Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Chetan Bhagat @ Symbiosis Pune - Awesome Speech.

Thanks to Ramanan uncle for sharing this speech.
Earlier, in this blog, I've written an honest review about Mr Bhagat's latest book. That still holds true.
But this speech really makes a lot of sense. Fabulous!!

Thanks Chetan. You're a fabulous speaker!
__________________________________________________

Good Morning everyone and thank you for giving me this chance to speak to you. This day is about you. You, who have come to this college, leaving the comfort of your homes (or in some cases discomfort), to become something in your life. I am sure you are excited. There are few days in human life when one is truly elated. The first day in college is one of them. When you were getting ready today, you felt a tingling in your stomach. What would the auditorium be like, what would the teachers be like, who are my new classmates - there is so much to be curious about. I call this excitement, the spark within you that makes you feel truly alive today. Today I am going to talk about keeping the spark shining. Or to put it another way, how to be happy most, if not all the time.

Where do these sparks start? I think we are born with them. My 3-year old twin boys have a million sparks. A little Spiderman toy can make them jump on the bed. They get thrills from creaky swings in the park. A story from daddy gets them excited. They do a daily countdown for birthday party â€" several months in advance â€" just for the day they will cut their own birthday cake.
I see students like you, and I still see some sparks. But when I see older people, the spark is difficult to find. That means as we age, the spark fades. People whose spark has faded too much are dull, dejected, aimless and bitter. Remember Kareena in the first half of Jab We Met vs the second half? That is what happens when the spark is lost. So how to save the spark?
Imagine the spark to be a lamp's flame. The first aspect is nurturing - to give your spark the fuel, continuously. The second is to guard against storms.
To nurture, always have goals. It is human nature to strive, improve and achieve full potential. In fact, that is success. It is what is possible for you. It isn't any external measure - a certain cost to company pay package, a particular car or house.
Most of us are from middle class families. To us, having material landmarks is success and rightly so. When you have grown up where money constraints force everyday choices, financial freedom is a big achievement. But it isn't the purpose of life. If that was the case, Mr. Ambani would not show up for work. Shah Rukh Khan would stay at home and not dance anymore. Steve Jobs won't be working hard to make a better iPhone, as he sold Pixar for billions of dollars already. Why do they do it? What makes them come to work everyday? They do it because it makes them happy. They do it because it makes them feel alive. Just getting better from current level s feels good. If you study hard, you can improve your rank. If you make an effort to interact with people, you will do better in interviews. If you practice, your cricket will get better. You may also know that you cannot become Tendulkar, yet. But you can get to the next level. Striving for that next level is important.
Nature designed with a random set of genes and circumstances in which we were born. To be happy, we have to accept it and make the most of nature's design. Are you? Goals will help you do that. I must add, don't just have career or academic goals. Set goals to give you a balanced, successful life. I use the word balanced before successful. Balanced means ensuring your health, relationships, mental peace are all in good order.
Ther e is no point of getting a promotion on the day of your breakup. There is no fun in driving a car if your back hurts. Shopping is not enjoyable if your mind is full of tensions.
You must have read some quotes - Life is a tough race, it is a marathon or whatever. No, from what I have seen so far, life is one of those races in nursery school, where you have to run with a marble in a spoon kept in your mouth. If the marble falls, there is no point coming first. Same with life, where health and relationships are the marble. Your striving is only worth it if there is harmony in your life. Else, you may achieve the success, but this spark, this feeling of being excited and alive, will start to die.
One last thing about nurturing the spark - don't take life seriously. One of my yoga teachers used to make students laugh during classes. One student asked him if these jokes would take away something from the yoga practice. The teacher said - don't be serious, be sincere. This quote has defined my work ever since. Whether its my writing, my job, my relationships or any of my goals. I get thousands of opinions on my writing everyday. There is heaps of praise, there is intense criticism. If I take it all seriously, how will I write? Or rather, how will I live? Life is not to be taken seriously, as we are really temporary here. We are like a pre-paid card with limited validity. If we are lucky, we may last another 50 years. And 50 years is just 2,500 weekends. Do we really need to get so worke d up? It's ok, bunk a few classes, goof up a few interviews, fall in love. We are people, not programmed devices.
I've told you three things - reasonable goals, balance and not taking it too seriously that will nurture the spark. However, there are four storms in life that will threaten to completely put out the flame. These must be guarded against. These are disappointment, frustration, unfairness and loneliness of purpose.
Disappointment will come when your effort does not give you the expected return. If things don't go as planned or if you face failure. Failure is extremely difficult to handle, but those that do come out stronger. What did this failure teach me? is the question you will need to ask. You will feel miserable. You will want to quit, like I wanted to when nine publishers rejected my first book. Some IITians kill themselves over low grades â€" how silly is that? But that is how much failure can hurt you. But it's life. If challenges could always be overcome, they would cease to be a challenge. And remember - if you are failing at something, that means you are at your limit or potential. And that's where you want to be.
Disappointment' s cousin is frustration, the second storm. Have you ever been frustrated? It happens when things are stuck. This is especially relevant in India. From traffic jams to getting that job you deserve, sometimes things take so long that you don't know if you chose the right goal. After books, I set the goal of writing for Bollywood, as I thought they needed writers. I am called extremely lucky, but it took me fi ve years to get close to a release. Frustration saps excitement, and turns your initial energy into something negative, making you a bitter person. How did I deal with it? A realistic assessment of the time involved â€" movies take a long time to make even though they are watched quickly, seeking a certain enjoyment in the process rather than the end result â€" at least I was learning how to write scripts, having a side plan â€" I had my third book to write and even something as simple as pleasurable distractions in your life - friends, food, travel can help you overcome it. Remember, nothing is to be taken seriously. Frustration is a sign somewhere, you took it too seriously.
Unfairness - this is hardest to deal with, but unfortunately that is how our country works. People with connections, rich dads, beautiful faces, pedigree find it easier to make it â€" not just in Bollywood, but everywhere. And sometimes it is just plain luck. There are so few opportunities in India, so many stars need to be aligned for you to make it happen. Merit and hard work is not always linked to achievement in the short term, but the long term correlation is high, and ultimately things do work out. But realize, there will be some people luckier than you. In fact, to have an opportunity to go to college and understand this speech in English means you are pretty damm lucky by Indian standards. Let's be grateful for what we have and get the strength to accept what we don't. I have so much love from my readers that other writers cannot even imagine it. However, I don't get literary praise. It's ok. I don't look like Aishwarya Rai, but I have two boys who I think are more beautiful than her. It's ok. Don't let unfairness kill your spark.
Finally, the last point that can kill your spark is isolation. As you grow older you will realize you are unique. When you are little, all kids want Ice cream and Spiderman. As you grow older to college, you still are a lot like your friends. But ten years later and you realize you are unique. What you want, what you believe in, what makes you feel, may be different from even the people closest to you. This can create conflict as your goals may not match with others. . And you may drop some of them. Basketball captains in college invariably stop playing basketball by the time they have their second child. They give up something that meant so much to them. They do it for their family. But in doing that, the spark dies. Never, ever make that compromise. Love yourself first, and then others.
There you go. I've told you the four thunderstorms - disappointment, frustration, unfairness and isolation. You cannot avoid them, as like the monsoon they will come into your life at regular intervals. You just need to keep the raincoat handy to not let the spark die.
I welcome you again to the most wonderful years of your life. If someone gave me the choice to go back in time, I will surely choose college. But I also hope that ten years later as well, your eyes will shine the same way as they do today. That you will Keep the Spark alive, not only through college, but through the next 2,500 weekends. And I hope not just you, but my whole country will keep that spark alive, as we really need it now more than any moment in history. And there is something cool about saying - I come from the land of a billion sparks.
Thank You.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Superb Answers!

Here are some spectacular answers to questions on Food and Health.
Try and see if you can prove them wrong!

Thanks to Ranjna for sharing.

___________________________________________



Q.I've heard that cardiovascular exercise can prolong life; is this true?
A:
Your heart is only good for so many beats, and that's it... don't waste them on exercise. Everything wears out eventually. Speeding up your heart will not make you live longer; that's like saying you can extend the life of your car by driving it faster. Want to live longer? Take a nap.



Q:
Should I cut down on meat and eat more fruits and vegetables?
A:
You must grasp logistical efficiencies. What does a cow eat? Hay and corn. And what are these? Vegetables. So a steak is nothing more than an efficient mechanism of delivering vegetables to your system. Need grain? Eat chicken. Beef is also a good source of field grass (green leafy vegetable). And a pork chop can give you 100% of your recommended daily allowance of vegetable products.


Q:
Should I reduce my alcohol intake?
A:
No, not at all. Wine is made from fruit. Brandy is distilled wine, that means they take the water out of the fruity bit so you get even more of the goodness that way. Beer is also made out of grain. Bottoms up!


Q:
How can I calculate my body/fat ratio?
A:
Well, if you have a body and you have fat, your ratio is one to one. If you have two bodies, your ratio is two to one, etc.


Q:
What are some of the advantages of participating in a regular exercise program?
A:
Can't think of a single one, sorry. My philosophy is: No Pain... Good!


Q:
Aren't fried foods bad for you?
A:
YOU'RE NOT LISTENING!!! .... Foods are fried these days in vegetable oil. In fact, they're permeated in it. How could getting more vegetables be bad for you?


Q:
Will sit-ups help prevent me from getting a little soft around the middle?
A:
Definitely not! When you exercise a muscle, it gets bigger. You should only be doing sit-ups if you want a bigger stomach.

Q:
Is chocolate bad for me?
A:
Are you crazy? HELLO Cocoa beans! Another vegetable!!! It's the best feel-good food around!

Q:
Is swimming good for your figure?
A:
If swimming is good for your figure, explain whales to me.


Q:
I s getting in-shape important for my lifestyle?
A:
Hey! 'Round' is a shape!




Well, I hope this has cleared up any misconceptions you may have had about
food and diets.
And remember:


'Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways - Chardonnay in one hand - chocolate in the other - body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming
'WOO HOO, What a Ride'

Sunday, July 13, 2008

An Epitaph of Gratitude

A long time ago, when i was in school, i remember preparing for a quiz and i came across this name for the first time.
Recognized the world over as 'The Father of heart surgery',
Dr Michael De Bakey breathed his last on Friday night at the M6thodist hospital at Houston, where he worked for 60 years!!

Dr De Bakey was the pioneer who was the first succeddful surgeon to perform a Cardiac By-Pass surgery by replacing a faulty vein the heart with a healthy one from the patient's leg in 1964.
This procedure must have saved millions of lives to date and opened the path to a wide range of possibilities in the field of surgery.

But more inspiring is his story itself!!
Born to Lebanese immigrants in Louisiana in 1908 as Michael Dabaghi, his name was later Anglicized to De Bakey.
Dr De Bakey was one the the primary people responsible for creating the world-famous Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (M.A.S.H) during his stint with the US Army.
At the age of 23, still in medical school, he invented the Roller Pump. It is this life-saving device that pumps blood into the heart during an open-heart surgery. He was also the first surgeon to successfully use an artificial heart in a patient.
His team was the first to record heart surgeries, the first to replace a valve in a human heart, and so on!

But the most surprising fact of all is that Dr Michael De Bakey never retired in life! He kept practising medicine till the day he died! He was 2 months shy of his 100 th birthday when he died.
Dr De Bakey performed over 50000 Open Heart Surgeries in his career spanning almost 75 years!
Since 1949, he has been with the Houston Methodist hospital, and that is where he breathed his last.

With hundreds of Honours under his belt, including the Congressional Gold Medal (America's highest civilian honour), Dr De Bakey left behind a legacy! Of Knowledge, of Innovation and of Saving lives!

You can look up his profile on wikipedia here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_DeBakey

The world owes an enormous debt of gratitude to this 'Magician of the heart'(As Boris Yelstin called him).
He leaves, but his work lives!

Picture Credit - Wikipedia.

Saturday, July 05, 2008

The Most Prolific Nonsense. Ever!!

Really!
This is undoubtedly the most prolific work of nonsense i've ever read.
And i loved every single word!!

There is no middle path with Kurt Vonnegut. You can either love him or hate him. Same thing to this novel. Either you love this one or you absolutely hate it. There is no 'OK' to this one!
The concept itself is so crazy! You don't actually know (even after finishing the book) whether you can call this book a Biography, an Auto-biography, a Satire, a work of Philosophy, a Sci-Fi Novel or anything else.
At the library, i could not find anything worth reading. And honestly i picked this up only because of 'The New York times Bestseller' on the cover.
Kurt Vonnegut is a German - American author who lived from 1922 to 2007. He wrote Timequake in 1997, when he was over 75 years old! In fact, after writing Timequake, Vonnegut announced his retirement from writing Fiction.

The book itself is about the story of Kilmore Trout, who happens to be Vonnegut's alter-ego. All the crazy stuff in the book is attributed to a timequake which happens on Feb 13th 2001 and the world goes back by 10 years. So, people have to re-do all the things they've done in the last 10 years exactly as they did it once. They have no free-will and are bound by the Timequake.
When Feb 13th 2001 comes for the second time and the timequake is suddenly over, people don't really realise that their free-will has come back!
The story is absolutely non-linear. Vonnegut keeps swinging from thought to thought. So, unless you really are present, you'll miss one swing!

Trout's character is a master-piece!! In each of his quirks, you can read between the lines. There's a deep thinker behind that most illogical of people!
Quite a few times in the story, Vonnegut slips into his own auto-biography. And in a lot of his reminscences, he meets Kilmore trout!! Think about the irony - the creator meeting his creation!

Vonnegut takes us effortlessly into the world of the satirist. All the situations in the book are so utterly unbelievable that you'll believe them!

Enough of my nonsense. Go, read it :)

Managing Expectations! The Dilbert Style :)

As i said in an earlier post, Scott Adams is a genius!!
His 'Dilbert' series always gets away with poking fun at the most serious of topics - Work!!

Smile away!!

Cheers :)

Thursday, July 03, 2008

It's a free world!

They say it's a free world! And in that free world, we pay for software, for internet browsers, for everything! In such an environment, real Kudos to Wikipedia, Firefox, Google, GNU, Open-source platforms like Linux, Open Office applications and the like, which are creating a BIG revolution in the world of computers and the internet.
Now, Firefox has become the undisputed choice in internet browsers, not just because it's free, but because it is so totally customizable according to the personality of the user!
When the new release Firefox 3 came out into the market last month, Mozilla decided to set a Guinness Record for the maximum number of downloads in a single day and asked people to register on their website and download on that day!

Boy, what a record they set - 8,002,530 downloads on a single day!! By far the biggest number to date! And Mozilla even sent me a certificate for participating in this record-setting event! As the file is in pdf, i can't upload it here!
If you still are not using Firefox, you must get your edition of Firefox 3 from here - http://www.spreadfirefox.com/en-US/worldrecord/firefox3

Cheers to Free Software and the day is not far off when most of the paid stuff will be replaced.

Master of the Jigsaw!

There are a few names which are synonymous with Mystery, Detectives, Thrillers and the like.
As soon as you come to the suspense section in your library, Erle Stanley Gardner's Perry Mason and Agatha Christie are the most likely to leap at you!

I started reading detective stories long long ago with Sherlock Holmes. Then came 'Murder on the Orient Express' followed by quite a few Christie's stories. However, the lack of a 'Hero' (Poirot is only in a few of her novels) made them slightly unappealing.
Then came Gardner with his brilliantly simple characterizations and intrigue which usually ends in the courtroom.

If you've read a few book reviews i've written, you'll know that i love court-room thrillers. And i love mysteries. The Perry Mason series are a mix of both!
This is probably the 7th or 8th Mason book that i'm reading, and all of them are absolutely top-notch!
Gardner is a master. He does not create big complex characters, so that you don't need to turn back the pages in the middle of your story to refresh your mind about some quirk of the antagonist.
The primary cast in all of Gardner's mysteries are Perry Mason - The Lawyer, Della Street - His Assistant, Paul Drake - Detective and friend and a couple of police officers like Lt Tragg and Sgt Holcomb. The rest of the characters change with each story, but these simple, endearing and very very intelligent characters are an absolute pleasure.

In none of the novels does Gardner take us into the personal life of any of them. In fact, even after reading many of his novels, i know next to nothing about Mason, where he lives, who are his family, and so on!
The usual skeleton plot for many of Gardner's novels is the same - Someone rushes into Mason's Law office asking him to take up a case. Before Mason completely agrees, something happens, which makes his client the number one accused in a murder case. Mason, Street and Drake try to find evidence which points otherwise, sometimes stepping over the line of the law. In most of the stories, Mason himself gets embroiled with the law. Finally in a court-room showdown, they manage to produce some fantastic evidence, which proves that his client is actually innocent and also gets the real culprit behind bars.
The beautiful part is that though we know the story is going to head up that way, we are still engrossed in each page!! It is sort of like Yashraj Films. We know where the story is heading, but still we watch it!

One thing i found out while reading 'The case of the lonely heiress' was that this one was written in 1958!! In fact, when i looked up mason on wikipedia, i saw that most of these mysteries are from the late 30's to the 60's. So, that's another big wow for Gardner!
Even after 50 years, if a book can keep a reader glued from the beginning to the finish - especially when it is a mystery, the author must be considered a master!
Gardner sure is one.
A master of the Jigsaw.

If you've read any of his mysteries, do drop in a comment.