Sunday, August 31, 2014

The tuition fever

"Today education has become business." This is one of the most common quotes that I keep consistently hearing from most of the parents. They are bowled over by the amount that gets spent on their children's education. They don't even have an option of not doing it. If they don't spend, the children don't get the required education. Peer pressure has made students demand more out of their parents and, unfortunately, parents are made to yield for the same. While we accept that the normal school education is essential from an authorized body, what about those tutorials which re-teach the same lessons? How are students fighting the tuition fever? Let's discuss more on this.

I have been to tuitions for my under-graduation. Until my tenth grade I used to find that tuition was just waste of time. Post my under-graduation I felt the same as well. But it had become quite crucial for me during the under-graduation time. As I observe the present generation juggling between too many classes it just makes me wonder if they are opting the right decisions. What is tuition? It's a place similar to a class atmosphere where one goes to learn his subjects. Who goes to tutorials? Students who are unable to cope up with the classroom education provided at school/college go to tuitions. This was the earlier definition. Today, students go to tutorials because there are no good and capable teachers available in school/college because the good ones have opened tutorials rather than working for a meagre monthly salary in institutions. With more and more tutorials opening people's mindsets also have got tuned towards tuitions, both that of parents and students (needless to say). Education is not about marks until you enter your competitive exams. It's about understanding the world around. Textbooks have been comprehensively prepared to make sure that students are able understand in the simplest manner. All it takes is good amount of patience and hard work to invest time on reading them. Since students are unable to input these two voluntarily a force is required to enforce the same. That is where tuitions have come into picture and the students have caught the tuition fever.


Today's generation plays with smartphones in its primary standards. In fact, there is no tuition to teach how to use a smartphone. Still kids are able to do it because of the curiosity. It means that kids are able to understand the automated guiding machines like phones, comprehend the instructions and use them. The same needs to be applied to text books. This requires commitment towards studies by the student. He must be ready to read until he understands and practise until he remembers. If the student is able to do this then there is no requirement of tuitions. Time investment coupled with serious commitment is the perfect medication for the tuitions fever which is affecting not the just the child but the parents too.

Saturday, August 30, 2014

Marketing in the market

The world around us is just too vast and wide and there are people in all directions. Each one is buying something or the other regularly. People spend on food, entertainment, clothes, sports, medicines, properties, rights, patents, investments, and a lot of other unknown stuff too. Each one of them is trying to either gather more things into life or enjoy the temporary experience like the taste of an ice-cream through expenditure of money. There is a huge market out there because people earn to spend their money. Only thing they need to be convinced is on what they are spending. Convincing need not happen logically also. So, if you are marketing any of your products or services then you have to decode that illogical instinctive reasoning for them to buy because people don't buy out of logic, they buy out of instinct.

Law of averages has always taught the sales and marketing team that not everyone you explain your product to necessarily need to buy your product. There will be a huge chunk of people who shall reject not just your product but you too. Marketing is only focused at reaching out to people with the information and awareness about your product. Those who realise the worth of your product at the first shot itself would go ahead to buy. Or I can put it as, that set of people whom you're able to convince just with your presentation shall go to buy your product. This portion of people is generally smaller. Next comes the huge section of the market which needs to be reminded about your product time and again. This portion of the market doesn't exactly know where to spend the money. Anyone persuading them to pay the money shall get them as the customer base. So, marketing doesn't stop until the targets are reached. Marketing is independent on the portion of the market that buys your product. The reason is the market is diverse and very large to even measure. No matter how much volumes of your product you produce, you shall never be able to reach out to the entire market of seven billion plus people on this earth. Hence the marketing spree has to continue until you have earned enough to purchase your bread and butter.


Since marketing cannot assure the right time and date by when all the sales will happen, it needs to continue and only catch up more speed and fire as time passes by. Counting the number of people who buy your product against the number of people whom you informed about your product is the biggest mistake a marketer can do. The market is too huge for your to not be able sell your product. A person shall spend his money elsewhere if not on your product. Not every expenditure of his is highly profitable and essential. So, instead spending anywhere else let him spend the same amount on your product. Don't give up until then. A marketer who gives up marketing shall only mean to give up his means to survive.

Friday, August 29, 2014

We are all human beings

At the end of the day we are not Gods; not even devils. We are human beings. There is loads of stuff that shall shut their doors on our faces. There is a mighty chance of things going wrong when you just expected them to go right exactly how you planned. No wonder such backfiring always change our moods and emotions. Things that don't work out carry the power to switch us off for some moments. All of a sudden all the energy feels as if it's drained out. The motivation to go ahead no more lingers on the mind. All these are very much natural because we are human beings. Just like how we can go high and laugh rolling on floor the opposite also holds good. These situations shouldn't make us blame ourselves.

Let's go back to the time when we were those kids who cared a least about what the world around us was doing. All that we were focused on was our games, our food and our tiny, little homework. We didn't bother what others thought about our colour or clothes. When someone disappointed us or fought with us, we definitely felt bad and cried in the arms of our parents. But after some time we got back to our normal routine of playing and enjoying childhood. None of the pressures of the universe could levy their burden on our shoulders. We could run, fall, jump, hide, sleep and do every other thing that was possible without worrying about what happened just an hour ago. Feelings are an intricate part of human beings. Sometimes they are good; sometimes they go down to being bad also. We must accept this truth of highs and lows of life and emotions. As we grow older people teach and train us to be ever-happy which is a very hypothetical and ideal situation to ever happen on this planet in our lives. It's very easy for someone to say to you to be happy when you are sad just like how it's easy for you to do the same to someone else. But changing the emotion is not so easy at one switch. It shall take its time. Until then, we must agree to the fact that we are prone to such mood swings. If the emotion can swing from good to sad then it can swing back from bad to good also. There lies the hope for every one of us. We can get back to our energetic states also, not just lose them.


Life is there to offer all kinds of challenges to us. It wants us to go through all kinds of emotions. It wants us to experience all kinds of scenarios. As you expect more from life it only gives back more to you. All you need to do is to enjoy this wonderful ride called as life. We cannot be perfect all the time. Perfection is an illusion. We must agree to the fact that we can also make errors and be ready to correct them. If we act the same manner all the time then we won't remain as humans; we turn into stones which remain the same no matter which situation they are in. The essence of life is change. It can be change in our emotions or thoughts. It can be a change in our perceptions or feelings. We are all humans ultimately.

Thursday, August 28, 2014

Vote of confidence

Work needs to be completed. Who does the work doesn't matter most of the times. Not a single person can do all the work. So work needs to be shared. One who defines work and the one who does the work need not be same all the time. On many occasions there are different people involved at different steps of the process required to complete the work. Those who get nominated to do a work get the vote of confidence to work by the master who defines the work. Only who defines the work can give the deadline for the work. The post-process steps of the work can only be decided by him. It is the vote of confidence on him.

When a work is shared on your shoulders you have won the vote of confidence amongst all others who exist, and hence you deserve to take ahead the work. No work is work done until it is completed. There must be a time decided as to when the work needs to be completed. Only that target time can give the ultimate zeal for someone to complete the work at the best speed by walking extra miles. Earning just the vote of confidence to start a particular kind of work is insufficient. One should also win the belief that s/he can carry forward the work in the right direction, give it a perfect destination and also live up to the work done. When this kind of confidence on your partner lacks in you, no matter when the work starts, it never gets completed. It just becomes a never-ending process. It doesn't lag in progress because you or your partner is working very slowly on it. It becomes a deadline-never-met project because none has decided the delivery date of the work. Each one is investing his/her time in every other possible work that comes on the table than on the work that was shared between the two. When there is no clarity of the kind of output that shall be created and not much confidence on the person with whom you are sharing the work, it's difficult to set a deadline and follow up each other to achieve it. That's when we leave the decision to time to take care of the work and ask the destiny to make the project reach its dead end. At the end it becomes very easy for the work-definer and the work-executor to blame it on God that He wanted the work to get delayed and lagged until it reached its completion.


If the objective is to complete the work then a firm of vote of confidence must be bestowed on the person you share the work with, because you are the decision maker. If you cannot feel the complete vote of confidence on the person you're sharing the work with, then, not only the work will be incomplete, the person you're sharing the work with also lose out his self-confidence as he is also not able to see the completion point of the work of which he dreamt of. That's where one should be very careful while choosing the person with the right vote of confidence so that s/he can share about the complete plan of action of the work than just merely defining the work so that everyone on the project is clear about the delivery point. No matter how long you work what matters at the end is whether you deliver your work or not.

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

www.adad.in

Finally there is a platform for people to share about all those tiny things that they did in a day which meant tiny ounces of help to people around them. What you speak more is what grows more. A lot of platforms, both offline and online, have given us the freedom of expressing all that we want to the entire world. None of these platforms have placed any restrictions apart from the security settings till date. Unfortunately, none of them drove a vision into their users as well. All of them just gave the stage, but here is the new trend of the new generation that shall give the right stage to speak the right stuff to inspire more of it to happen - www.adad.in

All of us want to know that we have been a reason for some positive difference on this planet. We would like others to pat our backs and encourage us to do more and more positive stuff. Doing small good deeds loses its recognition in the eyes of normal people, as a result of which many refrain from doing good deeds. Hence the new platform has got launched online which is spreading its wings offline too and that is "www.adad.in - A deed a day". Anyone can register on this platform and start posting his/her daily good deeds. People always said that God alone counts and calculates your deeds, both good and bad. Probably this site shall share a small responsibility of at least maintaining the database of all the good deeds that you do in life. Since the platform itself asks you to post good deeds, you don't have to hesitate from posting feeling that you're boasting about yourself. What is being spoken more about happens more often. If it's your good deed that is spoken more often by people then more of it shall happen for sure. Your small deed might give someone an idea of doing something similar to that. Your deed can inspire a thousand others to repeat the same. As a result, a chain reaction shall set in, where each one is inspired by the other person's good deeds and the number of good deeds shall increase exponentially. If people are speaking about good deeds, reading about them, writing about their good deeds and doing positive things then there is no reason for the world not to get better. A whole vision of bettering the planet has got triggered through this novel platform.


All that you and I can do is support such an initiative from youngsters. Let's spread the word so that everyone gets in sync with the new trend of the new generation. It's high time that people across globe should join hands to increase the positive impact on our society than merely sharing profile pictures and counting the number of likes and comments. Let the time spent scrolling down our timelines reading unnecessary stuff from others' lives get invested in doing more good and posting about them so that more number of people are triggered to jump into action. www.adad.in shall become a rejuvenator for someone who has come back home after a hard day. It shall be the happiness quotient riser for the new world of ours.

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Can you afford the opportunity?

People say that when preparation meets opportunity, that is when success happens. What is this preparation all about for? You never get to know when the opportunity will lie round the corner that you are going to take the next turn. Opportunities always come uninvited, or you create them. The moment you know that you are going to create an opportunity you start preparing so that you strike the opportunity at the right time. Preparation is what will lead to opportunity creation. In case of uninvited opportunities you just don't have an option of preparation. You have to go and afford them if you want to make the best out of them.

It's quite often that we see that Newton's First Law of Motion plays a very important role in our life’s growth chart. Inertia personifies our lives. A very often heard statement to prove it is, 'rich get richer and poor get poorer'. In fact, one of the recent statistics read out that 1% of the world's wealthy families hold 46% of the world's wealth. So those who made money are minting more money. If the world's wealth grew consistently and the wealthy took away more of wealth, then the non-wealthy are definitely losing out on the growing wealth. Money-making is a very simple sublime example to prove the use of opportunities. Growth of knowledge, experience, brand value, share price, market share, wisdom, network and likes of others also follow the same pattern. All of these grow for a person when he is ready to exploit the presented opportunities. Such opportunities sometimes demand money, loan, sometimes hard work, attitude, desire, sacrifice, and a whole lot of other stuff. One who grabs hold of opportunities by affording whatever they ask for is the one who grows to the next step, or probably, through the next few steps of escalation in life. Those who shy or fear away from opportunities, not just stay at the same level, but instead, fall one step lower because someone else rises up by one step. Just because you rejected the opportunity don't be foolish enough to think that everyone else shall do the same. The moment you ignore the opportunity knocking at your door, it knocks on your neighbour's door.


Everyone needs a ladder to climb up a wall. This ladder needs to have steps. In order to climb the ladder of success leaning against the wall of the world you need to climb the steps called opportunities. You got to afford climbing with all your energy. The moment you're drained out of energy you shall fall down and hit the ground hard. The ladder remains the same no matter who climbs it. The one who is ready to afford the ladder gets to climb it. You don't get the whole of the ladder at once. You get it one step at a time. Make sure that you afford that step called opportunity and climb up the ladder to find the next opportunity. One who hasn't found many opportunities for growth in life has only failed to afford the ones that the universe offered him. Opportunities are unlimited for those who are ready to afford them all and take on the world. Are you ready to fold your sleeves up and get your resources ready to afford the opportunity lying right in front of your eyes, right now?

Monday, August 25, 2014

The Attraction Percentage

Television has become a necessity more than a luxury for almost two decades now. It has become such a basic individual necessity that in a house there is a television per room. Many are addicted to this entrainment-cum-information box while some call it the idiot box too. The programs that are telecast in TV are what make money for the producers. The TRP ratings measure the scale of success of these programs. To increase their TRP ratings different channels advertise and market their programs in unique styles. In this marketing only the attractive portions of the programme is showcased. When you see the whole programme the attractive portions form a very small percentage of the whole show. However, programme owners are successful in pulling the crowd just by showing the small percentage of attractive portion. Eventually the entire programme gets sold to the customer.

I had heard a dialogue in one of the movies where the hero mentions that most of the movies will be filled with crap while the trailers will be fantastic. The audience is attracted by the few scenes showcased in the trailer to go and watch the entire movie and comes back disappointed for having wasted the money on the movie. It's in fact not easy to fill am entire show completely with new content that is always out of the box. People will use their creativity to come up with something or the other which is novel to the audience. The rest has to be repetitive to host the new innovations. Unfortunately the audience cannot slice out only the new developed content from thewhole show. Just with an expectation and anticipation that the twist might just arrive in the next minute the audience also spends hours together on TV shows and movies. If we could possess that magical wand which could screen out only the best and the new scenes from the entire show then we could have saved millions of our hours that have got invested on such programs. Nevertheless, we must definitely appreciate the media for being efficient and proficient enough to be equipped with the calibre to attract the audience towards it just by showcasing a very small attractive percentage of the whole show.


Not the just media even our own lives are not filled with new moments every single day. Most of us get drained in our routine life that we are unable to create something that is attractive to our own eyes in our own lives. As we scan through the number of days that we have lived through there are very few days which gave us the fun of living. Rest all other days were the same with their pattern and happenings. In spite of knowing the truth that not every day can be Sunday we still carry on with our lives because that's the truth of life.

Sunday, August 24, 2014

Realign with your vision

Every endeavour that man has ever taken up has been with a purpose. There has been a problem statement and the answer to the question of why to solve the problem has given rise to a planned activity. A very simple example for this is our education system. People enroll their kids into schools because they want their children to be educated so that children are aware about things around them and eligible to use this knowledge to create a sustainable livelihood. After some time the focus goes more on marks on paper than the education that the kid has embodied. That's where parents need to realign their vision to educate their kids than merely seeing them as marks-vending machines. When you get off-track with any of your activities and you aren't having fun doing it, then ask yourself as to why you started it and realign with your original vision.

The world is filled with a lot of chaos today, and there is too much of information bombarding happening from all directions. We start with an objective which over a period of time becomes subjective. I have observed so many people who started to work hard to excel in life and after some time were working hard only to be better than their friend. There will be a lot of factors which shall influence our course of work. Sometimes they will affect positively while some other times they shall affect negatively. We needn't change our strategies only to increase the influence of positive factors or decrease the effects of negative influences. By doing so, we are only giving more respect to factors which appear during the run-time than the future vision. The moment you try to adjust your flowchart of action as per the run-time factors your remodeled plan shall start taking you towards a new end which you had never envisioned at all. Just like how there is an end for every start there is an end result for every plan. The moment a plan changes, its end result also changes. Hence we must focus on keeping ourselves abreast to our visions and regularly go through our vision statements realigning ourselves to our visions. Only then our true visions shall get accomplished in the true sense.


No matter what, at the end of the day, we are all humans, and not Gods. We need to brush every day and we need to take bath everyday to make sure that we are physically clean and neat. Similarly, we need to give some time on a regular basis to maintain our visions and dreams clean and to realign along with them. There is too much of information dirt that keeps floating in the air around us that sits on our positive thoughts of life and blinds us from remembering our visions. We need to get them back each time we tend to forget them. Revision is as compulsory to a dreamer as it is to a student who wishes to score in his exams. A student's dream is limited to a dream of marks but a dreamer's visions are as unlimited as the width of the sky. Go back and realign with your visions of and for life.

Saturday, August 23, 2014

Exposure and experience

The world is filled with so many diverse things that one lifetime isn't sufficient enough to witness all of them. Some of the most intricate miracles of nature are hidden in different parts of the world. Working for regular food, clothing and shelter is a normal routine that everyone is forced to do on a daily basis. Those who accomplish this responsibility will definitely want to see what more life can show them. In order to experience new things we need to have some knowledge about what all is happening around us. That is where exposure comes into picture. Lack of exposure leads to lesser number of chances of experiencing different dimensions of life resulting in an unfulfilled life. All of us would love to live our lives to the fullest extent possible.

The world is so vast in geographic scale that it is impossible for a person to set his foot on every step of the planet. Thanks to the internet world which has brought down the entire world to just our laptops or mobiles. In spite of earth turning into a global village, the challenge to know everything is really huge. Just knowing from far also doesn't help much. One needs to witness the unexplored portions of life. A very simple example is that of an engineer and a commerce graduate. An engineer doesn't know anything in the commerce field apart from his engineering syllabus. Likewise commerce doesn't understand head and tail of engineering. One need not be an encyclopedia knowing everything but one must definitely have awareness about the things existing around. That is where one needs to take initiative to learn about new stuff on a daily basis. Once sufficient knowledge has been thrown light upon, one must not just stop with the exposure; s/he should get into volunteering into tasks that can give him/her an experience of how the field works. If one has undergone such experiences in few diverse fields, then that person will be much more aware and careful in real life, and there are very less number of chances for him/her to get deceived by anyone else. Ignorance has definitely cost a lot even to the wisest best of one single field. One needs to have an all-around knowledge to challenge the current world.


The world shall not initiate any process to come to your home and let you know all that's happening around. You will have to get of your comfort zone called house and go out to explore. You might have the fear of unknown but what you need to explore is the same. Shed your inhibitions, become a kid and start exploring the world as a newbie. The world has lots of new things to offer for sure. As you keep gaining exposure about new happenings, simultaneously put your hands into activities that you have never done till date. This wholesome experience shall enrich your life in multifold manner.

Friday, August 22, 2014

Far-fetched dreams

Everyone has dreams. Everyone wants to live a life that's filled with luxury and harmony. Yet, not everyone is able to live one such life. Having the best state of life in terms of health, wealth, people around and status in the society is a dream that every soul aspires to enjoy. Achieving all of these is definitely not a very easy task. One has to struggle through the climbing process to reach heights in life and challenge the inconsequential side-effects of his/her own acts to achieve all these. The best sculpt body, abundance of wealth, name and fame take not just few days or weeks or months; they take years of dedicated hard work and commitment to accomplish. Hence they become far-fetched dreams of life for many.

People are often used to quick results in life. 2 minute noodles, fast food restaurants are some of the simple examples to state that people don't have the patience to have what they want. They are in a hurry to have food, travel and even to sleep. Big dreams always demand high tenure of time to result in reality. Since they yield only after sufficient long amount of time people lose the passion for achieving those. The motivation to sustain the interest goes low day by day as the time to accomplish the dream seems really too far to be true. Lack of motivation is not the only factor. When the dreams become so big that they need a lot of time to materialise in our lives, people also start tending to doubt whether the dreams will really convert into reality after all the hard work or not. This lack of belief in one's own efforts shows sufficient number of examples around who tried achieving the same dreams but failed miserably. The non-guarantee of what might come up in the future drives the focus of people away from their dreams, and thus many of their dreams become far-fetched. The moment people have thrown the dream into the far-fetched ocean, it's difficult to bring them back and believe that those dreams are achievable once again in life. Temporary failures to accomplish small dreams also push the belief away from us that we will be able to achieve the bigger ones. As a result, many of the dreams become far-fetched dreams of our lives.


Sacrificing one's own dreams is just not the loss of that single person. All of us together form this society that surrounds all of us and each one of us cast our influence on the lives that breathe in our environment. The moment we categorize some of our visions as far-fetched ones, we attribute the same to similar dreams of others around us. In a way, we are discouraging the person next to us, also, from dreaming big in life. Just because we couldn't focus and believe we bring down others beliefs too and ultimately slower the civilization progress. If we can bring back our far-fetched dreams on our to-do list and dedicated daily efforts to accomplish, then, not just we will accomplish them but we shall also be an inspiration to million others to launch back their far-fetched dreams into existence and help thousands of others to aim for such massive achievements of life.

Thursday, August 21, 2014

The Positive Fear

I was taking a class for some students of a school about public speaking. One after the other, all students came on the stage to share the stories of leaders. They shared stories about Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhiji, Mother Theresa, Sachin Tendulkar and many others. These students were supposed to narrate these stories without the help of any print material. Each one of them tried to give the best speech possible. Some had practised the speech at home but still couldn't share it easily. They had a kind of fear which was obstructing the flow of speech through their vocal chords. Not just these small students, every speaker has this fear lurking inside before s/he goes on the stage.

Fear is one of the best motivating factors. The fear of failure has stopped many from taking action while it also has helped many to always win because they were afraid of failure. That apprehension inside us before we jump into doing something or expressing our talents or skills in front of people is called fear. There is an uncomfortable feeling due to the fear of not being accepted by the audience. Steven Pressfield says that every performer shall always undergo such fear before any performance. So, it's natural for one to fear. In fact, the presence of that small amount of fear before plunging into the open air of performance is a symbol of your seriousness towards your work. It's a positive fear that inhabits us for a temporary interval of time. The butterflies inside the stomach accelerate their speeds as we are just about to take on the stage. Let them not choke your voice down your throat. You must rise above it and deliver your performance. Let that positive fear be an indication that you are in the right direction than becoming a deviation in your path to success. Use the positive fear as a positive morale booster to boost your performance better. This fear is not because of any self-doubt about one's own preparation or talent, it's just a warning unto us to not let down those who have trusted in us and believed in our performance.

Not just in any stage performance alone, even in life too, such positive fears keep attacking us every now and then if we are trying to do something new every now and then. This positive fear differs very much from the real fear of performing. The positive fear compels you to take on the stage of life to exhibit all that you have got. On the other hand, the real ferocious fear shall stop you from even trying. Hence, use this positive fear which can be overcome very easily by taking a simple single step towards action. No matter which field you are in, taking initiatives will always be challenged by a positive fear. Accept the fear and take action, and the victory shall come and dance in your arms.

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Don't brag if you cannot nail it

Actions speak louder than words. There is no way we can underestimate this statement. Only your actions can nail down things that you want to happen than just words about what shall happen. No matter how long you spoke in front of the wall it shall not break. The moment you take the hammer and bang it against the wall there will be an instant crack on the wall. Bottomline- only action can make things happen and not mere words. Bragging has become one of the best ways to showcase why one shall be a great person in the future. Mere bragging shall only live for the moment and die away as instantly as it originated.

Plans are always made much before the implementation. Sharing about your future plans is always fine but bragging about those is not a good idea, unless you're the decision-maker. People are unfortunately misled to believe that the world runs on their decisions while the person holding the reins is sitting somewhere else and watching the game. If you brag about something that shall happen from your side and you don't hold the key to make it happen, then obviously your bragging backfires at you. People are only going to lose belief in your words thenceforth. You must have the complete clarity about the time by when you shall deliver what you bragged about some time back. Unless that happens, you are just going to make fun about yourself in front of your audience. People shall remember your open commitments made on the stage and shall come back to ask for the delivery. It doesn't matter whether the commitments you made on the stage can impact these people or not. They are always with the hawk-eye to find out whether you will stand up to your bragging or not. Unless and until you have the complete control of the scenario there is no point in bragging. You have to be the person who can nail your commitment down and only then do you earn the rights for bragging. If the delivery is promised or controlled from someone else the better option is to be a step away from bragging.

In today's world people want to make you feel that you have the leadership to take decisions. It's only to make you feel that you are meant to carry a lot of responsibilities. The money is not transferred into your account until the banker signs the cheque no matter how much ever money he promises to transfer at your wish and will. The final control is in his hand to sign the cheque. One should not get under the assumption that people promising us freedom to shout will give the freedom to deliver the promise too. Ultimately the control shall lie in the hand that funds your plans and plans your actions. Beware about this hand behind your back before assuming that you are the hand. Don't brag if you aren't the hand to nail it.

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Bigger reason than black money for underdeveloped India

Debates and discussions have been going on from decades together as to why India has still remained as an underdeveloped country, why the rupee value against dollar is consistently falling, why are the middle class people still struggling and the poor still suffering. Politics has been blamed, governments have been blamed, and the entire system has been blamed. One of the prominent reasons always blamed by majority is the black money. Politicians, people in government, people having black money are way lesser than the entire population of the country. This small knit of people cannot be alone responsible for an entire country to lag behind in development. The problem of underdevelopment is deeper and has its roots in every household of the country. Few people cannot hold the nation back from development. Majority of the Indian population is a part of this process to keep India still a developing country. Wondering how?

The culture in Indian families plays a crucial role in the development of India. Development of any nation can happen when the people belonging to it are bringing out ideas and business ventures that not only satisfy the nation’s population but also bring in customers from outside the country. More profits earned by the nation’s citizens only increase the taxes collected by the same nation. The same money can be used for better development and infrastructure of the country by the government. This means that more and fresher businesses must start in the country which is nothing but pure entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship comes with its own challenges. It takes time and money to build an idea into a financial viable systematic business model. This requires the entrepreneur to be free from any other burden apart from funding his own basic necessities of life and his idea. Unfortunately, in Indian middle class family system, parents bring up children with good education mainly to secure a good job which can yield enough income to take the responsibility of the household. With lack of financial planning, even the parents would have invested all their earnings to bring up their children with an expectation that they would take up a good job post education and take care of the financial liabilities of the family. This is a check-mate option for a person who dreams about entrepreneurship because, while setting up a business one cannot expect returns instantly that a high paying job can give though there is a higher possibility of the same business yielding multiple times the job income 5 years down the lane.

This being the typical scenario in majority of the middle class and poor families of India which accounts for the majority of the Indian population, not many new ventures are springing up which can rise the economy standards of India. Rather, all the youngsters from such families are ready to work as cheap labour in jobs for the multinational companies which make more profits by earning their profits in dollars and paying these people in rupees. The pay scales offered also satisfy the family constraints of such people and hence there is no push towards entrepreneurship. As a result, the entire country is running slow in the race towards development. The entire population is holding the reigns of development of India than a mere few people in governance or business.

This is where the western world races ahead in development as the family culture over there makes youngsters find their livelihood on their own by getting into part-time jobs rather than depending on parents. Adults are wise enough to plan their retirement and don’t depend on their children. As a result, entrepreneurship finds a fertile soil to germinate seeds of ideas and harvests of profits amongst these young entrepreneurs who enjoy the freedom of experimentation along with the shoulders free of any family liabilities. Naturally, more ideas convert into business solutions which reach out to the entire world’s population bringing in foreign money into the country improving the economy standards of the western nations.

Until the present generation parents realise this hidden truth, and stop blaming all the umpteen number of reasons for an underdeveloped India and provide the scope of freedom for their children to walk on the route of entrepreneurship to bring their ideas into reality, India is only going to delay its own progress and process of achieving the expected development standards. India is not the only country suffering from the issue of black money. There are so many developed countries of the world too that are facing the same issue. The roots for underdeveloped India are not superficial in the reasons seen by the bare eyes. The roots are deeper knotted in every family household of the Indian population.

Monday, August 18, 2014

Phone etiquettes

Hats off to the wonderful technology that has developed in communication that we are able to connect to anyone in the world with just the click of a few numbers on our phones! While some of us have to still upgrade from landline phones to mobile phones, majority of us are fancying around with the latest smartphones. However, while the technology has progressed a lot, yet the usage of this technology has to get more streamlined. Out of the many experiences that I have had with phone communication I would like to share certain phone etiquettes that we need to follow in order to make our communication better.


1. Never call a person repeatedly until s/he picks up the call unless it’s a dire emergency or a question of life and death. This is one of the most irritating things that can befriend you from the person whom you disturb this way. People are held up in driving or traffic or in washrooms or in some really important meetings when they cannot take calls. Such recurrent calls only waste your time and energy and create unnecessary tension on the receiver’s end.

2. When you call a person and the person has not reverted by picking up the call, then make sure to drop a message so that at least the subject of conversation is known to the receiver. This information helps him/her to take a priority to call you back. If your missed call is not backed up by a message then the chances of getting called back also reduces.

3. If there’s some urgency that you need to talk at that moment apart from any emergency mentioned in the abovementioned point, then give at max 2-3 calls only but not more than that. Drop a message that it’s extremely urgent for the person to revert to you. Still, if you don’t receive the call then find out another way to solve your situation by yourself or just wait until the person reverts to you.

4. If there are none of the urgencies mentioned above and if it’s just for some information or casual talk, then give a call half an hour later after the first missed call followed by the message if you haven’t got back the call from the person you intended to call within half an hour. Give a reminder call of just 1 or 2 more for that day and not more than that.

5. When you are calling people in high positions during office hours, it’s always better to send a message requesting if you could call the person. You might receive a Yes/No message or a call itself. This will show that you respect and value other person’s time.

6. Online messengers have completely cut our costs on SMS. Hence updating the status of work over online messengers with your reporting authorities will always cut down call costs and help in better and consistent reporting equipping faster communication. I have used Viber, WeChat, Hike, Line, Facebook messenger, Google hangouts and Whatsapp, and I have found Whatsapp as the best online messenger which is light on phone in terms of CPU and memory usage. Also, Whatsapp notifies you only if there’s any incoming message from your contacts while there are no advertisements or other messages from the app that unnecessarily disturb you.


These are some of the etiquettes I believe which shall enhance our phone communication. If you have anything to share about the same please feel free to share.

Sunday, August 17, 2014

The five people around you

Birds of the same feather flock together. This age-old proverb is more than sufficient to let us know that we get along with people who are similar to us, who think like us and have similar interests like that of us. The environment we are in automatically influences our knowledge, character and attitudes. Our environment is not formed by anyone who stays far away from us. It's always influenced by people around us. That is where a very important lesson that my mentor had taught me long time back comes into picture. Your being is formed based on the five people with whom you spend your most time with.

Most of our habits are derived from our parents or guardians because they are the first set of people with whom we spend our starting years of life. Next come our siblings or other family members and then the school atmosphere. All these factors influence only the early years of our lives during which things are mouldable in us. After a decade of experience on this earth starts our real influence and from that point onwards we start choosing the kind of people with whom we would want to be surrounded with. As we grow through years of life the people with whom we spend most of our time becomes a limited set of 5-10 people. These are the people who shall impact our lives from very close distance. That is where choosing the right set of people around us becomes very important. Our character shall automatically get framed as the average of five characters around us. Choosing them well is our responsibility. One must have a clear vision of what kind of a person s/he wishes to become in life, and only then can one choose those people who are already living a life that s/he dreams of. Finding five such people and being in daily interaction with them can help you create a life you dream of much earlier than you have actually planned or believed in, because now, even the environment around you is accelerating the process. Hence it becomes very much important to choose the right five people in life.

What happens if you don't find those 5 key people around you? As per Murphy's Law, you are surely going to find someone else for sure, but beware not to choose that person who cannot resonate with your dream life. Be alone at that point of time just using your Law of Attraction and asking the universe to bring the kind of people you want in your life. Let the universe take care of the rest. Being alone you are already spending time with a serious person in you who is serious about the future dreams. Who better a person can you find other than you? Make use of the friend in yourself and keep your search on for those five diamonds in your life who shall come and shine your life much better than that of theirs.

Saturday, August 16, 2014

Modes of knowledge transfer

In earlier days when the Gurukul system of education existed in India, children from the kingdom used to go to a forest area where a school was established by a Guru (Teacher). This school was called as 'Gurukul' in Sanskrit. The children used to reside in this place for a decade to learn from the Guru. Among such students, there would be a group of students who learnt when taught only once. There was another group which learnt when taught twice and there was another group which learnt when taught thrice. Based on the number of repetitions a student would take to learn a lesson, there were different groups of students made and the lessons were taught accordingly. Learning was the same but the method was different for different sets of students.

In the current world, there are people with different abilities. Some need to be taught by teaching directly with words. Some need to be taught by exposing to practical exposure. Some can be taught by just speaking over phone. Some can be taught through online video tutorials. Some can be taught by asking them to perform certain tasks. The modes of learning differ from one person to the other. It becomes very important for the mentor/ teacher/ trainer to choose the right mode for the right student. I do accept that it's not easy for someone to spot the right methodology for every student instantly. One has to try every available method to find out which method exactly works for the students. The quickness in choosing the right method shall be achieved as one garners more and more experience. This option of choosing the right method doesn't apply only for the person who is sharing lessons. It applies to the student also who is learning the lessons. It's the individual's responsibility to work and find out which type of learning works right for him/her. Once again the method which sounded right some days back might not sound apt some days later. So, one should be ready to change and adapt to new modes of learning as time moves on. Different information demand different modes to reach a person. So, one should be ready to explore different streams to embody different kinds of information.

While one is battling through different modes of knowledge transfer to choose the right one, a student or a teacher might get into conflict while choosing the right method. A method which looks lucrative might not be practically implementable for a certain student. But the feelings attached cannot be erased until the wrong implementation is proved. So people must be ready to face bitter consequences too while exploring and experimenting with different modes of learning and teaching. At the end of the day, what's important is, learning the lesson. If the right lessons aren't passed between the mentor and the mentee then not just one person is at fault, it's the relation which is at fault by default.

Friday, August 15, 2014

Calls can make businesses

Being in the field of sales and marketing phone calls are one of the prominent essentials of my work. I would salute Alexander Graham Bell for inventing phone and gifting it to mankind. I would also salute the person who came up with the idea of wireless communication, especially Marconi. Wireless telecommunication has facilitated us with the privilege of connecting to people irrespective of which place we or the people we want to connect are in. It no more takes hours together of travel to meet up a person and convey your message. A phone call is more than sufficient to do your job. Out of my recent experience I have found out that, one can create good amount of business just through calling. In fact, the study of many other companies also revealed the same result.

As the technological age has advanced, new modes of communication through internet like e-mail, video conferencing and many others have taken the lead to convey the highest amount of information in the least amount of time possible. In the earlier days, there was no internet or any kind of wired or wireless communication available. People used to walk on foot or travel using transport facilities to meet their investors and clients. Only then the business used to run smoothly. With the advent of phone the amount of time invested on travel was reduced to invest the same duration of time on phone calls to yield higher results. With the advent of internet and email facilities, once again, the amount of time spent on calls is available for online communication. Since the online communication is even documented well, it stays as a proof for days to come. The results out of the business with such facilities must be much more than those in the earlier two cases. There is no one to stop the growth of the technical industry. New devices shall be innovated only to make sure that communication happens faster and clearer. We have to learn to adapt to the new technical developments and use them in our daily lives if we are here to compete and stay long in the market. Humans must evolve their usage to new gadgets as they are released one after the other.

Evolution has been an inert part of homo-sapience since day one. So, it's naturally expected out of a man to continuously adapt to new gadgets and make efficient usage of these. All the inventions and innovations are the result of the research done by yet another human being.  If man has the potential to evolve with nature then he definitely has the power to evolve with the gadgets made by his fellow human being. At the end of the day, it's all about reaching out to your customers. This can be done only through talking to them, and the best way to connect to someone is through either travel or different modes of communication. As there is an evolution in the technology around us we must also be ready for evolution in order to get used to the new technology.

Thursday, August 14, 2014

Time for graduation

Education has become one of the most basic necessities for people to avail a job and lead a decent life. Without education, it's highly difficult to survive in today's highly competitive and highly cunning world. There is enough number of people around to take advantage of your unawareness and cheat you from getting what you really deserve. Hence education becomes very much important in all our lives, but the misconception is that education is nothing but graduation. Pursuing graduation and completing a degree course doesn't guarantee right education. Unfortunately, majority of the graduation pursuing students have fallen into the wrong assumption that it takes 3-4 years to complete graduation of one degree. We must evaluate the right time that is invested on graduation and not the time that is spent.

According to my experience of having addressed a lot of students pursuing different degrees, I have come to know that irrespective of what degree a student is in, s/he doesn't study everyday like how students do in school. The last night before the exam becomes the most important time for such students. There are few students who start studying a week before the exam also. Many students are not even interested in attending regular classes and due to lack of experienced and good teachers students seldom listen to teachers' lessons. In this case, it gets proved that students study on their own and that too, during the dead end when the exam is just one or two days far. If students can score and pass exams with last night preparations then all semesters of any graduation can be completed within few months and it is not required to spend years to complete graduation. The college also doesn't run for 24 hours a day. It only runs for 6-8 hours a day. Taking holidays and mass bunks into consideration, on an average, just 6 hours per day is spent on graduation by students, which means just one fourth of the day. Extrapolating to 4 years of B.E, only one year of complete time is invested into graduation by students. This gets stretched for 4 years by the existing education standards, wherein students have no idea that they are wasting three-fourth of their time during graduation in the name of graduation.


After 3-4 years, when you look back you will only be able to say that you did so many years of graduation though you knew that it could get over within one fourth of the time. So, it's high time for students to understand the responsibility of every day that is bestowed on them. One should make sure that s/he is involved in lot of other things in free time apart from graduation. Only then 3-4 years of graduation will also encompass experience in different kinds of work along with exposure to different fields of life along with graduation. Filling in your day with variety of activities instead of wasting time in the name of graduation will be the best way for any student pursuing graduation to follow.

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Don’t waste time; don’t wait time

Time is one of the most precious treasures of life that’s blessed upon every human being without any partiality. Irrespective of caste or creed, colour or décor, rich or poor, ugly or beautiful, each and every one is gifted with 24 solid hours of time every day. It’s up to us as to how we make use of these 1440 minutes every day. Wasting time is like wasting away our life itself. Hence we should try our best to utilize our time in the most efficient time. There are many articles online that can teach us as to how we must not waste our free time and what all we can do during that time to develop ourselves. In this write-up I would like to share about how we waste time in the name of waiting for someone or something.

When we have an appointment with a doctor we go to the clinic and see a huge queue waiting for the same. We end up sitting on one of those benches either dozing off in the same place or listening to the music being played or put on our earphones and listen to songs from our ipod or go through the magazines/newspapers kept for engaging the waiting patients. At the max, we try to communicate with the other patients as to what are their ailments, what all did they do before coming to the doctor, judgment on whether the doctor is good or not and other past health issues of families. Chatting at least makes us feel that we are networking and utilizing our time. Similar things can be observed in bus stands where people are waiting for the buses for unending amount of time some times. We plan get-togethers with our friends and we keep waiting for some of those laggards. While we are waiting for people we just end up wasting our own time. This time waste is at least clearly visible if we can use our brain a bit. Think about those situations when you postponed some of your action plans because you were waiting for some decisions by people, for some rule to change in the management, for some person to sign your document or so on. We ended up waiting for something to happen and eventually all our results got delayed.

Waiting is literally wastage of time folks! Unfortunately not every time can we anticipate whether we will have to wait or not. Many of the times we cannot even assume for how much of time we will have to wait. Precaution is better than cure. So, we must take simple steps that can accommodate the time of waiting and in turn help us utilize the same time. One of the simplest ways is by carrying a book to study wherever you are going. You would have chosen a book which you would have studied if you were at home for sure. So your waiting time becomes your study time. Carrying a simple book in which you can write can help you revise the stuff that you have studied earlier by writing while you are waiting. It might serve as your planning record for your further action plans. Being in the technological age, our smartphones can serve the same purpose. But they might also provide multiple diversions at the same time. If you are clear with your to-do list, then definitely your smartphone itself can be your notebook.

It’s up to you as to how you will convert your waiting time into efficient time. Don’t spend time in waiting; invest it in using the same for some creative purpose. When what we want to do in our day to day life is very clear we will pick up every chance to utilize every minute of the day in the best way possible. It’s your time and your life at the end of the day. No matter how much you blame on any person or situation, who or which made you wait you cannot get back the time that’s lost in waiting. Hence it’s your freedom and duty to take care of your treasure of life named TIME.

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

You gotta girlfriend; get serious boss

Pretty hot topic, I know! Right from the time I updated this title as my Whatsapp status people have been enquiring about my girlfriend. Getting a girlfriend in life is one of the hottest discussions amongst students, teenagers, grads and to-be married individuals. It makes the eyebrows of people raise and the cheeks of girls go pinkish red and no wonder it's a treat to watch these happening. Having a girlfriend is a sense of pride upliftment for most of the boys and young gentlemen. Anyways, I am definitely not against guys who have girlfriends or those who want to have girlfriends. I shall be the first person to encourage provided that guys are aware about certain important aspects. Everyone needs someone close enough to share things happening on a daily basis for moral and emotional support. Once things go beyond the scope of discussion with parents or teachers or close knit of friends, people enter into relationships.

I observe many of these boys who are lost in their phones. They keep smiling innocently conversing on messages, playing with smilies and blushing at regular intervals biting their lips. Some of them, who are engaged on long daily calls are totally unaware of the traffic on the road or the ticking clock. The wild imaginations and fascinations of girlfriends fill their heads and flow out to occupy the metaspace too. Her earrings to lipstick to nose ring to sandals are the highlights of these day dreams. Guessing the colour of their girlfriends' clothes and decorating her with different designs of clothes become the daily homework for most of the guys while they are alone with their imaginations. Just a glimpse of her smile and laughter kills every heartbeat of these dreaming Romeos. Wow! These are some of the wonderful sensations that every guy deserves to enjoy, but, to what extent is the question here. I was watching a couple of movies in which they showed that a criminal who gets a girlfriend gets into the above explained fantasies when he is right in front of his enemy. So many movies showcase that students in schools and colleges are lost in thoughts about their girlfriends in the classes and don't study properly, ultimately ending up failing in their subjects. A lot of working men lose focus from their work the moment they get girlfriends and perturb their own career growth. Such scenarios are very well stitched into the movie scenes along with beautiful songs and romantic dances. People end up feeling that those are the real ways of being in love, or rather, falling in love. Cinemas are nothing but exaggerated versions of pure reflections of things happening in our daily lives around us. Unfortunately , such presentations of love are leading people in wrong directions.

I am not saying that such fantasies happen only with boys and not with girls. I personally believe that it's a guy's responsibility to take complete accountability for his girlfriend's wellbeing and future. Hence this blogpost is more focused on what boys need to be and do once they have a girlfriend. A girlfriend comes into a guy's life with all her dreams and hopes on him, and with a guarantee that he shall be the soulmate who shall fulfill all of those. Now, it's the boy's turn to keep up to those expectations. His life is shared between two souls now. He must amend his mistakes soon and work extra to reach better results in shorter spans of time. If he has to do so, he can't lose his time in daydreaming about his girlfriend. He has to get serious and focus to do more with higher efficiency so that he can devote certain amount of time everyday for the person who loves him. If movies start showcasing this as to how a student studies extra hard and passes his exams with good grades, or how a professional improves his time-management skills and enhances his multi-tasking ability to do more work in lesser time resulting in quicker promotions, having a girlfriend shall no more sound as a distraction. She shall be the major reason of success in a guy's life the moment he develops seriousness having her in his life. Earlier, men used to get serious at the time of marriage but it's high time now, that people need to get serious at the onset of their relationships, both about their lives and relationships instead of being lost in filmy ways of getting lost in love feelings.

My best wishes are with all the present generation Romeo-Juliets and Laila-Majnoos. Especially, the Romeos and Majnoos should take my serious advice along with my wishes. Make your girlfriend feel that you are the right MAN in her life with the results that you bring about rather than with your words or descriptions about her beauty. (But don't forget to keep continuing admiring your girlfriend and appreciating all good things about her; girls love them and I certify that for you).

Monday, August 11, 2014

The world around was still the same

Tough phases are bound to be a part of everyone's lives. Likewise are the good phases. You never know what phase is the person sitting right next to you in the bus is going through. You never know if her eyes were red because she was crying unable to let out her tears or was it the mistake of the kajal that made her eyes go red. You never know if he was sleepy or was it the pressure of disappointment that made the blood rush through the veins in those white eyes. Phases are a part of everyone's lives but none show them to the world around. When the phase is going on the person has no idea of what's happening around in the world. The moment one is out of it and comes into realization of the world around, what s/he sees is quite astonishing. The world around is running the same way like before completely deaf and blind to the kind of phase one has just gone through. This is the real truth of this world.

Different phases of life make us go through different feelings and emotions. Some can be expressed in front of others while some can't be. In fact, differentiating between happy or tough or learning phases is also very difficult and the distinction is solely decided and felt only by the individual going through the phases. People in the world around might have gone through the same phases but yet might be completely helpless to empathize with the person. As a result, the individual is left all alone to go through the phase and grow through it. None is spared from these tests of life. It's a lonely battle out there. Everyone is involved in such lonely battles in their own respective lives while none of such battles are exposed to each other. The moment we are out of our homes to face the world, we get back to our normal selves who seem to be carrying on with life just like how it was before. The lips widen to smile big and the speed catches the legs to not miss the bus to office. We become the same part of the world which seems completely unchanged for a person who has just got out of the toughest phase of his/her life. All of us do know it very clearly that humans are mortal. All of us might have born to different parents but the mankind is one single community. Animals or machines might be unable to understand about your phases but other human beings definitely can. Yet we don't share with the world what's happening in our lives. Reasons are many because, at the end of the day, all of us are just humans, neither animals nor machines.

The moment we are unable to get the expected responses from the world around, we start blaming the entire world and make generic statements that the world is cruel, bad and sad. All that you see in the world is what is occupying your mind at that current state of mind. When you're happy everything that's colourful and bright in the world catches your eyes. When you're hurt only resentment and discouraging statements fall into your ears. When you are completely clear without any expectations or anticipations coming out just after a tough phase the world reflects the same. It doesn't show any expectation out of you and is completely unaware of the kind of anticipations that you shall make out of it. I saw the same as I came out of one of the challenging phases of my life, the world around was still the same.

Sunday, August 10, 2014

When I went back to school

It's been more than a decade that I have passed out of school now. Courtesy my work, I get a chance every day to go back to schools and relive those childhood memories. No doubt that the syllabi have changed, teachers are aged, schools have got additional protection grills but the children and their joy are the same. Thanks to schools which don't allow these young kids to get electronic gadgets to schools. That gives them ample opportunity to behave as living human beings with their counterparts. I enjoy observing kids below 4th grade. With all the information floating on internet and other media channels, kids are growing up and are more mature to understand the worldly affairs at a much earlier age nowadays. Such kids start behaving more or less like elders which is not so enjoyable to watch.

I recall those moments when kids enjoy speed. They want to be the fastest like superman. The moment they are out of class they run at Usain Bolt's speed to the restroom. I don't know what happens so magical over there. The moment they have to come back to their classroom the speed decreases exponentially. It looks like as if these kids are trying to compete with tortoise or a snail to win 'Who is the slowest?' competition. Somehow, struggling to allow one foot go before the other, they reach the classroom but something unexpected happens when they are just two feet away from the classroom door. All the speed lost seems to come back with the best pace and they start panting at the door as if they have just completed a 100 metres sprint. The teacher is so amazed to see such kids who showcase that they don't want to miss even a second of class. Unfortunately, the teacher doesn't know the episode before panting. May she never know it! It is surprising to notice how kids pick up such interesting talents. One more remarkable angle of a child is that s/he doesn't care who you are, what's your background, what's your colour, why have you come to the school or any other aspect of your presence in front of him/her. The moment you smile the child smiles back at you. The moment you ask a question the kid is ready with instant answers. All that the kids want in life at that age is to be happy and do things that come to their mind without thinking about any pros or cons. They are unaware about any time tables or schedules. All that they know is, eat when you are hungry, play when you have friends around and sleep when you are tired. They are devoid of all tensions of this world. That void is filled up with loads of happiness and joy on their faces. The same transcends on our faces when we are in front of them. Hence everyone cherishes those moments when they are with kids and conversing with them.

Definitely I am not saying that there are no other ways of being happy. There might be a million other ways but I love this way for sure. I am sure that a lot of you also forget all your sadness and gather the entire happiness of the world in a child's smile. Each one of us should make it a point to keep aside a few hours in a week or a month just to visit schools and observe those young minds playing the simplest game, but yet enjoying the entertainment that no playbox can provide at the most economic costs. It's a wonderful feeling to wish them good-bye as they take their tiny tots with little school bags on their backs eagerly looking forward to meet their parents after a 6 hour long separation. On the way back home switches on the school radio when the kids narrate all that happened in the school with their parents. It's a fascination to witness how the same situation that happened in school is explained with different voice modulation and perspective angles by different kids. Even better to note is the speciality of these kids who forget all the bad things that happened right that night itself and only carry forward the happy moments of the day.