Visitor from Pakistan!

I had my first visitor from Pakistan today (on my blog not home...!) and this is what they were looking for

“In VADA PAV make some more improvements"

They reached my post on Beggars… because it had the word ‘Vada Pav’ on it! I am sure she would have been disappointed cause it did not give any inputs on how to make better vada pav’s!. (Gender biases so I am assuming it was a she who came looking for how to make Vada Pav’s better!)

So what do I know about my visitor from Pakistan
1. She/He is from Karachi
2. Uses Cyber Internet Services (pvt.) Ltd as the Internet Service Provider
3. Uses the Firefox 3.0 Browser and Windows XP operating system
4. I have the IP address (but I think I should not put it up)
5. This is the first time this visitor came to my site!

6. They reached my page from a search string in google.pk

All this from the Stat Counter that I have put up on my site!
It gives me a whole lot of info..so who are the people coming to read this blog…?

Looks like they are from the following countires!

1. India
2. United States
3. Romania
4. United Kingdom
5. Canada
6. Europe
7. Sweden
8. United Arab Emirates
9. Oman
10. Japan
11. Hong Kong
12. Pakistan

India and US obviously topping the list, but the surprise element here is Romania! Some one from Bucharest using the Firefox 2.0 browser has come numerous times on this blog!
My friend form Romania …do write a comment…It would be nice to read!

And for all you bloggers who don’t have a stat counter on their site yet….go on an put one…just click on http://statcounter.com/! It is good fun to see the statistics and you know what…it is really really easy to do…if I can do it..anybody can!

For all the people who have reached this blog by hook or by crook…..do leave a comment…especially if you have come from some exotic location like Romania/Sweeden/Japan!

Cheers!

A Session on Rural Healthcare

Went for an interesting discussion organized by Tata Memorial Hospital in their Khargar Campus on “Technology with Poverty related Health Problems in Rural India” ..

Beautiful place…very much out of the way…but very beautiful…

I met some interesting people… was a nice crowrd with all scientists, researchers…IIT professors..oncologits…basically a very highly intellectual crowd talking about rural healthcare!

I learnt some interesting things….but too tired to write about it now…..

Met and spoke to Dr Abhay Bang…very interesting man….with an interesting story….he is someone who has done a lot of good work in the field of rural healthcare…he and his wife have even been profiled in the Time Magazine..Read the article…worth reading!

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1124299,00.html

Good Night!

“India Unbound” - Gurcharan Das

I just started reading it a book called “India Unbound” by Gurcharan Das It is suppose to be about India’s journey from Independence to the Global Information age.

Reading books of this genre on our economic liberalization or the Information Reveolution (The world is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman) makes me feel like I have lived though history…It is like world changing events have happened around me and I have been a part and parcel of it! (Don’t know if I am able to communicate…but the feeling is like I am reading ‘history’ which I have lived through and can relate with.)

A good part about the “The World is Flat” and “India Unbound” (although I have just strated reading the book ) is the style of writing and since they are both written by journalists/authors and not hard core economists, they are very easy to read…

I always feel…I read something nice and then I forgot about it! And the best way to remember is to write about it and talk about it! By doing that you not only remember it longer for yourself but also sharing it with others!

So here is something interesting I read today in India Unbound!

Six things that went wrong with India’s economy
1. Took up an inward looking import substituting path rather than an outward looking export promoting route thus denying it self the prosperity that came with post war trade.

2. It set up a massive, inefficient and monopolistic public sector to which it denied the autonomy of working.

3. It over regulated private enterprises with the worst control in the world. This was popularly know as the “License Raj”.

4. It discouraged foreign capital and denied itself the benefits of technology and world class competition.
My ex boss was someone who brought one of the 4 big consulting firms to India and set up their operations here. He used to tell me stories on how they used to do road shows in the US and Europe in the 80’s and the entire talk would be around how to work around the ‘license’ requirements.

5. Pampered organized labor(Unions) to the point where we have extremely low productivity.

6. Ignored education especially of the girls.

There is an old idea in economics which says that If the rich and the poor countries are linked by trade their standard of living would converge in the end. Well this makes sense logically…because the standard of living depends on productivity and productivity depends on technology and when the rich and poor countries are linked, the poor countires can simply adopt the technological innovations without having to reinvent the wheel and grow much faster and eventually catch up!

Since it is so logical….then why has this not happened so far??

Two Harvard scholars did Jeffery Scachs and Andrew Warner did a study and concluded that only 13/87 third world counties were open to world trade between 1970 to 1990 and they grow 6 times faster!

India was part of the group which was closed to trade…the Singapore and Hongkongs of the world were in the group that were open to world trade…and the results are for the world to see.

Post 1991…India has changed…someone coined it as our “Economic Freedom”. I think we should celebrate the day 1991 as much as we celebrate 15th august 1947! But the irony is I don’t even know if there is a particular date that we can coin. I think maybe the ‘day’ that the economic reforms were announced should be celebrated as our “Economic Independence Day”
I personally think we are doing very well in the first 5 pointes mentioned here….but still have a long way to go on the education front…

The students who are educated and have degrees are very often not employable.Our Education system leaves so much room for improvement.
Someone in a toast masters meeting had given a speech called “Operation Black Board”. She called it “Operation Blackboard” so that it sounds like an urgent military operation which it should be. A very nice analogy in her speech was that our education system is like filling a pot with information till it is full what we need is an education system which is like lighting a lamp in the darkness.

We need to train students to think analyze apply and enjoy studying… I will do something in this area someday!

Policeman!

I had to get to a meeting and was standing at the station trying to get a cab and since it was a short distance the cabs were not to happy to go. Suddenly a policeman came to my rescue and said… in marati..“kothe jaye cha aahe..?” “Where do you want to go?” and I told him my destination
He very sweetly (unlike a policeman) asked the cab who refused to go..the reason he was not willing to go. The cabbie had some explanation and the policeman let him go without giving him a hard time and then he ensured he got me another cab!

Well here was a policeman…who came to help out of the blue without being asked and was not even rude and unreasonable to the poor cab driver!

I have wanted to write about policemen for a very long time….and this small incident finally inspired me to actually do so…

I think our poor police men have a very thankless job…especially the traffic police…they stand all day in the hot sun or the rain with those yellow raincoats in the middle of the chaotic traffic and every time we see them….inevitably we curse them…and think… oh the chaos is because the signal is not working and the police is directing the traffic manually! Or we think “ Ah he is standing there to make some money”

Well there are some policemen who would be wicked…and actually put on the signal on a turning which is normally a free turn just to make a quick buck!

But overall kudos to the traffic police force…I think they have a very tough and strenuous job…and if they do want a bribe from us once in a while when they catch us doing something wrong…what the hell…they deserve it!

A Wednesday..

Brilliant movie..! Short Crisp fast paced and with a very interesting twist which makes the movie special!
Almost everyone who had seen the movie told me it was brilliant…and I had very high expectations of the movie…'expectations normally reduce joy' and a movie that is praised by so many people can be disappointing ..but 'A Wednesday' was an exception!
I will not want to say anything about the movie in terms of the story etc, because it would spoil the fun.
I some how don’t even remember seeing promo’s of the movie….the first time I heard of the movie was on Rajiv Masand’s review on CNN…!
Bottom line…must watch…Kudos to the team who made the movie…the story..the twist…the editing..the background sound track …the acting…all is brilliant…!

Beggars…

Should we be giving money/food to beggars? Is it a good thing to do or is it encouraging a wrong practice?

There are a set of people who are absolutely against begging and on the other side there are people who feel the need to give something to every beggar who asks!

I have personally been on both ends of the spectrum and I am currently somewhere in between….not sure which side is right…( WTF! Looks like here is another that I am confused about!!)

This is something I have been thinking about for a very long time, but what instigated me to write about it today is something that happened with us today when we went to eat Dosas(Indian Pan cakes) at a Thele wala(road side cart seller) close to home.

Any place in Bombay which has Thele Walas selling food always has a group of regular beggars around. This ‘Khao Gali’ (Food Street) also had their set of beggars and a group decided to target us with their sad faces and very smart dialogues!

So a group of three kids…two girls of about 7-8 years with a 6-7 month baby were all around our car while we were eating inside. The girls had runny noses and were teary eyed. The baby was stark naked and was crying as if on cue.
“Didi…app log itna kha rahe hai…hume bhi kuch de do”(“You’ll are eating so much..please give us something to eat also”) and may more such learned sad dialogues which although I knew were learned they still touched me somewhere..

So I told the kids…come with me…tell me what you want to eat! Everybody else in the car was like…stop it don’t encourage them etc etc…but I was like come on..they want to eat…what have I got to loose!

The kids realized…here is one more “bakara” for the day and they were like we want to eat vada pav…which we get near the temple ahead. I was like there is a sandwich wala here…come I will buy you sandwich…and the kids were like..no the sandwich is spicy..so please give us money!

In the meanwhile there were 5 other little boys and girls who realize there is a potential ‘bakara’ here and came an surrounded the car and everyone wanted money for vada pav!

The others in the car fired me and told me to get the hell into the car and get out of there! But since I promised the child I will give here something…I gave her a Rs 5 coin. The kiddo got into a negotiation with me on how and why I should give her 10 bucks!

It was honestly a little irritating but yet quite cute….the kids were all out to make a “bakara” out of me…I realize it…but yet I feel bad and play along sometimes….It is really so sad that people have to live in such pitiable conditions…We are so fortunate to have everything that we do!

So what should we do..? Give alms to beggars...or avoid...? I am sure everyone in India atleast would have asked themselves this question and come up with come rationale either ways…here is my though process…

Why give the beggars?
· We are fortunate and are definitely are in a better position then them today.
· We could very easily have been in their shoes had we not been born in the family that we were. If they were fortunate enough to be born in conducive circumstances like ours, they may have done much better than us
· Begging can be hard work…they are out there in the sun/rain cold all day, walking the streets. I am sure it must be very difficult.
· If you give…chances are you will accumulate good karma and get someone’s good wishes and chances are you will get much more in return

Why we should not give Beggars?
· It encourages begging and they do not use their time to do productive work. They are like parasites in the economy.
· It is an organized racket and they do it for a living. Check out this interesting article I came across.(Millionaire Beggars in India’s Financial Capital)
· They give the city and county a bad name especially when they hound foreigners


Well overall looks like the points supporting our giving beggars are more than points against giving beggars.

What we can do is take care of the following things while giving alms to beggars
· Give food instead of money- there was a time I would keep small biscuit packets in my car to give it away to beggars who would come and ask at signals.
· Avoid giving alms to able grown up beggars

PS-I came across this very nice article on beggars in different cultures http://www.roadjunky.com/article/958/beggars-karma-india-japan-iran

May Those Who Help The Most Win!

Came accross this intersting contest by Google called Project 10100 (pronounced "Project 10 to the 100th") ...I think it is a brilliant concept...! It is a is a call for ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible!

I only wish I had a nice idea to put in! I dont...atleast not as of now...maybe I will think of something my 20th... Check out this link

http://www.project10tothe100.com/how_it_works.html

Here's how to join in.
1. Send google your idea by October 20th.Simply fill out the submission form giving us the gist of your idea. You can supplement your proposal with a 30-second video.

2. Voting on ideas begins on January 27th.Google will post a selection of one hundred ideas and ask you, the public, to choose twenty semi-finalists. Then an advisory board will select up to five final ideas. (Now I personally feel that is a long time they are going to take to short list the ideas!...But I am really looking forward to see this list!)

3.Google will help bring these ideas to life.They are committing $10 million to implement these projects, and our goal is to help as many people as possible. So remember, money may provide a jumpstart, but the idea is the thing.

Good luck, and may those who help the most win.

And If by any chance any of you'll get to know of the project from this post and go on an participate....do leave a comment for me and let me know!

All the best!

Teach India – Week 8

If anyone is by any chance actually following my posts you would notice I have skipped “Teach India -Week 7”. This is cause I missed the session as I was tied up with something else...however it was not a teaching session that I missed but a quiz session for the kids so I am not feeling too bad.
I had an interesting session this week and finally got time to talk to other volunteers and made some friends! The sad part is that we would have our next session after a month and a half!! :-(

Overall the program by Kotak Foundation to teach English individually to children is a very nice but I am not sure if it is very effective and the main reason for it is lack of continuity. The program would have been much more effective if we had maintained continuity of talking/teaching them each week.

I don’t know how effective it has been but I have sure had fun and so have the kids!

So what was the session like this week…??

I had three hours of teaching and each hour was different and a new challenges

Session 1

I decided I would make the kids do a play in English. This would be fun and they would learn to talk.
Mom got me some fairy tale books and I decided to use them and make my kids do a play on one of the stories.
We used “The Three Little Pigs” story and had some fun with it. We read the story for sometime, then did the play in Marathi and then did the English version of it. It worked well but not as well as I would have liked it to cause the English levels of the kids was way too below par and it was difficult for them to do it. Also my this batch has 4 girls who are by and large quite shy and reserved.
Overall an interesting session. To end the session we actually went to an empty classroom and enacted the play where no one was looking so the girls did not get to conscious and shy!

Session 2
This batch is always very enthusiastic. This time also I had a big group of about 10 kids who wanted to sit with me and the Kotak volunteers came and picked up all the kids who normally do not sit with and made them go and stand and then allocated them to other volunteers! I finally had my regular group of 5 kids in this session! One of the volunteers asks me… “what do you do!? The kids seem to love you!” :-) ( I was obviously quite flattered with her questions!)

Anyways I finally started the session again….with the idea of reading a story and doing a play. So I handed overall the books I had to the kids and told them to decide which story they wanted to read and enact and they choose a Noddybook called “ Bumpy Dog decides to help”

We started…..and the session was going well….we were reading and relating the words and sentences to things in day to day life and saying different versions of the same sentence. Overall the kids seem quite involved and interested.

Suddenly one of the girls says…"Teacher Maaja nahi aa raha…bore ho raha hai” . I was quite taken aback! I though the session was going well and I am normally good at reading the body language of the kids so I wondering how I was so off the mark this time!

I asked the other 4 kids…if they were getting bored and luckily they said no …but I still had a child here who said this was booring! So I had to do something about it…so I asked the kids if we could change the book and let to girl who was getting bored star reading the new story. They hesitantly agreed…

And suddenly this girl started crying!!! I was like oh my god! What is happening here! What did I do!!
All the other kids were looking at each other and looking at me….I kept asking her what happned…with no response. Then one of the kids told me she has lost her Mamaji recently and so she is very upset with that. Now I at least knew the reason…but did not have any clue on what was the best thing to do!

Then One of the kotak volunteers saw her crying and suggested I take her for a walk and talk to her alone and see if she wants to open up..we went out sat on the school steps…spoke for a few minutes, she wiped her tears and said lets go back and sit with the rest of the children.

We did a few more sentences and this girl started crying again. She so wanted to put on a brave font and act happy and not cry but the poor kid was feeling so sad

This is when I told the kids my funda of what I do when I am sad…I told them it is absolutely ok to cry…I do it…everyone does it …it makes you feel better but after you have finished crying you have to smile and act happy and you will automatically feel happy!

After this I decided to take them to and empty classroom and show them how this funda works and to put it in practice

I taught them the song “If you are happy and you know it clap your hands” we sang we danced, we clapped we jumped we hugged, snapped our fingers…and we laughed!

We basically had a nice time….we played “ringa-ringa roses” :-) Musical chairs..basically English was out of the window for this session…but we had a blast and the girl was smiling at the end of it and that is what matters!!

I was exhausted…but the kids were all full of energy and could go on jumping some more…luckily the time was up and they had to go home!

Session 3
I was exhausted and my voice was hoarse singing the songs on the top of my voice and dancing!

2/5 kids came in for this session.
I started with my story books and these girls also choose a book to read. We were 10 mins into the session and then the kotak volunteer came and said since we have less students and more volunteers we would all get into a common circle and play something together.
I was quite glad…I had half a mind to put my kids in the circle and let them handle the session and disappear! So I told them go sit in the circle…this didi will tell you what to do and I took a back seat..
Everyone was getting into a circle…there was confusion on what game we should play…what should we do…..Lots of idea's were thrown around and then someone came up with an idea….let us play a story telling game…..

I though it was the most sensible idea among the others that were floating around…

And somehow from being in the fringes deciding to disappear….i was there in the center…trying to conduct the story telling game with evey person in the circle telling one sentence to take the story forward!

Well eventually we played the “story telling game” the "describe me game” and “the introduce yourself” game with about 30 students and volanteers who were present there!

I think it worked out well…Could it have been better?…yes…could have done better if we were planned…everything that we did was extempore…

I personally quite enjoyed it….I think I love my place in the center of an audience where I have to do something to involve the audience and ensure they have fun! I should really consider something on these lines as profession…I am sure I will excel at it! (Actually I hope other had as much fun as I did…I hope they did)

Pont to Ponder : “Fun & Games” and “People” are two important themes in my life. I need to find a vocation which helps me to merge the two…

Lucky Me!

I really really wanted something….and I did not get it….:-(

I always like to believe that I am a very lucky person and I get everything I really want and if I don’t get something I think I want….I tell myself…"hey may be not getting was for the best…I just don’t see how yet!!”

This seems to be becoming a pattern with me lately and If I have to believe the statements above….I guess maybe I have just been wanting the wrong things!!

So am I loosing my lucky touch? Nah! I am only touching the wrong things!

I am a firm believer that if you “act” happy you will automatically start “feeling” happy and start “believing” you are happy and then you don’t have to “act” any more!

Replace happy with any other feeling and it holds true….Try it!

Reasons for Not Writing & Upcoming Posts!

Hey People…Sorry I have not written so long...there are many reasons to it…some of them being

1) Been Very Very Busy
2) Been slightly lazy about writing since I am considering moving to another blog
3) Not had the time/inclination/drive to actually start a new blog….so I am somewhere inbetween “na yaha ke na waha ke” types

Well I have lots to write about…
1) Teach India Week 8
2) Review of the Book “Earning the laundry stripes”
3) GSE Interviews

4) Breaking rules ( Was just chatting with someone about this...I think I will write about it some day to get clarity!)

So people keep looking at this spot (or another spot if I get over my laziness and make a new one) for these posts and other posts coming soon..

(I know this may be classified as one of my boring posts….but what the hell its 1.30 in the night and it is a working day tomorrow…I am allowed to be short and booring!)
Ciao!

My Horoscope- Week of 22nd September

New ideas and horizons beckon to you on Monday, thanks to the entry of the illuminating Sun in your sector of philosophy and spirituality. Of course, anyone who knows you is aware that you love to be unpredictable. The only consistent quality you have is your inconsistency. You'll have a lot of fun exploring your new pursuits, and you'll learn a lot, too. On Saturday your emotions take you on a very wild ride as the Moon opposes your ruler, erratic Uranus, in moody Pisces. You'll overreact to events, so count to ten before you emote.

Well I can already feel myself overreacting and getting overtly pissed! So friends...forgive me its the planets doing the trick!

Choices…

I have always felt I need to have the freedom to choose….But I have come to realize that choices stress me out….they spoil the fun of the moment…This weekend was a great example…

Had a hectic week with a lot of clashing interesting things to do and I had to choose! As usual I want to be everywhere and do everything….but it is not humanly possible

So I made the best selections and had a great weekend….But sitting here at the end of the day I can think of all the things I missed…would it have been a better option??

What Did I Miss??
· Teach India – Children’s Quiz Session
· Badminton
· Toastmasters Contest
· Sunday Dinner with friends

Well Well….looking at this list….looks like a whole lot of things I missed….but that was not the case…there is a lot I managed to do!

What Did I Do?
· Rotary Session
· Dinner and Dancing with friends
· Zadenki – Buddhist discussion meet
· B-Plan discussion session
· Pooja and Dinner and cousins place

Overall I did have a wonderful weekend.…but would it have been better if I did not have soo many choices? Maybe...I would have been more satisfied!

The week starting tomorrow…I am not going to have much of a choice…I will have to get up early morning and go to work…do I like that? Not really…I would love to have a choice!

Choices..cant live with them…cant live without them!

Expectations Reduce Joy

“Expectations Reduce Joy" This wise piece of advice was quoted by my younger but smarter bother….

I think it is soo true….

If you don’t expect something from someone…there are good chances that you wont get disappointed and feel let down….!

So what should you do?

Don’t expect anything ?? Keep a safe distance? Don’t trust anyone?

But If you have no expectations from someone….I guess you cant call them a friend…they are then they are then only acquaintances…..

Theoretically the right approach would be to keep faith and have expectations…..trust people….and if they don’t meet your expectations…..don’t bother…continue to keep the faith..

Only wish what you know theoretically and what you do practically was easy to integrate!

Restless Princess..

Someone at work coined a name from me today… “Restless Princess“

The princess part was just so it sounds nice and rhymes

Restless is the key word here….

To explore further I asked him…so tell me why do you say I am restless? And he said…overall your “Demeanor is very restless!”

Now I don’t think it was compliment ….chances are it was definitely not…but who cares! I take it as a compliment! Focus on the princess part! (Whenever in doubt always take it positively and say Thank you!)

Do I agree with the nick name….?
Yes I do…..
I am very restless….I constantly want to do something….something new…something different….any idea…any plan…I am always game…I always want activity…..It is quite crazy….There are times I get irritated with myself and want to calm down.

But do I wnt to change? No

Can I be calm and composed? Yes I can….
Do I want to be like that ? No I don’t…cause it makes me feel sad..
I like to be happy.…(act happy at least even if I am not feeling it!) I like to be enthu..…lively….energetic…
The negative scale of all of it would be hyperactive…restless…over enthu…and ya I guess I do get there sometime…maybe many a times…!

I think any ‘trait’ in excess would have a negative connotation and it is a balance that needs to be maintained in anything!

The good part is I think I realize it most of the times that I have tipped to the negative side of being energetic but the bad part is that even when I realize I have crossed over to the negative side of the scale I cannot come back to balance immediately!

Good night for now from the “Restless Princess” for now maybe that would be the new name for my blog…( I think it is quite cute!)
Better Ideas anyone for a new blog name??

Considering moving out of Blogger

I plan to move out of blogger…at least from the current site..Since I intent to continue to blog so I am considering moving to wordpress as the publisher.Now the question is why do I want to move?

1) Just for the kicks!

2) Wordpress is suppose to be better. Easier to use, better features etc etc

3) Wordpress has an import functionality so I can easily move from blogger to wordpress

4) I can access wordpress from work..blogger is blocked!

5) To have an interesting name to my site…having your name like I currently have is very boring
So people….give me idea’s…what should be the name of my new blog???

Some idea's
# aplihs...
# Princess of clouds...
Better brighter idea's please!

The Buddha in your Mirror

I like to read philosophical books…but normally I never read it end to end(Dr Brain Weiss is books are an exception) but a friend of mine give me this book “The Buddha in Your Mirror” written by Woody Hochswender, Greg Martin &Ted Morino, three authors from USA and I really liked it. It spoke about happiness, relationships, death among other things. I quite like the take on relationships work and happiness…

Some key take aways:-
# The only thing common in all your relationships is you!
# The relationships we have formed are a reflection of our own state of life
The key to transforming relationships lies in the process of transforming ourselves
· People do not respond well to constant criticism people love to be appreciation and praise and they will try very hard to get them!
· If we want people to do more…we need to appreciate the good they are already doing
· It is not what we do for a living but how we do it and whether we feel useful and find meaning in our work
· In real estate there are three important things…location location location! In finding happiness there are three important things attitude attitude attitude!
· The most important thing in finding satisfaction at work is becoming indispensible wherever you are!
· The best way to find the best job is to become the best employee!

Overall a wonderful book….and really easy to read with a whole lot of anecdotes and stories. Read more about the book and the autor at http://www.middlewaypress.com/reading_groups/BYM-guide.pdf

Happy Reading!

Why Blog...??

Today I finish a month of putting a blog post everyday!

I started August 14th and somehow it happened that I had something to write continuously for a week and then I decided let me keep up trend and write everyday till the end of the month. I managed to reach the milestone and then I decided…let me set another goal for myself…one post everyday till the end of the month and I have achieved it today!

It got me thinking…what motivates me to blog? What do I achieve?

Just keeping milestones to achieve does not motivate me normally for a sustainable time (I have tried it earlier with other things I have wanted to do on a regular basis like exercise/pray/meditate etc and it has never worked!)

Secret: I have managed to put a blog everyday for the last one month cause there is something wrong with the posting time on blogger…even if I would publish a post after 1:30 in the night it would still show the previous date! Eg a post published at 1:30 on 14th Sept Sunday night would show up as 14th September and not Monday 15th Sept! I don’t know what time zone it follows but I am not complaining!

But Why Blog....??

1) Satisfaction of having a produced a concrete out put

2) A decent number of hits on my page everyday. The last month I have had an average of 32 unique visitors a day out of which 15 are first time visitors and 17 are returning vistors! (I don’t know if this is good from a general blogger perspective but I am quite happy with it!)

3) Comments from so many unknown people on the blog are very encouraging (My brother says…people read your blog cause you are a girl and not cause you write well or anything..like all the friend requests girls get on orkut! He has never taken the trouble to come and read my blog so I choose to ignore his wise cracks!)

4) Discussion on my blog : People I meet often tell me…Ah..you have written this on your blog…or oh I read this post of yours etc..! A recent example that comes to my mind ..today I was at a Buddhism meeting in the morning the speaker very casually referred to my blog and Analysis Pralysis post! The other day I met one of my clients who I have been taking to phone for quite sometime but was meeting him for the first time and he was like I have read you blog! I was quite taken aback!

5) Clarity of thinking : Writing has helped me to think better. Many times when I sit to write I have no idea what I intend to write but wile I am there in front of the laptop thoughts get formed and something interesting comes out. There are other times, when I sit to write with a concept, but as I am writing I realize that what I end up writing is very different from the concept I started from!

6) Change of Perspective : Now I look at everything and think…can I write about this on my blog!?

7) Learnt New Things : There are so many new things I learnt once I started blogging…like putting a stat counter….putting advts…etc etc etc!

8) Making Money?! : I have managed to put google advts on the site…it is not making me too much money($5.40 over a month!)…and google apparently pays only once you make 100 dollars..so that is a long long way to go!

Disadvantages of Blogging

Mom says I have become very non social….and don’t come home and talk…and talk more to the comp than people at home…

Bro says I have lost it….he asked me how a movie that I watched was…and I was like I have put a review on the blog check it out!

Overall…quite stressfull at times to have to come and sit on the comp again after a whole day of work!

Bottom Line :

I like to blog…I intend to continue to do so…maybe have a revised target of having one post every two days instead of one post everyday.. so I can strike balance!

What say people/readers/friends!?

Teach India : Week 6

Finally had a good session with the kids after a 4 week break!

I had almost forgotten what it is like to go there and go there and teach….1 month is a very long time!I was honestly quite lazy to go on a Saturday afternoon and I so wanted o sleep but I pulled myself up cause I had committed I would be there and went for the session and it was totally worth it.

I had a total of 15 kids today over various sessions!! It was good fun..

I reached late for my first session (was plain lazy and a lil disappointed with the last time’s session).One of my kiddo’s spotted me and I pulled him out of the session he was in and took him for a walk. We went to the school library and I spotted the child craft books and world books!! So we picked up a book on activities and sat and read it and saw the pictures. The session went off well. This child had come to the library numerous times earlier but had never bothered to look at those books.
I was quite unprepared for this session and I though cool I found my activity for the day…I will bring all the kids to the library and help them to explore the place and make friends with the books…But oh-ho… suddenly I see the Librarian getting up and closing the window and he informs me “Saturday the library closes half day”. There goes my impromto ‘planned’ activity out of the closed window! Now what!? So I asked the Librarian If I could borrow one of the child craft books…surprisingly he agreed! I picked up a Child Craft book “Celebrations” and we had many discussions on different celebrations around the world!

My second session with the kids was pretty good…I had two of my old children and three new ones! We went for a walk in the school…we learnt new words…we played the ‘shopping’ role play…In the middle of the session one of the new kids was being called away by one of the Kotak staff for something and she refused to go! She went with him only after he assured her that she could come back and continue the session!! This was by and large my best session of the day!

The third session started off wonderfully…I was sitting and waiting for my kiddos to come…my 4 bacchus came with a whole lot of their other friends!! So it was me and almost 20 kids around me ...each of them saying “teacher humko aapke saat baitna hai!!” Telling me shiyari’s doing full TP! What a chaos! But honestly I quite liked it…who does not like to be popular..!! Finally the Kotak Staff had to intervene and assign the kids to the other volunteers and I was left with my original set of 4! After all the excitement…the session was a big popat!...It was quite drab…after all no matter what you do…the energy levels with 20 kids vis a vis 4 kids would be different…and I was not really prepared!
We did a whole lot of activities…but the kids with another volunteer seemed to be having more fun! The official session ended…and I again had all the kids surrounding me again…and we had a shiyari session with me trying to recollect some old ones I knew as a kid!
Here is a new one I learnt from the kidoo’s today

“Dus aur Dus Jodo to Bees banta hai”
“Dus aur Dus Jodo to Bees banta hai”
“Hoot Aur Hoot Jodo to Kiss banta hai”

Giggles..giggles...giggles from all the kiddos..and then it was time for this batch to go!

The last session was also interesting….I had 5 new girls who were coming for the first time. I was no longer nervous like I was in my first day of teaching and the session was smooth and fun!
I think I quite love teaching…It is extremely challenging to keep kids engaged…and it is soo easy to make out when they are bored! I hope we have a session next week…it would be nice to have some continuity!!

Alfredos : Juhu

Was a looong week… an exhausting day…and a fun Friday evening. It was a friends b’day so the jingbang went to Alfredo’s for dinner.
Had a really nice time there as usual ..…but I was wondering what is so nice about the place…
It is loud…..too loud for a dinner place…too soft for a lounge….so loud that you can bearly hear people
Cramped up…..the seats are so close together that there is bearly any place for the waiters to walk around…and people really have to squeeze in to get into their seats….
Seats are like dinner table chairs….I was really missing the comfy sofa’s that some other places have…
Food was not bad…the lazania(don’t know how to spell it) was great…Pizza was so so…cheese corn balls were great…Nacho’s were different(not the good different)..the pasta was ok types..
So what is so great about the place…?? I don’t know…maybe the brand…and the ‘cool’ factor…
By the end of an hour….we just wanted to pay and get out and go to a place where we could actually hear what people were talking and we did!

We went to the beach…. :-) the sea is so beautiful by the night!! I am so glad Alfredo was loud and cramped up!!

Time to go to sleep and dream about the beach and the moonlight reflecting on the waves! GN!

Entrepreneurship Forums..

In line with yesterday's post…here are some entrepreneurship forums I accidently came across…is it a sign?? Is it fate's way of telling me to move on??

(Read http://lipak.wordpress.com/2008/09/11/the-language-of-signs/)

..As usual I really don’t know!!

Check it out…and tell me if you have heard of them!

Young Leaders Forum - http://www.imcyew.org/
The Young Leader's Forum (formely YEW) was setup by the Indian Merchant Chambers in 2001. Our mission is to create a platform for young Indian leaders to build network, grow and realize their own potential. Through cutting-edge events, forums, site visits and workshops (10 every year) the forum aspires to empower provide opportunities and expose young Indians to a cross section of leadership issues. The YLF will be the youth platform most known for identifying and empowering leaders

TiE Mumbai - http://tiemumbai.org/
TiE Mumbai is part of a global network of entrepreneurs which mentors, supports and facilitates the growth of new enterprises. TiE Mumbai was seeded in October 1999, and formally launched on December 7th, 1999. Today, TiE Mumbai is a multi-faceted organization and is an active TiE chapter dedicated to fostering entrepreneurship leading to wealth and job creation.