KNOWEB: July 2015

Friday, July 31, 2015

EMPOWER YOUR FRIENDS WITH POWER QUOTES

My morning Power Quote chits

These days my morning hours are very productive. When I reach my office, I hand over a power quote written on a small chit to my select colleagues who accept with cheers and feel empowered with them. It is one of the best ways I find, truly rewarding not only to the receiver but the giver as well.

BUILD A LIBRARY OF HEROIC BOOKS

The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read.

- Mark Twain

The image you are seeing on the left side is my personal library built over a period of 25 years. Perhaps it is in January, 1990 I added my first book to my library when I was in my third year of graduation.

Computers were then in nascent stage and they were being used mainly for bookkeeping and secretarial works. The internet revolution had still not dawn in.

In fact, the idea to have my personal library was in seed form much before it surfaced in 1990 when my desire to improve my language abilities shoot up to unfathomable levels. My argument to take recourse in books is that they make me feel like intimate friends.

My visits to district and community libraries during childhood days further strengthened the need to have my private library so that I can read my interesting stuff at my own pace and time. In my younger days whenever I see librarians, I cherish their job as they get ample opportunity/time to read all their interesting books.

PEOPLE'S PRESIDENT IS NO MORE :'(

The People’s President is no more :'(

An unexpected call from a friend at my dinner table last night (27.7.15) put me in quandary. I was shocked and could not be able to digest the sad news. When I turned the TV on, the news channels confirmed the death of Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the darling child of Mother India.

Monday, July 27, 2015

MY BRIEF HISTORY OF SAND TIMER

Time is mysterious. Stephen Hawking has given an interesting discourse of what it means in his much acclaimed work "Brief History of Time''. He says that I have wondered about time all my life.

When Prime Minister of a nation spells out, it must be news.

In his monthly interaction programme called Mann Ki Baat, Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi told that an accident was occurred in Delhi sometime ago in which scooter driver was laid on the road as no one came to help him.

He also added that "One is shocked to see the statistics of road accidents in the country - every four minutes a person dies in road accident"

DELHI's DELIGHTFUL BOOKSHOP

Address: G-8, Basement, South Extension I, New Delhi, Delhi 110049

Phone:011 2465 3880, Monday Closed, Other days timings : 1030 am - 8.30 pm

A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.

- Franz Kafka

In this ad-driven world, customer-benefit products rarely come to limelight.

I am a bad customer. Neither I have patience, nor energy and time to make best deals in all my purchases. That's why I bank on experts, other family members and even colleagues who extend their help to get best price.

CLOUDY SKY IN FRONT OF MY HOME - COURTESY : MY DAUGHTER SINDHUJA

Like their father, the duo take same fascination. This is the tale of my two daughters.

The elder (Sindhuja) takes innumerable snaps with my mobile whenever she finds a pleasant scene. The younger one takes countless selfies to put as wallpaper in her mobile phone or whatsapp profile picture.

Sindhuja who is now in class 11, is very interested in photography and painting. My 13 MP Samsung mobile (E7) seems to be her training ground to learn the nuances of fine photography. I do encourage her to improve the art of photography. Being lifted with my words, she took following snaps catching a glimpse of these moving clouds that passed through this evening in front of my home.

Whenever, I see clouds, I remember Ruskin Bond, the living legend who loves Nature more than any writer I read. He suggests to see the sky whenever you get bored of mundane affairs. His living room is made in such a way that he gets a full view of sky to churn out his stories.

One lesson we must learn from him is this : Embrace Nature !

MORNING SUN : COURTESY - MY DAUGHTER SINDHUJA

A WORD OF ADVICE ON ''WRITING''

One day, I believe we will be able to send full rich thoughts to each other directly using technology.

- Mark Zuckerberg

I read the above lines of Facebook Founder Zuckerberg which echoed my same sentiments.

One thing I can certainly say is to share our thoughts, the existing technology itself is more than enough and you need time and heart to share.

Blog is a platform where, every person can liberally share what he/ she wants to share, may be a photo, video or an opinion on a certain issue etc.

Writing on a daily basis will strengthen your expression abilities and has therapeutic effect. When you write, not only others understand your emotional cues but also you yourself feel lightened when your heart is ached with some problem.

When you utter the word yoga, people generally interpret it with religious connotations. In fact yoga means ''to unite''. What to unite is a serious question we must pose to ourselves.

If you closely observe yourself, there are different layers of ego. You feel different from your body and mind. The real Self always wants to excel in every activity but the inspiration to pace up body and mind to that level is always challenging.

It is almost a daily struggle both to layman and knowledgeable man. One must cultivate to find union within his/her Self on daily basis. I personally feel this effort as yoga.

Some others interpret yoga with bend and stretch poses. Though it is partly true, but not a holistic definition. When you do yoga, it means integration of body and mind with your own inner Self which always wants perpetual joy.

MY MORNING POWER QUOTES

If you can think that infinite power, infinite knowledge and indomitable energy lie within you, and if you can bring out that power, you also can become like me.

- Swami Vivekananda

When I wake up in the morning, my first task is to flip through my table-top quote calender to get a daily dose of inspiration. This helps my day to remain productive.

The credit to this largely goes to Swami Vivekananda who is my guru and I was terribly influenced by his literature.

One blessing I enjoyed in my formative years was, my parents did not insist on me to do anything particular in my sphere of activities. They never pressurised me to study for exams and giving this liberty helped me to handle my affairs better.

In fact, that was not the trend in those times to plan the children for dream careers as we do today. Father was busy in his trade union activities and mother being housewife had limited interference in my activities which didn't mean that I was a rudderless ship. I used to observe the world around me and tried to harness my potential. It helped to blossom my ''Free Will''.

THE LESSER KNOWN FACTS OF FILM BAHUBALI

The famous Indian technocrat Sam Pitroda summed up the Indian Television : Bollywood, Cricket and Political Gossip.

Any successful TV channel can't ignore these three ingredients and cinema is the most dominant compare to other two.

Cinema is the vocabulary of our entertainment. And it is so interwoven in our lives that we wake up with film songs and sleep with filmy stuff. Cinema is a way of life here. Irrespective of our professional pressures, we put an eye on the cinema world to know the latest developments. Compare to Hindi hinterland, Cinema is a religion in Southern parts like Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Both States have a world-class technicians in all the departments of film making.

MY READING AND WRITING JOURNEY

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.
- Benjamin Franklin

If you ask me what's my first piece of writing, I would say without hesitation that it is on 'Swami Vivekananda' way back in 1989 when I was studying second year of graduation in a sleepy town called Machilipatnam, Andhra Pradesh, India.

HIBISCUS TREE - COURTESY : MY MOBILE CAMERA

Friday, July 17, 2015

WISH EVERYONE HEARTFULLY

Working in a uniformed Govt. Department has its own pitfalls in personal life. First vice that embrace you is larger than life-size Ego. That poison seep deep into the nerves and pollute your emotional life.

So, you must constantly separate yourself from that madness and feel humbled with minute observations of people and other life surrounding you. The quality that should be nurtured is wish everyone you meet with a handshake. Be genuine in your feelings while talking to them. Once you stick to this habit, your relationships start blossoming to the unexpected level.

GREASE YOUR SENSITIVITY !

A well-greased wheel is heaven for a rider. This is my own saying.

The other day, I was coming to office in my usual auto-rickshaw and its roaring noise reminded me one fact : The vehicle was not given adequate dose of engine oil from time to time, thereby the engine lost its rhythmic sound and started crying for immediate attention.

Such bad-maintained public vehicles are nightmare to the users. For a person like me who want to search for subjects in my morning rides, it was a bad start.

SEASONS OF LIFE

Life is not what one lived, but what one remembers and how one remembers it in order to recount it.

- Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Every season has its own flavour and adds more glory to our imagination.

Delhi for the past so many days is experiencing scorching heat and rains have considerably dipped the temperatures and my writer's pen dances with delight !

Since April, 2015, my pace of writing is almost dead slow. The huge factor for this dismal performance is 'professional commitments'. To bring sanity back into my writer's life seems to be stupendous task and I must maintain a soldier's spirit.

RAIN HIT DELHI

On 11th July, 2015, Delhi witnessed a record rainfall since 5 years submerging all low-lying areas and roads and normal life almost completely disrupted. My government provided third-floor house which was on the direct firing line of Rain God was worst hit. First time in the five years of our stay, the bed room's ceiling developed seepage and further leakage.