Strage but True!!
The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as a substitute for Blood plasma.
No piece of paper can be folded in half more than seven (7) times. (Try it!!)
Donkeys kill more people annually than plane crashes.
You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching television.
Oak trees do not produce acorns until they are fifty (50) years of age or older.
The first product to have a bar code
was Wrigley's gum.
The King of Hearts is the only king WITHOUT A MOUSTACHE
American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987
by eliminating one (1) olive from each salad served in first-class.
Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise.
(Since Venus is normally associated with women,
what does this tell you!)
Apples, not caffeine, are more efficient at waking you up in the morning.
Most dust particles in your house are made from DEAD SKIN!
The first owner of the Marlboro Company died of lung cancer.
So did the first "Marlboro Man."
Walt Disney was afraid OF MICE!
PEARLS MELT IN VINEGAR!
The three most valuable brand names on earth:
Marlboro, Coca Cola, and Budweiser, in that order.
It is possible to lead a cow upstairs... but, not downstairs.
A duck's quack doesn't echo,and no one knows why.
Dentists have recommended that a toothbrush be kept at least six (6) feet away from
a toilet to avoid airborne particles resulting from the flush.
(Should I keep my toothbrush in the living room now!)
Richard Millhouse Nixon was the first U.S. president whose name contains all the letters from the word "criminal."
The second ?
William Jefferson Clinton
(Please don't tell me you're SURPRISED!?!!)
(Source: Not Self)
King Arthur and the Witch
Young King Arthur was ambushed and imprisoned by the monarch of a neighbouring kingdom. The monarch could have killed him but was moved by Arthur's youth and ideals. So, the monarch offered him his freedom, as long as he could answer a very difficult question. Arthur would have a year to figure out the answer and, if after a year, he still had no answer, he would be put to death.
The question?....What do women really want? Such a question would perplex even the most knowledgeable man, and to young Arthur, it seemed an impossible query. But, since it was better than death, he accepted the monarch's proposition to have an answer by year's end.
He returned to his kingdom and began to poll everyone: the princess, the priests, the wise men and even the court jester. He spoke with everyone, but no one could give him a satisfactory answer.
Many people advised him to consult the old witch, for only she would have the answer.
But the price would be high; as the witch was famous throughout the kingdom for the exorbitant prices she charged.
The last day of the year arrived and Arthur had no choice but to talk to the witch. She agreed to answer the question, but he would have to agree to her price first.
The old witch wanted to marry Sir Lancelot, the most noble of the Knights of the Round Table and Arthur's closest friend!
Young Arthur was horrified. She was hunchbacked and hideous, had only one tooth, smelled like sewage, made obscene noises, etc. He had never encountered such a repugnant creature in all his life.
He refused to force his friend to marry her and endure such a terrible burden; but Lancelot, learning of the proposal, spoke with Arthur.
He said nothing was too big of a sacrifice compared to Arthur's life and the preservation of the Round Table.
Hence, a wedding was proclaimed and the witch answered Arthur's question thus:
What a woman really wants, she answered....is to be in charge of her own life.
Everyone in the kingdom instantly knew that the witch had uttered a great truth and that Arthur's life would be spared.
And so it was, the neighboring monarch granted Arthur his freedom and Lancelot and the witch had a wonderful wedding.
The honeymoon hour approached and Lancelot, steeling himself for a horrific experience, entered the bedroom. But, what a sight awaited him. The most beautiful woman he had ever seen lay before him on the bed. The astounded Lancelot asked what had happened The beauty replied that since he had been so kind to her when she appeared as a witch, she would henceforth, be her horrible deformed self only half the time and the beautiful maiden the other half.
Which would he prefer? Beautiful during the day....or night?
Lancelot pondered the predicament. During the day, a beautiful woman to show off to his friends, but at night, in the privacy of his castle, an old witch? Or, would he prefer having a hideous witch during the day, but by night, a beautiful woman for him to enjoy wondrous intimate moments?
what would YOU do?
What Lancelot chose is below. BUT....make YOUR choice before you scroll down below. OKAY?
Noble Lancelot said that he would allow HER to make the choice herself.
Upon hearing this, she announced that she would be beautiful all the time because he had respected her enough to let her be in charge of her own life.
Now....what is the moral to this story?
The moral is.....
If you don't let a woman have her own way....
Things are going to get ugly!
How they named companies
ABN AMRO- In the 1960s, the Nederlandse Handelmaatschappij (Dutch Trading Society; 1824) and the Twentsche Bank merged to form the Algemene Bank Nederland ( ABN; General Bank of the Netherlands). In 1966, the Amsterdamsche Bank and the Rotterdamsche Bank merged to form the Amro Bank. In 1991, ABNand Amro Bank merged to form ABN AMRO.
Acccenture - Accent on the Future. Greater-than 'accent' over the logo's t points forward towards the future. The name Accenture was proposed by a company employee in Norwayas part of a internal name finding process (BrandStorming). Prior to January 1, 2001 the company was called Andersen Consulting.
Adidas- from the name of the founder Adolf (Adi) Dassler.
Adobe- came from name of the river Adobe Creek that ran behind the houses of founders John Warnock and Chuck Geschke .
AltaVista- Spanish for "high view".
Amazon.com - Founder Jeff Bezos renamed the company to Amazon (from the earlier name of Cadabra.com) after the world's most voluminous river, the Amazon. He saw the potential for a larger volume of sales in an online bookstore as opposed to the then prevalent bookstores. (Alternative: It is said that Jeff Bezos named his book store Amazon simply to cash in on the popularity of Yahoo at the time. Yahoo listed entries alphabetically, and thus Amazon would always appear above its competitors in the relevant categories it was listed in.)
AMD- Advanced Micro Devices.
Apache- The name was chosen from respect for the Native American Indian tribe of Apache (Indé), well-known for their superior skills in warfare strategy and their inexhaustible endurance. Secondarily, and more popularly (though incorrectly) accepted, it's considered a cute name that stuck: its founders got started by applying patches to code written for NCSA's httpd daemon. The result was 'a patchy' server â€" thus the name Apache.
Apple- for the favourite fruit of co-founder Steve Jobs and/or for the time he worked at an apple orchard. He was three months late in filing a name for the business, and he threatened to call his company Apple Computer if his colleagues didn't suggest a better name by 5 p.m. Apple's Macintosh is named after a popular variety of apple sold in the US. Apple also wanted to distance itself from the cold, unapproachable, complicated imagery created by the other computer companies at the time had names like IBM, NEC, DEC, ADPAC, Cincom, Dylakor, Input, Integral Systems, SAP, PSDI, Syncsort and Tesseract. The new company sought to reverse the entrenched view of computers in order to get people to use them at home. They looked for a name that was unlike the names of traditional computer companies, a name that also supported a brand positioning strategy that was to be perceived as simple, warm, human, approachable and different. Note: Apple had to get approval from the Beatle's Apple Corps to use the name 'Apple' and paid a one-time royalty of $100,000 to McIntosh Laboratory, Inc., a maker of high-end audio equipment, to use the derivative name 'Macintosh', known now as just 'Mac'.
AT&T- American Telephone and Telegraph Corporation officially changed its name to AT&T in the 1990s.
Bauknecht- Founded as an electrotechnical workshop in 1919 by Gottlob Bauknecht .
BBC- Stands for British Broadcasting Corporation.
BenQ- Bringing ENjoyment and Quality to life
Blaupunkt- Blaupunkt (Blue dot) was founded in 1923 under the name Ideal. Their core business was the manufacturing of headphones. If the headphones came through quality tests, the company would give the headphones a blue dot. The headphones quickly became known as the blue dots or blaue Punkte. The quality symbol would become a trademark, and the trademark would become the company name in 1938.
BMW- abbreviation of Bayerische Motoren Werke (Bavarian Motor Factories)
Borealis - The Northern Lights or Aurora Borealis, is the celestial phenomenon that features bursts of light in colourful patterns dancing across the night skies of the north. Borealis, inspired from the shining brilliance of the Northern Lights, was formed in 1994 out of the merger between two northern oil companies, Norway's Statoil and Finland's Neste.
BP - formerly British Petroleum, now "BP" (The slogan "Beyond Petroleum" has incorrectly been taken to refer to the company's new name following its rebranding effort in 2000).
BRAC- abbreviation for Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee, world's largest NGO (non governmental organization). It works in development programs around the world.
Bridgestone- named after founder Shojiro Ishibashi. The surname Ishibashi (??) means "stone bridge", i.e. "bridge of stone".
Bull- Compagnie des machines Bull was founded in Paristo exploit the patents for punched card machines taken out by a Norwegian engineer, Fredrik Rosing Bull.
Cadillac- Cadillac was named after the 18th century French explorer Antoine Laumet de La Mothe , sieur de Cadillac, founder of Detroit, Michigan. Cadillac is a small town in the South of France.
Canon- Originally (1933) Precision Optical Instruments Laboratory the new name (1935) derived from the name of the company's first camera, the Kwannon, in turn named after the Japanese name of the Buddhist bodhisattva of mercy.
CGI- from the first letter of Information Management Consultant in french (Conseiller en Gestion et Informatique).
Cisco- short for San Francisco. It has also been suggested that it was "CIS-co" -- Computer Information Services was the department at StanfordUniversitythat the founders worked in.
COBRA- Computadores Brasileiros, "Brazilian Computers", electronics and services company, was the first state-owned designer and producer of computers in the 1970s, later acquired by the Banco do Brasil.
Coca-Cola- Coca-Cola's name is derived from the coca leaves and kola nuts used as flavoring. Coca-Cola creator John S. Pemberton changed the 'K' of kola to 'C' for the name to look better.
Colgate-Palmolive- formed from a merger of soap manufacturers Colgate & Company and Palmolive-Peet. Peet was dropped in 1953. Colgate was named after WilliamColgate, an English immigrant, who set up a starch, soap and candle business in New York Cityin 1806. Palmolive was named for the two oils (Palm and Olive) used in its manufacture.
Compaq- from "comp" for computer, and "pack" to denote a small integral object; or: Compatibility And Quality; or: from the company's first product, the very compact Compaq Portable.
Comsat - an American digital telecommunications and satellite company, founded during the President Kennedy era to develop the technology. Contraction of Communications Satellites.
Daewoo- the company founder Kim Woo Chong called it Daewoo which means "Great Universe" in Korean.
Dell- named after its founder, Michael Dell. The company changed its name from Dell Computer in 2003.
DHL- the company was founded by Adrian Dalsey, Larry Hillblom , and Robert Lynn , whose last initials form the company's moniker.
eBay- Pierre Omidyar, who had created the Auction Web trading website, had formed a web consulting concern called Echo Bay Technology Group. " EchoBay" didn't refer to the town in Nevada, the nature area close to Lake Mead, or any real place. "It just sounded cool," Omidyar reportedly said. When he tried to register EchoBay.com, though, he found that Echo Bay Mines, a gold mining company, had gotten it first. So, Omidyar registered what (at the time) he thought was the second best name: eBay.com.
Epson - Epson Seiko Corporation, the Japanese printer and peripheral manufacturer, was named from "Son of Electronic Printer"
Fanta- was originally invented by Max Keith in Germanyin 1940 when World War II made it difficult to get the Coca-Cola syrup to Nazi Germany. Fanta was originally made from byproducts of cheese and jam production. The name comes from the German word for imagination (Fantasie or Phantasie), because the inventors thought that imagination was needed to taste oranges from the strange mix.
Fazer - named after its founder, Karl Fazer.
Fiat- acronym of Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino (Italian Factory of Cars of Turin).
Fuji- from the highest Japanese mountain Mount Fuji.
Google- the name is an intentional misspelling of the word googol, reflecting the company's mission to organize the immense amount of information available online.
Haier- Chinese ? "sea" and ? (a transliteration character; also means "you" in Literary Chinese)
HP- Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard tossed a coin to decide whether the company they founded would be called Hewlett-Packard or Packard-Hewlett.
Hitachi- old place name, literally "sunrise"
Honda- from the name of its founder, Soichiro Honda
Honeywell- from the name of Mark Honeywell founder of Honeywell Heating Specialty Co. It later merged with Minneapolis Heat Regulator Company and was finally called Honeywell Inc. in 1963.
Hotmail- Founder Jack Smith got the idea of accessing e-mail via the web from a computer anywhere in the world. When Sabeer Bhatia came up with the business plan for the mail service, he tried all kinds of names ending in 'mail' and finally settled for Hotmail as it included the letters "HTML" - the markup language used to write web pages. It was initially referred to as HoTMaiL with selective upper casing. (If you click on Hotmail's 'mail' tab, you will still find "HoTMaiL" in the URL.)
HSBC- The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation.
Hyundai- connotes the sense of "the present age" or "modernity" in Korean.
IBM- named by Tom Watson, an ex-employee of National Cash Register. To one-up them in all respects, he called his company International Business Machines.
ICL- abbreviation for International Computers Ltd, once the UK's largest computer company, but now a service arm of Fujitsu, of Japan.
IKON - copier company name derived from I Know One Name.
Intel- Bob Noyce and Gordon Moore initially incorporated their company as N M Electronics. Someone suggested Moore Noyce Electronics but it sounded too close to "more noise" -- not a good choice for an electronics company! Later, Integrated Electronics was proposed but it had been taken by somebody else. Then, using initial syllables from INTegrated ELectronics, Noyce and Moore came up with Intel. To avoid potential conflicts with other companies of similar names, Intel purchased the name rights for $15,000 from a company called Intelco. (Source: Intel 15 Years Corporate Anniversary Brochure)
Interland - a web hosting provider formally known as Micron Computer, Inc. which was named either after InternetLandor the combination of the largest acqusition it performed, Interliant with the word Land.
Kawasaki- from the name of its founder, Shozo Kawasaki
Kodak- Both the Kodak camera and the name were the invention of founder George Eastman . The letter "K" was a favourite with Eastman; he felt it a strong and incisive letter. He tried out various combinations of words starting and ending with "K". He saw three advantages in the name. It had the merits of a trademark word, would not be mis-pronounced and the name did not resemble anything in the art. There is a misconception that the name was chosen because of its similarity to the sound produced by the shutter of the camera.
Konica- it was earlier known as Konishiroku Kogaku. Konishiroku in turn is the short for Konishiya Rokubeiten which was the first name of the company established by Rokusaburo Sugiura in the 1850s.
Korg - Formed from the surnames of the founders, Tsutomu Katoh and Tadashi Osanai, combined with the letters "rg" from the word organ.
LG- combination of two popular Korean brands Lucky and Goldstar. (In Mexicopublicists explained the name change to the public as an abbreviation to LÃnea Goldstar Spanish for Goldstar Line)
L'Oréal- In 1907, Eugène Schueller, a young French chemist, developed an innovative hair-color formula. He called his improved hair dye Auréole.
Lotus Software- Mitch Kapor got the name for his company from 'The Lotus Position' or 'Padmasana'. Kapor used to be a teacher of Transcendental Meditation technique as taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
Lucent Technologies- a spin-off from AT&T, it was named Lucent (meaning "luminous" or "glowing with light") because "light as a metaphor for visionary thinking reflected the company's operating and guiding business philosophy," according to the Landor Associates staff who chose the name. Source: Design Management Journal 8:1 (Winter 1997).
Lycos- from Lycosidae, the family of wolf spiders.
Mazda Motor- from the company's first president, Jujiro Matsuda . In Japanese, no syllables are ever stressed and some inner syllables are virtually skipped. Thus, Matsuda is pronounced "Matsda". To make the name fly better outside of Japan, the spelling was changed to Mazda.
McDonald's- from the name of the brothers Dick McDonald and Mac McDonald, who founded the first McDonald 's restaurant in 1940.
Mercedes- This is the first name of the daughter of Emil Jellinek, who worked for the early Daimler company around 1900.
MGM- Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was formed by the merger of three picture houses Metro Picture Corporation, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer Pictures. Goldwyn Picture Corporation in turn was named after the last names of Samuel Goldfish and Edgar and Archibald Selwyn.
Micron- computer memory producer named after the microscopic parts of its products. The official name was Micron Computer, Inc. Since, the company has become Interland, a web hosting provider, after selling/spinning off its RAM division and closing down its computer division, licensing the name. The company is now headquartered in Atlanta.
Microsoft- coined by Bill Gates to represent the company that was devoted to MICROcomputer SOFTware. Originally christened Micro-Soft, the '-' was removed later on.
midPhase- the post-dotcom era gave using the .com in a companies official name untrendy. A new dotcom company may be named traditionally, in midPhase's case it was named midPhase Services, Inc., the midPhase stands for Middle Phase, or middle of the road.
Mitsubishi- The name Mitsubishi (??) has two parts: mitsu means three and hishi (changing to bishi in the middle of the word) means water chestnut, and from here rhombus, which is reflected in the company's logo.
Motorola- Founder Paul Galvin came up with this name when his company (at the time, Galvin Manufacturing Company) started manufacturing radios for cars. Many audio equipment makers of the era used the " ola" ending for their products, most famously the "Victrola" phonograph made by the Victor Talking Machine Company. The name was meant to convey the idea of "sound" and "motion". The name became so recognized that the company later adopted it as the company name.
Mozilla Foundation- from the name of the web-browser that preceded Netscape Navigator. When Marc Andreesen , founder of Netscape, created a browser to replace the Mosaic browser, it was internally named Mozilla (Mosaic-Killer, Godzilla) by Jamie Zawinski.
MRF- Madras Rubber Factory, founded by K M Mammen Mappillai in 1946. He started with a toy balloon-manufacturing unit at Tiruvottiyur, Chennai (then called Madras). In 1952, he began manufacturing tread-rubber, and in 1961, tyres.
Nero - Nero Burning ROM named after Nero burning Rome.
Netscape- named by first marketing employee Greg Sands, in a panic when the Universityof Illinoisthreatened to sue the new company for its original name, Mosaic. Netscape then paid Landor $50,000 to design a logo.
Nike- named for the Greek goddess of victory.
Nikon - the original name was Nippon Kogaku, meaning "Japanese Optical".
Nissan- the company was earlier known by the name Nippon Sangyo which means "Japanese industry".
Nokia- started as a wood-pulp mill, the company expanded into producing rubber products in the Finnish city of Nokia. The company later adopted the city's name.
Nortel - The Nortel Networks name came from Nortel (Northern Telecom) and Bay Networks. The company was originally spun off from the Bell Telephone Company of Canada Ltd in 1895 as Northern Electric and Manufacturing, and traded as Northern Electric from 1914 to 1976.
Novartis- after the Latin _expression "novae artes" which means something like "new skills".
Oracle - Larry Ellison, Ed Oates and Bob Miner were working on a consulting project for the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency). The code name for the project was Oracle (the CIA saw this as the system to give answers to all questions or some such). The project was designed to help use the newly written SQL database language from IBM. The project eventually was terminated but they decided to finish what they started and bring it to the world. They kept the name Oracle and created the RDBMS engine. Later they changed the name of the company, Relational Technology Inc, to the name of the product.
Pepsi- Pepsi derives its name from (treatment of) dyspepsia, an intestinal ailment.
Philips - Royal Philips Electronics was founded in 1891, by brothers Gerard (the engineer) and Anton (the entrepreneur) Philips .
Qantas- From its original name, Queensland And Northern Territory Aerial Services.
Red Hat- Company founder Marc Ewing was given the Cornell lacrosse team cap (with red and white stripes) while at college by his grandfather. People would turn to him to solve their problems, and he was referred to as 'that guy in the red hat'. He lost the cap and had to search for it desperately. The manual of the beta version of Red Hat Linux had an appeal to readers to return his Red Hat if found by anyone.
Reebok- another spelling of rhebok (Pelea capreolus), an African antelope.
SAAB- founded in 1937 in Swedenas "Svenska Aeroplan aktiebolaget" (Swedish Aeroplane Company) abbreviated SAAB.
Samsonite- Samsonite was launched as a brand in 1941, receiving its name from the Biblical character Samson, renowned for his strength.
Samsung- meaning three stars in Korean.
Sanyo- The Japanese translation is disputed, although the Chinese name is "??" (literally, "Three Oceans")
SAP- "Systems, Applications, Products in Data Processing", formerly "SystemAnalyse und Programmentwicklung" (German for "System analysis and program development"), formed by 4 ex- IBM employees who used to work in the 'Systems/Applications/Projects' group of IBM.
SEGA- "Service Games of Japan" (SeGa) Founded by Marty Bromley (an American) to import pinball games to Japanfor use on American military bases.
Sharp- Japanese consumer electronics company named from its first product, an ever-sharp pencil.
Shell- Royal Dutch Shell was established in 1907, when the Royal Netherlands Petrol Society Plc. and the Shell Transport and Trading Company Ltd. merged. The Shell Transport and Trading Company Ltd. had been established at the end of the 19th century, by commercial firm Samuel & Co (founded in 1830). Samuel & Co were already successfully importing Japanese shells when they set up an oil company, so the oil company was named after the shells Samuel & Co were importing.
Siemens - founded in 1847 by Werner von Siemens and Johann Georg Halske: the company was originally called Telegraphen-Bau-Anstalt von Siemens & Halske.
Sprint- from its parent company, Southern Pacific Railroad INTernal Communications. Back in the day, pipelines and railroad tracks were the cheapest place to lay communications lines, as the right-of-way was already leased or owned.
Sun Microsystems- its founders designed their first workstation in their dorm at StanfordUniversity, and chose the name Stanford University Network for their product, hoping to sell it to the college. They didn't.
Suzuki- from the name of its founder, Michio Suzuki
Tesco- Founder Jack Cohen, who from 1919 sold groceries in the markets of the London East End, acquired a large shipment of tea from T. E. Stockwell and made new labels by using the first three letters of the supplier's name and the first two letters of his surname forming the word "TESCO".
Toshiba- was founded by the merger of consumer goods company Tokyo Denki (Tokyo Electric Co) and electrical firm Shibaura Seisaku-sho (Shibaura Engineering Works).
Toyota- from the founder's name Sakichi Toyoda. Initially called Toyeda, it was changed after a contest for a better-sounding name. The new name was written in katakana with eight strokes, a number that is considered lucky in Japan.
Unisys- made-up name for the company that resulted from the combination of two old mainframe computer companies, Burroughs and Sperry [Sperry Univac/Sperry Rand]. It "united" two incompatible ranges. Unisys was briefly the world's second-largest computer company, after IBM.
Verizon- A portmanteau of veritas (Latin for truth) and horizon.
Vodafone- is a multinational mobile phone operator with headquarters in the United Kingdom. Its name is made up of VOice, DAta, TeleFONE. Vodafone made the UK's first mobile call at a few minutes past midnight on the 1 January 1985.
Volvo- From the Latin word "volvo", which means "I roll". It was originally a name for a ball bearing being developed by SKF.
Xerox- The inventor, Chestor Carlson, named his product trying to say `dry' (as it was dry copying, markedly different from the then prevailing wet copying). The Greek root `xer' means dry.
Yahoo!- a "backronym" for Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle. The word Yahoo was invented by Jonathan Swift and used in his book Gulliver's Travels. It represents a person who is repulsive in appearance action and is barely human. Yahoo! founders David Filo and Jerry Yang selected the name because they jokingly considered themselves yahoos
(Source: An Email...Friends say its in wikipedia too)
Some Entertainment
http://www.webchutney.net/mmtdaku/index.htmlhttp://techgallery.blogspot.comGot this in a mail...It said Every Indian must read this..Here it goes like this:
During The Attack on Akshardham temple on 24th September 2002 thisBrave Man fought the greatest battle of his life. Yes he was the N.S.G. Commando Late Mr. Surjan Singh, who sacrificed his life forthe Nation. Sadly On 19th May 2004 he lost the Toughest and Longestbattle against life exactly after 600 Days being in Coma, he lost this life.The Bullet which hit him in the head made him Unconscious for almost 600 days. His family members were hoping that one day their Herowill open his eyes but he didn't.It was the Longest Wait for the family members of this Brave Man.When the whole India was busy in Guessing Who will be the Next PM of the country - Will it be Sonia or will it be Manmohan Singh, This man was fighting his Last battle. But it's so sad that in the hype of allthe Political Drama, the News about his Death was Lost like a needle in a hay stack! Even the leading News Papers & So Called Best News Channels of India which Works on 24 X 7 basis, failed to highlight thisstoryof the Brave Man. Unfortunately it was mentioned somewhere on the middle page of some newspaper.....This was the Reward for the Brave task for which he lost his life.Besides his Family members, only one thing was there with him duringthose toughest 600 days. It was there near his bed till the last Moment. Can you guess what it was?............... It was the "Tiranga", yes! Our National Flag, which was saluting him for hisGreat cause. Absolutely No words can suffice our Gratitude towards him...If news papers refuse to cover, TV channels refuse to cover, let us do our bit.
A HBR Article....
Few business leaders would deny the importance of organizational loyalty; perhaps fewer still believe they can achieve it the way they once did. After all, the lifetime contract expired long ago, and your people—especially your best people—are more likely to display loyalty to their careers than to you, their employer.
The very nature of the relationship between employers and employees has undergone a fundamental shift: Today, workers not only don't expect to work for decades on end for the same company, but they don't want to. They are largely disillusioned with the very idea of loyalty to organizations. But, at the same time, they don't really want to shift employers every two to three years for their entire careers. Similarly, companies would grind to a halt if they had to replace large portions of the workforce on a similar schedule.
So where does this leave us? Is there a way for both employers and employees to strike a brand-new balance when it comes to loyalty—one that gives organizations the focus and expertise they need to compete and employees the career development opportunities they demand?
According to the experts interviewed by Update, the answer is yes, but only if companies are willing to rethink how they define loyalty and how they manage their people.
Reevaluating loyaltyLoyalty should not be viewed as an either/or proposition. It's true, the experts say, that to produce their best work, employees must be loyal to the company and what it stands for. But "employees can give their employers 100 percent and provide great performance while furthering their own careers," says Joyce Gioia of The Herman Group, a consultancy based in Greensboro, North Carolina "The two aren't mutually exclusive," especially when the skills that a person masters to further her own career are also what the company needs.
And when firms help workers acquire new skills that support their professional advancement, they often win those workers' commitment—and attract loyal new employees. This gives rise to another important point: Employers can promote company loyalty by helping people grow out of their jobs—ideally, into new ones within the company.
But even when you can't retain talent, it doesn't mean departing employees weren't loyal. Indeed, another mistaken assumption is that loyalty has to mean "forever." "One of my students expressed it well," says Harvard Business School professor Linda Hill. "He said, 'It's like dating: You can be faithful to the person you're seeing now while you're involved with him or her, but that doesn't mean you won't move on to dating someone else later.'" Nor should companies strive to keep all employees forever. "You don't want blind loyalty," says Scott Brooks, an executive consultant at Minneapolis-based Gantz Wiley Research. "The best kind is when both parties are benefiting." Leigh Grantham, VP of marketing and administration at DeFuniak Springs, Florida-based electricity provider CHELCO, agrees: "I'd rather have a star performer for three years than a dud for life."
Balancing career and company loyaltyIf an employee's loyalties to his career and to an employer aren't mutually exclusive, how can leaders ensure that the employee-employer relationship pays off for both parties? The most effective executives and managers are applying these strategies:
1. Align career growth with company goals. When a company helps its employees develop expertise that furthers their professional development and enables the company to address its thorniest challenges, both types of loyalty align powerfully. How to achieve this alignment? "Encourage managers to discuss their direct reports' career goals with them as often as possible," advises business coach Gayle Lantz. "Managers need to help their people identify links between their own professional goals and the company's goals. When people understand the larger business context in which the company is operating, they can more easily define ways to advance their own careers."
Of course, frank and frequent dialogue about careers can sometimes lead employees to part ways with their employer when they discover that they won't be able to achieve their career goals. But if the process is handled skillfully, all parties profit in the long run.
The best kind of loyalty is when both parties are benefiting.— Scott Brooks, Gantz Wiley ResearchGrantham says that her company uses assessment tools and career coaches to identify employees' strengths and decide how to best leverage those talents for the company's good. The company also encourages employees to initiate conversations about how their strengths and talents might be best used in the organization. "When our employees are using their strengths," she says, "they find their work more satisfying and feel that they're supporting their own career paths. Everyone benefits; it's the best way to do business." At CHELCO, employees are encouraged to initiate meetings with their supervisors, their bosses' boss, and career coaches to discuss career-path possibilities at the company. "These meetings are separate from performance reviews," says Grantham.
According to Grantham, one staff accountant at CHELCO recently benefited from this process. When the accountant expressed interest in a management position, her coach reminded her that her assessment indicated strengths in areas other than management. The accountant then acknowledged that her interest in management stemmed primarily from managerial positions' earning potential. "She saw no other way to earn more," says Grantham. Based on her interest and commitment to furthering her career, as well as on her educational background and strengths—including attention to detail, adherence to rules, and persistence—the company offered her the position of revenue analyst. In this role, she provided more value to the organization and took on new challenges. She also increased her earning potential because the new position rated several grades higher than her former position in CHELCO's job-factoring system.
It's difficult for some managers to see the value in supporting a prized employee's development, says Gratham. "They want to keep their stars. But if we get some resistance, we have managers talk with business coaches to better understand the long-term payoff of supporting employees' development." Grantham also notes that it's in managers' best interest to encourage development, since another manager's star employee most likely wants to transfer into their departments.
2. Design work with variety and autonomy. Jobs that provide variety and the freedom to make decisions and mistakes engender extensive loyalty, the experts note. Allowing people to take ownership of projects gives them the opportunity to develop new skills and, just as important, the chance to show what they can do.
Loyalty's Bottom-Line ValueA commitment to variety and freedom takes some organizational discipline—at the very least, firms must let employees know they can exercise choice. "When new account opportunities come along, we describe them at our Wednesday-morning staff meeting and ask, 'Who has the interest and time to tackle this?'" says Garry Curtis, executive vice president at Washington, D.C.-based public relations firm Hager Sharp. In his earlier years at the firm, Curtis seized opportunities to master new skills such as creating television ads and public-service announcements by joining teams formed to serve new accounts.
3. Focus on relationships. For many employees, loyalty is born or cemented through relationships with supervisors and colleagues.
"The number one reason people leave an organization isn't inadequate pay or benefits," says business writer John Putzier. "It's the day-to-day relationship with their immediate superior." Leaders seeking to secure employees' loyalty must work to create a positive bond.
How? "Be fair in distributing rewards and punishment," advises Donald P. Rogers, professor of international business at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. John Chappelear, a professional coach and trainer, says, "Clarify your expectations, and make sure people have the resources and skills they need to fulfill those expectations."
Fostering supportive relationships among employees can further enhance their loyalty to your organization. "Enable people to work through conflicts constructively," says Kenneth Sole, president of Durham, New Hampshire-based consultancy Sole & Associates. "Many managers find this concept counterintuitive. But positive conflict resolution gives people the sense that 'We're in this together; we're a team.'"
To leverage this principle, Sole advises managers to model effective conflict resolution as well as educate their teams about this powerful skill. "Read books on various conflict-resolution techniques," he suggests, "and regularly practice at least one technique that fits your style. As your comfort with conflict resolution grows, at least some of your direct reports will begin emulating you."
The lifetime employment contract was never the only way to build employee loyalty.
— Donald P. Rogers, Rollins College4. Highlight the link between employees' values and your company's mission. "The lifetime employment contract was never the only way to build employee loyalty," says Rogers. "Emphasizing a company's purpose—why we create wealth—also engenders loyalty," especially when employees see the connection between their values and the company's mission.
At Medtronic, a medical-device developer in Minneapolis, the most important meeting every year isn't the shareholders' annual gathering. It's the holiday program, broadcast to Medtronic's 30,000 employees worldwide, featuring the stories of patients who have benefited from the company's products. "Our people end up feeling personally involved in our company's mission to restore people to full life," says Paul Erdahl, vice president of executive leadership and development. "They can see the end result of their work. Many of them are profoundly moved by the patients' stories."
By putting a human face on its mission, Medtronic has achieved employee-retention rates above the industry average, says Erdahl. And it gets a whopping 95 percent favorable response rate to the employee-survey item "I have a clear understanding of Medtronic's mission" and a 93 percent favorable response to "The work I do supports the Medtronic mission." Erdahl agrees that a company's mission is especially compelling when patients' lives are at stake. But organizations in any industry, he says, can find ways to help employees see how their daily work affects customers
Gyan -I (Plastic and the Myths)
Interact > Contributions > My Space
Plastics don’t litter, people do
Anil George of Tata AutoPlastic Systems, brings to light the positive side of plastics and elucidates with facts, how it offers a cost-effective, environment friendly solutionA phrase that has been engraved in my heart from a theme out of a plastics exhibition many years ago is still raw. Plastics have become an inevitable part of our daily lives. Sustainable development of mankind rests on economic growth, social progress and protection of our environment and natural resources. There is little chance of protecting the environment without a greater sense of mutual responsibility. For development and looking into the future, one should move away from the emotional view that governs and blinds environmental groups. One should base decisions on facts, which are the unbiased and impartial science.
For example, plastic packaging is such a topic that people mistakenly believe that there is some other natural material better for the environment. But they are wrong. Plastic bags are lighter and create up to 80 per cent less waste by volume than paper bags. Lighter bags means less transportation costs, which means less use of natural resources and, lesser pollution due to less vehicles.
Plastics allow highly efficient manufacturing processes (up to 99 per cent efficiency) that increase productivity by 20 to 30 per cent and reduce capital expenditures compared to other material and the advantage goes on. It is important to think about all those steps in a product's life cycle-not just what happens when a product's useful life is over-to get a true picture of its environmental performance.
During their life cycle, plastic bags require about one-third less energy to make than paper bags. Paper bags use high amounts of wood, petroleum, and coal. A single paper bag uses the energy equivalent of 550 KJ of wood as feedstock. It also uses 500 KJ of petroleum and 350 KJ of coal for process energy. The total amount of energy used by a single paper bag is 1,680 KJ.
Fifty-three billion-kilowatt hours of electricity is saved annually by improvements in major appliance energy efficiency made possible by plastic applications. Without the benefits provided by plastics insulation, these appliances would use up to 30 per cent more energy. Plastic bottles are 14 times lighter than glass, give a 48 per cent fuel saving in transport over glass and require less energy for production than glass.
Plastics have moulded the modern world and transformed the quality of life. There is no human activity where plastics do not play a key role, from clothing to shelter, from transportation to communication and from entertainment to healthcare. We truly live in a 'Plastics age'. Our daily lives would be very much poorer without these benign and environment friendly materials. Nature has produced 'plastic' like materials for centuries. Silk and cellulose are examples of natural polymers. Reference to Shellac, a thermoplastic can be found even in Mahabharata.
India ranks eighth in the world with per capita consumption of 4.1kg of plastic. The world average is around 20kg. Growing population and consumption in India has put severe pressure on our natural resources and fragile ecosystems. The material needs of our population are growing and plastics offer a cost-effective, environment friendly solution. The long life and desirability of plastics, which have made them a material of choice for many applications is seemingly seen a disadvantage when it comes to disposal. However, when handled properly, plastics do little damage to our environment.
Plastics have the advantage that they can be easily reprocessed and recycled. We should use it to our advantage to convert it into various other end products like road construction, insulation panels and other products. Environmental groups will always be there and we respect their concerns as long as it is based on facts and not on emotional grounds. Preserving the environment is a matter of fact and not emotion. Facts are the only way we can save our environment.
I would say that plastics stand for ‘Improving the quality of life’.
Anil GeorgeTata AutoPlastic Systems
anil.george@tapsl.com
Some Changes...
It’s been quite an indecent amount of time that I have created a post and really this is something that’s deplorable. The last time I think I have tried to ramble something significant in my life here was when I broke one tooth on the tennis grounds at office. Well, it is almost a year since then and I always had the honest intentions of coming back to my blog and update something fresh. Not that there were many anecdotes in my life which I could have quipped upon but it had more to do with a colossal mismanagement of time which was at my disposal. I have been reading arbit blogs now and then and in general I have the same skeptical feeling of why those little-interesting-things-that-happen-to-others don’t happen to me? Well…things are not very extra-ordinary once you land up in a career. It is almost the same ritual every day. But apart from this the single most eventful thing that is happening currently in my life is my CAT preparation. This CAT has been chasing me like a blood-hound for the past 2 years and I so much wish this chasing and purring ends this November. I am giving a pretty unsatisfactory show in the mockery cats that come to break, shake and jolt you every Sunday. I reckoned that this must end soon and took a few quick decisions to no longer stay at my parents place where I guess I am unwinding a bit too often and move-in to my friends place which is closer to my office.Well, there are a lot of loose ends right now and I have to put in a real solid effort in the next two months if I have to bell the IIMs this year.
"My alphabets donot begin with a,b,c,d,e but with b,l,a,c,k"
When the cast includes Rani Mukherjee and Amitabh Bachhan and the director is Sanjay Leela Bansali, you hardly need to read a review like this. For all those who actually value their money esp with regard to watching movies taking multiple feedbacks from multiple sources who actually had watched the movie waiting for that single 'No its not worth it' so that they need not take the pain to suffer and verify it themselves this movie offers more value for time and money than they spend (and may be a few tears of appreciation) . If there are three things that are to be talked about in this movie then they are in the order mentioned here: acting, acting, and acting. And a second answer would be acting, acting and direction.
Coming to the theme, its is based on a real life story of the legendary 'Helen Keller' who was an unfortunate deaf-dumb-blind girl (becomes so at the age of 2 due to some fever) This character is played by Michelle(Rani Mukherjee) and Debraj Sahai(Amitabh Bacchan) is assigned as her teacher who lives with a single purpose of showing her 'light'. Its truly a work of a magician to take up a assignment like this and be actually successful in the end. Though the the theme is towards the bleakier side, the audience is kept stuck to their seats as they are kept in suspense of how the events will unfold. But then there is a twist to it as well when Alzheimers disease strikes Amitabh Bachhan and he loses all his memory including that of his beloved student. The relationship between Michelle and Sahai now reverses as she tries to be the teacher and make him recall all the things he had taught her. Some touching scenes include the way Sahai teaches stubborn and wild Michelle how to hold a spoon, the interview Michelle has to face when she plans to get admitted into an arts college, the day when Michelle after so many years finally associates her mother to 'ma' and her dad to 'pa' at a stage when they totally lose the hope of her being capable of learning anything at all, the graduation speech of Michelle when she recounts her touching journey of life. Every sequence of this movie was carefully planned and the characteers gave it complete justice. I havent seen any other Hindi movie so far that had lesser redundancies than this one. The movie finally ends on a happy note with Sahai recalling the first word that he had taught Michelle---W.A.T.E.R. (though it is pretty much predictable)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Keller
http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Helen_Keller
http://www.rnib.org.uk/xpedio/groups/public/documents/publicwebsite/public_keller.hcsp
Anyone knows whats a Brasserie?
Well I had this question in the FMS exam I gave today and with my winking eye, marked the option that read 'an item of a woman's lingerie'. When I came home and was going through pagalguy.com that has discussion boards where all the mba-aspirants (read pagals) keep posting messages, I came across the message that said "Anyone knows whats a Brasserie?" and it was mentioned to be 'an informal retaurant'. Well..I quickly open my dictionary to look up and lo! The question was a real googly anyway. On the whole FMS paper was quite easy especially the quantitative section where one can comfortably take a stroll from the first question to the last answering everything. There was interestingly a good amount of focus on Vocab and I guess I did it pretty well. There was luckily no section on General Knowledge an dit saved me. Well...the results can be anything and its a much difficult task to get a call if the paper is very easy and so I keep my fingers crossed to wait and see what happens.
Events this week....
Friday:
I cant say whether I am a good party animal or not. It is so because I have never been a party animal in the first place. By a party I mean a troop of animals not just 4 or 5. Anyway this week hasnt been anything unusual in that direction. But I managed to get along with a smaller group of 5 of my alma-mater class-mates (all guys) to 'Mount Opera' this Friday. I cant say its a misnomer as if a hillock is called a mountain peak, its not exactly a misnomer but an exaggeration. Well, this particular hill has a 'multi-theme' amusement park and is located about 5 km away from the 'Ramoji Film City' far far away from the city and is reputed to be the biggest of its kind in Hyderabad.
We reached the place when the sun was burning all its calories in full blaze high up the skies at 12:00 noon. We were all carrying miniature rucksacks containg spare clothes, a towel, swimming trunks as this place is primarily known for its good water-rides.
We started our tour with the mechanical rides namely the Giant Wheel (which u can say is a pygmie infact). It was so slow that we just stood up on our seats and started yelling at the gear-operating guy to accelerate the system to which he replied back with a straight its-impossible kind of an expression. Along with us in the 'Gaint Wheel' there were many couples along with their little kids and a suspicion arose in our minds that this place might infact be for kids..We then thought to do some go-carting as that was mentioned in the map. So we sought for the place and found it. It was the second disappointment of the day. This go-carting happened to be actually very small to the one we had been imagining and we thought there is no point in kidding ourselves by compromising to go for a ride in the miniature vehicles that were seen in front of our eyes and just walked on. After this we suspicously proceeded towards Columbus ride. Here too the size wasnt very much motivating and we just thought before we took a leap into it. But looks can be deceiving and the ride turned out to be really good though I started having some sort of a terrible feeling in my tummy as the machine picked up speed.
The post-pranidal schedule was decided to be the water rides and we changed into the proper regimentals. The best part of Mount Opera as promised turned out to the water rides and we did have some exhilarating ones. There were 5 to 6 kinds of different rides some of them with the baloon kind of boats and some in which you are supposed to slide down just by yourself without any prop. It being a festival-day (Sankranti), there was a really decent crowd and everyone was enjoying in their own way. Though the water rides were a bit intimidating in the beginning, we overcame all that and ended up doing all the rides more than once. There was also this wave-pool where the sea is simulated and huge waves are generated and thrown in the pool where we have to jump and avoid getting drowned. On the whole it was all very good and we had some good time doing all the mischief.
Saturday:
My mama, attha and little cousins came from Rajamundry on a visit and the whole house was busy busy with all the relatives, cooking specials, kids making hullabaloo...I took some time amid this and read
'The Power of Simplicity' by Jack Trout. In one chapter in which he talks about how the language got so complicated these days, the following stilted examples were quoted:
Pulchritude possesses profundity of a merely cutaneous nature! (Beauty is skin deep)
It is not efficacious to indoctrinate a superannuated canine with innovative maneuvers! (You cant teach an old dog new tricks)
Visible vapours that issue from carbonaceous materials are a harbinger of imminent conflagration! (Where there's smoke, there's fire)
A revolving mass of lithic conglomerates does not accumulate a congery of small green bryophitic plants! (A rolling stone gathers no moss)
Well...another one along the same lines comes from the legendary nursery rhyme that goes like this Scintillate Scintillate Asterioda Minim....
This is joke about leadership from the same book:
The Plan
In the beginning was the Plan.
And then came the Assumptions.
And the Assumptions were without form.
And darkness was upon the face of the Workers.
And they spoke among themselves, saying, "It is a crock of shit, and it stinketh."
And the workers went unto their Supervisors and said, "It is a pail of dung, and none may abide the odour thereof."
And the Supervisors went unto their Managers, saying, "It is a container of excrement, and it is very strong, such that none may abide by it."
And the Managers went unto their Directors, saying, "It is a vessel of fertiliser, and none may abide it's strength."
And the Directors spoke amongst themselves, saying one to another, "It contains that which aids plant growth, and it is very strong."
And the Directors then went onto the Vice Presidents, saying unto them, "It promotes growth and is very powerful."
And the Vice Presidents went unto the President, saying unto him, "This new plan will actively promote the growth and vigour of the company; with powerful effects."
And the President looked upon the Plan, and saw that it was good.
And the Plan became Policy.
This is How Shit Happens.
Fear Of The Dark
Another night follows the day
Like a child does to its mother
Everywhere I look I see your face
And all the face of others
And I can not skip the pain
All the questions I went through
I never told myself the truth
I turned my back on you and me
Cause I was scared to see
That we weren't who we used to be
So now I'm...
Trying hard to let go, let you go
But I can't seem to loosen my grip
Trying hard to let go, let you go
Let you go, go
Feeling emptiness inside
A part of me already died
But I pretended to go on
Like everything's ok
And all we built began to fall
As I began to lose it all
Shut my eyes and set me free
Cause I was scared to see
That we weren't who we used to be
So now I'm...
Trying hard to let go, let you go
But I can't seem to loosen my grip
Trying hard to let go, let you go
Let you go, go
You're all that I ever wanted
You're everything that I need
But now it's finally over
Time for goodbyes
I needed so now I'm...
Trying hard to let go, let you go
But I can't seem to loosen my grip
Trying hard to let go, let you go
Let you go, go
My feelings were shaken quite a bit today. My heart you can say is punctured a little. Its not much of the stereotyped-lose-girl-break-your-heart chain type of a situation. I spent most of the day at my office observing my colleagues religiously devoting themselves to their jobs almost forgetting themselves. It all looked a if they were so intent on fighting for some cause. I didnt understand. I didnt like it too. May be it was a touch of envy that I was unable to get motivated like them to work so seriously at office. May be it was the liesurely manner in which my project was heading. Or may be my heart was not in its right place. I am particularly impressed/depressed with these $career-women$ that are springing out in numbers these days. When I talk to them, they give me a feeling that the kind of seriousness I am putting in my job in a month is roughly equivalent to the kind of seriousness they put in an hour. No, not all are like them. But the ones who are really scare me. It sort of seems that career becomes so central in their lives that for example, the thought of writing idle blogs like this doent even arise in their wildest dreams.
Not that it has to, but thats not the question anyway.
So I was thinking...will I ever be working in a profession/company/line of business where the job becomes the life to me? No, again its not necessary that job must become the sole thing in one's life. But, if it should, then can I ever tune myself to be so? I am very skeptical. To me nothing is everything. In other words everything can never be something. Or to say any thing always remains so and cant be everything.
With this I started listing out to myself mentally things that really stand a chance of becoming everything in my life (in the decreasing order)....
1. The World Chess Champion (and retaining the crown till death)
2. Winning the Nobel Prize for Literature
3. A Film Director like Steven Speilberg
4. Admission into Harvard Business School
Well its not just u guys oer there even myself am laughing loud as I am reading this but one little observation..there is a lot of gap between Priority 3 & 4 and 4 is not unconceivable if not unachievable. Well...I agree I am a dreamer, a big one too...but I think a day will come when the dream will take life and form.
No Thinking Plzz
--------------------------------
Well..I was jus thinking....
Hmmm
What is Thinking all about...
Hmmmmm
Well...
I am still Thinking.
--------------------------------
When annoyed ,Dont 'think' > Just do a count
When in Rage ,Dont 'think' > Just do a division
When Happy ,Dont 'think' > Just be so
When you hesitate, Dont 'think' > Just act
When you fear , Dont 'think' > Just close ur eyes
When thankful , Dont 'think' > Just thank
When amazed , Dont 'think' > Just widen ur mouth
When moved , Dont 'think' > Just touch
When escatic , Dont 'think' > Just jump
When interested , Dont 'think' > Just listen
When suprised , Dont 'think' > Just raise ur eyebrows
When doubtful , Dont 'think' > Just shrug
When proud , Dont 'think' > Just bend down
When comfortable , Dont 'think' > Just stretch yourself
so really.....I wonder cant we just do away with this whole thinking ;-)
"It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure." -- Albert Einstein
"When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes. When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it seems like two hours that's relativity." -- Albert Einstein
"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." --A. Einstein
A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.
Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
It is a waste of energy to be angry with a man who behaves badly, just as it is to be angry with a car that won't go.
The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.
The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.
"In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit."
The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles.
We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality
Price is what you pay. Value is what you get
All boats rise in high tide
The impossible is often the untried
The greatest risk is not taking one
True power never needs exercise
Managers do things right. Leaders do the right thing
In business, the competition will bite you if you keep running; if you stand still, they will swallow you
God gives every bird its food, but he does not throw it into the nest.
Hundreds of businessmen have succeeded without an MBA,
but none without common sense
You don't drown by falling in the water; you drown by staying there
Even if you're on the right track you'll get run over if you just sit there.
If we did all the things we were capable of doing, we would literally
astound ourselves
If you cut grass without removing its root, it will flourish once again when the spring wind blows
Better to light a candle, than to curse the darkness
Bulls make money. Bears make money. Pigs get slaughtered
There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still
XAT.
This weekend I gave XAT for the second time in my life. Last time it was a big success and I even managed to get a call (I had applied for PM& IR then). Well ..I was hoping to repeat my success this time again and brushed up (or rather scrubbed up) my vocab skills like never before in the past few days with words like moiety(=a half), tocsin (=an alarm bell), etiolate (=make sick and pale) among many others thinking I will suck the sap out the exam this time. But life it seems is not that predictable. XAT pattern has changed bottom-up and top-down and they have anti-historically reduced the heavy weightage they usually give for vocabulary talents and delved more into the exact opposites of my palatables. The 'General Awareness' section ironically tried to prove that I am not generally aware of many things and I heavily backed on my instincts and sailed through the whole section in just 10 minutes. On the whole I didnt exactly get the kind of triumphing feeling that I got last time and so I didnt at all feel a wee bit nostalgic.
Aftermath the exam I decided to cool off and rightly chose to watch 'The Polar Express' by Robert Zemicks, starring Tom Hanks. It seems the movie is based on a 32-page children's book by Chris Van Alls. With the super-graphics and amazing sound effects the movie was a helluva ride. Wel this is a movie to watch in the right place thats none other than on the worlds biggest IMAX screen in Hyderabad's Prasad's IMAX. Well its a 3D movie and we were all accoutered with proper lens to view it. Its a higly recommendable movie escpecially to those who like movies like 'Shrek' 'Finding Nemo' and 'Monsters INC'. The humour is very delicate and there werent any moving scenes as were there in the earlier movies of this kind. The conceputalizing was pretty good and the idea of a magic train reminded me about the legendary 'Hoogwarts Express'. The best part of the movie is however the way the 'motion' was depicted. There were many sequences in which the characters or the images on the screen move in an accelerating manner but in perfect sync with background music and the relevance of the motion itself. The way the refreshments are provided in the train and the way the train swerves on the ice gives u a feeling of standing up on ur seats and watch it in perfect silence.
Teja in Office
Hi!
This is me again. You see my work environment...it is so cool and relaxed...You even get time to take photos in various different desired angles..upload them..and publish blogs about them. Well this is TCS...and as amatter of fact this photograph was taken by guess whom? None other than my ex-Project Leader. Of many acronyms I heard some are...'Terese cam Salary','Tea Coffee and Snacks..' well...this may seem do be on the derogatory side...but no...I found TCS to be a very good company which gives opportunity for seeking and pursuing anything and getting recognized for what you have done. The associates here are very friendly especially the peers...and there is not much of work tension if you are in the right kind of a project...I have seen my fellow trainees becoming experts in the domains that they have shown interest in, in a very short span of time.
Well...doesnt everything finally come down to having perfect intentions...
At A Dentist....
I queried a dentist-friend of mine that it must be
tough spending all day with his hands in someone's mouth. He said, "I just
think of it as having my hands in their wallet.
The Story so far.....
Well... There's always a story to tell when an unfortunate soul visits the dentist's place. I am not so a lucky ass when it comes to attending any medico for that matter. The facts are thus:
1 . I play Tennis 2. Rather Badly 3. Which is needless 2 say 4. Hit Myself with the racket 5. My Front Tooth is half-broken.
When the above stated events happened I was rather stunned at first. I didnt grasp the significance of the moment. My head started spinning like a top that was spun just a few seconds back and I held my hand to my mouth dropping the dreaded racket expecting some blood to ooze out. It was kind of strange because there wasnt any blood willing to leak out. But I had a gut feeling there was some material damageg as I had a definite feeling that when I opened my moth more air than usual seemed to blow out. I thought for a secondthat Ihad lost a couple of teeth. My image with the lost front teeth flashed into my mind...Uhh...I thought...What about the esteemed impression I hold among my social circles for my singularity...The future put its thumb stopping any ray of light from entering....Ahhh...thats quite a pain... the thoughts started multiplying...what about..what if...Nooooooooooo.....My partner rushed in by this time... He asked me to open my mouth and my mouth obliged...Lo! He exclaims...Teja u look different! I tried to perceive if there was anything optimistic in this statement...and then he starts laughing...ho ho hoo....'how come your teeth are so thin, teja? he quotes innocently...Hmm...it hurts....
After receiving these honors, I graduated from the game (for the day) and found myself sitting in the immediate auto heading home thinking of how to face anyone. Well...if anyone knows Mehdipatnam, for thats where my home is...they can be sure that the simple act of yawning in this place may attract a hundred dentists rushing from all directions to comment on the aesthetics of the teeth that get presented. I didnt yawn ofcourse as I didnt feel it would be of any use but got down at the nearest dental clinic to my home. I climbed up the stairs to reach the clinic and stepped inside to meet my other sufferers-in-the-same-boat. I approached the receptionist and just did what was sufficient viz opened my mouth. She peeped in to the cave to look at the sculptures and perhaps she didnt particularly like one of them.
'Uhh' She said.
I retorted 'What?'
She bounced back 'How?'
Since the matter was strictly off the record I simply evaded 'While phlaying. Can I shee the Docthor?'
I sat on the sofa, waiting for the artist to come and call me when my turn came, and darted in to the further future where I broke off from thinking in the auto. My train got derailed when I heard the outcry 'Come In'. I bowed my head and not changing that position, walked in. The artist was very young, spectacled lanky and a bit of a darker shade. His teeth were in perfect shape gleaming like hyderabadi-pearls. (I said to myself, I am into good hands) He led me and showed no particular expression until I sat on the bed and opened my mouth wide. He too seemed to be stupified as he posed the same 'How?' I wasnt evasive this time. I poured the details into his trained mind. I closed my version saying 'Doctor Waht can be done?' 'Dou I need thu get a tooth implant?'
He didnt seemed to be ready to be polite and he put on the lamp in to my face and simply started to prod my tooth with his spatula.
' Does it pain?'
'Not much doctor, only when I suck in air thru my mouth'
'Ahhh'
I aped 'Ahhhhhh'
He flirted with my tooth for some more time and then finally said 'Cap'
I was mystified. I looked around. He understood that I didnt. He said 'Lets put a Cap. It will conceal the fact that your tooth was broken into 1/2.'
'Oh! Thats wonderful Doctor.' I exclaimed thinking one-dimensionally.
He waited for me to think in other dimensions also.
His strategy worked and the thing flashed. I said 'How much?'
At that he got up and made a de-tour towards his room like a professional making me follow him in silence like during a funeral. We both sat at his table and he took out a blank paper and started drawing a tooth-shaped curve. I watched him in silence as his master-piece was getting its form on that blank sheet. He broke the figure into half and said here we are. I didnt ask 'Where?'. I guessed he was going to proceed. 'This is the half you are now having'. Luckily, you dont need a root-canal treatment. It your tooth had broken at a bit higher place you might have had a nerve rupture, blood would have flown, and the pain would have been..he didnt complete the sentence. He distorted his face into something that resembled ugliness and waited for me to fill up whatever word I choosed from that.
I coudnt resist, 'How much?'
He ventured, 'There are three different prices, the best is for 5000/- it is metal-less ceramic which has all the properties of a natural tooth. The next one will cost you 3000/- It is metal+ceramic model. The last (and least) is the one of 2000/- It is more of metal and less of ceramic. As it is your front tooth I recommend you the first one.'
I queried 'And will the colour match?'.
He interred,'For the first category, there will be a perfect colour matching. For the other two varieties the colours wont match exactly with the adjacent teeth.' He was leaving me little choice.
I proceeded, 'What about the treatment?'
'The first variety may need atleast 4-5 sittings as we will do it very carefully to match the exact color and shape. We might even take the tooth to the lab to do minute changes. The Second variety needs just 3 sittings and the final one just two.'
I made a quick calculation...hmm eventually its 1000 bucks per sitting in any variety. Ok I said to myself I will compromise and choose middle-ground. First one seems a bit too royal..anyway let me see what my folks at home would say...I recovered and said 'Ok Doctor thanks for all the consulting. I will return tomorrow and will let you know what shall be done.' Ok, he said. Thats fine.
A sort of relief crept over me...alas I need not worry so much about opening my mouth anymore atleast after the treatment...whatever the cost may be...i just need to postpone buying 'Creative Woofer Speakers' this month...Thinking this I bade goodbye to the artist and started walking out of the clinic. I just paused wondering that noone s calling me back to pay consulting-fee. I proceeded to walk out of the door realising...
'The fisherman got his fish.... '
Sliding on the Himalayas!!
Bloom n Gloom
I am sitting here in the office not knowing what to do next...and as I am typing this... I started thinking about how to compose a decent blog...well isnt a blog all about exposing yourself to the rest of the world..and expecting some one in the remote corner of this world would read it and feel it....is this kind of expression in some way a self-gratification process or is it submitting the 'self' deliberately in an unselfishly manner?
Coming to the core of it, I feel this is an utterly selfish procedure...where first of all...you get a innate satisfaction in clicking the 'Publish' button and waiting a few moments to see the consummation of your creation being ready in its expected form and content as you had completely desired (and more importantly.. expected) it to be. It has no element of ambiguity, no element of deviation and this 'surety' of it is what gives you more pleasure in this labyrinth of a complex and chaotic world. The second innate gratification occurs when you discover that there is some fool like you who has time to read all the nonsense that you intended to be transcendant. There then an invisible thread binds you to that person no matter whether he is in aggreement or he totally abhors your masterpiece.
but why at all does one have to classify anything as an selfish act or otherwise? Why at all must one classify something as beautiful or ugly? Why is this mad rush people have to bifurcate anything into two polars and strongly identifying themselves with one polar while raising a furor on the equally innocent antagonist? The need must have arisen from the fact that an individual is so indecisive by nature that he needs some pre-formed-decisions so that he can start aligning himself towards it as and when the situation demands...Unless he immediately classifies the thing at hand into one or the other format he is more familiar with...he feels restless...the new thing overwhelms him..bowls him over you might say...his mind oscillates like a pendulum between the two extreme polars... and surprisingly in this case the equillibrium is never ever at the centre...
So I leave it at that as my mind itself is now spinning and oscillating arresting my train of thought to have an unswerving path.
I will have to pack up the things at my office which include my daily-office-bag which has a set of clothes I generally change into when I go to play tennis in my office, my lunch-box packed niftily by my mom religiosly everyday...a Business & Management magazine that is a regular companion to me through out my to-n-fro journeys from home to office..and my today's exploit, a "Framed certificate" claiming me to be the winner among the TCS participants in the "Hyderabad 10-K Race" that was held a few weeks ago....
So I rest my case here and will go ahead and click the Publish button and realise what happens inside me as i do it....
Have Fun,
Teja.
'CAT ka Result' n 'A New Year Resolution'
Hi all bloggers n blog-nots.....
8:00am Finally the results of THE exam CAT, for the admission into the Indian Institute of Management (read: Branches of Hell) are out! I get SMSes from all my geographically-scattered friends.. 'wake up u slothful sleepy croggie.. results are out!'...Results eh!? ...Let me see...will it be 99.99...or 95... or 66?? I say to myself....well...I didnt check my scores (from any of the hundred different websites giving out 'their' versions of the answers) after I had written the exam....I cant particularly tolerate myself if I dont do well..I know that...I waited and waited and I just kept on speculating all these days about the various permutations of the scores that I may get...and now... I get 97.11 percentile ;-( Good but not Good Enough to secure the seat belt in the IIMs.
Well... what are the new years for? I have an excuse to cook up a resolution irresolutely (or deliberately?)....and ofcourse what could be a better one than promising myself that i will get a 99.99 next time? Just got to wait n see.... Well didnt someone say "Impossible is Nothing"?
