A special filter coffee!

Had a coffee at this stall at chennai domestic terminal. I didn't see this board stating it is a special stall (with ordering instructions) nor did i realise i am talking to a specially abled person at counter who couldn't hear/speak. I was a bit embarrassed of how i have become insensitive of others over years.

It has been years since i interacted with someone who couldn't hear. I had a childhood neighbor and friend with whom i used to interact and learnt a bit on how to use sign language. Over the years i lost touch with him once we moved out of my town, and also forgot to use it.

For a few moments all those memories flashed over my mind while I was enjoying the filter coffee delivered by him. It was heartening to see companies/startups being inclusive of everyone in the society!

Unexpected Guest On a Sunday Night!

Last Friday I applied for passport for my mom and my son. I filled the entire application online, it was a seamless, I pre-booked the appointment. I went to the passport office few minutes before appointment time. We were allowed inside immediately, it was hot summer afternoon, thanks to the air conditioned office.

All the processes completed within half an hour, they had facilities to photocopy our document at minimal charges. The office had facilities for potable drinking water, clean rest rooms and Cafe. Though all of the above I have already experienced few years back, I felt that process have improved much faster. I received instant SMS alerts on my status of the passport application even while I was applying.

My son's passport did not require police verification so I got the message that it got approved. For my mom since it was a fresh passport and without dependents passport as proof it required police verification.

I got Email and SMS alerts that the police verification has been initiated on saturday afternoon, but no other followup happened and I totally forgot about it.

Few minutes back around 9:00 p.m. Sunday night I heard someone ringing my calling bell. I opened the door and there was a tall guy in plain clothes, he enquired my mom's name and said he has come for verification. I welcomed in home, offered him water which he politely refused.

He spoke to my mom, cross checked the details and took a photo of her and signature in a tablet. I asked him if he worked on sundays, he said yes and infact his duty started at 7pm. He is part of local intelligence. I enquired about the working conditions and nature of work, it was interesting. They were busy with election secutiry as well. He didn't show any sign of looking for a bribe as we would usually assume/think. He politely excused himself and left. 

Two things i wanted to convey from this post. One, hats off to passport services and TCS for making it seamless process with absolutely no bribes or kickbacks and making it totally digital with tablets and online.

Next hats off to the police officers working day and night to keep us safe and secured even though they are under-staffed and over-worked! 

#Passport #Police #HashJag #TCS

What goes around, comes around!

A person of third gender dressed as a woman boarded the local train I was travelling today and was clapping at people to demand money. People either handed over some money unwillingly or looked away rigidly, I could sense an uncomfortable feeling around. When this person came to me and clapped, I couldn't look away, at the same time I didn't have change either. I just said "Sorry I don't have change, Sister!". She shockingly looked straight into my eyes as if she heard some alien word, stayed silent for two seconds, nodded her head as a gesture of acceptance and left the place without looking back as if the words meant more to her than any money! 

Few months later:
I was at the fuel station few moments back filling fuel for my car. I got out to check the meter reading and to pay. There came two well dressed, dusky looking women, actually they were dressed up as women but are of third gender. They came up to me and requested for some money, they spoke decent English. I just replied saying I don't have change and showed my wallet. Both of them nodded their head in understanding and said with a broad smile "Wish you a very happy new year BROTHER!" and walked away. You may recall that I had addressed a women of third gender as "SISTER" in a local train ride few months back. Today some stranger of third gender addresses me as "BROTHER". Is this mere coincidence, I don't know. But for sure, this is a new year wish which will stay in my memories for long. Let's start this new year with whatever small but positive action/help/deed that we could do. What goes around, comes around! ‪#‎HashJag‬ ‪#‎RespectPeople‬

To Help or Not to?

I Was at the pharmacy to buy some medicines for my grandma. An youngster who looked like one from a North-Eastern state came and requested medicines for some illness. The pharmacist gave him three pair of tablets and demanded ₹22. The youngster's face turned disappointed, he said he just needed two of those. The puzzled pharmacist asked him why. The youngster said "I don't have enough money" and handed over ₹10 to the pharmacist and took away just two of those tablets. I was standing there saddened and in a dilemma if I should help, my ego wanted to make a hero out of me. But something in that youngster's attitude prevented me from doing that. Though he didn't have enough money, he didn't sound sympathetic, sad nor did he ask for credit. He seemed to be clear and confident on what he had and could afford. Probably I didn't want to shatter his confidence or make him feel inferior or awkward and I am quite sure he would have refused even if I had offered help. Still I am not sure if what i did is right, but this incident keeps rolling in my thoughts. Just think for a moment and appreciate how blessed we are to have the life we have! ‪#‎HashJag‬ ‪#‎AppreciateLife‬

Facebook can save lives!

I was just wondering why Facebook doesn't provide an option to capture or display our blood group in the about me section or elsewhere in FB. This could be of great help for us, as well as to others in need. 


If you feel that's a good idea, you could provide your feedback to FB by doing the below 4 steps: (It's fairly simple and won't take more than 2 minutes of your time)
-> Click the down arrow on the right hand top corner of your FB page
-> select "Report a problem"
-> select "General Feedback"
-> Provide your feedback or just copy and paste the below text.
Hello there,
I highly appreciate the facilities provided by Facebook. I would like to suggest you to provide an option in the about me column where users can update their blood group details and share it to friends/public and a provision to search people by blood group as well. This might help during a self emergency or to help someone in need of Blood.
Thanks!


I feel that more the number of feedback they receive the higher the chances of FB considering the suggestion. Do share if you believe this will help someone in someway at sometime. Happy weekend!


"Everyone is trying to accomplish something big, not realizing that life is made up of little things." - Frank A. Clark

The Best Birthday Gift Ever!

I never intended to write this blog, never. But the reason why I am doing it is out of compulsion from my own mind. It was my birthday last Monday and it was just as normal as any other day. No big celebrations, no treats, no parties, no cake-cutting events but still it was the most memorable day for me. I don’t buy the concept of celebrating any day that is just for the sake of remembering something. Also I am not comfortable in celebrating my birthdays, I am not sure of the reason though, maybe it is because it reminds me that I am getting older or I just have one more year less to live or maybe because I am not someone who is born with a silver spoon to have accustomed to this ceremony. But I do enjoy being in a friend’s birthday party just because it makes them happy. I haven’t displayed my birthday in the social networking sites and the likes just to avoid getting emails or messages from someone whom I have never met  or maybe seen once at a friend’s wedding wishing me just for the sake of clearing their birthday reminder updates.

I bet the social networking sites makes the best out of it than the people who are celebrating their birthdays. To my surprise, most of the wishes that I got were from my insurance agent, the shop where I bought a pair of jeans few months back and my company website application once I logged in, most of it were automated system generated mails or short messages which just meant nothing. Of course many of my close friends called up to wish me; these guys may forget their birthdays but not mine. I honestly have to accept the fact that I don’t remember anyone’s birthday except mine, My Mom’s and the birthdays of great leaders. The last one because we get a holiday and everyone who has a calendar remembers it. I don’t even remember by dad’s birthday but that doesn’t mean I don’t love my dad, don’t know if I have to regret for that. So that shows my memory power or my lack of interest in celebrating birthdays or both.

I got a call around 8 PM when I was busy at office from a friend who is abroad, he wished me for my birthday and said that he would send a gift, I gently denied any gifts and said that just his wishes would do and winded up the conversation. I got a mail in a couple of hours from a website called giveindia.org and it stated that on behalf of me my friend has donated money for an orphanage to serve three meals for the day for 40 orphans in their institute. I was spellbound seeing this mail, I had visited this site the day before when I was searching for some information on google but I was unaware that this site is so popular or my friend would know it and I was aghast by the coincidence.

If a person’s birthday can feed a few people and eliminate their hunger or give education to a poor child or help someone in some way, I definitely don’t mind celebrating birthdays and would even welcome it. My Mom and Dad used to visit a home for disabled children and provide them a meal on special occasions like birthdays and wedding anniversaries apart from that we never had any grand celebrations or parties. All this was when we were at my hometown, as we moved on to the metro life, life got faster and they grew older and they couldn’t follow it strictly.

Now after seeing that such a facility is being provided online, I now really feel proud of being an information technology professional. I never mind promoting a noble cause and thought I could do my bit by writing this post. This post is certainly not about my simplicity or my friend’s generosity or the friendship between us but it is about charity, donation and service mentality. We could start giving with what we have it could be time, money, food or anything that can help someone in some way. 

Theory of irrelevancies!

Hi there, welcome to my blog, appreciate your interest in following my posts. I was just lying in my bed and these weird thoughts kept rolling over my mind. When I try to put things in to perspective I thought this whole world to be full of contradictions and irrelevancies. So let me start with my story, an Instrumentation engineer turned Software engineer, but it isn’t uncommon to find electrical, electronics, mechanical or civil engineers turning in to software engineers. The interesting fact is that there are more software engineers from other backgrounds than those pursued computer science as their major discipline.

Think over it, this isn’t just about software profession, the examples are many, many IITians going to IIMs, Doctors becoming IAS officers, Engineers becoming managers/ entrepreneurs, Scientists becoming poets, MBAs becoming cine actors, Spiritual Gurus turning Management Gurus and so on. The examples doesn’t end here it includes the people at the top as well, our honourable prime minister Mr.Manmohan Singh an Economist turned politician,  former President Mr.Abdul Kalam - a Professor turned scientist turned President, Barrack Hussain Obama - a lawyer turned politician. All this is just the tip of an iceberg, so if you are a chemical engineer and your prospects seem bleak, who knows you might turn out to be the most sort after fashion designer.

If you look at history, the most embarrassing failures were the ones who turned out to be the most successful people, take for instance Thomas Alwa Edison who invented thousand ways for failing as he says it. There are these weird happenings, you see most of the successful people like Warren Buffet and Bill Gates who struggle to go all the way to the top, get everything that they would want for generations, earn all the wealth and finally donate it to charity and involve themselves in to service. Lesson to be learnt from them is that, if you want to go to the top and earn a lot to give back to the society, better start serving with what you have now.

For all those who say we are giving back to the society from high net-worth individuals (HNI) to big corporates, “why did you take the wealth and resources from the society in the first place?” or are you going to say that they didn’t take anything from the society at all. And here comes another set of people who go to the top and show that they never care about their wealth and are very simple, if they were really that simple why don’t they write-off all their wealth to the poor like Buffet did. So what’s all this fuss about life, career, success and service, I really couldn’t understand.

Coming back to my story, how all the blogging that I do now started has much to do with this theory, I observed this weird trend of people who studied in IITs and IIMs turn out to be successful writers. I had these plans of getting in to IIMs as everyone does (underline the word “plans”), so when all these people coming out of IIMs themselves turn out to be writers why waste a valuable seat in the IIM, So I took off to writing directly. By that way I have given back an IIM seat to the society, Also I got rid of one potential competitor at least till he completes his degree. If that isn’t a reason enough to believe why I’m not in to IIM at least I believe it is a reason enough to believe why I took to writing :)

Rose, I am in love!

Welcome back to yet another post of mine. Thanks for all your encouragement and for continuously following my blog. I was really surprised to meet a friend of mine after quite a few years, adding to my surprise the first thing he enquired was about my blog and not me. He enquired in a loud voice “Buddy, how’s your new post coming up? Your blog is really good”, he has been following my blog for quite some time when he was at an onsite assignment in the US. Just a small note of appreciation from him made the rest of my day! And yes what everyone of us need is that small little appreciation that keeps us going, drives things without boredom and makes our lives cheerful and interesting both personally and professionally.

So I start by thanking my friend for being the driving force to write this post. Any credits should go to him and the blame to me. Don’t forget to point out my mistakes or oppose my point of view, you are always welcome to comment, be it of any sign (positive or negative). After working late the night before, I was well asleep in the morning until my mobile phone alarm started singing, I got up after snoozing it for the fifth time wondering if had mistakenly reduced the snooze time to one minute, but no it was the same five minutes that I had previously set. Well I guess Einstein’s theory of relativity applies to our sleep as well, five minutes of sleep looks less than a minute while asleep and the reverse is true when you are waiting in a traffic signal.

I got out of bed and came out to the balcony to get some fresh air and noticed a small rose plant in a clay flower pot in the balcony, a beautiful little rose has blossomed in it. Noticing it, all the drowsiness in me disappeared in a moment; this small flower gave me a refreshing feeling. I enquired my Mom about the new plant and she said that she had bought it that morning. Out of curiousness I went further and asked her “how much did it cost?” and she replied “eighty rupees!” I have never imagined an amount as little as eighty rupees can do this magic, and what struck my mind was this anonymous saying “Beautiful things in life don’t cost you much” and yes I felt the saying as true that moment.

This is the rose at my home!

From that day I adopted that plant and started watering it twice a day, and I somehow get a feeling of fulfillment and satisfaction after watering it every time. I get curious to know if it has grown any bigger, every time I water it. I feel a sense of pride in serving this beautiful living being, it really makes sense to me even though this little plant has just got one (sense). 

In modern day flats where we live, it’s really difficult to afford to plant a tree for we lack space, but you could always buy a small flower pot and start growing a plant which you could later improvise to a little garden all this for a start up cost of just a little less than a hundred rupees.  And for all those out there, this could even mean presenting a very personal flower or a bouquet as a present or a gift to that special one and is absolutely free of cost and just full of love. Need any more reasons to buy a flower pot, better try doing it and find out for yourself!

With Roses,

Jagan

The Adventure Island!

Hi everyone, nice to see you back again through my post after quite some time.  Hope this post finds you all in good health.  It’s Friday night now and it was a wonderful week that had just passed. I was just thinking about the weekend plans and nothing worthwhile struck my mind, so just thought of connecting with you through my post. It’s been a long time and I always want to keep up with my blog.

Last weekend was one of the memorable and wonderful weekends for me; we were on a trip to Pondicherry just like that, it was totally an unplanned trip; we started off on Saturday afternoon after getting up late in the morning due to a friend’s birthday celebration last night. It was cloudy and a cool weather outside and so did the journey in the ECR (East Coast Road), though narrow at some stretches.

We had our lunch at a Dhabba on the way and continued our journey. While on our journey we found a boating place which hardly had anyone in it except a few boatmen who work for the state tourism department (TTDC). We don’t know if the gloomy weather was the reason for the desertedness or if the afternoon times here is usually like this. Out of curiosity we stopped the car and jumped out to get to the small front office present there.

The people over there were friendly and explained the various boating packages available; to our surprise they had a trip which will take us five kilometres in the backwaters to a small, less known island on the way to the Bay of Bengal. They also stated many interesting facts about the beach island, many movies have been shot at this place, for instance many scenes in the Tamil movie “Ayirathil Oruvan” were shot at this very place. So just to see how this place looks like and to see if it is worth its salt we decided to visit the place. We hired a motorboat for five of us excluding the boatman and started to sail towards the much hyped island.

As we were sailing through the back waters we could see the point where the backwaters met the Ocean (Bay of Bengal), which was really awesome to watch and to know. The journey lasted for around 15 minutes passing coconut and palm trees adding beauty to the place and the trip, the weather was just right and we were really lucky. We landed at a land resembling a beach with almost white sand that we usually see in the movies, to our surprise there was no one around this beautiful place. I haven’t seen such a beautiful place left unexploited. The air was free from pollution and the sands were free of plastic bags. The coconut trees and the backwaters just reminded me of Kerala - the God’s own country.  

After being there for about an hour the guide cum sailor alerted us that the time is over and we got to head back to our dock. We drank a tender coconut in the island and it was too good to taste, this place has really satisfied our thirst both for nature and water literally. I have posted a few pictures that were taken there in this blog, these were taken with the help of an ordinary digital camera and the pictures posted here don’t carry any photo shop or whatsoever effects. Just see if your eyes can believe it as real? If yes, what are you waiting for, pack up! 

An eye for an Eye!

Hi, I am back with my new post but this time with much less turnaround time. As stated in my previous post, unable to bear the heat I very badly wanted to go to some hilly-chilly place. One of my close friend’s sister’s marriage was nearing which is in Bodi, a small town near Theni down south. So we planned for a two-in-one trip, one to escape from the heat and two to attend the wedding reception. 

We were four people who started from Chennai on Friday night, Everyone arrived at the Chennai Metropolitan Bus station (CMDA), Koyembedu at the last minute due to huge traffic pile up which usually happens on every Friday night due to large number of people traveling for the weekend. We had a quick dinner and boarded the bus to Bodi, a decent semi-sleeper with a television on it. They played a recent Tamil movie titled “Paiyaa”, as I have watched it already I switched my ipod on and started listening to some music. 

The morning we reached Bodi, My friend came to receive us. Being very near to Kerala, the town was greenish with lot of coconut trees and hills surrounding it. The place was cool and the weather was perfect due to the south-west monsoon that has just started. We went to my friend’s home, refreshed and started off to Munnar via Thekkady. As the wedding reception was on Sunday evening we planned for this trip starting Saturday till Sunday evening. A separate mini bus was arranged for the purpose. Now, we are around 10 members who are traveling to Munnar.

The trip was awesome, the scenery was too good, the silvery waterfalls, the greenery, the tea estates, Boating places, Dams, Hair pin bends and many more to mention. At times i felt as if i was dreaming, never thought nature could be so beautiful. No doubt they call this state "The God's own country". 

Confused of what to capture on my camera and what to let go, I clicked around 600 snaps in two days, so that would give you a measure of the NBI (Natural Beauty Index). I doubt if there is something called NBI, but can't help it as I am used to metrics and indexes trying to measure even the unmeasurable like effort & productivity. 

I am really stunned by the beauty of the picture, couldn't believe i was there. If the scenery of a boat sailing in a standstill lake haunts your mind, it's time you think of taking time off for your long pending vacation.Common beat the heat, use nature to tackle nature that's what you call an eye for an eye :-)