We all know what Corona-virus or COVID is and many of us have experienced it personally the pain, losses and various other struggles in many ways. There are so may theories or stories on how or where the virus originated. Basically, its either cooked up in a lab somewhere or the super virus which got mutated on its own and become dangerous. What ever may be the case it’s irreversible now – which I think we all know and understand. Another break-out will put us all in a very tough spot.
So, who is Ashwathama and what’s the specialty of his brahmastra? Aswathama is a character in Mahabaratha (epic) who was the son of Guru Dhronacharya. Towards the very end of the Mahabaratha war he used his brahmastra to destroy the womb of Uttara (Abhimanyus son). Why am I saying COVID is more link Ashwathama’s brahmastra ? because of two reasons. One, Ashwathama doesn’t know how to recall a brahmastra after launching and two, Ashwathama used brahmastra to destroy the future of Pandava’s (i.e., their future generation). I feel in a sense this virus is also similar to that, some one did some experiment and release it and didn’t know how to control it and it’s destroying the future of mankind in some way, as we have witnessed over the year so many families lost their future and livelihood. I don’t know if there was a brahmastra during those Vedic ages people use to compared them with atomic weapons. But to me the real weapon is not by any means just a fiery graphic, but the one that really impact the human life on the planet. Though we have travelled through the pandemic – there is always a question is it really over or still the Ashwathama’s brahmastra is out loose waiting to strike.
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The whole world is speaking about it and I don’t think if I share mine, shouldn’t affect anything! So here it is. I don’t have to tell you what is Corona or how it spreads or all that statistics that you get in your social media accounts, I will leave all those to your judgement. But what I really want to share is my first week of work from home and my raw emotion or feeling of the week – I wonder how it would be in the next few weeks, may be something for my next blog. I was working from home for the last one week, had my own time and no people to bug me so was a productive week, in fact I was able to achieve more than what I could have achieved by going to office. Yes, that to with my son at home. So, you may think I am going to say it was a fantastic week. NO, it wasn’t – I have worked from home so many times but not regularly, but those days were different -I would have planned things and kept important things for the next day in office or done that previous day. I am going to be honest here – I had always thought WFH is not that productive till this week. Then why is it still not fun - simple it’s the “people I work with”! you know it’s not my expertise that make me do a good job (to some extend) but it’s the people around me from work place that make me do things , by helping them , asking for help , having a chat, walking over to some ones desk, someone visits you at your desk, morning rush to get to office, traffic (never thought I would say I miss that traffic light 😊) …all this feels like a community that encourages me to do my best and that f2f interaction that gives me a human touch to solve a problem or create an idea. And someone is there to physically stop we when its time, now I have lost track of time sometimes I clock more than 8-9 hours. No extended lunch breaks or walk, no chats some times when I feel out of words to write, I would talk to that person directly no chance here have to call them. Yes, it will be fair enough to say I miss office! Don’t think of me as a workaholic for saying that in fact I feel like workaholic when I work from home. On the other had I had lot of quality time with my family! But on the other side I am sure the corporate world will learn that WFH is much cheaper than hiring costly building and infrastructure. This event could change mindset of big corporations and soon we will find ourselves working from all corners of the country. Yes, this will surely trigger a change and I hope its good. I am sure many of you would have felt the same way – but on the other side there are people who are very comfortable WFH and they prefer doing so than commuting to office. I guess I am just an old social animal still trying to evolve and I hope I do. So, what’s your experience? Did you find yourself socially inactive the week? think about it and comment. What should we all do to make the world a better place in next 50 years?
We have to remove the following three fields from all kind of application formsGender, Religion/Cast, Language
Do not invest in alternative energy or any kind of energy source. Rather invest in human health – rest takes care of itself
There should be a good progress in space research
Make Education and health care non-profitable (means free)
Well those are my views - you may agree with some and disagree; will leave it to your judgement. There is a reason I choose this title for what I am going to write, these are the two places one would have gone at least to one - once in his life time. If you say no then you are beyond what I am going to write, else this may come close to your life.
Hospitals, why do we go there – illness, accidents, for some loved once to get well. No not really now even a healthy one visits in the name of health checkup or to make sure they stay healthy. From a generation of engineers, scientist and mathematicians to the most prestigious leaders, politicians and priests there is one final chapter that they won’t be able to avoid “that’s death”. Why did I say chapter, I could have described it as enemy like others would do, perhaps that’s my perspective. Ok “the hospital” we all go there because we are all afraid of that final chapter. You may think I am crazy to tell you that you are afraid of “final chapter”, think again – why we are so desperate about us or our loved once? So that we can save them. The pain and suffering are part of it. But not only that; the measure of fear differs for everyone, I may measure it at 9/10 you may measure it at 1/10 doesn’t matters – it’s ultimately gives the same results “run for the life”. We are afraid of our life or our loved once and we do what we could to save them. That’s why we go to hospitals. On a different note some or many of us go to get rid of our sufferings and pain or may be of our loved once. Some of us go there to make sure that we are not going to suffer in future (like a health checkup). And do remember for a very few it’s their job. Temples, why do we go there – J I thought of copy and pasting the above content as it is! But you can read it again replacing hospital with temple and see how it suites, decide for yourself. There is a deep magic, or I would say connection in what happens around this world or even the universe. May be we are very limited to the knowledge about this world and not know what lies beyond, so all I can do is explain it up to my own knowledge and wisdom, it up to you to take it or even feel it in your own wisdom. Science fiction is what you would have thought when you read the title of this section, if so don’t be upset - no science fiction, I just want to put together few strings and show you that this is no science fiction – unless you really want a time machine to travel back / front in time.
So how is that even possible? Lets get some basics first - time lost is lost. You neither me nor the greatest minds in the world can get it back. So time is irreversible, ok let keep that aside and see if we can come to a conclusion about travelling to future. Can you skip today and go to tomorrow directly. It can happen unless you want to come back to today. So you can just take a sleeping pill and sleep the whole day and you will be in tomorrow directly. That is possible by some means but still you will age as usual. Again going to future (unless you do space travel) is not possible. Even that's relative. So for you and me, as of now time travel is not possible. Can we say that? And it would be an absolute truth and no one would argue. May be I will be able to raise a doubt about that in the next few minutes. The true measure of time is relative, as 1 hr for me and 1 hr for a person in middle of Sahara desert is not the same. It may be in measurement same but relatively different, let’s take an example - you want to travel from point A to point B and the distance is 500 Km, the speed at which i travel determines the time at which i can reach my destination. Another wonderful thing about time – most of the derivation cannot be solved without time as a parameter. So I travel at 50 km/h speed and reached point B in 10 hrs or 11 hrs. Same way, let’s say if I walked all the way and may reach is 2 - 3 days depending on how fit I am. Look at the time difference. I may have saved more than 24 hrs, what I do with that time is different but I have traveled forward in time. I have reached to point ‘B’ today which I am supposed to reach after 2 days. By the time I walk to point ‘B’ I would have finished my work and returned back to point ‘A’. How can it not be time travel in the real sense of life. That's not it there is one more angle to it. Let say one human travels in total of 100000 km in his/her life time. Approximately he/she would have saved close to 1 year (more than 365 days). So dose it mean that that person will live for 1 more year (or) he/she would loose 1 more year. The person who walked all the 100000 KM has lived longer as time is relative he would experience things that a person travelling by a automobile cannot, because we just pressed a forward button and skipped every thing (or most of it) between point A & B. So the relative time is much faster, if you believe life is what we experience then this is as true as it is. You may think if I travel faster I could go many places and the life’s experience would be the same in numbers as the person who walked all the way. That's where its relative walking all the way certainly feels longer than other means. But again even the time travel that we do is relative, because we are so use to this fast means of transport, we just do not acknowledge the length of time unless we run a marathon. That's where a person in 60’s and 20’s differ, a man in 60’s would have traveled a lot that a man at 20’s, but may be the man at 20’s travel the same distance as the man in 60’s. But their experience with time is different. More like saying I know alphabets starts from A to Z and saying I know all alphabets starting from A to Z. --------- Happy travelling --------- Wonder of all wonders,
One with the resilient spirit, Magnificent of all nature’s creation, Enriched with the bliss of love, and New life always starts in thee. It was a Saturday evening I visited my friend’s place. While we were chatting, his neighbors kid was playing in-front of the house. We called her in – and asked all those usual questions “what’s your nameee ..?”etc..she is kind of cute(all kids are ..!). For each answer she takes a long look at the TV and with each answer an expression. I wonder if I could bring out such expressions when I speak (may be when I was a kid..).
As she was frequently looking at the TV we switched it on. After some 10 minutes me and my friend were into the TV (some interesting news), but that little girl she has started to play with the floor mat, vacuum cleaner, paper weight,…and what not – what ever she could find. But we were not; we both were more in to the TV and the discussion on that news. My friends mom came to the hall shouting “look what she is doing, are you guys in this world or not” – well that's usual! But what I turned back and saw amazed me more. The kid has jumped in to a basket full of cloths kept for washing! And she is laughing and screaming in joy – probably in the heights of joy she could be. “I never can feel the joy or happiness she had for falling into that basket”, but a child can – amazing! I realized two things that evening “may be lot of books and people say the same” still here is what I thought 1. Never do something to impress others and fall for it. 2. Happiness is what you think is happiness – no matter where you are / what you do! 1. No matter how small the requirement is, it will not be finalized in a single meeting.
2. We can try to keep things in good shape; but can’t avoid the last minute rush. 3. Your manager may not have worked in the project, but he/she will have more questions than you have – obviously! 4. No matter how bad the code is – the developer will still defend it. 5. No matter how good the code is – the tester will still find defects. 6. A perfectly executed project will have a lot of best practices but zero learning’s. 7. There will always be some one who knows every answer in the project. Alexander the Great was one of the greatest rules of the ancient times; he has ruled most of the known world during his days. An inspiring leader, great visionary, one of the best battle tactician of his time. With all his abilities and his troops he conquered the whole of the mighty Persian Empire and stretched his empire to the Himalayas.
There are even writings saying – Alexander lead Macedonian cavalry was one of the successful battle group. He was a master of battle strategy “he could almost look at the battle formation of enemies and decide on the charge of how to penetrate and destroy the formation”. Every thing was good till he invaded India. He was victorious in entering India but why he stopped; fall back and died soon after. He knew his men he quickly studied the terrain, commanded the biggest army– but then why he gave up. What quality as a leader he lacked? The answer is “he knew his men but not well enough to conquer the whole world”. Yes his men were not cooperating with him because they started to doubt his intentions. Though he inspires them by leading from front – it is very necessary for a leader to know if his men still share his great vision? - in the case of Alexander it was not , his men were tired of war and wanted to return back to their land and they are not happy with many of the decisions that he made. That’s his mistake – “His men doesn't share his vision as he failed to understand them when he asked for a greater result”. Let’s move to an early modern world, Hitler – of all who hates him for his cruelty, there are few who love him for his leadership skills. He was the man who would have changed the history of the whole world. We all know about his bravery the man who won iron cross for his bravery in First World War, transformed in to a greater leader in few years. He is a great speaker, visionary and obviously a war tactician but not too great, it took the combined effort of 3 great nations to bring him down. So where did it all go wrong? What is the quality that he lacked to be a successful leader? His whole nation shared his vision his solders were on to it, but he has asked too much – that's his problem. No doubt his army had the advanced weapons and great people to fight. But when you go against the whole world - it's the leader who should show them the light, the way forward and how it gets closer to the goal. Ordered the invasion of Russia (USSR) soon after the set back there he ordered an attack on Great Britain, which confused few of his generals not knowing what is the actual plan “hit every one around is that the plan?”;they have to ask more from their men. Ultimately we all knew how it ended for him. As we can see it’s almost the same mistake he committee as Alexander – “Failure to give mile stones to the ultimate goal and, not knowing what your people can deliver and what not”. As a leader of the modern world there could be a lot of difference from ancient times but the odds are still the same. |
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