Eureka!

I am quite surprised myself. In my profile, I have written that it is music which takes place of O2 in my life and is essential for my existence. Then how is it possible that I did not write anything about it till now. So, let me do it rightaway.

As I type these words, while listening to my favorite singer-composer pair; Mangeshkar sister and brother, and its compositions from Shiv Kalyan Raja, I feel that if at all you are a music lover, you cannot resist yourself from venerating the Mangeshkar family. And if you are a Maharashtrian, the three siblings from this family take a place adjacent to your Gods.

So, how's the title of this article related to the Mangeshkars? As I always say, carry on reading....

Three weeks back, I was creating playlists of my favourite songs in my mobile phone. All in all there were six of them, categorized as :

-'Great voice' : which included 'Abhi na jao chhod kar': Mohd Rafi, "I can't help falling in love" : Elvis Presley, "Sweet Caroline" : Neal Diamond etc.

- 'Hindi', 'Marathi', 'English' and 'Misc', having songs from the respective language, 'misc.' having instrumental, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam songs.

_ 'My Fav' containing songs filtered from all the ones mentioned above and which I would simply love to listen to at any point of day, be it in my sleep as well.

Oh!! I have not mentioned anywhere above, that I worship Shankar Mahadevan. I love every piece of his work, no matter if it is a jingle sung by him ( remember "Kuch Khas hai hum sabhi mein" - Cadbury, you too love it, don't you?), performances with Zakir Hussain, John McLaughlin and U. Srinivas, as a part of 'Remember Shakti', or his timeless compositions with Ehsaan & Loy. I love each one of them.

So, coming back to 'My Fav' playlist, I observed that there was not even a single song by "My God" and the list was dominated by "The Family". The first song in the list was

"Tarun ahe ratra ajuni" ,

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"Jivalaga" was the next,

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followed by "Gagan Sadan Tejomay"

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and then came "Daya Ghana".

The presence of my God had disappeared. I was scared. I was tensed. I questioned myself "Am I becoming an atheist"? I needed to relax. Inadvertently, I started listening to 'My fav' again and "The Family" reappeared.

It was this repetition of the playlist that was "my bath in the tub" and was enlightenment for me. It made me realize that actually the inventions of this family are my sustenance and there are Gods above my God.

VISA Power

It was in my last post that I had mentioned about "The plan" ; the plan to write an article per day. "VISA power, couldn't do it and I am now officially permitted to go to the US of A".

Yes,yesterday was my VISA interview at 0845 hrs. So , I had to go to bed early in order to get up early. I tried very hard, but it was only around 1 'o clock, that I dozed off!

It was a very nice first experience of Visa interview.The CSC brand name showed its effect and within 45 minutes of walking past the front gate of Paigah Palace, the newly opened US Consulate in Hyderabad, I was happily walking back through it again in the opposite direction! The whole process was swift and pretty quick.

The processes before the interview took about half an hour, which involved finger print check, document verification etc. Majority of the people, in the first batch were "going-to-meet-my-son-in-US" parents and it was fun to watch them. Fun in the sense that, I was able to imagine how my parents must have been been looking when they went for their VISA interview a few months back.

Though I know, how difficult it is to narrate a story effectively, I will still give it a shot and narrate my interview experience. My interviewer was a lady, who was taking her first interview of the day. We will call her "Mam" here.

This is how it was :

Mam: Hello!
Me : Good morning Mam!

......Checking the application .......

Mam : For how long have you been with CSC , sir ?
Me : I'll be completing three years in coming July.

Mam : What is the purpose of your visit?
Me : There is a new project, which requires one-to-one training from our on-site folks.

Mam: What is the project ?
Me : Our client, a retail chain in the US .... ( interrupted)

Mam: which one ?
Me : Kroger .

Mam : Oh!!! Kroger, the grocery store .....
Me : Yes, the project will improve the efficiency of their logistics and I will have to come back to India and train my team members here at offshore.

Mam : Okay, sir , your application has been approved !
Me : Thank you , mam !

...........and she took my passport away and I did not resent it at all !!!!!!

Just fot the plan's sake

"The plan is, that there is no plan". Sounds intelligently exciting, isn't it? Heard it in some movie whose name I can't recollect now. Wanted to use since then somewhere and was searching for some pertinent situation. But alas ! Will have to use its modification. Will tell you later . Carry on reading........

Last night, I wrote an entry about Obama's Cairo speech. I had read its text over the weekend. With it, I started my prep for the "reading comprehension" section of GMAT, which I plan to take up in the month of November, 9th to be precise. Anyway, after publishing the entry in my office at 4:oo P.M, I was pretty satisfied with my effort. It was lenghty, but still, the subjects of my article , Obama's speech & my RC prep , are no shorter ! Yes , the Obama speech was long and they say "there is no short cut to master the  RC section" . So,  I did not care much about the word limit. 

I then thought about improving my writing skills as well. Amit Varma (ttrrriiing trrrrinng Indiauncut.com), has said in his blog that it was blog writing that  made his writing crispier. He also said that the reader of your article is actually investing his time, chosing your article out of plethora, when he has all the writings in this world a click away!

Lesson learnt : you have to be mean, lean, short and sweet when you write something.  

I observed that before coming to the main point, I tend to set an ambience for my story , bringing in all the related points or actors into the picture and then BANG ! I shoot !

Yes, it may sound funny and actually is in a conversation, but when you have to write something, be it an article or an SOP :) , you can't afford this story telling and use of weapons! So, I took his advice seriously and planned to write "something" everyday to be precise in my writing.  

OKAY !  You have guessed it ! Yes, this was the plan I was talking about. The plan is, there is a plan to be followed strictly : An article a day ! 

I know the end is abrupt, but can't help ! Have to sleep now, was in night shift yeterday ! 

Cairo Speech - Five point Obama

I know this is a sign of fear. I have read it in an article written by a psychologist that you try to procrastinate tasks when you are unsure of, rather scared of the result. I have started my GMAT prep, have nearly completed SC and CR from OG 11th ed. and now have to take up RC. But instead of opening the RC section in the book, I am looking the World Wide Web to "read and comprehend” various writings. This Sunday was also spent not opening the RC section.

But today was something different, as there were some signs of "hope" in this dodging. After reading few sections on TotalGadha, which I discovered last night, I read the complete text of Obama's speech delivered in Cairo. It was quite a lengthy read, but every second spent reading it was an investment for betterment, both for my RC prep and for me.

Obama's this visit to the Arab countries was seen as a beginning of new relations between the US and Muslim countries and the speech marking it had all the eyes and all the ears in this world paying attention to it. The speech lived up to very single expectation and was indeed a ray of hope. He touched all the important issues which our world is facing today and which have involvement of the Muslim extremists. And yes, Obama was very careful not to use the word terrorists and intelligently euphemized it with extremism throughout his speech.

The speech inspired me as well, but in a sense which Obama hardly must have imagined. You are bound to get impressed whenever any attorney opens his mouth and I was too by Obama's speech. I know that I may not qualify to comment on the oratorical qualities of Obama, but still, it always helps to recall the good things at your bedtime which you saw or heard in your day's work.

As said before, his speech touched upon five important issues that U.S is facing today and which involves Muslims. They were democracy, Afghan-Iran-Iraq conflicts, Israel- Palestine standoff, extremism and woman's rights. All of them had some story to tell and some lesson to teach.

In his speech, you could easily see the perfect use of words that were assertive, showing the powers that he enjoys as the 44th president of the United States of America, the words which accepted the recent mistakes by his predecessor, the words which acknowledged everyone's right to live and umpteen instances and examples from U.S.'s and Muslim history to substantiate the message that he wanted to convey. I could see that he was aware of every boundary within which he was working, but at the same time was showing his strengths as well. Possessing this quality of recognition of your constraints is primal whenever you set some target for yourself and knowing your strengths and capitalizing on them helps you achieve that goal.

He is a democrat and you could easily tell it when he stressed that basic human character needs freedom of expression. He did not want to "force" his ideas on the Arab world, where this freedom is a distant dream, but acknowledged that every culture has its own ways to nurture its followers and what these countries follow is acceptable as long as their rules don't harm innocent people. Anyway, his views about democracy bolstered mine and I learnt that if you want to underscore the importance of your point of view, it is equally important to understand your audiences' views as well, no matter if they are poles apart. Yes, the lesson to be learnt was "no one is more important than you and everyone is equally important as you are".

All and all, the gist of this five point something speech was an advice to the Muslim community, be it in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iran or Iraq, that every other sect has equal right to live and there should be a synergy between the Muslims and the non-Muslims.
For Obama, with his speech he made a fresh start to bridge the gaps and hoped to have cordial relations with the Muslims, but for me, this five-point-someone marked a beginning to my RC prep, which was long overdue.