Birthday gifting ideas !!

If u want to gift me something for my b’day, here are some good gifting ideas ..
http://www.ourwedding.in/businessdir/bangalore/florists/florists-nupurdreamz.php
U just need a mobile phone to get in touch with them. If u have a broadband connection, then its much more an easier work for u .. u don’t have to drop a cheque or send a DD. An online transfer would do .. they do accept order at the last minute !!
http://www.dailybread.co.in/premiumcake.html
Ok then, this one is an easy one as well .. An email to order. Cash on delivery !! There is nothing more for u to do :)
http://www.bookmyshow.com/
Im sure they have home delivery !! Yet another easier one for u
http://www.titanworld.com/collections/series/Raga-Diva
U can just choose anything from this collection, blind folded and u can be sure u can please me :)
http://www.sony.co.in/productcategory/it-personal-computer
There is nothing else that can beat this !!
http://www.bathandbodyworks.com/home/index.jsp
Do ask me for any help that u need to choose the best from this
http://www.rayban.com/India/
I know its so tuf to choose from this entire collection. But im sure u ll do it for me ;-)
http://www.karnataka.com/burp/
Ok, this I wud leave it to u to decide.
Ok, I think this would keep me occupied for 24 hrs. I wish atleast birth’day’ has more no.of hours than any other normal day :) :)

Changing priorities ...

We all have some idea of our purpose and where we want to be in our life, even if it’s only short term goals, rather than some grand life plan and it is important to understand how they affect and influence our priorities during different stages of our life. Making our life more interesting and worth living depends a lot on how we prioritize things. Most of us feel a sense of emptiness when we sit back and think on how we have walked past different stages of life with the attitude of mere survival and not really prioritizing our priorities. Our only goal in our life wud be to gain good education, acquire a good job which in turn gives a financial security and stability and get into a long term committed relationship with a person whom we term as life partner. Is that all what life has to be? Well, there is much beyond all these.
Many lives will touch our hearts in the journey of our life. There are people who make an impact on us in numerous ways that help us learn a lot. Most of the times we carry the learnings forward but leave the people behind who helped us learn those. It starts with people having a great importance and transforms to only experiences with them turning to be important and not the people themselves. That’s what we say priorities change with time. Right from kindergarten until we get old, our priorities keep changing. If we take a deeper look into what actually governs the change in priorities, we wud see a pattern.
There are a lot of things than can change your priorities. In fact, usually the BIG things that come along make everything else seem so insignificant or significant that it's often hard to believe we ever allowed those little things to be on our priority list in the first place. Two BIG things that actually rearrange ur priorities are joy and grief. When life gives u ultimate happiness, the things that were important only hours before may now seem completely ridiculous. Sometimes those things even get completely erased from ur memory. People who once played an important part of ur life no longer hold the same position. The wave of changes sweeps u off to a shore of happiness with a new set of people that u really don’t see whats happening with the other people now, with whom u have shared pleasant times in the past. When u are overcome with grief and sorrow is when u think back to see how ur priorities had changed in the past. Things that u dint consider it worth spending ur time in the past now seem to be the most important ones. Things that matter to u most now were never thought about in the past. The big things that brought happiness to you now seem too far. The basics are suddenly on top of the priority list. And the only thought that lies in ur mind is how to get through the pain. This is the time when u have to remember that there will be light at the end of the path that is dark now with a light that will carry you through this rough time. Don't worry if the tears won't stop falling. Even tears have a reason. There surely will be a time when you will be so involved in living again that you will one day realize that the tears have stopped and life has been marching right along without you even realizing it.
As we move through life and get acquainted with different people around us, we are aware that many of us feel something is lacking in our lives, and yet we are uncertain what that is. Our lives have become full of tasks to do, responsibilities to shoulder, promises to keep. And a cacophony of information is thrown at us. It's hard to get clear on our own priorities. It's harder still to hear our own inner voice amidst the turmoil. But still its our life, one precious life. We cud still make it interesting and valuable by setting our priorities right at the right time.

Understanding Relationships ...

Most of my articles down here end up running for pages together. So this time I thot I ll write something short and leave it to the readers to decide if its sweet J . I don’t know how this thot came up my mind .. ‘Understanding relationships’.. as if im experienced in judging relationships, I start advising people on how to go abt a relationship and make sure it’s a healthy one .. Anyways, just few thoughts that came up in my mind .. here u go ..

Most of us are probably allured by the attractive notion that effortless relationships exist. Whether it be happily-ever-after marriages, or friendships which last forever, or parent/child bonds which supersede the need to understand each other, we'd all like to believe that our most intimate relationships are unconditional, and strong enough to withstand whatever may come. However, at some point in our lives most of us need to face the fact that relationships require effort to keep them strong and positive, and that even wonderful, strong relationships can be destroyed by neglect. The feeling of responsibility to keep the relationship alive starts with deliberate efforts and one fine day you see you are passionate about the whole thing without you taking any conscious steps to make u feel that way. Relationship cannot be built overnight. It takes years to build a strong relationship and the harder part of it is to keep it healthy. Each relationship is dynamic and unique in its own way. The real secret of healthy relationships is developing a feeling of oneness. And its not built through winning meaningless arguments. And these meaningless arguments cause a lot of damage to the relationship. Every relationship experiences ups and down during the course of time. Living through those ups and downs and to be able to understand that it’s the part and parcel of life carries the relationship forward with more optimism. While on the other hand, if it causes a broken heart it goes to the extent of re-evaluating the choices from beginning to end and reliving all the past experiences and trying to find clues that’s apparent to confirm that the relationship is coming to an end. An effort at this point of time to revive the relationship could help a lot. But then in most cases it doesn’t happen. Well, can effortless relationship ever exist ?

Bad Parenting !!

Recently I read an article in one of the magazine titled “At whom the finger points for kids taking to crime?”. The article was very well written with brutal facts in a subtle manner. Inspired by that, here Im with my new post. This is absolutely my own thoughts along with few I picked from that article. So, here u go …
There were times when people always recollected their childhood days as nostalgic moments of their life. It was considered as times of innocence and gradually experience made them learn the reality of life and prepared them to live as an adult. The key contributors to one’s childhood are loving parents, affectionate relatives and close friends. All memories of childhood in some way or the other leads to these people. They are the people who would have made an impact to their life in a profound way that memories of them always bring happiness.
Talking about parents, they give their children the best of everything they could to make their children’s life a pleasurable and a memorable one. They give them good education to be able to live independently at any point in their life, love and affection, wealth that they have acquired through hardwork and what not. Inspite of all these we still hear a lot about juvenile crimes happening everyday. Every parent spends sleepless nights thinking about their children when they get to hear such juvenile crimes. There are several reasons that could be attributed to such crimes. One definite cause of juvenile criminality is BAD PARENTING. Ofcourse, there are other things like media influence, lack of emotional quotient, exposure to technological advances at a very young age, influence from the western culture, etc.. All of these, in some way or the other, lead to bad parenting. Ultimately, all adults are responsible for the children in the society they belong to – be it good or bad.
It isn’t uncommon in today’s world, where we hear of a 17 yr old boy running away from his home to go live with his friends or relatives. Im sure the parents of the boy would nt have thought they were solely responsible for this kind of behavior of their son. Today, there are more and more kids who are involved in more serious crimes like theft, kidnapping, eve teasing, rape and even murder. The first question that comes to my mind when I hear such things are how is it that the parents of these kids dint know what their children were up to. These parents have been blind or too busy with their own preoccupations that they failed to read the warning signs at an early stage. The definitive cause of these kinds of mishaps is adult refusal to take repeated childhood misdemeanors seriously as a possible sign of things to come. If these parents do some kind of honest introspection, they are bound to realize that there were also other early warning signs that something was seriously wrong – signs that they either missed or ignored. So, unless parents are vigilant, mature and insightful besides being loving and supportive, with their children, things can go woefully wrong.
Having said that, one shdnt forget that all parents love their children so much that they blindly trust them and cant believe that they can go seriously wrong. They excuse their kids time and again and blame others for their child’s behavior. They only hope that their child will ultimately turn out to be right with the passage of time. This is why parents are often the last to come to know of the bad habits their children have got into. Sometimes they also forget that the character of their child doesn’t change with time, but changes only with experience coupled with parental love and affection. The children need to be taught what is right or wrong. Ofcourse, after certain age, children aren’t as naïve and innocent to label them as they don’t know whats right or wrong. They are certainly old enough to know at least some, if not all, of the repercussions of their actions.
Taking a deeper look into how parents’ behavior towards children actually makes them choose a wrong track, few things come to my mind. All parents want their children to be best at everything that they want their children to be. They really don’t look into what the child is interested in. Their expectation on the child is generally very high. When a parent is too rigid or strict, the child feels pressurized to do anything to please them. Mental depression sets in due to parental pressure when the child is not able to perform or live up to their expectations. They tend to have a very low self esteem and self confidence. The early stage of life turns out to be so miserable and bitter for them that when the child grows up to an adult, it starts finding happiness and pleasure in things that may not be right. It starts seeking an independent life without the interference of the parents because it thinks his parents are unreasonable, autocratic, dictatorial, lack the basic understanding and even enemy whose main aim in life is to thwart his happiness. They drift apart from their parents and their actions always remain unknown to the parents. They feel much better without a companion so that they don’t need to answer to their questions and can do what pleases them. In most cases this most often leads to truancy or running away from home due to the disharmony that exists at home.
When the child grows into an adult, (Now let me start addressing the child as ‘HE’ now as the child has grown up to an adult J.) , it doesn’t matter to him as to what he does is wrong or right as long as it give pleasure to him. He gets into wrong circle of friends, starts practicing bad habits and becomes very selfish. He becomes more egoistic and demands authority over his parents as well when he realizes his parents can’t prevent him from doing anything that gives him happiness. He also starts becoming aggressive and throws tantrums for everything that his parents tell. Such children also tend to be sexually uninhibited and inclined towards sexual aggressiveness. With the fast moving technological world, money comes to many very easily in contrast to how it was earlier. In those days, one had to work hard and save money to make a good living. But now once can go from rags to unimaginable riches with just one mega deal and make enough money for the rest of the living. This has changed the spending pattern in today’s youth. Come easy, go easy !! Youngsters start spending lavishly on fancy things and when it comes to spending money on the necessary things of life, they end up being bankrupt. Internet is yet another culprit in making a youngster turn a criminal. Internet facilitates anything starting from gambling to dating. Parents need to keep a watch on their child to see what their child accesses on the internet. U never know if ur child is reading the latest research on stem cell or making undesirable friends in chat room and visiting porn sites.
So, there is a lot that parents have to do to make sure their child isn’t going astray. Right from the early days, parents shd give their child a memorable childhood. They should understand the needs of their children, spend time to talk to them and get their children open up to them so that they are well informed of what their children is up to. Only then they can be sure that they are helping their children grow into individuals whom society will be proud of and not go about causing pain and misery to the people in the society. Parents must set good example to the young people, treat them as friends and not show authority over their children. Children, especially boys, tend to idealize their fathers when they are young. Every little boy wants to grow up to be just like daddy, and every little girl thinks their father is the smartest man on this earth. It's not very easy to be a good dad, but it's not that difficult either. What does take more effort however is to be a superb dad. A dad your children will truly enjoy spending time with, not just when they are kids, but even when they are adults. It actually requires an extremely sensitive handling. This apart, a mother and father together contribute to the behavior of their child. Any day you see people in the society find a child with bad behaviour, the fingers would turn to the parents for being responsible for such a kind of behavior.
At the end of this I should say Im indeed grateful to my parents for their unstinted support and love and affection all thru my life. Im very proud of my parents and im sure my parents have been my role models.

Man Woman Relationship

There is a stark difference in the manner of communication between the sexes, often resulting in misunderstandings and tiffs. Its imperative that they understand each other's verbal and non-verbal languages so as to establish a better rapport between themselves.
For men, communication is a means of imparting and receiving information from someone. For women, it is far beyond factual exchange. It is an emotional as well as psychological expression of a personally .Relationship becomes complicated because of this difference. Women feel ignored when men don’t respond to their elaborate talk where as a man feels that he is not ignoring but just answering in monosyllables simply b'cos he has nothing more to say. The feeling of being ignored makes women feel lonelier. Women generally give vent to their piled up feeling thru tears, most often crying in solitude.
Understanding each others' way of talking, expressing things would certainly build up the relationship. Men think in terms of concrete content while women think in abstract terms. While talking men concentrate more on content while women care more for emotions and feelings. That’s the basic difference that makes men often say "Its difficult to understand women". But the truth is that they never make an attempt to understand women.
Women take pleasure in talking b'cos for them it is an expression of their personality , an emotional release as well as an art. Men often seek straight forward solution to problems and useful advice, where as women tend to try and establish intimacy by discussing problems and showing concern and empathy in order to reinforce relationship.
When woman recount some problems to her intimate one, he generally tries to solve the problem and gives advice. Women are often offended by this approach. Men don’t understand that the women are not seeking solution but are seeking sympathy and love. A few encouraging words of love and concern is all she needs.
Communication is a two-way process. Talking is one half of it. Listening is other half. Interaction between two people is complete only when they understand, acknowledge and react to each other. We talk to express ourselves. A successful interaction is one in which the speaker and the listener both understand each other. If the listener does not understand what the speaker is trying to convey, then the purpose of talking is defeated.
This is a common thing that happens in almost all conversation between a man and a woman. Woman tries to express with all her feelings expecting something in return only to know in the end that her expectations have been destroyed.
In fact, the "war of sexes" often results because of these differences in interpreting the same message. The difference is mostly in interpreting "between the lines" meaning. Women generally read more in between the lines landing up in what was never meant by men. Women, to a greater extent than men are sensitive to the interpersonal meaning that lie "between the lines" in the messages they exchange with their mates.
In most cases, women tend to be the relationship specialist and men tend to be task specialist. Women are typically the experts in "rapport talk" which refers to the types of communication that build, maintain and strengthen relationships. Rapport talks reflect skills of talking, nurturing, emotional expression, empathy and support. Men are typically experts in ask accomplishment and addressing questions about facts.
Anytime you feel disappointed, surprised or angry with your counterpart ask yourself if he/she has "misheard" you . Is the other responding to your problems with a solution when you craved for sympathy? Is the other responding to your message of affection with the message of love equally?
Love can conquer all difficulties. For loving mates, it becomes easy to make right interpretations. The only way to understand a woman is to love her and then it isn’t necessary to understand her. The only way to understand a man is to be happy with the single line responses and then it inst necessary to understand him.

Friendship

Ancient Greek philosophers truly revered the concept of friendship, and spent much of their time defining, shaping, and discovering the answer to a phenomenal question: What exactly are the components of true friendship? In essence, friendship is based on a companionship involving mutual love, self-love, virtue, and hard work. Nature has no love for solitude, and always leans, as it were, on so support; and the sweetest support is found in the most intimate friendship.
Can you imagine what life would be like without them? Who would you hang out with in the cafeteria during lunch? Who would you tell about the new love in your history class who’s both cute and smart? Who would you have those marathon phone conversations with, you know, the ones that drive your parents crazy? As one grows older, their view on friendship changes and the group of friends they had becomes smaller. Youngsters seek integration in the peer group, they are inclined to distance themselves from social control, parents and other authorities. As a young child, friendship does not really exist, the friends that a child really has is more like an encounter. Playing with another child one day and then going home, that was that until the two kids happen to meet again, which is generally in preschool. When a child is playing with another child it is as if everything revolves around each child’s needs. As the youngster proceeds into the elementary grades they begin to understand that friendship is more than just a playmate. They start to see their friend’s point of view, share secrets, plans and feelings and help seek solutions.
A Definition of a Friendship is not simply a "relationship", knowing someone, conversing with that person, or dealing with that person in business, school, or in casual acquaintance. True friendship is not just a "relationship", but self-sacrificing love. A friend is also one who supports, sympathizes, and is a person in whom you can confide. There are unique qualities that a person must have to be considered a friend. An acquaintance is not automatically considered a friend. Just because you know someone does not mean there is an instant friendship. This does not mean that an acquaintance cannot change into a valued friendship. There are qualities that a friend must have, but time is also a factor. A friendship can develop in as short as a day, or it could take as long as a few years for full development. In the end, if time is taken for full development, then a real friendship will develop. The main way that trust is built up is with time.
People today, in all this new world technology and thinking have lost sight of what a true friendship is. No way do friends have to be exactly the same, they do have their differences. The key to opening up the world of friendship is not just to focus on the similarities but to accept each others faults because true friends do not judge each other. Friends love unconditionally. They do have their little angry moments from time to time but at the end of the day all is forgiven and forgotten. Why let something that happened in the past ruin what great friendship you could have together in the future?
Friendship in itself means sacrifice without the knowledge of the person for whom one sacrifices. Ever since mankind evolved, friendship too came into existence and this relationship will never vanish from the life of mankind.

Trivikram Prasad - Man of words & actions

It was joyous moment for me when I was called by Harsha to convey the news that I have been offered a job at Intel. It was a dream come true. This happiness did not last long when he told me that im going to working for the Planning team. I was then an intern with the Knowledge Management team. I loved this team so much that I felt more sad when I knew that I not was going to be a part of that team. The HR informed me that the manager of the Planning team, Mr.Trivikram Prasad wanted to hand over the offer to me personally. My first meeting with Trivikram Prasad did not create a very great impression abt him in me. Little did I know at that time this person will impact my career and life in numerous ways. June 14, 2004, I stepped into Intel as a proud employee. The Planning team then had 11 people including me. I was allotted to a project along with one more of my senior team mate for which the clients were in US. For about 6 months or so, I was trying to learn the project as much as I can so that in due course of time I ll be able to handle it independently cos my partner was supposed to move out of the project once im able to handle everything myself. Lot of motivation and support from Triv made me learn everything at a quick pace. It was then time for me to manage the project independently. To give a brief outline of the project and its ppl, the team consisted of couple of project managers, customers from the US and a sole developer, myself, from India. It was a support and maintenance kind of project where in there are bug fixes and enhancements that are needed to be done on a continuous basis. This project catered to the needs for a R&D site, and so the enhancements demanded were more than expected. Working in this project for abt 1.5 yrs was a nightmare for me. My works normally starts every day at abt 8pm and goes till 2 or 3 in the morning. Since I was the sole being in India and rest of the team worked from US, I was always the scape goat to work during odd hours. Its not easy for anyone to work during those time everyday. But then it was possible for me and that’s b cos of the motivation that I got from Triv. He was a person who could encourage people with his pleasant words. He considers his team to be his family and makes sure that the family runs smooth. Quoting his words “You know what..if there's an attack on me, i dont really give a damn..but I consider this team to be my family and when we get unduly hit, it riles me. i can get really nasty”. The first time I escalated the concerns I had in working with the project team, he made sure he escalated it to the people concerned to work out on a solution for that. This line of his hit me badly and I realized that I have to put in my best efforts not to earn recognitions from people over the team but to make Triv feel that I did my best. Since then what mattered to me most was how my work made an impact on Triv in a positive manner. There are times when I have told him that he is the best manager I have ever worked and he says very meekly “Im doing my job”. His humility and interpersonal style is a genuine pleasure to work for him.
There were few of his words/lines which had a great influence on me and made me do my best. Its just not about work. If those words are taken to heart, im sure it ll help anyone to deal with anything in life. Quoting few of them here, “ give them hell,you have my full support”;” we got to break up each problem for americans..and give it one at a time..wait for them to understand and then move on”;” you will be the stronger for this experience..believe me i have dealt with worse people in Intel, each experience helps you come out wiser and stronger. Always try not to let it affect your personal life or emotion..after all its just work. End of the day..your life is more important..this is just a job. its not easy to separate out.. i got the hang of it after many years. take it easy..dont let it get to you. put both your hands on your shoulders, stretch your hands up and breathe out saying 'Let go' “ . “Great job on the reporting out of the issue today. Everyone (who matters) was impressed . That's all it is...a little goes a long way. Remember its not how much time you put in, but what you deliver that matters. Now you know how to present info in a way they can understand so it'll make working with them much easier” Who would not be motivated with such words ? I became an ardent admirer of Triv as days passed by. There are so many things to learn from him, not only as a manager at work but also as a person. At work, he is so flexible to adjust or extend his work timings and he is always available when ever I needed his expert assistance. When ever I needed his help to speak to the higher managers he always guided me on how to express the concerns to them in a way that would lead to right solutions. The way he explains to me “Let him know the limitations in an objective manner rather than make it look like you are complaining” . This way he made me learn how to speak to people constructively. One best thing that I have noticed about him is that he doesn’t maintain “Im ur manager, u r my employee” kind of relationship. He treats everyone equally. He is such a fun loving person. His sense of humor coupled with his presence of mind can take u off to a world of happiness forgetting all ur worries and miseries. Team quarterlies, team dinners, Friday lunches, movies were joyous moments with Triv. But this happiness did not last long. It was a shock and surprise for every one of us in our team when we heard from Triv that he is planning to quit intel. Although I knew that it is for his good, feeling of missing such a nice manager made me feel very upset. I consider myself to be very unfortunate to have not been able to work for him for a long time. But I still deem it a great privilege to have worked with him for nearly 3 years. Every day, every minute spent with Triv is something I ll always treasure throughout my lifetime. It was a great lerning experience. Professionally and personally I could see his words and actions influenced me a lot. Its said that, there ll be many people who ll influence ur life in more than one way. Yes, Triv is one such person who has made a difference in my life in a very positive way. Im very grateful to him for all his motivation and support. If not for him, im sure I would nt be here in Intel sitting peacefully and writing few lines about him :) :)