Marriages seem to be the flavor of the season… Though I am not gifted with a very high level of romantic quotient; but this beautiful stanza from Bryan Adams keeps evoking smiles:
It's a new world - it's a new start,
It's alive with the beating of young hearts,
It's a new day - it's a new plan,
I've been waiting for you,
Here I am…
Shree has just returned from his marriage at Calcutta, I had a ‘Sweets at my desk’ mail from him the next day… I haven’t seen his wedding photographs yet, the reason from Shree being that “The photographer is a nerd!” Here’s wishing you a very happy successful & prosperous 2006 …?. Err… I mean married life ( the multiple threads executed in my brain to send out trillions of New Year wishes haven’t been completely “killed” yet (
Soumya and Gayatri are already in Orissa to tie the nuptial knot on 1st of March, I am not really sure if I will be able to make it to the wedding… My Finacle Core training starts 28th Feb, Tuesday! These posts will be few of the lasts from KayVee if Soms makes his mind up to convert his invitation mailer subject “Jo Nahi Aaya Wo Halal” into reality!
But the build-up to this marriage was truly awesome; a week before they left Hyderabad (They left on 18th Feb) lives of the bride & groom and those around were really beginning to shine! The best of this “SomTri Shining” campaign was the get-together party we had on the eve of their departure. Boy..!.. It was fun…
*** End of this post, but I have been meaning to write more on the Khali-Bhali thoughts… keep reading…
Friday, February 24, 2006
Thursday, February 16, 2006
Clemenceau Returns Home!
Finally, the verdict is out on the controversial toxic French warship ship. The Supreme Court has said that the decommissioned warship Clemenceau cannot enter Indian waters though the bar on the entry is only till February 17.
In announcing its verdict the Apex Court has rejected the report of its own monitoring committee, which said that the ship can be allowed into the Indian waters! The Court said that the monitoring committee was not a group of experts who could decide on the toxic wastes that were on the ship. Centre has been directed to form a new committee comprising of navy experts who are well versed in the construction and destruction of warships.
In another crucial development, French President Jacques Chirac on Wednesday decided to recall the controversial decommissioned aircraft carrier Le Clemenceau. The announcement has saved both Paris and New Delhi a degree of embarrassment since Mr. Chirac is to begin a 24-hour state visit to India on Sunday.
Mr. Chirac's decision came on the heels of a verdict by the country's highest court, the Conseil d'etat, which called upon the Government to recall the asbestos-laden ship that was to be dismantled at a shipyard at Alang, Gujarat.
Greenpeace and other anti-asbestos associations are celebrating! They have been trying for months to prevent the decommissioned French warship from reaching India, calling it an environmental hazard. Although the activists have scored a major victory for the workers in Alang, the economic considerations clearly outweigh any health concerns. The laborers were looking forward to the ship's arrival, as this was a golden opportunity to make money. They claim that the anti-asbestos campaign has had an adverse impact on their livelihood.
(Source Credits: NDTV, Asian Tribune, The Times Of India)
In announcing its verdict the Apex Court has rejected the report of its own monitoring committee, which said that the ship can be allowed into the Indian waters! The Court said that the monitoring committee was not a group of experts who could decide on the toxic wastes that were on the ship. Centre has been directed to form a new committee comprising of navy experts who are well versed in the construction and destruction of warships.
In another crucial development, French President Jacques Chirac on Wednesday decided to recall the controversial decommissioned aircraft carrier Le Clemenceau. The announcement has saved both Paris and New Delhi a degree of embarrassment since Mr. Chirac is to begin a 24-hour state visit to India on Sunday.
Mr. Chirac's decision came on the heels of a verdict by the country's highest court, the Conseil d'etat, which called upon the Government to recall the asbestos-laden ship that was to be dismantled at a shipyard at Alang, Gujarat.
Greenpeace and other anti-asbestos associations are celebrating! They have been trying for months to prevent the decommissioned French warship from reaching India, calling it an environmental hazard. Although the activists have scored a major victory for the workers in Alang, the economic considerations clearly outweigh any health concerns. The laborers were looking forward to the ship's arrival, as this was a golden opportunity to make money. They claim that the anti-asbestos campaign has had an adverse impact on their livelihood.
(Source Credits: NDTV, Asian Tribune, The Times Of India)
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Young & Restless!
Having heard a lot about ‘Rang De Basanti’, we finally got a chance to visit Prasadz on Saturday and the movie has a definitive story to tell! Coming from Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra after a gap of 5 years (Aks, was the first), the movie kept us wondering where it was leading…
From 11 am to 2 pm, the patience never started to wear out with the never-ending guesses one had to subject himself during the course of the film… The story is told at a leisurely pace, with frames moving seamlessly between Chandrasekhar Azad, Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and five out of college but inside the college gate youths.
Curtain Raiser:
We decided to book the tickets through the tele-booking facility, but it sure was going to be an tough task considering that Prasad’z was the only multiplex functioning in Hyderabad that time (PVR is open now, it actually opened on Saturday!). We were 11 of us; all had been sent briefing communiqués a couple of days back to frantically start calling Prasad’z at the strike of 9.25am since the phone lines open at 9.30am on Wednesdays for weekend plans
One of the most fortunate fellows of our group to be alive, Soms (refer to some of the earlier posts) managed to get through, not one but three times and got us the much anticipated and coveted thing that time… tickets for ‘Rang De Basanti’! Well done Somu!
The Day:
The delightful morning slumber was shattered with a couple of “You Will Be Late!” & “Dare you not be late!” calls from folks! Got up (I hate that on a weekend), bathed/dressed (another sadistic task), and hopped on GhostRider (Refer to my earlier post for definition).
Reached Prasad’z with Niha, Som, and Gayatri at 9.30 am, got the tickets and moved to Eat Street for a breakfast by the serene sight of morning hue of Hussain Sagar lake. We succeeded and though trifle expensive, the place rocks in the morning!
We left Prasadz at 2.00pm with a sense of satisfaction, thanks to the team of Rang De Basanti, and to a backrow occupying group of outta-college ‘youths’ trying to translate the movie to a non-Hindi speaking friend of theirs.
We proceeded straight to Bottle N’ Chimeys, for buffet lunch. The food quality is good and with a welcome drink (beer/coke) added in the deal is a steal at Rs. 109 per head
We were rendered longing about our college days, and we spoke about a possible khali-bhali trip to Nagarjuna Sagar Dam (~150kms away from Hyderabad). Only time will tell if this feeling will continue to gain momentum or not…
Stop Press: At the time of writing this post, there was no downer reported/noticed in the enthusiasm to have a trip in the coming weeks...
Overall, the day turned out well… I had been to good movie as a gang after a long time… and the best part is the day was not to end there… We followed this up with an evening dinner at Zafraan Exotica (Banjara Hills) hosted by a friend with loads of good food and liquor thrown in…
Time to bid adieu on this post, but the promises we made to ourselves remain… the IT professional in us needs to remain alert and focused, but we also need to live life… While we continue to work so hard in our lives, it’s imperative that we balance our lives.
Have the courage to live…
Anyone can die!
From 11 am to 2 pm, the patience never started to wear out with the never-ending guesses one had to subject himself during the course of the film… The story is told at a leisurely pace, with frames moving seamlessly between Chandrasekhar Azad, Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and five out of college but inside the college gate youths.
Curtain Raiser:
We decided to book the tickets through the tele-booking facility, but it sure was going to be an tough task considering that Prasad’z was the only multiplex functioning in Hyderabad that time (PVR is open now, it actually opened on Saturday!). We were 11 of us; all had been sent briefing communiqués a couple of days back to frantically start calling Prasad’z at the strike of 9.25am since the phone lines open at 9.30am on Wednesdays for weekend plans
One of the most fortunate fellows of our group to be alive, Soms (refer to some of the earlier posts) managed to get through, not one but three times and got us the much anticipated and coveted thing that time… tickets for ‘Rang De Basanti’! Well done Somu!
The Day:
The delightful morning slumber was shattered with a couple of “You Will Be Late!” & “Dare you not be late!” calls from folks! Got up (I hate that on a weekend), bathed/dressed (another sadistic task), and hopped on GhostRider (Refer to my earlier post for definition).
Reached Prasad’z with Niha, Som, and Gayatri at 9.30 am, got the tickets and moved to Eat Street for a breakfast by the serene sight of morning hue of Hussain Sagar lake. We succeeded and though trifle expensive, the place rocks in the morning!
We left Prasadz at 2.00pm with a sense of satisfaction, thanks to the team of Rang De Basanti, and to a backrow occupying group of outta-college ‘youths’ trying to translate the movie to a non-Hindi speaking friend of theirs.
We proceeded straight to Bottle N’ Chimeys, for buffet lunch. The food quality is good and with a welcome drink (beer/coke) added in the deal is a steal at Rs. 109 per head
We were rendered longing about our college days, and we spoke about a possible khali-bhali trip to Nagarjuna Sagar Dam (~150kms away from Hyderabad). Only time will tell if this feeling will continue to gain momentum or not…
Stop Press: At the time of writing this post, there was no downer reported/noticed in the enthusiasm to have a trip in the coming weeks...
Overall, the day turned out well… I had been to good movie as a gang after a long time… and the best part is the day was not to end there… We followed this up with an evening dinner at Zafraan Exotica (Banjara Hills) hosted by a friend with loads of good food and liquor thrown in…
Time to bid adieu on this post, but the promises we made to ourselves remain… the IT professional in us needs to remain alert and focused, but we also need to live life… While we continue to work so hard in our lives, it’s imperative that we balance our lives.
Have the courage to live…
Anyone can die!
Friday, February 03, 2006
Laddu Ka GOLmaal!
Kisine sahi kaha hai… Shaadi ek aisa laddu hai jise khaye bina bhi raha naa jaaye, aur khayo to bhi raha naa jaaye :) Chi. Soumya Surjeet Mishra, a.k.a Soms has put up this blog to celebrate his marriage with Sou. Gayatri Rani Das, a.k.a. Raniji at http://somtri.blogspot.com/
Jaayiye aur padiye, but keep coming back to this blog for behind the scene curtain-raisers... Soms will be moderating the comments on his blog, so watch this space for more masala… Main wahan classified info post karke pitna nahi chahta… and waise bhi aajkal anonymous commenter se har koi nafrat karta hai… Read this interesting post by Arnab at http://greatbong.blogspot.com/2006/01/anon-commenters-beware.html
Jaate jaate, ek trivia… San 2000 main apne pehle date ke avsar par… Som kaafi ghabraye hue the… Socha ki thoda “Royal Stag” pee kar jaata hoon… magar afsos, peekar so gaye… The number of hours Gayatri waited have never been confirmed, but she did wait all evening!
Eh hai SomTri ki kahaani…
Jaayiye aur padiye, but keep coming back to this blog for behind the scene curtain-raisers... Soms will be moderating the comments on his blog, so watch this space for more masala… Main wahan classified info post karke pitna nahi chahta… and waise bhi aajkal anonymous commenter se har koi nafrat karta hai… Read this interesting post by Arnab at http://greatbong.blogspot.com/2006/01/anon-commenters-beware.html
Jaate jaate, ek trivia… San 2000 main apne pehle date ke avsar par… Som kaafi ghabraye hue the… Socha ki thoda “Royal Stag” pee kar jaata hoon… magar afsos, peekar so gaye… The number of hours Gayatri waited have never been confirmed, but she did wait all evening!
Eh hai SomTri ki kahaani…
Hyderabad Beckons!
Coming to the paradise of architectural metaphors’ and Italy of the east… Hyderabad has been lately becoming a meeting place of many different cultures & traditions, thanks to the booming IT & ITES industry. Major players like Infosys, Wipro, Deloitte, Microsoft, CTS have setups in the city.
Then, why should Hyderabad be left out while writing about the popular night-spots? Here’s the list for Hyderabad…
Happy Pub Hopping in Bangalore & Hyderabad!
Then, why should Hyderabad be left out while writing about the popular night-spots? Here’s the list for Hyderabad…
- Chequered Flag Kingfisher Pub - Kompally Village, Medchal Road
- Dublin [The Welcome Pub] - ITC Kakatiya Sheraton Hotel & Towers Begumpet
- Fifth Element - ITC Fortune Katriya Hotel, Raj Bhavan Rd, Somajiguda
- Liquids Again - Bhaskar Plaza, Rd No.1, Banjara Hills
- Sixth Element - 6th flr, Venkat Plaza, Punjagutta
- 10 Downing Street - Lifestyle Building, My home Tycoon, Begumpet
- Sparks - Lifestyle Building, My home Tycoon, Begumpet
- Club 8 - Lifestyle Building, My home Tycoon, Begumpet
- Twister - Pizza Hut Building, Madhapur
- UnderDeck - Taj Banjara, Road No.1 Banjara Hills
Happy Pub Hopping in Bangalore & Hyderabad!
One Bites The Dust!
Let me try taking this place away from being a breaking news ticker ;) Deepak, my long time pal in Bombay got married last week :) I ask myself why not put up a post in his memory, and then keep posting sequels to this post "Before... After..."
We know each other from 1996, since our engineering days; spending some of the best moments... Magar in-spite of studying and working in Bombay for almost 10/12 years Deepak had a arranged marriage :( We both spoke about crushes becoming crashes after downing a few pegs... Imperial Blue to be precise, as we couldn't afford premiums' those days...
Going Nostalgic, I still remember the days, when we used to bunk our classes and hang-out near the college. Our college, waise to Bombay University se affliated tha, magar ek village main basayaa gaya tha :) College was bang in the middle of no-where, taking atleast 20 minutes to travel to nearest acceptable civilization on either side... I mean towards Ahmedabad or to Bombay...
Wahan humhe milta tha badiya cutting aur sasta/sundar/tikau Misal Pav thanks to Shiva Anna, who ran a hotel named Rajkamal. Humaare ek dost ne unke liye ek gaana bhi likh daala tha, on the lines of "Hotel California"... magar yaad rahe churaaya nahi gaya tha... It was an inspiration... :)
Abhi abhi to Nostalgic hua hoon; likhoonga... aur likhoonga... magar pehle Deepak to wish to kar doon... Deepak, here's wishing you a very happy/successful/prosperous married life...
Old Europe!
For reasons unknown to me and unexplainable, this French warship “Clemenceau” keeps fascinating me and I really want to keep following the happenings! The saga of the Clemenceau and its on-again, off-again journey to India… My friends have been cursing me for converting this blog space into a breaking news site ( but I still feel the need… need to keep writing on the carrier!
Reacting to the widespread criticism drawn by France over this, the French government offered to take back the Clemenceau’s toxic asbestos waste on Jan 27, 2006. "Our ambassador has indicated to the Indian committee of experts that if the Indian authorities demand it, the asbestos waste will be repatriated to France," said the Defense Ministry spokesman Jean-Francois Bureau!
This may not be a big sense of achievement, but the battle has helped raise awareness, in France, Egypt and India. We obviously don't want a division of labor where India treats the French navy's waste. India and France have signed the Basel convention. It's possible to decontaminate the ship in France, but asbestos removal would cost 30 million euros.
This is a real sad state of affairs globally! Is this what we call globalization?! Add to this the recent case of France, Spain, and Luxemburg, Belgium teaming up to block the Mittal - Arcelor merger. Donald Rumsfield termed these bunch of countries as “Old Europe”, may be he was right!
Guy Dollé, chief executive of Arcelor, the world's second-largest steel group, which is the target of a $23 billion takeover bid, his company is like a perfume, whereas the predator, Mittal, the world's biggest steel group, is like a cheap eau de cologne!
All of this has sounded more of an emotional outburst from Arcelor, and other heads of states; even though the markets have been behaving rationally. The merger does make sense considering that the two groups’ plants do not overlap much, with the markets being separate. Why should such a hue & cry be raised over this episode? The crux of this bitterness may well be that, Laxmi Mittal, of Mittal Steel is not one of the Europeans and a traveling immigrant in Europe.
Globalization is defined as “Development of extensive worldwide patterns of economic relationships between nations.”, but this seems to be a perfect example of anti-globalization. Maybe, this is the time for the Asian countries put their foot down on these irrational policies and start to unwelcome/block globalization efforts of European companies like Lafarge, Vodafone, Nokia!
Comments/Feedbacks welcome.
Reacting to the widespread criticism drawn by France over this, the French government offered to take back the Clemenceau’s toxic asbestos waste on Jan 27, 2006. "Our ambassador has indicated to the Indian committee of experts that if the Indian authorities demand it, the asbestos waste will be repatriated to France," said the Defense Ministry spokesman Jean-Francois Bureau!
This may not be a big sense of achievement, but the battle has helped raise awareness, in France, Egypt and India. We obviously don't want a division of labor where India treats the French navy's waste. India and France have signed the Basel convention. It's possible to decontaminate the ship in France, but asbestos removal would cost 30 million euros.
This is a real sad state of affairs globally! Is this what we call globalization?! Add to this the recent case of France, Spain, and Luxemburg, Belgium teaming up to block the Mittal - Arcelor merger. Donald Rumsfield termed these bunch of countries as “Old Europe”, may be he was right!
Guy Dollé, chief executive of Arcelor, the world's second-largest steel group, which is the target of a $23 billion takeover bid, his company is like a perfume, whereas the predator, Mittal, the world's biggest steel group, is like a cheap eau de cologne!
All of this has sounded more of an emotional outburst from Arcelor, and other heads of states; even though the markets have been behaving rationally. The merger does make sense considering that the two groups’ plants do not overlap much, with the markets being separate. Why should such a hue & cry be raised over this episode? The crux of this bitterness may well be that, Laxmi Mittal, of Mittal Steel is not one of the Europeans and a traveling immigrant in Europe.
Globalization is defined as “Development of extensive worldwide patterns of economic relationships between nations.”, but this seems to be a perfect example of anti-globalization. Maybe, this is the time for the Asian countries put their foot down on these irrational policies and start to unwelcome/block globalization efforts of European companies like Lafarge, Vodafone, Nokia!
Comments/Feedbacks welcome.
Thursday, February 02, 2006
What U say, and What U Mean... Best of Project Management Jargons!
- A number of different approaches are being tried. (We are still guessing at this point.)
- Close project coordination. (We sat down and had coffee together.)
- An extensive report is being prepared on a fresh approach. (We just hired three punk kids out of school.)
- Major technological breakthrough! (It works OK; but looks very hi-tech!)
- Customer satisfaction is believed assured. (We are so far behind schedule, that the customer will take anything.)
- Preliminary operational tests were inconclusive. (The darn thing blew up when we threw the switch.)
- Test results were extremely gratifying! (Unbelievable, it actually worked!)
- The entire concept will have to be abandoned. (The only guy who understood the thing quit.)
- It is in process. (It is so wrapped in red tape that the situation is completely hopeless.)
- We will look into it. (Forget it! We have enough problems already.)
- Please note and initiate. (Let's spread the responsibility for this.)
- Give us the benefit of your thinking. (We'll listen to what you have to say as long as it doesn't interfere with what we have already done or with what we are going to do.)
- Give us your interpretation. (We can't wait to hear your bull.)
- See me or let's discuss. (Come to my office, I've messed up again.)
- All new. (Parts are not interchangeable with previous design.)
- Rugged. (Don't plan to lift it without major equipment.)
- Robust! (Rugged, but more so)
- Light weight. (Slightly lighter than rugged)
- Years of development. (One finally worked)
- Energy saving. (Achieved when the power switch is off.)
- No maintenance. (Impossible to fix)
- Low maintenance. (Nearly impossible to fix)
- Fax me the data. (I'm too lazy to write it down.)
- We are following the standard! (That's the way we have always done it!)
- I didn't get your e-mail. (I haven't checked my e-mail for days.)
Bangalore - Night Life!
Also called the 'Silicon Valley of India' due to the large number of information technology companies located there; IT firms in Bangalore employ about 30% of India’s pool of 1 Million IT Professionals!
Last time I was in Bangalore; I had to spend lot of time hunting for the popular night spots! Even though Bangalore can be referred lovingly as ‘the Pub Capital of india’, it becomes tad difficult to find out the most happening/popular places unless you have acquaintances in the city.
So here’s a compiled list of popular nightspots in Bangalore, which may be of help to all my pub-hopping friends landing up at Bangalore for the first time
Last time I was in Bangalore; I had to spend lot of time hunting for the popular night spots! Even though Bangalore can be referred lovingly as ‘the Pub Capital of india’, it becomes tad difficult to find out the most happening/popular places unless you have acquaintances in the city.
So here’s a compiled list of popular nightspots in Bangalore, which may be of help to all my pub-hopping friends landing up at Bangalore for the first time
- Athena - The Leela Palace, 23 Airport Road
- Dublin - ITC Hotel Windsor Sheraton & Towers, Windsor Square, 25 Golf Course Road
- F Bar & Lounge - Le Meridien, 28 Sankey Road
- Fabulous - Opposite Home Store, Koramangala Ring Road
- Geoffrey’s - The Royal Orchid, 1 Golf Avenue, Adjoining KGA Golf Course, Airport Rd
- Insomnia - Le Meridien Hotel, Sankey Road
- NASA - 1/4 Church Street
- Opus - No 1 1st Main, Chakravarty Layout, Palace Cross Rd
- Spinn - 80 3rd Cross, Residency Road
- Taika [The Spa Lounge] - The Pavilion, 62/63 MG Road
- The 13th Floor - Hotel Ivory Tower, 84 MG Road
- The Blue Bar - Taj Westend, 25, Race Course Road
- Zero G - Level 10, Prestige Towers, Residency Road
- Legends Of Rock - Koramangala
- Purple Haze - Residency Road
- Styx - Residency Road
- Pecos - Rest House road, just off Brigade Road
- i-BAR - The Park Hotel, 14/7 MG Road
Subroto Bagchi, COO, MindTree Consulting to the Class of 2006 at IIM-B
I was the last child of a small-time government servant, in a family of five brothers. My earliest memory of my father is as that of a District Employment Officer in Koraput, Orissa. It was and remains as back of beyond as you can imagine. There was no electricity; no primary school nearby and water did not flow out of a tap. As a result, I did not go to school until the age of eight; I was home-schooled. My father used to get transferred every year. The family belongings fit into the back of a jeep - so the family moved from place to place and, without any trouble, my Mother would set up an establishment and get us going. Raised by a widow who had come as a refugee from the then East Bengal, she was a matriculate when she married my Father. My parents set the foundation of my life and the value system which makes me what I am today and largely defines what success means to me today.
As District Employment Officer, my father was given a jeep by the government. There was no garage in the Office, so the jeep was parked in our house. My father refused to use it to commute to the office. He told us that the jeep is an expensive resource given by the government - he reiterated to us that it was not 'his jeep' but the government's jeep. Insisting that he would use it only to tour the interiors, he would walk to his office on normal days. He also made sure that we never sat in the government jeep - we could sit in it only when it was stationary. That was our early childhood lessons in governance - a lesson that corporate managers learn the hard way, some never do.
The driver of the jeep was treated with respect due to any other member of my Father's office. As small children, we were taught not to call him by his name. We had to use the suffix 'dada' whenever we were to refer to him in public or private. When I grew up to own a car and a driver by the name of Raju was appointed - I repeated the lesson to my two small daughters. They have, as a result, grown up to call Raju, 'Raju Uncle' - very different from many of their friends who refer to their family drivers as 'my driver'. When I hear that term from a school- or college-going person, I cringe. To me, the lesson was significant - you treat small people with more respect than how you treat big people. It is more important to respect your subordinates than your superiors.
Our day used to start with the family huddling around my Mother's chulha - an earthen fire place she would build at each place of posting where she would cook for the family. There was no gas, nor electrical stoves. The morning routine started with tea. As the brew was served, Father would ask us to read aloud the editorial page of The Statesman's 'muffosil' edition - delivered one day late. We did not understand much of what we were reading. But the ritual was meant for us to know that the world was larger than Koraput district and the English I speak today, despite having studied in an Oriya medium school, has to do with that routine. After reading the newspaper aloud, we were told to fold it neatly. Father taught us a simple lesson. He used to say, "You should leave your newspaper and your toilet, the way you expect to find it". That lesson was about showing consideration to others. Business begins and ends with that simple precept.
Being small children, we were always enamored with advertisements in the newspaper for transistor radios - we did not have one. We saw other people having radios in their homes and each time there was an advertisement of Philips, Murphy or Bush radios, we would ask Father when we could get one. Each time, my Father would reply that we did not need one because he already had five radios - alluding to his five sons. We also did not have a house of our own and would occasionally ask Father as to when, like others, we would live in our own house. He would give a similar reply, "We do not need a house of our own. I already own five houses". His replies did not gladden our hearts in that instant. Nonetheless, we learnt that it is important not to measure personal success and sense of well being through material possessions.
Government houses seldom came with fences. Mother and I collected twigs and built a small fence. After lunch, my Mother would never sleep. She would take her kitchen utensils and with those she and I would dig the rocky, white ant infested surrounding. We planted flowering bushes. The white ants destroyed them. My mother brought ash from her chulha and mixed it in the earth and we planted the seedlings all over again. This time, they bloomed. At that time, my father's transfer order came. A few neighbors told my mother why she was taking so much pain to beautify a government house, why she was planting seeds that would only benefit the next occupant. My mother replied that it did not matter to her that she would not see the flowers in full bloom. She said, "I have to create a bloom in a desert and whenever I am given a new place, I must leave it more beautiful than what I had inherited". That was my first lesson in success. It is not about what you create for yourself, it is what you leave behind that defines success.
My mother began developing a cataract in her eyes when I was very small. At that time, the eldest among my brothers got a teaching job at the University in Bhubaneswar and had to prepare for the civil services examination. So, it was decided that my Mother would move to cook for him and, as her appendage, I had to move too. For the first time in my life, I saw electricity in homes and water coming out of a tap. It was around 1965 and the country was going to war with Pakistan. My mother was having problems reading and in any case, being Bengali, she did not know the Oriya script. So, in addition to my daily chores, my job was to read her the local newspaper - end to end. That created in me a sense of connectedness with a larger world. I began taking interest in many different things. While reading out news about the war, I felt that I was fighting the war myself. She and I discussed the daily news and built a bond with the larger universe. In it, we became part of a larger reality. Till date, I measure my success in terms of that sense of larger connectedness.
Meanwhile, the war raged and India was fighting on both fronts. Lal Bahadur Shastri, the then Prime Minster, coined the term "Jai Jawan, Jai Kisaan" and galvanized the nation in to patriotic fervor. Other than reading out the newspaper to my mother, I had no clue about how I could be part of the action. So, after reading her the newspaper, every day I would land up near the University's water tank, which served the community. I would spend hours under it, imagining that there could be spies who would come to poison the water and I had to watch for them. I would daydream about catching one and how the next day, I would be featured in the newspaper. Unfortunately for me, the spies at war ignored the sleepy town of Bhubaneswar and I never got a chance to catch one in action. Yet, that act unlocked my imagination.
Imagination is everything. If we can imagine a future, we can create it, if we can create that future, others will live in it. That is the essence of success.
Over the next few years, my mother's eyesight dimmed but in me she created a larger vision, a vision with which I continue to see the world and, I sense, through my eyes, she was seeing too. As the next few years unfolded, her vision deteriorated and she was operated for cataract. I remember when she returned after her operation and she saw my face clearly for the first time, she was astonished. She said, "Oh my God, I did not know you were so fair".
I remain mighty pleased with that adulation even till date. Within weeks of getting her sight back, she developed a corneal ulcer and, overnight, became blind in both eyes. That was 1969. She died in 2002. In all those 32 years of living with blindness, she never complained about her fate even once. Curious to know what she saw with blind eyes, I asked her once if she sees darkness. She replied, "No, I do not see darkness. I only see light even with my eyes closed". Until she was eighty years of age, she did her morning yoga everyday, swept her own room and washed her own clothes. To me, success is about the sense of independence; it is about not seeing the world but seeing the light.
Over the many intervening years, I grew up, studied, joined the industry and began to carve my life's own journey. I began my life as a clerk in a government office, went on to become a Management Trainee with the DCM group and eventually found my life's calling with the IT industry when fourth generation computers came to India in 1981. Life took me places - I worked with outstanding people, challenging assignments and traveled all over the world. In 1992, while I was posted in the US, I learnt that my father, living a retired life with my eldest brother, had suffered a third degree burn injury and was admitted in the Safderjung Hospital in Delhi. I flew back to attend to him - he remained for a few days in critical stage, bandaged from neck to toe. The Safderjung Hospital is a cockroach infested, dirty, inhuman place. The overworked, under-resourced sisters in the burn ward are both victims and perpetrators of dehumanized life at its worst. One morning, while attending to my Father, I realized that the blood bottle was empty and fearing that air would go into his vein, I asked the attending nurse to change it. She bluntly told me to do it myself. In that horrible theater of death, I was in pain and frustration and anger. Finally when she relented and came, my Father opened his eyes and murmured to her, "Why have you not gone home yet?" Here was a man on his deathbed but more concerned about the overworked nurse than his own state. I was stunned at his stoic self. There I learnt that there is no limit to how concerned you can be for another human being and what is the limit of inclusion you can create. My father died the next day.
He was a man whose success was defined by his principles, his frugality, his universalism and his sense of inclusion. Above all, he taught me that success is your ability to rise above your discomfort, whatever may be your current state. You can, if you want, raise your consciousness above your immediate surroundings. Success is not about building material comforts - the transistor that he never could buy or the house that he never owned. His success was about the legacy he left, the memetic continuity of his ideals that grew beyond the smallness of an ill-paid, unrecognized government servant's world.
My father was a fervent believer in the British Raj. He sincerely doubted the capability of the post-independence Indian political parties to govern the country. To him, the lowering of the Union Jack was a sad event. My Mother was the exact opposite. When Subhash Bose quit the Indian National Congress and came to Dacca, my mother, then a schoolgirl, garlanded him. She learnt to spin khadi and joined an underground movement that trained her in using daggers and swords. Consequently, our household saw diversity in the political outlook of the two. On major issues concerning the world, the Old Man and the Old Lady had differing opinions. In them, we learnt the power of disagreements, of dialogue and the essence of living with diversity in thinking. Success is not about the ability to create a definitive dogmatic end state; it is about the unfolding of thought processes, of dialogue and continuum.
Two years back, at the age of eighty-two, Mother had a paralytic stroke and was lying in a government hospital in Bhubaneswar. I flew down from the US where I was serving my second stint, to see her. I spent two weeks with her in the hospital as she remained in a paralytic state. She was neither getting better nor moving on. Eventually I had to return to work. While leaving her behind, I kissed her face. In that paralytic state and a garbled voice, she said, "Why are you kissing me, go kiss the world." Her river was nearing its journey, at the confluence of life and death, this woman who came to India as a refugee, raised by a widowed Mother, no more educated than high school, married to an anonymous government servant whose last salary was Rupees Three Hundred, robbed of her eyesight by fate and crowned by adversity - was telling me to go and kiss the world!
Success to me is about Vision. It is the ability to rise above the immediacy of pain. It is about imagination. It is about sensitivity to small people. It is about building inclusion. It is about connectedness to a larger world existence. It is about personal tenacity. It is about giving back more to life than you take out of it. It is about creating extra-ordinary success with ordinary lives.
Thank you very much; I wish you good luck and Godspeed. Go, kiss the world.
As District Employment Officer, my father was given a jeep by the government. There was no garage in the Office, so the jeep was parked in our house. My father refused to use it to commute to the office. He told us that the jeep is an expensive resource given by the government - he reiterated to us that it was not 'his jeep' but the government's jeep. Insisting that he would use it only to tour the interiors, he would walk to his office on normal days. He also made sure that we never sat in the government jeep - we could sit in it only when it was stationary. That was our early childhood lessons in governance - a lesson that corporate managers learn the hard way, some never do.
The driver of the jeep was treated with respect due to any other member of my Father's office. As small children, we were taught not to call him by his name. We had to use the suffix 'dada' whenever we were to refer to him in public or private. When I grew up to own a car and a driver by the name of Raju was appointed - I repeated the lesson to my two small daughters. They have, as a result, grown up to call Raju, 'Raju Uncle' - very different from many of their friends who refer to their family drivers as 'my driver'. When I hear that term from a school- or college-going person, I cringe. To me, the lesson was significant - you treat small people with more respect than how you treat big people. It is more important to respect your subordinates than your superiors.
Our day used to start with the family huddling around my Mother's chulha - an earthen fire place she would build at each place of posting where she would cook for the family. There was no gas, nor electrical stoves. The morning routine started with tea. As the brew was served, Father would ask us to read aloud the editorial page of The Statesman's 'muffosil' edition - delivered one day late. We did not understand much of what we were reading. But the ritual was meant for us to know that the world was larger than Koraput district and the English I speak today, despite having studied in an Oriya medium school, has to do with that routine. After reading the newspaper aloud, we were told to fold it neatly. Father taught us a simple lesson. He used to say, "You should leave your newspaper and your toilet, the way you expect to find it". That lesson was about showing consideration to others. Business begins and ends with that simple precept.
Being small children, we were always enamored with advertisements in the newspaper for transistor radios - we did not have one. We saw other people having radios in their homes and each time there was an advertisement of Philips, Murphy or Bush radios, we would ask Father when we could get one. Each time, my Father would reply that we did not need one because he already had five radios - alluding to his five sons. We also did not have a house of our own and would occasionally ask Father as to when, like others, we would live in our own house. He would give a similar reply, "We do not need a house of our own. I already own five houses". His replies did not gladden our hearts in that instant. Nonetheless, we learnt that it is important not to measure personal success and sense of well being through material possessions.
Government houses seldom came with fences. Mother and I collected twigs and built a small fence. After lunch, my Mother would never sleep. She would take her kitchen utensils and with those she and I would dig the rocky, white ant infested surrounding. We planted flowering bushes. The white ants destroyed them. My mother brought ash from her chulha and mixed it in the earth and we planted the seedlings all over again. This time, they bloomed. At that time, my father's transfer order came. A few neighbors told my mother why she was taking so much pain to beautify a government house, why she was planting seeds that would only benefit the next occupant. My mother replied that it did not matter to her that she would not see the flowers in full bloom. She said, "I have to create a bloom in a desert and whenever I am given a new place, I must leave it more beautiful than what I had inherited". That was my first lesson in success. It is not about what you create for yourself, it is what you leave behind that defines success.
My mother began developing a cataract in her eyes when I was very small. At that time, the eldest among my brothers got a teaching job at the University in Bhubaneswar and had to prepare for the civil services examination. So, it was decided that my Mother would move to cook for him and, as her appendage, I had to move too. For the first time in my life, I saw electricity in homes and water coming out of a tap. It was around 1965 and the country was going to war with Pakistan. My mother was having problems reading and in any case, being Bengali, she did not know the Oriya script. So, in addition to my daily chores, my job was to read her the local newspaper - end to end. That created in me a sense of connectedness with a larger world. I began taking interest in many different things. While reading out news about the war, I felt that I was fighting the war myself. She and I discussed the daily news and built a bond with the larger universe. In it, we became part of a larger reality. Till date, I measure my success in terms of that sense of larger connectedness.
Meanwhile, the war raged and India was fighting on both fronts. Lal Bahadur Shastri, the then Prime Minster, coined the term "Jai Jawan, Jai Kisaan" and galvanized the nation in to patriotic fervor. Other than reading out the newspaper to my mother, I had no clue about how I could be part of the action. So, after reading her the newspaper, every day I would land up near the University's water tank, which served the community. I would spend hours under it, imagining that there could be spies who would come to poison the water and I had to watch for them. I would daydream about catching one and how the next day, I would be featured in the newspaper. Unfortunately for me, the spies at war ignored the sleepy town of Bhubaneswar and I never got a chance to catch one in action. Yet, that act unlocked my imagination.
Imagination is everything. If we can imagine a future, we can create it, if we can create that future, others will live in it. That is the essence of success.
Over the next few years, my mother's eyesight dimmed but in me she created a larger vision, a vision with which I continue to see the world and, I sense, through my eyes, she was seeing too. As the next few years unfolded, her vision deteriorated and she was operated for cataract. I remember when she returned after her operation and she saw my face clearly for the first time, she was astonished. She said, "Oh my God, I did not know you were so fair".
I remain mighty pleased with that adulation even till date. Within weeks of getting her sight back, she developed a corneal ulcer and, overnight, became blind in both eyes. That was 1969. She died in 2002. In all those 32 years of living with blindness, she never complained about her fate even once. Curious to know what she saw with blind eyes, I asked her once if she sees darkness. She replied, "No, I do not see darkness. I only see light even with my eyes closed". Until she was eighty years of age, she did her morning yoga everyday, swept her own room and washed her own clothes. To me, success is about the sense of independence; it is about not seeing the world but seeing the light.
Over the many intervening years, I grew up, studied, joined the industry and began to carve my life's own journey. I began my life as a clerk in a government office, went on to become a Management Trainee with the DCM group and eventually found my life's calling with the IT industry when fourth generation computers came to India in 1981. Life took me places - I worked with outstanding people, challenging assignments and traveled all over the world. In 1992, while I was posted in the US, I learnt that my father, living a retired life with my eldest brother, had suffered a third degree burn injury and was admitted in the Safderjung Hospital in Delhi. I flew back to attend to him - he remained for a few days in critical stage, bandaged from neck to toe. The Safderjung Hospital is a cockroach infested, dirty, inhuman place. The overworked, under-resourced sisters in the burn ward are both victims and perpetrators of dehumanized life at its worst. One morning, while attending to my Father, I realized that the blood bottle was empty and fearing that air would go into his vein, I asked the attending nurse to change it. She bluntly told me to do it myself. In that horrible theater of death, I was in pain and frustration and anger. Finally when she relented and came, my Father opened his eyes and murmured to her, "Why have you not gone home yet?" Here was a man on his deathbed but more concerned about the overworked nurse than his own state. I was stunned at his stoic self. There I learnt that there is no limit to how concerned you can be for another human being and what is the limit of inclusion you can create. My father died the next day.
He was a man whose success was defined by his principles, his frugality, his universalism and his sense of inclusion. Above all, he taught me that success is your ability to rise above your discomfort, whatever may be your current state. You can, if you want, raise your consciousness above your immediate surroundings. Success is not about building material comforts - the transistor that he never could buy or the house that he never owned. His success was about the legacy he left, the memetic continuity of his ideals that grew beyond the smallness of an ill-paid, unrecognized government servant's world.
My father was a fervent believer in the British Raj. He sincerely doubted the capability of the post-independence Indian political parties to govern the country. To him, the lowering of the Union Jack was a sad event. My Mother was the exact opposite. When Subhash Bose quit the Indian National Congress and came to Dacca, my mother, then a schoolgirl, garlanded him. She learnt to spin khadi and joined an underground movement that trained her in using daggers and swords. Consequently, our household saw diversity in the political outlook of the two. On major issues concerning the world, the Old Man and the Old Lady had differing opinions. In them, we learnt the power of disagreements, of dialogue and the essence of living with diversity in thinking. Success is not about the ability to create a definitive dogmatic end state; it is about the unfolding of thought processes, of dialogue and continuum.
Two years back, at the age of eighty-two, Mother had a paralytic stroke and was lying in a government hospital in Bhubaneswar. I flew down from the US where I was serving my second stint, to see her. I spent two weeks with her in the hospital as she remained in a paralytic state. She was neither getting better nor moving on. Eventually I had to return to work. While leaving her behind, I kissed her face. In that paralytic state and a garbled voice, she said, "Why are you kissing me, go kiss the world." Her river was nearing its journey, at the confluence of life and death, this woman who came to India as a refugee, raised by a widowed Mother, no more educated than high school, married to an anonymous government servant whose last salary was Rupees Three Hundred, robbed of her eyesight by fate and crowned by adversity - was telling me to go and kiss the world!
Success to me is about Vision. It is the ability to rise above the immediacy of pain. It is about imagination. It is about sensitivity to small people. It is about building inclusion. It is about connectedness to a larger world existence. It is about personal tenacity. It is about giving back more to life than you take out of it. It is about creating extra-ordinary success with ordinary lives.
Thank you very much; I wish you good luck and Godspeed. Go, kiss the world.
A wonderful address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computers
Stanford Report, June 14, 2005
'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says
This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky – I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation - the Macintosh - a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me – I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.
'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says
This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky – I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation - the Macintosh - a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me – I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Starting Your Day...
Getting up each morning is like fighting a war for most of us. It seems it is the greatest problem we have with ourselves. But once we understand the techniques of how to wake up each morning and the activities we should regularly do, life will take a drastic change. Most of our tensions, stress and 'urgency' syndromes can be controlled. It all begins with how to start our day effectively.
Stephen Covey in his book, Seven Habits of highly effective people calls this process as Sharpening the Saw. Find below a few tips on how to start our day with ourselves. Note, while following these steps, understand that no one can do it for you. These are 'Do it yourself' tips.
As Lord Krishna says, in the Bhagavat Geeta "Let a man lift himself by his own self alone, and let him lower not himself; for, this Self alone is the friend of oneself, and this Self is the enemy of oneself"(Chapter 6, verse 5) Man can rise up from his bed and also in his life only by his own self efforts. No Mummy, Papa, brother, sister, wife, husband or children can help in this matter.
Wake up softly
Most of us are habituated to wake up with jerks and shocks. A research conducted recently by medical expert shows that the first thing that 80 % of people living in cities do each morning, is to look at the time and tell themselves repeatedly, "Oh its late again!". Can you imagine the mental condition of a person who wakes up with such a negative mindset? We give ourselves an Auto suggestion that we are late. Then we get ourselves into a trap called 'Time Management'. No workshops, books or training sessions can help us to improve our Time Management skills if we start our day by looking at the Clock. Time is a concept of the mind and to manage time you have to go 'beyond' time. Instead learn to wake up softly.
As soon as you wake up, slowly rise yourself and sit with the eyes closed for about 10-15 seconds. You can either be silent, observing the calmness that your sleep has given you. If that is not possible, you can chat some verses from your religious scriptures or start with some ‘Positive’ auto suggestions like ‘Today is going to be a great day’, or ‘I am going to do my best today and will not be focused on the results'.
For persons who are in the habit of getting woken up by their family members please tell them to wake you up softly. Most of the family members wake up their children and spouses by shouting at their highest volume “GET UP! YOU ARE LATE FOR YOUR WORK” Many of them also physically shake the body with force “GET UP. YOU IDIOT!”
Tell your family members to wake you up softly. If you are the ones to wake up others, practice this, Go to the person who have to wake up. Touch him/her softly on the shoulder and whisper slowly “Good morning. Its time to wake up” You can also plant a kiss to them. You will be surprised you will not require repeated shouting. The person will slowly wake up in his own pace. But do not shout.
Do not sit it bed for long.
You will feel lazy and go off to sleep again. Directly go to your washroom. Wash your face with water (normal room temperature) and brush your teeth. Attend to your natures call. After you come out of your cleaning up process, drink a glass of water. Your body for the last 7-8 hours, was in the bed with the quality of Tamas (lethargy and laziness). This process of cleaning up will get your mind to a state of Sattva (pure and calm). Drinking water will wake up your internal digestion system which too has got a bit Tamasic. With this 90 % of your sleep is gone.
Yet note that you should make it a point, not to go back and lie down on your bed. You know the reason why…
Exercise
A few physical movements will help your body to get ready for the wonderful day ahead. Deep breathing, stretching, walking etc will give the message to the body that the day has arrived for you to function with strength and focus. Note that exercises should be done without jerks. If you are not exercising regularly do not start the very first day by exercising for 1 hour. Give your body some time to get adjusted to exercises. A professional in this field like Yoga teachers and health instructors will be able to guide you as per your body’s requirements. Keep in mind that each body pattern is different, so what physical exercises may look good for one may be harmful to others.
The 6 golden rules of exercises in the Indian Yoga Asana systems is “Slowly-slowly, According to your capacity, regular practice, with respect towards your life, surrender to god and with Awareness” In case you do not have time due to an early morning appointment, still make it a point to stretch your body and give physical movements to all parts of your body for at least 5-7 minutes. You can put up some soft music or religious chantings during this time.
Most houses in India have the habit of listening to Subrabhatam, Shlokas of Bhagavat Geeta, Bhajans or some divine music. After exercises rest for some time. Let your body to cool down to normal room temperature. Take your bath giving attention to each part of the body. For many of us bath means pouring water on the body. Bathing is also an exercise by itself. As you are applying soap or cleaning your body; do it with full attention. You can also give a light massage to each muscle. Treat your body with love. After all this is the instrument that will helps you to function with the world outside.
Swami Chinmayananda, the founder of Chinmaya Mission said, “Keep your body the way the driver keeps his car”. It’s every driver’s responsibility to keep the car in a good working condition.
Study and Meditation
Your body is now fully ready to meet the challenges of the outside world. But before that you need to make your mind ready too. Study of religious scriptures and Meditation will help us to do that.
Swami Chinmayanada used to instruct all his devotees. “Start our day by studying 5 verses per day of the Bhagavat Geeta”. Bhagavat Geeta is a universal book that has helped people across the globe for centuries. Mahatma Gandhi never had a day when he did not study the Geeta. He used to call it his ‘Mother’. With your own evolution and as per your religious tradition you can also go to other scriptures like the Upanishads and other great works of seers and saints.
After you have studied, meditate on those ideas you have gathered. Meditation is not a process it is state of mind. Most people associate meditation with some process. Swami Chinmayananda used to tell “Meditation is not a verb it is a noun”. Most people struggle at the seat of meditation ‘trying’ to make their mind calm. Mind is a flow of thoughts. It will always be like that.
As Swami Ishwarananda of Chinmaya Mission, once so beautifully wrote “Freedom is ‘IN’ the mind, not ‘for’ the mind or ‘of’ the mind”. For beginners in the seat of meditation start for 10 minutes each day watching your mind. You can get guidance and tips in meditation from various spiritual masters of various spiritual organizations.
Now you ready jump in the world of challenges…. With your body strong, your mind calm and your heart full of love and enthusiasm there is no situation that you cannot handle.
But remember… Do it regularly. This process of starting your day has to be done regularly on a daily basis. Do not get too upset if you miss a little here or there. Yet the greatest challenge is to come back on the track each time you become aware you are ‘off track’.
Understand the Golden rule “THE BODY AND THE MIND HAS NO HOLIDAYS OR WEEKENDS”. The Sun does not tell us, ‘Boy! It’s SUNday today, so let me sleep a little more’. Your heart does not say, ‘Can I take a break, I have been beating for the last 30 years’. Like nature, our body has its own beautiful systems. Keep in lines with those natural systems. Discipline is the key to success in any field.
Wake up at the same time of the day even if you do not have to go to workplace. There are better things to do in life that just going to offices. Utilize your holidays and weekends to do the BEST things in life instead of lying on the bed. As you do it regularly it will become a part of your system.
Your body will get adjusted to your ‘Internal Alarm clock’. No more will be you dependent on others for your success in life. Remember, “Life is what we make out of it. Otherwise it will become something others want to make out of us”.
For the whole process mentioned above, an average man will take about one and a half hours. So if you have to go to office at 8 in the morning. Wake up by 6.30 am. Don’t wake up at 7.45 am look at the Watch and tell yourself “Oh its late again!”
Have a nice day..
(The writer Radhakrishnan Pillai, is the Director of the company ATMA DARSHAN. www.atmadarshan.com, which helps seekers across the globe discover Spiritual India. He can be contacted at radhakrishnan@atmadarshan.com M-91-9820374796.)
To know more about Chinmaya Mission’s activities visit www.chinmayamission.com
Stephen Covey in his book, Seven Habits of highly effective people calls this process as Sharpening the Saw. Find below a few tips on how to start our day with ourselves. Note, while following these steps, understand that no one can do it for you. These are 'Do it yourself' tips.
As Lord Krishna says, in the Bhagavat Geeta "Let a man lift himself by his own self alone, and let him lower not himself; for, this Self alone is the friend of oneself, and this Self is the enemy of oneself"(Chapter 6, verse 5) Man can rise up from his bed and also in his life only by his own self efforts. No Mummy, Papa, brother, sister, wife, husband or children can help in this matter.
Wake up softly
Most of us are habituated to wake up with jerks and shocks. A research conducted recently by medical expert shows that the first thing that 80 % of people living in cities do each morning, is to look at the time and tell themselves repeatedly, "Oh its late again!". Can you imagine the mental condition of a person who wakes up with such a negative mindset? We give ourselves an Auto suggestion that we are late. Then we get ourselves into a trap called 'Time Management'. No workshops, books or training sessions can help us to improve our Time Management skills if we start our day by looking at the Clock. Time is a concept of the mind and to manage time you have to go 'beyond' time. Instead learn to wake up softly.
As soon as you wake up, slowly rise yourself and sit with the eyes closed for about 10-15 seconds. You can either be silent, observing the calmness that your sleep has given you. If that is not possible, you can chat some verses from your religious scriptures or start with some ‘Positive’ auto suggestions like ‘Today is going to be a great day’, or ‘I am going to do my best today and will not be focused on the results'.
For persons who are in the habit of getting woken up by their family members please tell them to wake you up softly. Most of the family members wake up their children and spouses by shouting at their highest volume “GET UP! YOU ARE LATE FOR YOUR WORK” Many of them also physically shake the body with force “GET UP. YOU IDIOT!”
Tell your family members to wake you up softly. If you are the ones to wake up others, practice this, Go to the person who have to wake up. Touch him/her softly on the shoulder and whisper slowly “Good morning. Its time to wake up” You can also plant a kiss to them. You will be surprised you will not require repeated shouting. The person will slowly wake up in his own pace. But do not shout.
Do not sit it bed for long.
You will feel lazy and go off to sleep again. Directly go to your washroom. Wash your face with water (normal room temperature) and brush your teeth. Attend to your natures call. After you come out of your cleaning up process, drink a glass of water. Your body for the last 7-8 hours, was in the bed with the quality of Tamas (lethargy and laziness). This process of cleaning up will get your mind to a state of Sattva (pure and calm). Drinking water will wake up your internal digestion system which too has got a bit Tamasic. With this 90 % of your sleep is gone.
Yet note that you should make it a point, not to go back and lie down on your bed. You know the reason why…
Exercise
A few physical movements will help your body to get ready for the wonderful day ahead. Deep breathing, stretching, walking etc will give the message to the body that the day has arrived for you to function with strength and focus. Note that exercises should be done without jerks. If you are not exercising regularly do not start the very first day by exercising for 1 hour. Give your body some time to get adjusted to exercises. A professional in this field like Yoga teachers and health instructors will be able to guide you as per your body’s requirements. Keep in mind that each body pattern is different, so what physical exercises may look good for one may be harmful to others.
The 6 golden rules of exercises in the Indian Yoga Asana systems is “Slowly-slowly, According to your capacity, regular practice, with respect towards your life, surrender to god and with Awareness” In case you do not have time due to an early morning appointment, still make it a point to stretch your body and give physical movements to all parts of your body for at least 5-7 minutes. You can put up some soft music or religious chantings during this time.
Most houses in India have the habit of listening to Subrabhatam, Shlokas of Bhagavat Geeta, Bhajans or some divine music. After exercises rest for some time. Let your body to cool down to normal room temperature. Take your bath giving attention to each part of the body. For many of us bath means pouring water on the body. Bathing is also an exercise by itself. As you are applying soap or cleaning your body; do it with full attention. You can also give a light massage to each muscle. Treat your body with love. After all this is the instrument that will helps you to function with the world outside.
Swami Chinmayananda, the founder of Chinmaya Mission said, “Keep your body the way the driver keeps his car”. It’s every driver’s responsibility to keep the car in a good working condition.
Study and Meditation
Your body is now fully ready to meet the challenges of the outside world. But before that you need to make your mind ready too. Study of religious scriptures and Meditation will help us to do that.
Swami Chinmayanada used to instruct all his devotees. “Start our day by studying 5 verses per day of the Bhagavat Geeta”. Bhagavat Geeta is a universal book that has helped people across the globe for centuries. Mahatma Gandhi never had a day when he did not study the Geeta. He used to call it his ‘Mother’. With your own evolution and as per your religious tradition you can also go to other scriptures like the Upanishads and other great works of seers and saints.
After you have studied, meditate on those ideas you have gathered. Meditation is not a process it is state of mind. Most people associate meditation with some process. Swami Chinmayananda used to tell “Meditation is not a verb it is a noun”. Most people struggle at the seat of meditation ‘trying’ to make their mind calm. Mind is a flow of thoughts. It will always be like that.
As Swami Ishwarananda of Chinmaya Mission, once so beautifully wrote “Freedom is ‘IN’ the mind, not ‘for’ the mind or ‘of’ the mind”. For beginners in the seat of meditation start for 10 minutes each day watching your mind. You can get guidance and tips in meditation from various spiritual masters of various spiritual organizations.
Now you ready jump in the world of challenges…. With your body strong, your mind calm and your heart full of love and enthusiasm there is no situation that you cannot handle.
But remember… Do it regularly. This process of starting your day has to be done regularly on a daily basis. Do not get too upset if you miss a little here or there. Yet the greatest challenge is to come back on the track each time you become aware you are ‘off track’.
Understand the Golden rule “THE BODY AND THE MIND HAS NO HOLIDAYS OR WEEKENDS”. The Sun does not tell us, ‘Boy! It’s SUNday today, so let me sleep a little more’. Your heart does not say, ‘Can I take a break, I have been beating for the last 30 years’. Like nature, our body has its own beautiful systems. Keep in lines with those natural systems. Discipline is the key to success in any field.
Wake up at the same time of the day even if you do not have to go to workplace. There are better things to do in life that just going to offices. Utilize your holidays and weekends to do the BEST things in life instead of lying on the bed. As you do it regularly it will become a part of your system.
Your body will get adjusted to your ‘Internal Alarm clock’. No more will be you dependent on others for your success in life. Remember, “Life is what we make out of it. Otherwise it will become something others want to make out of us”.
For the whole process mentioned above, an average man will take about one and a half hours. So if you have to go to office at 8 in the morning. Wake up by 6.30 am. Don’t wake up at 7.45 am look at the Watch and tell yourself “Oh its late again!”
Have a nice day..
(The writer Radhakrishnan Pillai, is the Director of the company ATMA DARSHAN. www.atmadarshan.com, which helps seekers across the globe discover Spiritual India. He can be contacted at radhakrishnan@atmadarshan.com M-91-9820374796.)
To know more about Chinmaya Mission’s activities visit www.chinmayamission.com
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