2012

Its the name of the movie released in November-2009. The movie is based on the 2012 phenomenon.

High concentration of neutrinos from the solar flares increase the temperature of the earth's core rapidly causing the crustal displacement. As a result, there are massive earthquakes, megatsunami all over the world. And the movie centers on how some people (from all over the world) manage to escape from this natural disaster.

The movie did make us to think how far technology has gone. The movie provides a great visual treat and brings us to edge of the seat. A must see movie.

Also it was interesting to see the audiences going crazy over a scene which highlights that it is an Indian scientist who found and warned about this disaster first to the world.

There is a scene in which the president of united states says that the people should be made aware of the disaster to happen. They should know all we have is few minutes of life. And that will provide them the time to show their love for others, re-unite broken hearts, say sorry to their fellow people for bad encounters and so on.

Post the movie, I was thinking about this particular scene. I wish for such a time in which people would show their love for fellow human-being. And if it is to come only in such a scenario, then I wish such a disaster to happen.

We are not of aware of what the worst is happening among us. If it is crust for earth, it is attitude for human beings. Both brings worst for they go wrong. We don't know about when, how the former would go wrong as it is not in our hands. But the latter is in our hands and it is already heading towards the wrong side.

Today, even we are not willing to provide/allow what our fellow human-beings are deserved to have/possess. A simple example - traffic signals. We are not willing to allow the other side of the traffic to use their turn. The most time we think is 'I'. 'I' ALONE should keep going.

The other concern is the life of people across the world is not balanced. At one side, people are spending lavishly for one time food. Whereas on the other side there are people who cannot make it once a day. The point is, the percentage of former is very very less compared to the percentage of latter. As said in one movie "Rich gets richer, poor gets poorer".

Also mostly we talk about - the growth percentage of wealth of Bill gates, Ambani, Ratan Tata and a few to name. What is the growth percentage of number of Bill gates, Ambanis and Ratan Tatas?

At big bazaar

I was staying with my brother who is civil engineer working in a construction company. He had switched company that placed him in a project at Tuticorin. Hence he was busy with the shifting process to Tuticorin from Chennai. He wanted to purchase some clothes. He asked me to accompany him for the purchase.

That day after office hours, I accompanied him to Big Bazaar, Vadapalani. It was around 8:30PM. We made the purchase. My brother have took a couple of trousers that needed length alteration. We were asked to approach the help-desk. It was 9:30PM by that time.

We reached the help-desk. There was a customer arguing with the staff at help desk. The customer wanted to gift wrap an item bought by her then. But the staff at help-desk said that gift wrapping cannot be done as the staff who does the gift wrapping has left by 8:00PM. The customer asked why she was not made aware of that before the purchase. She said that if she was made aware before purchase, she would have gone to some-other shop.

She had a point. Yes, why the customer is not made aware of that before the purchase. At-least a notice mentioning that should have been placed at the help-desk.

What made worse is the behavior of the staff at help-desk towards that customer. He started to talk bitterly. And at one point, the staff asked the customer to leave the place.

Next is our turn to get the length of trousers altered. We aren't special. We too got the same response. The staff who does the length alteration left by 8:00PM. As I witnessed what happened before, I left the help-desk without the alteration get done.

As all the services for the product they sell gets over by 8:00PM, what is their point of keeping the shop opened after 8:00PM. Instead to say no to customer, it is better to shut the door.

And the staff at the help-desk forget that they depend on customers.

The famous quotation about customer by Mahatma Gandhiji:

A Customer is the most important visitor on our premises.
He is not dependent on us.
We are dependent on him.
He is not an interruption on our work.
He is the purpose of it.
He is not an outsider on our business.
He is a part of it.
We are not doing him a favor by serving him.
He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so.

Anger - how to deal with it

Anger is an emotion that all humans have. No-one can raise their hands for they don't possess it. Of-course many psycologists say anger has functional value for survival.

But anger as an emotion may affect personal or social relationship. Yes, someone's action may bring back our reaction in anger. Such reactions may affect our relationship with those persons. Sometime it draws the conclusion of ending the relationship with those persons.

As we know, it is very difficult to build a relationship. Breaking/hurting such built relationship within minutes is too hard to digest. So how to save the relationship during such scenarios?

We could not control anger in most cases. The crack on the wall of relationship develops at the time of emotion 'anger'. This is because at the time of anger we most probably think about the other person on negative shade. And even whatever good he/she did/does/will-do for us, we might be seeing him with negative perspective. This builds the enmity.

So the simple thing what we can do is, while we are angry with someone forget them for a while. 'A while' could be the time until we are out of the emotion 'anger'. In simple words we can say "don't take any decision at any emotion".

Great religious vision

On browsing a daily newspaper, I found this most appealing religious view by some industrialist.

Ultimately there was no better way to serve the Hindu dharma than serve them all and love them all.

Earlier I have made a post "love thy neighbour - way to see god" highlighting this.

Watching TV - A time killing mechanism!!

Today most of the youngsters tend to spend a part of their daily life in watching television (TV). And they don't know why their TVs are switched-on for most of the time. They wander around the TV-channels endlessly by pressing on TV-remote keys mindlessly.

You believe, they have excuse for such a hazardous habit. The excuse is 'relaxation'.

I relate watching TV (mindlessly) to smoking cigarettes. Both have two in common. First, both reduces our time that should be spent for ourselves. Yes, cigarettes reduces our life span by bringing death earlier. TV is bit different. It takes away part of our time from our life span. Second, people who are habitual to both says they do it for relaxation.

I can say these people can be categorized into anyone of the following:

1. They don't know the actual meaning of relaxation.
2. They think they can use relaxation as a shield to hide their weakness/inability to keep these modern day devils under their check.

Love thy neighbour - way to see god

I could see some people worship the god for the sake of (only) themselves. For they want to lead a happy and content life. Don't bother about others. Just for them and their family should be content.

I see such people don't bother/respect thy neighbor. They are not ready to talk, adjust or love thy neighbors. They even sans to bother about the surroundings for keep it neat and tidy. But these people put more effort on looting (worship) the god for their sake.

But the interesting fact is they would not refuse to get the benefits from thy neighbors. Also I see these people are not even ashamed of benefiting from others for whom they don't show any concern over them.

Here arises questions such as, if these so called pious people are not even able to respect thy neighbors how could their worship be valued. Their worship is just a loot to pacify the god for keeping them and their family content. I don't find any difference between these pious people and those who rob money and put a part of it in temple hundi.

Help - Show the direction!

Last sunday, I saw a TV programme - a debate on lavish spending against stingy spending of money.

A lady from the stingy spending side complained that her husband who is in lavish spending side, spends large amount of money on helping his friends. Once his friend sought for help saying he is struggling for living. Her husband gave Rs 10,000.

Later it is found that the man who got help from her husband bought TV set for the money borrowed.

Her husband on the other side argued that still he is ready to help his friends even though he found some of them were cheating. It is their fate to use it properly or not.

He said the reason for helping is he was struggling for living three years back. And no-one was there to help him. Even his friends. He struggled a lot and got the drive to achieve in life. And now he is the CEO of a company founded by him. So now he is in a position to help other who struggles for living.

And the debate went on. But I had the thought - his stand on helping others showed his good hearted nature. But unknowingly he is spoiling a part of the society. Helping his friends by providing money is spoiling them. He injects the thought that they could get money/survive with the help of others. This would never spark the fire in them to get the drive he got that brought him to this stature.

He can help his friends by showing the direction to come-up.

Career - decide yourself

The recent recession impact on IT industry heavily affected the students who are to make their decision on career choices. I could see reports on dailies and news channels highlighting students have chosen areas other than IT for their engineering due to the current market situation.

On asking students the reason for the choice, most of them said that they are advised by their parents, neighbors to do so. I rarely see the case where the students made their choice out of their own interest. Students are forced to choose their career based on the current market scenario. They are not allowed to make the choice out of their interest.

People can be successful only if they make their way of their own interest. And there is no relation to the current market scenario.

Career choices should not be guided by fluctuations in the market. Education should be seen as a tool that nurtures an individuals personality and equips him/her to withstand such fluctuations for leading a healthy and balanced life.

You build trust in us, we build business for you - Customer

One evening after office hours, I was in a hotel to have some good dinner. It is a non-veg hotel.

It is not the regular one I usually prefer. I came to know about the hotel when I came to near-by stores. I wanted to give a hit.

I was seated in a table and provided with the menu card. I couldn't make out the decision to order a non-veg curry. So I decided to get the help from the server.

I asked the server to suggest a non-veg curry that would have some pieces of mutton. He suggested one curry (I don't remember the name). He said that the curry would have three pieces of mutton. I decided to go for it.

After a while when the dishes were served, I was surprised. The curry I ordered for was not of the type I expected. The dish that was served as what I ordered was not gravy item. It was a dry one. The dish served was three pieces of masala stuffed mutton. There was more masala and I hardly found mutton. Very oily.

I experienced a very tough time having food there. I felt I was cheated. And I felt guilty over spending money unworthy.

I made up my mind not to visit this hotel anymore. Also not to recommend this hotel to anyone.

They failed to build trust. They failed to understand the requirement of the customer.

Machines don't lie but...

I was on board of the flight to Chennai from Mumbai. I started conversation with the gentleman sitting next to me. We discussed each others profession, day-to-day issues etc.

During the course of chat he asked me how often do you check the receipt while making purchase in supermarkets. My answer is certainly a no. He said yes we trust since everything is automated. The price is listed by reading the product code. The price total is computed using a computer. So we trust that there is zero percent for errors. He said this is not true in all cases.

A week after returning Chennai from Mumbai, I and my brother went to a supermarket near by my house. The supermarket is quite a popular one that has chains through out the city. After collecting the items to be purchased we were in the cash counter.

Remembering the chat I had with the gentleman, I started checking the price of items one-by-one as it is listed.

I found an item which I specifically picked checking its price was quoted double the actual price. I interrupted the person in the counter and asked for the reason for the item is priced double the actual amount.

The person in the counter informed me that there could be a problem and he corrected the price. I started inspecting the price of all other items. The surprise is that I could manage to find two more items for which the price is quoted higher than the actual price.

Machines don't lie. But after all we should not forget who initiates and operates those machines.

Birth redefined

We say birth for a human when he/she comes into the world as a child. But the question is, do a human born right at that time. Yes, the answer is no :). Human born only when he/she gets the maturity to understand the world, love neighbors, acknowledge neighbors, grateful to neighbors.

Today people are concerned only about themselves. They do things only that matters for them. That too, they don't consider or even have the courtesy to others who get affected/bothered by their deeds to get their things done.

The worse is, if they find the things matter them would benefit the neighbors then they keep themselves from doing that. They feel they could adjust without it but the neighbors should not get benefited from them.

Also many are not grateful to neighbors for they benefited from them. Blame neighbors for their failure in life.

Let us get into the world as humans.

Over-bridges for sub-ways

I wonder why we go for sub-ways. Sub-ways are not usable during the rainy days. I wish we could go for over-bridges.

These picture captures one of the sub-ways in Chennai during the rainy days (near-by my residence).

Crossing lines - dangerous

People prefers short-cuts through out their walk of life. Sometimes short-cuts could be fatal.