Serendipity

Lately I had been feeling a little irritated carrying my mobile phone around with me. Actually there was no issue with the mobile; the irritant was its cover. Almost two years back, my son had talked me into buying Samsung Note 2, which at that point-in-time, was one of the finest had gadgets available in the Android range (I still thank him for that!). Having paid a handsome amount to own this piece, I did not even blink an eye to buy a beautiful yet expensive flip cover for it. Normally I am quite a careful guy when it comes to maintaining the things I own, hence both the mobile and its cover were doing quite well till the recent past. However as luck could have it, due to very frequent travelling, the mobile cover got debilitated quickly. I  inquired  from a couple of shops for a new ‘original’ flip cover, expecting that it would be available at a very reasonable price, since I’ was asking for a cover of a mobile which was launched almost two years back. To my su...

Now-a-days life moves on like a Formula One car, maybe faster. I was not surprised when one of my college mates sent me a WhatsApp which beautifully described the kind of life I was leading until a few days back, which goes something like ‘Alarm rings, WhatsApp pings’. Before I could thank God for giving me one more day to live, few pings on WhatsApp, series of office e-mails from colleagues in countries who start working much earlier than we do in India and a few uncalled-for personal e-mails welcomed me. So, the tone for my day was set by them, not me. Weekdays - A quick shower, a quicker bite (many times on the way), min. one hour drive to office on my ‘University on Wheels’, series of Live Meetings with various colleagues from a few countries, a quick lunch with local colleagues, some decisions made, close to two hours of drive back home, few ‘Viber’ calls - to parents, family, friends on the way back and time pass thru’ FM radio or at times movie / YouTube in a very slow tra...

Life is all about expectations. I think the expectation from us starts even before we enter this world. And it continues even after we leave this world. I’m sure you understand what I mean. Expectation gives the expectant a sense of hope, something he or she can cling to. It’s a fascinating motivator, a mood booster, a great leveler, and what not. So what has the title of this blog to do with expectation? I think a few of you, who have already watched this movie, can relate to what I call as falling short because of over-expectation. The kind of hype which was created for this movie, especially just before its release, led to an over-expectation in a movie buff like me. So when I watched it, although overall I liked it, however somewhere it left in me a feeling of wanting more. Interestingly, even if this movie is much better than many which have been released lately, it still has not been able to provide me an oomph factor. Expectation up to a limit is a positive; however ov...

Claimer: All characters appearing in this work are real. Any resemblance to real persons is purely intentional. The recent heavy rains in Mumbai have prompted this reminiscence. July 2005 is and likely to remain unforgettable for most of the Mumbaites for a long long time. And so shall be the case for many like me who were visiting Mumbai, especially on the 26 th of July. I love Sales & Marketing part of my job, because it offers me an opportunity to travel, visit different places, meet various people, learn diverse cultures, enjoy multifarious foods and most of all gather lots n lots of experience. It was during one of my such visits, this one to Mumbai, where I experienced what I call until today, an epitome of customer delight! I landed in Mumbai on the 24 th evening for strategy discussions with my HQ planned on the 25 th & 26 th for two very large projects which we had targeted to acquire. We reached a decision by the afternoon of 26 th . My supervisor ...

Ego is the “I” or the self of any person; a person as thinking, feeling, and willing, and distinguishing itself from the selves of others and from the objects of its thought. Going by the above definition, certain amount of ego is essential for our basic existence. What we will be, if we do not possess any bit of it! Then why raise this point at all? It’s fine up to this extent. The problem starts beyond this. All of us, one time or the other, many times deliberately and a few times unknowingly, exert our ego. This creates issues between family members, close friends & relatives, colleagues, neighbours, etc. Nobody can remain unaffected by it. Many times we have seen the business flourishing when two brothers are working together towards a common goal and invariably one fine day we find that they have split. Barring a few cases, the reason is ego. The elder brother may think that the younger one lacks experience & maturity and on the other hand the younger one may fin...

Invariably anybody who starts learning driving a vehicle in India at any age understands sooner than later that ‘Gaadi kabhi seedhi seedhi mat chalao – warna thuk jayegi!’ Our entire eco-system on the road exists on one principle – never follow your lane and to some extent it goes even beyond this – never allow anybody to follow their lane. My early lessons of learning the art of driving happened on our humble white Maruti 800. I call it humble apropos of today’s swanky cars plying on our much improved roads. Going back in history, we had to wait for eight long months to possess it. I remember our (I & my brother) much younger cousin sister one day driving in a Tata Sumo to our place. For a moment everybody in our lane who saw the Sumo approaching felt as if the Sumo was being automatically driven (like a Google car), till the time they saw her screeching it to a halt and jumping out of it. She became our quintessential choice as a driving teacher from whom, during our vacati...

Each one of us loves to share our bit of successes with others as it makes us happy. Many times our Medals & Trophies are a proof of our success. Generally as a student, the more we have, the more successful we are perceived to be. It gives us a sense of pride to have them more in number than our closest friend or foe. There are also other forms of Medals & Trophies which may not prove us to be successful however surely convey how adventurous we would have been in our childhood and growing-up years. Quite a few of them remain with us for our lifetime, sometimes as a living proof of mischievousness. Guess what am I talking about? For me, the first Medal I received was in Class III while I studied at ‘Chukha Public School’ in ‘Cimakothi’ @ Bhutan. Being a hilly & forest country, you could find rocks emanating from ground anywhere & everywhere. There was one such rock which occupied practically 15 to 20% of our school playground. One day, while I raced with my fe...