One of the loveliest National Anthems - Jan Gan Man

Bharat ka Rashtra-Geet (National Anthem of the Amazing India) : 
Jan Gan Man (or Jana Gana Mana)
 
जन-गण-मन-अधिनायक जय हे भारतभाग्यविधाता! 
   Oh! the ruler of the mind of the people, Long live, dispenser of the destiny of India!

पंजाब सिन्धु गुजरात मराठा द्राविड़ उत्कल बंग विंध्य हिमाचल यमुना गंगा उच्छलजलधितरंग 
   Punjab, Sind, Gujrat, Maharastra, Drabir (South India), Orissa, and Bengal, the Bindhya, the Himalayas, the Jamuna, the Ganges, and the oceans with foaming waves all around

तव शुभ नामे जागे, तव शुभ आशिष मागे, गाहे तव जयगाथा 
   Wake up listening to Your auspicious name, ask for your auspicious blessings, And sing to your glorious victory.

जन-गण-मंगलदायक जय हे भारतभाग्यविधाता! 
   Oh! You who impart well being to the people! Long live, dispenser of the destiny of India!

जय हे,जय हे, जय हे, जय जय जय हे॥ 
   Long live! Long live! Long live!

Watch the real thing on Youtube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77i8kH-Iw8Q

Problem with Naaptol

Objective :
I just wish to write about my recent poor experience with naaptol.

Background :
I wished to buy an exercise machine (a walker). I found it on Naaptol. I also know it as a heavily advertised site in Times Of India. I found out from 1 person that Naaptol had not treated him well.

What I did :
I still took a chance and disregarded the feedback as one-off, hoping that a site encouraged by ToI must be good. I placed the order on 7th Jan, 2011. It was showing the order status as "Payment received" on the website. I called them after placing the order to make sure everything was alright. The customer service rep. mentioned that the item will be with me in 7-10 business days.

Fun Starts :
I waited for 15 days & received nothing. I logged in to check the status : It was still showing the same old order status as "Payment received" on the website. This put me off a little. I called the customer care again.

Pathetic & non-responsive customer service :
When I called, a CS rep. again reiterated - "It will be there in 7-10 days" ;-) . To my surprise, he didn't care when I placed the order. It was already about 20 days after placing the order & this person still wants me to agree to their useless promise of 7-10 days ! I started getting some hints there itself. On this day, they somehow changed my order status to "Order verified" & then sat down it again for next 10-15 days :-) . I also sent a enuqiry / complaint email after my call to their customer care ID (ceo@naaptol.com), only to never receive any response. The mail content were -
"Hi, I've placed this order more than 20 days ago - 1216735 . It's still showing "order verified" ! What are you people doing ? It should have been at my house by now ! Pathetic service. Nobody has even called me or emailed to inform about the delay. What's the delay ? Please provide more information about my shipment immediately. I will not order anything from naaptol again."

Story continues :
After waiting for few more days, the status still remained at "order verified" , UNTIL I CALLED their customer care again ! I was understanding their trend of working here (learnings are never bad ;-) ) - till you call they sleep on it and don't care about any orders; only when we call, they wake up, change status to the next one & sleep again :-) ! Kind of fun, isn't it ? Ah ! One more thing, after 45 days passed, whenever I called customer care, the rep would say "the item is in your area already & should be delivered very soon". That "soon" HAPPENED after 20 days from 45th day :-) !

Pre-epilogue :
Tired of calling and talking to the foolish people who repeat the "7-10 days" line like a parrot, I called them to cancel & process a refund. I raised an official refund request & wrote to customer crae ID (CEO email) multiple times, without any response. They never called / emailed / explained their delay.

The fools finally end it :
Suddenly, on about 65th day from my order and after my official refund request (about 12-14th Apr, 2011), the box appeared at my doorstep & it was from Naaptol ! Now, I can understand the pain of the person whose review I read before ordering , but had ignored. The box had this product shabbily packed, without any documentation - no usage instructions at all. The box also wasn't of this product; PLUS the product also doesn't bear any company's name, no voltage specifications ! Anyway, the product at least works, otherwise I would have to talk to the pathetic people again to return it.

Conclusion :
Remember, the order arrived after I placed an offical refund request, 65 days after I placed the order. I have informed more than 60 friends about this heavily advertised and quite flashy website, which doesn't do what it promises to do. I'm never going to do any business with these people again and all of the people I informed are also doing the same. I hope they tell millions and nobody uses this website. Unless they care about customer's concerns, no business can survive for long.

Why I might just prefer to pay a small bribe than a bigger fine ?

We just wondered today, in the midst of so many scams being discovered everyday in India, we may prefer to just a pay a bribe to get our work done, to a common man, than pay a fee or a fine. Why ? When you pay a bribe, it will go to the common man's pocket & he'd do something for his family, however when you pay an official fine or a fee, which supposedly goes to the government, finally ends up in the pockets of corrupt politicians, who don't think twice pocketing the hard earned public money. When asked & proved guilty, they just resign (sometimes not ;-) ) & even the citizens forget the money the corrupt STOLE ! Cough up the money first you #$%@ - you HAVE to resign later cheater #$@%. No wonder why more than 50% Indian population is still poor & many without bare minimum facilities. Were the politicians honest, we wouldn't change the TV channel at the sight of one !
   'Rich getting richer' is an issue if there's black money involved, however I consider 'poor getting poorer' as a negative projection of the country's economic planning & currency routing. If money was channelled properly, India would have been the world's most developed nation in every aspect (not just IT workforce); villages would have ample electricity, water & food; roads would have been far better than any country; people would care for each other; our GDP would have been double or triple of what it's now (ever wonder why you don't care about another person on the road now ? ... because you are preoccupied, frustrated & have suffered enough at the hands of daily shocks given by every scam that takes a big chunk of your own country's hard earned taxpayers money). An astrologer had predicted India to become a superpower in all aspects in 21st century, however he must have had the earlier LEADERS in his mind :-)
   Do you wonder why we use the word 'POLITICIANS' now-a-days, not 'LEADERS' ? It's the subconscious paradigm of the general populace now that the ones THERE only play political games; who's there to LEAD ? I no more prefer to pay official fine if something can be done with a bribe. We no longer want to fill the houses of the ones whose clear intentions are to only STEAL. We don't want those thieves to exist. Long live democracy.
   I'd love to hear my readers' comments.

How to read & grasp effectively

Have you ever wondered how do some people seem to remember so many stories, ideas, concepts ? This helps many of them become confident speakers, successful presenters & effective counsellors. I was struck by an interesting audio on radio & was trying to remember the bullet points about it, when it came to me that there must be some proven way to recall 'mentally bookmarked' things easily. I did some research & came up with few points on how to read / listen in order to grasp PLUS remember the interesting points about any text, speech or a presentation (I omit meetings for a reason, as the organizer may appoint a note-taker on purpose).

1. First, our purpose is to reduce the amount of written clutter around us (e.g. Notes that we need to take to recall ideas).
2. While we listen to a speech, or read text, make a genuine effort to identify KEYWORDS mentally. We may practice this art in inexpensive ways - read a n article in newspaper & identifying keywords. Then, with these keywords, try to build the body of the article yourself. Compare your write-up with original . You'll soon get better at choosing RIGHT keywords.
3. Now, the actual process starts. Revise your keywords & related ideas mentally, about everything of importance that you read / listen, once at these intervals - an hour later, 3 hrs later, 6 hrs later, 1 day later & if possible - 10 days after. Each revision session should take less than 8 minutes, performed at a quiet place, where you may focus easily.
4. For lengthy ideas, make mind maps, either with help of paper & pencil first & then remembering the diagram or just mental picture of involved entities. A mind map is a simple concept of picturing the main idea in the center, then branches growing out of it, to illustrate salient features, and sub-branches for examples or final points. Include your mind maps in the revision sessions described above. Check out an example mind map in the picture above (click the image for full-size).
   
5. Decide to succeed at your endeavor of learning the art of recalling useful ideas. A decision to be successful can push us to brighter & higher skies quite easily. It can expained scientifically also (See : http://an-shoo-thoughts.blogspot.com/2007/11/science-behind-prayer.html ).
6. An effective way to apply & strengthen this strategy is to target at reducing the number of magazines, lying around your house, waiting in a queue for your attention. Once you remember a useful article, do the same for the whole Mag. & you might have just 4 interesting topics to remember out of the whole magazine. Throw the Mag away once you're done with your 3-step exercise described above (Steps 2-5 ).
   
7. Your feedback is welcome. Please feel free to share your stories through comments on this page.
   

Science behind a prayer

The vibes of a being or a thought have been pondered & commented upon by many .. today I'm trying a different touch to it, to understand the science behind a prayer.
When one prays, one first meditates & concentrates on a thought / supreme being, the concentration being the key, that makes the vibes around us, very strong, about attachment to that entity (thought / being). When done with enough time devoted to a prayer & performed regularly, this attachment becomes so strong that our actions push us towards the realization of the thought (or becoming contented by feeling the shelter of the almighty, as the case may be). All these changes are so subtle that most of us think that prayer does magic; it's really the strength of our conviction & the burning desire to realize a thought. You tell me how better to describe a prayer's science ?

Sher - not a tiger, much better than that ;-)

जब कोई १००० डालर अपने स्वदेश (इंडिया ) दूरभाष पर बात करने में लगा दे ,

समझ जाइए कि उसे अपने देश लॉट जाना चाहिए :-)

(15 Nov, 2007)

प्यारी , फुरसत हो गयी होगी , आशा है

अभी तक जगी भी न बैठी हों , ये भी आशा है

milte हैं phir कभी kisi झील के kinaare

बतीयायेंगे ढेर सारा ... पहले झील तो ढूंढो !
(26th Oct, 2007)

The realization of a portrait ... the making

I'm sketching a portrait for my wi-fi tonight & I would take its photographs at each stage, to see , show & remember for myself - how a portrait develops. This sequence may help someone who's new to sketching real faces or someone learning how to sketch a face !
Let's start (Pencil used - 2 HB) ...

1. I'm capturing all the photos of the sketch I'm making, with my 6 MP Cybershot, in night-mode (no flash, delayed shutter). So, the backdrop may appear somewhat dark, however not so much to deviate attention of keen observers.
2. First, the shape of face & orientation - I took the mid-line (vertical) passing the center of nose & the line joining the 2 eyes (horizontal) as imaginary reference lines (without drawing any actual grid) . This usually helps in keeping the size of eyes, nose, cheeks proportionate.
3. I'm trying to complete an eye, along with the shape of the face & some nose too ...
4. See ? Using a light stroke for the pencil is useful, if we need to alter the shape of the face / nose later.
5. Second eye ...
   
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1. She's staring at me :-( ... Redid the whole nosy :-) ... I felt it was too small - thanks to the imaginary reference lines. I'm starting the lips now :
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4. Ghostly stage ... Boooo !
5. Lips completed now ... not pink yet ;-)
6. Lips touched up & some features sharpened. Added bindi (the holy dot on forehead, between the eyes). Hair formation started ...
7. Dyed the hair a bit ;-) ... colored the bindi and accented the lips with pink (light strokes of a RED pencil) . Note the left earring.
8. I jus showed it to my wi-fi & she found somethin missin ! Can you guess what ?
   
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10. My wi-fi jus approved this one with the neck :-) ... Hurray ! I gifted her the sketch.
    

Music of the night : Cheeni kam hai (Movie : Cheeni kum ; Sung by : Shreya Ghoshal ) - unique music, good bass, hindi song. This one makes me hum it all day long !

The chicken came first or the egg ? ... the science behind it !

I have always been bothered by this unanswered question since childhood - the chicken came first or the egg ??? Last week I applied some science to it & figured it for myself ... and the world ;-) ...
The egg came first.
Science behind this : For a chicken to develop, an egg is necessary. However, the same does not apply to an egg ! We learnt in basic science, about the history of evolution, the initial life forms were microorganisms (unicellular & then multicellular) that dwelt in water. Such forms kept developing, multiplying into different forms, adapting to various types of local ecosystems created on earth. Such a combination of life creating forms, or all the ingredients that exist in today's usual egg, must have gotten together into some protected / enclosed area (which is not necessary - the components just need to be together, under the right temperature, with enough air) & it gave birth to the first form of chicken. It might not be as developed a chick as we see today, however some preliminary form of chicken. Slowly, this developed into a modern chicken that is seen today.
Now, how much do you agree with that, lemme know through the blog comments.

Music of the night : Bulla ki jaana main kaun (Album sung by Rabbi Shergil) - a sufiyana style, punjabi song, with modern rhythm & touch of guitar

Is my company ( Infosys ) a good place to work ?

Thought of posting this here, as this is the place my friends can read & get some food for thought - have I really left any food for you folks to think about ;-) ? Lemme know - the comments area is OPEN !
Is my company ( Infosys ) a good place to work ?
Yes it is !!!
... and this not a kind of the answer that you get when you ask anyone , "How're you doing ? " And what you get "Fine :-(" - doesn't matter as to what is really going on with their life, but everything is FINE ;-)

Prologue:
Someone asked me today, "Who do you work for ?" and my proud answer was 'I work with Infosys ' ! (notice the difference beween 'with' & 'for') "And what does Infosys do ?" My generic answer was "Software consulting" . Now, he generalized it more by saying, "Oh, so you are contracted to someone for a period & then you go to another company ... is it the way you work ?" . This is when I thought about the real question more, & came up with a brilliant answer (in my opinion ;-) ) , "Infosys doesn't have contracts with its clients, however we have relationships. This is what sets us apart from what you think we do ! Almost 85% of our clients like & trust the way we work & make things work & make them go on. Thus, they remain with us for very long times, doing repeat business all the time. I hope even the TCS, Wipro & Satyam folks folks feel the same about their firms - we are all competitors, however we ought to project the large organazations (MNC's) of India in the right way. I hate people thinking of us as mere contractors :-) ... we are not ! We are the brand ambassadors, we are the relationship executives & managers for our company & the client. I hope all of you have the right representation as well as within our country, India. Talk to me (through comments) if anyone differs .
Most of the times, people don't move to another project because the contract ended, however they tend to change because they got bored of similar work for 2-3 years in a row ! GS (Goldman Sachs) is with Infosys for more than 8 years, Schlumberger is with us for about 9 years, Aetna is one of the largest & oldest accounts, Apple, Citigroup, NY Life, Bank of America, Nordstrom are building up for more than 6 years . The point here is once we are into the customer relationship, our customer doesn't want to get out ! It's the quality of work, the knowledge, the capability, the responsiveness, understanding of finer details and ability to instigate measurable trust - that keeps the clients with us for long times. In short, we don't like being called as contractors. Those are the people who really HAVE TO change their client / type of work / location every now & then (3-8 months) because their contract ended or the client got his /her task done. I remember IKON didn't have any distinction between the Infosys or IKON's staff, however our recent client does - they don't even issue convenient badge holders to non-employees ... which is plain funny ; forget about other things they try :-)
After all, we will still hold on to our Indian patience & wait for the right word to go around, so that people can make out a difference between an Infosys employee & a real contractor.
I stick to Infosys because of its great culture, the values, the simplicity of the way it works - there's so much transparency that I could bump into Mr. Murthy in our canteen & talk to him ; or I could even walk into his cabin & discuss an issue ! I don't think this happens at many other places. 3 cheers to Infosys ! Long live Infoscions !

Music of the night : Sathiya ye toone kya kiya (Movie : Love ; Music by : Anand Milind ; Sung By : SP Balasubramanyam, Kavitha Krishnamurthy ; As sweet as a song can be ... once I hear this one, it doesn't stop echoing in my mind & on the lips for next 2-3 days :-) - fun to sing & play on my Yamaha synthesizer)

Love

Disclaimer : All written below is mine and only mine - not stolen from anywhere - my own perspective.

A fact that exists since the universe got created and that would never die - Love may not be defined in simple words or one sentence. The very few lucky people on the holy earth, who have felt love, know that the extraordinary feeling of being in it, or surrounded by it, is sweet, intense and is comparable to nothing else in the whole world !

Love of a mother is considered the greatest of all, as it is unconditional. Mother's love has no bounds.

My outlook towards love : Love is not weak - it always talks the truth. All truth relies on trust and love cannot exist without truth. The ones in love, don't need to hide from anybody, because there's truth all around them. It makes us stronger, to be able to withstand storms, hardships of life, which common man easily can get caught in. I consider myself lucky that I got the privilege of being in love in this life (and I'm still into it :-) )

An easy way to allow love to exist and bloom, is to create truth around oneself. Truth provides strength and creates a fertile and firm foundation for love to sprout. Let the truth prevail.

I had written a poem on Poetry.com and this looks like an appropriate place to share it too :

A desire to touch ... NO IT IS NOT
A desire to meet ... MAY BE
When you have more dreams and less sleep ... YES IT IS
When your heart starts talking to you, like you never knew it
could ... YES IT IS
When you feel for no known reason - the whole world woke up
with you, the sun rose for you, the flowers bloom for you,
the birds chirp for you ... YES IT IS
When you feel funny in belly ... YES IT IS
When you suddenly smile alone, at odd times ... YES IT IS
When you like someone for oneself, not one's physique
YES IT IS
When you wish to take away one's sorrows and provide every happy
moment that can be ... YES IT IS
When you wish to just BE with someone till eternity ... YES IT IS
It's a miracle to be through this and Yes my dear, ONE SENTENCE
CANNOT EXPLAIN LOVE

Music of the night : Golmaal (2006) - title song - quite light-heartedly sung by Anushka Manchandani, Vishal Dadlani ; Music : by Vishal-Shekhar ; a foot thumper song you can not stop humming, if you once listen to it with enough Bass

Keywords ... are they key ?

I'm writing about keywords, with keywords, for more keywords :-) Keywords are the key to writing & earning a hit from a visitor ! That one hit makes me write about keywords. Let's start putting it in easier language. Keywords are the words which we try to search things with - not just on internet, but anywhere.



How do we understand keywords ? Let's say we want some footwear for tennis - how'd we like to search / ask in stores ? "Do you carry shoes ?", "Do you have tennis shoes ?", "Are these for tennis ?" , "What kind of sports this footwear can be worn for ?" ..... . Do we notice some words repeat in common questions about the thing we are trying to search ? Shoes, tennis, footwear, sports <-- these are the keywords ! And that's what we do when we search on Amazon, or e-Bay right ? Type shoes - you'll get 999999 results ; type "sports shoes" - we'd get 9999 results ; type "tennis shoes" - we will get 99 results ; type "tennis shoes newyork" - we will get 9 results ;



What's that makes a keyword or a combination of them special ? The specificity of keywords narrows down our search & makes lives easier. If we went to ask for shoes in a auto care center, would we get them ? Well, some worn out ones ;-) It's a good way to first start on a broader range - like a mall (for internet search, say "shoes"), then drill down to sports shops ("sports shoes"), then keep narrowing ...


Why are the keywords important ? If a seller could guess common / obvious terms for the items he sells, he could use it in his banners, advertisements in news paper, TV, radio and any other means of publicity. This way, whenever some searches for that stuff, he / she would remember that special stuff more strongly than others. Half of the sale is complete right here !

Do you have any ideas about keywords ? Well , share it with the world !

Saving Private Ryan

One of the greatest World WAR 2 movies made ... Tom hanks at his best ... directed by Steven Speilberg (he directed his 1st movie at the age of 14) !
This movie is about values, lives, war, emotions, blood, courage, duty, respect - based on a true story. A group of soldiers at war in europe, got a new assignment - to save Private Ryan, whom they neither have seen nor know. Nobody knows where he is - just unknowingly dropped far away somewhere . His other 3 brothers had already died in the war at different places & saving him is the last chance of saving their mother from some grief & the army would not have to inform about the death of all 4 brothers. A movie well directed, acted - witty use of sound & music - worth collecting.
My learning from this gripping masterpiece : Earn your life ... Know your motivators ...

Music of the night : Humse rahoge kya hamesha khafa (Movie : Aur Pyar Ho Gaya ; Sung by : Sonu Nigam ; One of the excellent songs of this movie - a great work with music, rhythm, lyrics. Very lively song)

Mmmmmm Hmmmmm :-)

Q. How do they express doubt in asylums ?
A. Are you sane ?

Music of the night : Jaana, zindagi se na jaana (Album : Star ; Sung by : Nazia Hassan, Zohaib Hassan ; A melodiously sung lounge-like song. I used to watch the video in childhood & loved it since then)

The little one of squirrel

Have you seen a young squirrel ? I came across one yesterday & wondered how I never thought that I had never seen one earlier ! If I see it next time, I'll sure take a picture & post here :-) Till then, this picture found on the net may do : squirrel picture

I realized we can sometimes ignore small stuff in life & keep looking for bigger ones ! It's well said - when posisble, stop to smell the roses. Bliss lies around all of us - it's just waiting to be discovered !

Music of the night : I'm in love (Movie : Neal'nNikki, Genre : Hindi - love, Sung by : Sonu Nigam, Mahalakshmi Iyer, Clinton, Dominique Cerejo, Music by : Salim-Sulaiman) - a sweetly composed song, well sung, nicely filled up by music. Few other songs of this movie are also very good - one of them is the title song.

You can stay in abundance

There're no problems, there's only resistance :-) I learnt this in my Ninjitsu classes too - go with the flow. If somebody is trying to push you, get pushed - use his energy to make him weak. Thus, you won't need to push back hard to get ahead :-) If you're going to get hit, move along the direction of the hit. You'll need very less energy to tackle the hit then ! Seems simple, and takes a lot of practice . When we start learning to go with our feelings, go with the surroundings & avoid any resistance, we can live in real abundance. Acheiving anything would be possible. Just stop thinking about any defeciency that keeps you from your goal.

Check it out - Abundance course !

**Music is enjoyed by appreciation, not judgement.
Choices change, however likes don't **

How to impress men / women

How to impress people ? I'm not talking about faking, but something that really comes out of your heart. Writing creates an impressive effect which very few techniques can do. Write on a leaf with silver pen, or a hand-made paper sprayed with their favorite perfume & give it in a small mud-pot ! Let us see if you can impress your loved one :-) I wrote few lines for my wife :

I wish you always sleep like a baby
Have dreams of money & fame, Wake up happy & feel rich, Not be shaken by the miniature deterrents around you, dance around & do what you want, again to sleep like my baby tonight

Smile at the doctor :-)

My doctor asked me how many people do you see smiling, in a day ? I was puzzled - I started counting 1, 2, ... . Then he said, "Everybody who comes to me, has a problem, & is not happy with it. Nobody smiles around me. If I ever get a smile, I find that day rewarding and worth living".
It was such a simple thing, which we rarely think of ! I decided since then, ever to greet every doctor I meet, so as to make one's day brighter, to let them enjoy their days. Next time when you go to a doctor, smile with her / him, share a joke & make your problems seem smaller & doctor's job easier ! Doctors also need compassion & empathy
Any comments ?

--Anshu