n asked the driver to take the longer route to offc.

6. Some idiot truck driver had parked his vehicle in the middle of the road. It took 10 min to find the truck driver and hence the vehicle to reach me.

Finally got the vehicle at 4:40... 30 mins left... Could be done...

7. When i reached the yard, it turned out that the papers weren't ready. A bit of running could do it in 10 min, I thought, can still catch the bus.

8. Now the big thing... The parts were not ready... WTF....

So I'll miss the bus, i thought. Somehow i got them done n returned by 5.15 pm.

But hold on, there was one bus left. It too got late probably. So I can handover the vehicle to the contractor n make a run...

9. The contractor wasn't there in his offc n neither were his men. Finally i unloaded the vehicle n while doing it, saw my last bus leave.....

Customer is equal to God

I was reading this article, 'Dont buy racism' by Jug Suraiya published in TOI.

The author says that the main reason for the increasing racist attacks on Indians is the envy that those people feel towards us due to their perception of us being in a better position in this time of recession. He also suggest that to tackle these attacks, we can exploit this perception of theirs and boycott their goods and sevices.

Now, let us leave the author's suggested reason for some other discussion and get on to the solution that he gave.

To tackle Australian Goondagiri with Indian Gandhigiri...

The whole world today is hit by recession. The pre-recession consumers (i.e. those from the developed world) are drowned in debts and can no longer afford to contribute to the demand. Thus the demand to keep these industries alive has to come from emerging economies. The consumer market in India is second only to China. Though china has registered the highest growth, its economy has been hit badly due to the countries export-orientedness. That makes the Indian market the biggest hope of these countries for their survival.
The countries are looking upon our vast and wealthy middle class and its increasingly brand-concious attitude.

Thus if we were to boycott any specific countries goods scarred , imagine the losses that country would bear. That would seriously threaten their economies and compel their govt to take action against attacks on Indians.

For this to happen, we have to stand united in our efforts. Our govt cannot get involved in this and ban their products. That step would severe our diplomatic ties with them. We just have to encourage everyone to boycott their goods.

It would also show that Gandhi's principles are still alive in our country and we are still that same nation that fought the British tyranny without picking any arms. Remember, fighting with peaceful methods takes a lot of strength and self-control.

We are the customers they desperatly need. Its time to show them the power we hold.

As Gandhiji once said, 'Grahak devta saman hota hai.' Translated, it means, Customer is equal to God.