Democratic Republic...!

Today after so many years I attended the celebration ceremony of Republic day of India at my daughter’s school. This was only the second time I visited her school, first being at the time of her admission in Junior KG 11 years ago…! That doesn’t make be a bad or uncaring parent as my practically smart spouse is shouldering all the responsibility of my daughter’s schooling and everything, cheerfully. A woman understands a woman better, I guess and that is not the subject matter of this post anyway!

It was an extremely exciting, enthralling and overwhelming experience for n no. of things this morning…

1.       It was almost 21 years or so I joined the Republic Day Celebration personally… what a shame, I know!

2.       I missed all those years I spent as a student and what a bubbling proud student of my school.

3.       I deeply regretted not coming to my daughter’s school for all these years.

4.       The atmosphere at school was mesmerizing with the charm and enthusiasm of the youngsters.

5.       I can see the light at the end of the tunnel…!

Some sad and disquieting observations…

1.       Only the parents whose pupils were participating in a performance tend to attend. This applies to me as well and we need to think over it… why is it so and what could be done?

2.       Parents were interested only is seeing their pupil perform and were absolutely reluctant to pay attention to anything else including Chief Guest’s Address to the audience. This does not apply to me at all.

3.       Parents lacked the discipline completely and even showed indifference by causing disturbance to the proceedings. Again I was the exception here.

4.       The little smart girl anchoring the whole program was a delight to watch but it was pathetic to see the unresponsive attitude of parents towards her requests, specially after every performance or event she has to ask the audience to appreciate it with applaud. May be the audience has lost the sense that they were watching it ‘LIVE’ and not on their Stupid Box.

5.       Nobody thought of congratulating the Principal and Teachers of the school for putting all this so nicely together OR thanking the Chief Guest as he was Retired Major General who fought wars for us – the Indians. I did. I will even write to them to express my feelings, in time.

The encouraging and uplifting things and messages of the event…

1.       Girl’s initiative and contribution is heartening and Major even expressed a threat to boys to become more active and math-up with the girls. What a revolutionary thing for INDIA!

2.       Major also reminded the youngsters that they are fortunate 15% who has the privilege of having such a school for their overall development. 85% of Indian children are deprived of it.

3.       Major appealed to the youngsters to ‘Vote’ sensibly as our entire constitution is based on democracy and we cannot do without the politicians. Will Pakistan learn something?

4.       The entire even was conducted and performed by the students and teacher’ participation was just facilitating the activities by keeping in the background. What a perfect lesson for all the Senior as well as ‘Junior’ citizens…!

5.       We are not done yet… these 15% will bring along the remaining 85% and we would see the Bharat Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore envisaged once…!

Jai Hind!

You can check the Magic Moments here –http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.520187871349405.118825.1000007459152...

Garbage Truck...!

One day I hopped in a taxi and we took off for the airport.  We were driving in the right lane when suddenly a black car jumped out of a parking space right in front of us.

My taxi driver slammed on his brakes, skidded, and missed the other car by just inches!  The driver of the other car whipped his head around and started yelling at us.  My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy.  And I mean, he was really friendly.

So I asked, 'Why did you just do that?  This guy almost ruined your car and sent us to the hospital!'

This is when my taxi driver taught me what I now call, 'The Law of the Garbage Truck.'

He explained that many people are like garbage trucks.  They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment.

As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it and sometimes they'll dump it on you.  Don't take it personally.

Just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on.  Don't take their garbage and spread it to other people at work, at home, or on the streets.

The bottom line is that successful people do not let garbage trucks take over their day.  Life's too short to wake up in the morning with regrets, so ... Love the people who treat you right.  Pray for the ones who don't.

Life is ten percent what you make it and ninety percent how you take it!

Don't forget to check out the source: http://davidjpollay.typepad.com/david_j_pollay/lawofthegarbagetruck.html

Perception...!

A blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet. He held up a sign which said - 

“I am blind, please help.”

There were only a few coins in the hat.

A man was walking by. He took a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat. He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words. He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by would see the new words.

Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy. That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were.

The boy recognized his footsteps and asked, “Were you the one who changed my sign this morning? What did you write?”

The man said, “I only wrote the truth. I said what you said but in a different way.”

What he had written was -

“Today is a beautiful day and I cannot see it.”

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CAN YOU...!?!

 

Smart...!

Original Story

There was once a washer man who had a donkey and a dog. One night when the whole world was sleeping, a thief broke into the house, the washer man was fast asleep too but the donkey and the dog were awake. The dog decided not to bark since the master did not take good care of him and wanted to teach him a lesson.

The donkey got worried and said to the dog that if he doesn't bark, the donkey will have to do something himself. The dog did not change his mind and the donkey started braying loudly.

Hearing the donkey bray, the thief ran away, the master woke up and started beating the donkey for braying in the middle of the night for no reason.

Original Moral

“One must not engage in duties other than his own"

Management Version

The washer man was a well educated man from a premier management institute. He had the fundas of looking at the bigger picture and thinking out of the box. He was convinced that there must be some reason for the donkey to bray in the night.. He walked outside a little and did some fact finding, applied a bottom up approach, figured out from the ground realities that there was a thief who broke in and the donkey only wanted to alert him about it. Looking at the donkey's extra initiative and going beyond the call of the duty, he rewarded him with lot of hay and other perks and became his favourite pet.

The dog's life didn't change much, except that now the donkey was more motivated in doing the dog's duties as well. In the annual appraisal the dog managed "ME" (Met Expectations) .

Soon the dog realized that the donkey is taking care of his duties and he can enjoy his life sleeping and lazing around.

The donkey was rated as “star performer". The donkey had to live up to his already high performance standards.

Soon he was over burdened with work and always under pressure and now is looking for a NEW JOB...

Management Moral

When you hire people who are smarter than you, you ought to prove you are smarter than them...!

CLO...?

Windmill...!

There is an ancient Chinese proverb that goes

“When the wind of change blows, some people build walls,

OTHERS BUILD WINDMILLS...”
 
Change can cause people to become frightened.  They want to stay with what’s known even when it’s rendered obsolete.
 
Life teaches us that the only constant is change.  We make changes all the time, some big and some small.  The big changes may be frightening because they mean that life will never be exactly the same.
 
Living esteem daily makes us capable of allowing changes to come into our life.  Integrating esteem into our life makes us self-confident and balanced.  Having such a strong self-esteem we don’t fear change, especially change which is necessary to bring us further in our life.
 
Esteem transforms us into people who build windmills when the wind of change blows because we know that besides change there is another great constant moment of our life: it’s esteem.

Posted by Cecilia under: Art and Culture on Esteem News

Gita...!

One does not attain freedom from the bondage of Karma
by merely abstaining from work.
No one attains perfection merely by giving up work

Because no one can remain actionless even for a moment.
Everyone is driven to action, helplessly indeed,
by the Gunas of nature

The deluded ones, who restrain their organs of action
but mentally dwell upon the sense of enjoyment,
are called hypocrites

The one who controls the senses by the mind and intellect
and engages the organs of action to Nishkam Karma-yoga
is superior, O Arjuna

Perform your obligatory duty,

because action is indeed better than inaction.

Even the maintenance of your body
would not be possible by inaction

Shri Krishna to Arjuna in the Bhagwad Gita

Who am I...?

Mentality...!

One day the guards presented a man in King Akbar’s court.

One of the guards said, ‘Your Majesty, he is a man caught for taking bribe’.

‘What was he working as?’ asked the king.

‘Your Majesty, he is the officer in charge of the granary’.

‘Put him in prison. I will think of his punishment later on’.

 

Then Birbal said, ‘A corrupt man will take bribes whatever position he may hold’.

 

A courtier got up and said, ‘I beg your pardon but I do not believe this, there are some jobs in which one can not take any bribe at all’.

‘All right,’ said Birbal, ‘I will put this corrupt man to the job you suggest and we will see what he does’.

So, the courtier said, ‘Give him the job of counting the waves in the river Yamuna. I am sure he can not take bribe in such a futile task’.

King Akbar and Birbal agreed. The corrupt man was called from the prison. He was told to sit by the river Yamuna the whole day and count waves.

Some days passed, one day king Akbar asked, ‘Birbal is there any complaint against the man whom we had punished for talking bribes?’

The courtier intervened, ‘There is no news, your majesty, I told you, and he cannot take bribes there.’

To this, Birbal said, ‘We will go there tomorrow morning and see for ourselves’.

 

The next day at dawn Birbal, the courtier and King Akbar disguised themselves as fishermen. They took a boat, a net and went out to the river Yamuna. They rowed nearer to the shore where the man was sitting, with a pen and a paper in hands and was busy in nothing. As they neared him, he got up and shouted, ‘Hey, who are you? What are you doing here? Do you know you have interfered with some work being done by Royal orders? I have been appointed to count waves in the river. Now you have come and disturbed me. You will be punished for this.’

‘But sir, we are poor fishermen.’ ‘All right, you will have to pay a fine of a hundred gold coins.’

‘Be kind sir. We do not have so much but….’

‘You can manage to give me fifty gold coins, cannot you?’ the man said.

 

But one of the fishermen said angrily, ‘He asking for a hundred and I will give him,’ saying this, he took –off his disguise. He was King Akbar. The man stepped back in shock.

‘I will give you a hundred lashes on your back,’ the king said to the man.

Then he said to Birbal,

‘You were right Birbal. A corrupt man will find ways to take bribe whatever the job he is in.’

 

 

The courtier did not have anything to say. The corrupt officer was given a hundred lashes and put prison...

What...!?! That's it. I just remembered this story and wanted to share it with you! You read it, reflect on it, share it, forget it or... A-C-T on it, I don't care...!?!