Changing America!

For most of us, an American, in general is a spend-thrift who hardly believes in saving money. It is quite true, and if you have lived here for a while, you will realize that. But this American mindset is fast changing. Probably the phase from when I landed in this country till date has been the second worst time this country has seen (after the GREAT DEPRESSION), and hence I, like many others have been able to see this shift in attitude.

Today, in my campus, I got a note from a bunch of volunteers who want students to be more responsible than their previous generation. That note looked something like this…

HOLIDAYS ARE HERE AND WE HAVE SOME NOTES FOR YOU. CHECK THIS LIST TWICE BEFORE ENJOYING YOUR CHRISTMAS BREAK!

• Budget your holiday spending: Don’t buy what you can’t afford. Plan your budget and stick to it.

• Shop Wisely: Come up with ideas before you go shopping. Check out online for good deals and check if others are also interested in buying the same thing, so that you can get some bulk discount. Remember, a sale is good, only if you need a particular thing. Otherwise it can be a tempting trap.

• Pay by cash: With cash you can track your expenses better. Avoid credit cards which are the root cause for the rising debt-rate.

• Track your expenses: Track your expenses and items you want to buy. Neither buy excess number of items, nor exceed your overall budget.

For people who have been raised in India, these guidelines were rooted in them. Indians don’t require a special emphasis on being frugal. But with our country’s economy doing better than the most, I suspect if there is some need for distributing such guidelines. “We are doing well and so why should we be frugal in our approach”, best describes the attitude of our current generation. For those, here is some food for thought. If the USA, land of opportunities, with great economy, an open society and tremendously blessed with natural resources can burn its fingers by showing reckless attitude towards its expenditure, wouldn’t India take a bigger hit, if we imitate the reckless attitude in spending?

It is said that the wise learn from other’s mistakes while fools are inspired by other’s mistakes, to repeat it. Now it is up to us to prove ourselves, wise or otherwise!

The Gender Disparity

Recently, the Indian Air Force (IAF) made a statement, which was viewed as a controversial one by many. I heard a lot of people talk about it, read a lot of material and then felt that the statement which was issued was not as controversial as few of us made it out to be.

The statement implied that women are not well suited for direct combat roles in the IAF, especially in the role of fighter pilot. Well, to me it made no attack on women’s intellectual capabilities. Yes, it’s a fact that a woman’s physiology works against her in many walks of life. So, just to show equality, would it make sense to make an investment, which will not give the desired returns?

If someone asks me, are men and women equal? My answer is, ‘No’, though I am mindful of the fact that my mother and two sisters are women. I feel men and women are unique and should not be compared or contrasted. Comparing them would be like comparing apples and oranges. I am of the opinion, that it is more important to understand the differences between the two sexes and play the role which appropriately fits each one. To support my point, here are two quick examples…

In the game of Tennis, a men’s match can last for five sets, but a women’s match can utmost last for three sets. Would it be apt for women to play five sets, to claim equality? Or, can men look after a one day old infant, like women do? Well, let’s respect nature’s plot. We must acknowledge that men and women have their unique strengths and weaknesses. Why not play roles that suit our respective strengths instead of arguing for non-existent equality and become counterproductive.

Maturity… Explanation

Some questions are way too simple, yet to answer them remains a very hard task. Here is some food for thought. Someone recently asked me, “What is maturity?” Simple question… eh? It took me nearly couple of minutes to even attempt giving an answer. I gave a semi-humorous answer, “maturity is maturity… the mature know it and never ask about it and the immature never attain it and keep asking about it” Well, that was a cunning way to escape.

Later, I thought and thought, finally to come up with a lucid explanation of the term maturity.

When we were kids, we wanted everything that people known and unknown to us owned. Later came the time, when we wanted only some things which our classmates possessed. As enough time went by, we at this stage, in early college life, wanted only those things which our selected friends had or desired for. Beyond this phase came the phase, in which you asked yourself, questions like. WHAT I REALLY WANT? WHY DO I WANT THIS?

Some people who successfully answered these questions, I classify them as matured people and the others, who have no answers to these questions and are continuing to participate in a blindfolded run even today, I hope they attain maturity, sometimes soon.

For me knowing, what you want, why you want it and in addition to that, how you get there, are the early signs of maturity.

Guidelines to maintain a Blog

My friend was appreciating me for having a blog and updating it fairly regularly. It’s no big deal to have a blog as any one can have it for free. So, I suggested her to maintain her own blog space. She refused to do so, sighting that maintaining a blog would reveal some part of her personal life to public. Well, that’s a good point, but if maintained with proper guidelines, a blog will reveal only those points, which are either informative or fun. The rest can be omitted. To, this she asked me to pen down certain informal guidelines which might motivate her to have her blog soon. Here they come, for my friend and many like her, who are avoiding having a blog space, considering that as an intrusion in your personal life.

Most people update blog for two main reasons:
• Communicate with readers (both known and strangers) and present them with some interesting stuff
• Express your ideas to the world

Well, that’s fair enough. To begin with, here is a list of NOT TO DO THINGS while writing on your blog:

1) Never ever mention somebody’s name, designation, organizations that they (or you) work for and their personal stuff (yes this rule should be applied to you as well as others known to you). Remember, your today’s enemy was your yesterday’s friend. And today’s enemy might turn out to be your co-worker, your boss or your friend, tomorrow. In general, badmouthing anyone is a very bad practice in itself.

2) If you have had a forgetful experience, avoid writing it. It could be a break-up, job loss, betrayal etc. Anything that goes in your blog, you might read it sometimes later, and these bad memories might haunt you then. Just omit this part, which will speed up the process to get over such bad experiences.

3) Avoid expressing your strong opinion on controversial topics. Remember again, any user on the web can navigate to your blog through Search Engines. Why invite enmity from unknown people

Now coming to THINGS TO DO:

1) Make use of the reverse pyramid idea, in which you discuss a point in broad at the beginning and narrow down to the crux of the matter and draw an obvious conclusion.

2) Try to give that personal touch by writing in first person.

3) Give various perspectives and sound a little pragmatic. Remember, anything that is doable and can be related to anyone’s life, catches more attention.

To conclude, I would say, stay sensible and make sure that reading your blog should either be informative or pleasure. Hope, after reading this article, you too, like my friend will have your own blog. Happy Blogging!!!

Better to Express than to Repent

Unlike my last few posts, this one is not based on current affairs or an article. The inspiration behind this post is a friend of mine, whose two experiences helped me understand a beautiful concept in life. Before you start reading this one, here is a quick background. This friend is in his mid-twenties, yet doesn’t have (never had) a girlfriend.

During his college days, he liked a girl. One day he decided to express it to her. He gave her a call and expressed his feelings. The girl denied it, as she already was in a relation with someone else. As a result of this, he was heart-broken for couple of weeks. Enough time passed and he was doing fine.

Life at times tests you beyond imaginations and throws again those tricky situations at you. It turned out that, he again liked a girl, a co-worker, years later. But this time, he played it safe. He never told her about his feelings. The girl whom he liked, eventually became his best friend at office. Again, enough time passed and one day this girl handed him her wedding invitation. This time too my friend was devastated. Now rose the doubt in his mind that had he expressed his feelings to this girl, things would have probably worked out. This doubt had no (will never have a fruitful) resolution.

When I last spoke to him, he confessed that earlier rejection was way better than suppressing the feelings. He is sure that his doubt will never allow him to be at peace. Just to avoid some embarrassment, he opted for a bigger punishment. Maybe it is okay to have the attitude “better safe than sorry” in most instances of life. But when it comes to the matters of heart, along with playing it safe, it is always better to express your feelings and lighten up than repent for not expressing.

I am signing off this post with a quote which I recently read, goes something like this, “Often you will repent more for those things that you didn’t do than those which you did”

PS: This post is dedicated to whomsoever it may concern.

Two Nobel Souls

Not even a week has gone by since the announcement of Nobel prizes in various fields for this year and each news paper has come up with its exciting piece of trivia about the winners. This has been followed by some interesting opinions from the common people as well.

This year’s two Nobel laureates who interested me the most are… yes you guessed it right!

• Venkatraman Ramakrishnan for Chemistry
• Barack Obama for peace.

Let’s start with Venky (as he is popularly known as). He shot to fame among a billion Indians just in one day. Every Indian was proud of him being Indian rather than an exceptional individual, in this field of work. In fact people further started crediting his success of him being born in a particular state or having studied in a particular state and so on. Let us get it straight. His achievement is phenomenal, but individual and has got nothing to do with his roots. Even he said that he believes more in people rather than nations. The bottom line is, such achievements are individual and not national and do little or no good to a country as such. Especially when someone represents an institution of other nation, it would be less apt to claim his credit on behalf of his roots. This reminds me of quote by another Nobel laureate, George B. Shaw. “Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it”

Now coming to Barack Obama, here is what I feel. The question that arises first is, does he actually deserve it? Well, that’s for the Nobel Committee to decide, as per Alfred Nobel’s will. But in general the opinion amongst most people is that he doesn’t. To a fair extent, he may not deserve it this time. Though he might have a lot of positive ideas, hardly any of his ideas have been comprehensively converted into actions in such a short time. Also, a Nobel peace prize for a country head, which has highest nuclear arsenal, is a little ironical. Or maybe like Nobel, who invented 'dynamite' and believed that it will never be used for destructive purposes, the committee is also hoping that Obama will never use any of the nuclear weapons that the US possesses.

Whatever it is, there is always some sort of controversy that surrounds a Nobel Prize. Who is the right person to win it, is always a debatable point. In spite of all this, Nobel Prize has its own importance. Thanks to Alfred Nobel, for creating such an interesting will, which serves as a great source of motivation to many. And this reminds of one more quote by George B. Shaw, which goes something like this. “I can forgive Alfred Nobel for having invented dynamite, but only a friend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize”

Women can’t keep secrets

The below article is borrowed from Bangalore Times, dated September 25, 2009. For all my friends, here on, give a second thought before sharing your secrets with any woman, be it your GF or your friend who is girl et al. Whatever be the case, a must read article, no matter whether you are a girl or guy!

Most women cannot keep a secret for more than 47 hours, a new survey has revealed. In the survey involving 3,000 women aged 18 to 65, four out of 10 respondents admitted that they cannot keep a secret, no matter how personal or embarrassing. While 83 per cent of women believe they are “completely trustworthy” and three in four claim they would never betray a confidence, it is unlikely that they keep their lips sealed. And their likely confidante is their husband, boyfriend, mother or best friend. Nearly 45 per cent said they blurt out secrets just to get it off their chests and then most of them feel guilty. More than half blamed alcohol for blurting out the secrets. “It’s official — women can’t keep secrets,” a daily quoted Michael Cox, UK director of the company that commissioned the research, as saying.
Women hear at least three nuggets of gossip in a week — about sex, affairs, guys in office, or how much so-and-so really spent on that handbag.“What we didn’t bank on was how quickly these are passed on. Everyone who has confided in a friend should be worried,” he added.

Evolution

It’s an age old phenomenon that human beings evolve with time. But why did I choose to write about this topic, which probably would be a little weird. Well, experience is something, which I feel is unique and is always first-hand, even if something has been done a million times by others and you are doing it for the first time.

This is what prompted me write on evolution. I have been an avid user of Gmail (for beginners, it is Google’s email service) from January 2006. One of the features I love the most is that the storage is virtually unlimited and one doesn’t need to delete any mails. After a long and tiring day, around 2:00 AM last night (or is it morning?) I did this exercise. I started reading mails at random, beginning with the first mail that I had received in January 2006 till date. I observed that…

• My way of writing mails had changed dramatically
• My vocabulary was more or less in the same lines, but usage of certain words had changed considerably
• Few things which were my dreams had become a thing of past while some seemed really silly
• Last, but not the least, some mysteries did uncover, based upon the mails few people had written to what actions took place in reality

Maybe, few years down the line when I again undertake the same exercise, today’s action might seem silly. What I am not even thinking remotely about today, may become my biggest dream.

If you have not tried this exercise (and have some excess time), I strongly recommend you to do so. Most certainly you will realize how your personality has evolved with time!

Midlife Crisis!

Please note that this article has been borrowed from an online article. And the target audience is a handful of people! A good friend suggested me to read this article. God knows why? A nice read though!

What the Hell is a Midlife Crisis?

Justice Stewart's wisdom about pornography applies to midlife, too: tough to define, but you know it when you're in it. Men in the muddle often use words such as "aimless," "confused," "lost." Previously surefooted guys come to question things in which they once believed -- marriage, work, friendships. Some men report losing their vitality, their joy in things they used to savor. In the book Flyfishing through the Midlife Crisis, the New York Times executive editor Howell Raines describes this feeling as "disappointment and restlessness that tiptoe in on little cat feet."
Here's a symptom sampler: insomnia, fatigue, despair, morbidity, inability to concentrate, ruefulness about roads not taken, dread that life holds no more surprises, regrets, sharp longing for something (a gunmetal Porsche, a cigarette boat) or someone (the FedEx woman, Gina, whose smile is a promise of overnight delivery). Men in crisis often obsess about big questions, as in, "Does my life matter?"

"Many men start to think in terms of how little time they have left," says James. In severe cases, men fantasize about just lighting out, shucking off their old lives and starting over in the South Pacific or the Sawtooth Range. At 36, the world's our oyster, but by 44, we're trapped inside the oyster, gasping for air.

The midlife stew often starts with some garden-variety boredom. If you've been hoeing the same row for 20 years, only an idiot wouldn't wonder if there aren't some more interesting rows somewhere else. On top of tedium, we often get our first bolt of serious bad news: the death of a parent, trouble in a marriage, a career setback, the transformation of the 8-year-old who thought you were God into the adolescent who thinks you're the devil. Crushing chest pain and the word "biopsy" can set a fellow to thinking about what he's done with this life.

Often, come our 40s, some undeniable facts start eroding the dubious pillars on which we've built our notion of a man.