Anand Nataraj

Archive for November, 2010

There was once a man who had four sons. He wanted his sons to learn not to judge things too quickly. So he sent them each on a quest, in turn, to go and look at a pear tree that was a great distance away.

The first son went in the winter, the second in the spring, the third in summer, and the youngest son in the fall. When they had all gone and come back, he called them together to describe what they had seen.

The first son said “the tree was ugly, bent, and twisted.” The second son said “no, it was covered with green buds and full of promise.” The third son disagreed; he said “it was laden with blossoms that smelled so sweet and looked so beautiful, it was the most graceful thing I have ever seen.” The last son disagreed with all of them; he said “it was ripe and drooping with fruit, full of life and fulfillment.”

The man then explained to his sons that they were all right, because they had each seen but only one season in the tree’s life. He told them that you cannot judge a tree, or a person, by only one season, and that the essence of who they are and the pleasure, joy, and love that come from that life can only be measured at the end, when all the seasons are up. “If you give up when it’s winter, you will miss the promise of your spring, the beauty of your summer, the fulfillment of your fall.”

Am feeling Bored more often these days because;

- Of shrinking friend base…
- Lack of mental sink with loved ones…
- Doing same task at work for almost a decade…
- Retiring from Sportsmanship…
- Staying away from problems for a long time…
- Transformation from dis-obedient to Obedient son…

Considering all the listed points. I think change in my behaviour & character makes me feel bored.

It is strange because people hated me when I was myself but I enjoyed. Today they like me but am not enjoying it.

Should I be myself ignoring others? Or make others happy & keep feeling bored?

Was upset with a lot of things for a long time and was not venting it out. Once I reached home late in the night my mom opened the gates and I immediately raided at my mom. I flushed out all the devil in my brain and I was feeling a lot light.

But after sometime the guilt of hurting my mother has taken over. Now I’m Happy & Worried for my deeds. No idea on how to go convince my mother and make up for my act.

The point is there were lots of things which I want my mother to change from overdoing on her Spirituality, her horoscope addiction, her lack of taking control on things and taking accountability & ownership.

For a long time all the above things were interfering with my day to day life and I was not able to take them any longer. Yesterday I took her for a Toss. Was feeling comfortable that I conveyed what is there in my mind. But seeing her worried and her sad face made me worried.

What every it is she he my mother & I love her a lot. Now I’m feeling bad that i’ve hurt her for all the non-deliberate things of her which Hurt me.

It was a very tough situation I’ve ever come across and not sure if my dealing was correct or wrong. Again I wanted to vent out my guilt of hurting my mom.

It was a satisfying day at work and I was relieved to close a long pending requirement. Though this is just a drop in the ocean and the journey starts from here. I feel a sense of relief as this requirement was running for months and we are getting exhausted. By the time I was wrapping my day at office I got a friend which had really strong words and that made me feel hard. It carried for sometime until I was carried away by exciting conversation which I love MBA, Case Studies & Entrepreneurship.

Then I returned home early today and I had no plans to work for the night & I was not feeling sleepy either. Had no idea how to spend time. I’m sitting with my Laptop open and watching TV & I didn’t feel bored. Also I didn’t do anything useful too.

Came across Sun Music after a long time. I can say almost after a decade and they are playing songs of 80′s. I grew up listening to those songs. Each song made me nostalgic & I went back thinking the experience of watching those movies.

As a kid I was taken to those movies by my parents and watching movies were not like these days because they were totally different experience. I was taken to a selected movies, tickets were booked well in advance, mostly they were done during week ends. I use to count every day for the D-Day. I was always asked to study on Friday and Saturday if I had to be taken to that movie. Though I use to have the books on hand my mind will be full of expectation of watching that movie. For that 3 hour of joy I had to slog for a week. Anyways those were days of Bliss.

By the time I listen to the song I use to look for details in WikiPedia to read about my favorite stars of those days. These are some of the Actors, Actress & Movies I visited back.

It is Auto-Biography fever with Proteus and the latest on the list is Mickey Arthur former coach of Proteus. Pulling controversy has become a deliberate part of writing to get publicity. Am not against people pulling controversy but am getting upset when people judge others behavior and particularly I get double angry if it happens to Indians. Arthur has criticised Indian youngsters and this he was is written in his Book;

The youngsters in the Indian cricket team lack “grace and humility” when they celebrate victory, feels former South African coach Mickey Arthur.

Arthur has recalled a 2008 series against the Indians and criticised their celebrations after notching up a series-levelling win.

“The behaviour of the (Indian) younger players in the aftermath of victory was absolutely extraordinary,” Arthur wrote as he reminisced about the third and final Test in Kanpur in 2008 in which the home side tied the series.

“They ran around screaming, shouting and cheering as though they had just won the World Cup. Perhaps what made me cringe was the shock of seeing a celebration style so different from our own, but I found the practice of spraying each other with Coke and Fanta very hard to understand. But, then again, why should that be so different to our custom of using champagne?”

“It was the lack of grace and humility that I found most galling,” he said

“It’s hard to control your emotions at the moment of triumph and in the immediate aftermath of a Test victory because so much emotional and physical effort goes into it.

“But four or five minutes later it’s important to acknowledge that your vanquished opponents have also expended a lot of effort, and that it takes two teams to produce a contest,” he added.

However, the former Proteas coach praised the senior players in the Indian team, saying, “It was notable that Sachin (Tendulkar), along with other senior players like Rahul Dravid, MS Dhoni and (Sourav) Ganguly, were not involved in the cacophony.”

“But the youngsters simply couldn’t calm down, and seemed to work themselves up into an ever-greater state of delirium the more they tried to rub our noses in defeat,” he said.

Arthur said he asked the South Africa team to take a lesson out of the exercise.

“I asked as many players as I could to watch the commotion, rather than to avert their eyes and to remember it the next time we played,” Arthur said.

My point is what is wrong in celebrating things the way we want… Why these whites have superiority complex? Don’t we have individuality to express things the way we need…

All I’ve to tell Mr.Arthur is to Shut his A$$ and mind his business… Our people know what to do & how to do…

I’ve been on TV on all three days since it was a long festival holiday. Diwali fever was overshadowed by Obama mania. All news channels were following the US president and almost all local news were pushed behind. Even India – NZ news took a beating as I didn’t see any update on score or panel review after the match which is a common phenominon.

It was interesting to see News channels creating debates starting from;

• Obama’s Protectionalism Policy.
• Obama’s stand on Pakistan & China.
• Obama’s election defeat and its impact on his India visit.

and more… There were opinions from politicians, bureaucrats, entrepreneurs & activists… It was interesting to see the perspective of different segments of people…

Though it was interesting to watch all those debates, followup on the Presidents activities & transcripts of his meeting with PM were interesting and helped me to pass my time. It became boring over a point because things were Over Covered & Over Publicized.

It was vacation for last three days and Starting the week after a festival break is not that easy… But my day started by a wake-up call from my HR… She is slogging to close our VP Sales requirement and I know we (Directors) have not supported her… It was a classic case of mismanagement where I committed for interviews & meetings which got colloided…

The day started by missing an interview which Me or Bala was unable to take… But other than that I managed to honor all other commitments… So, these are the things I did for the day;

• Brief Tele-con with Major Karthik.
• Meeting with a friend who is into IT-Sales at Subway Nungambakkam by afternoon.
• Meeting with AISEC representative at Cafe Coffee Day Nungambakkam by evening.
• Returned to office to interview a candidate for VP Sales.
• Then there was a Review meeting with CCS Sales Folks, Bala & Myself.
• A brief meeting with a Banker which was fitted in between.
• By 9 o clock went to meet KaviRaj.

Over all I was happy that all meeting progressed well and it was over all a productive day.

A young man wished to marry a farmer’s beautiful daughter. He went to the farmer to ask his permission. The farmer looked at him and said, “Son, go stand out in that field. I’m going to release three bulls, one at a time. If you can catch the tail of any one of the three bulls, you can marry my daughter.”

The young man stood in the field awaiting the first bull. The barn door opened and out came the biggest, meanest looking bull he had ever seen. He decided that one of the next bulls had to be a better choice than this one, so he ran over to the side and let the bull pass through.

The barn door opened again. Unbelievable! He had never seen anything so big and fierce in his life. It stood pawing the ground, it eyed him. Whatever the next bull was like, it had to be a better choice than this one he thought. He ran to the fence and let the bull pass through.

The door opened a third time. A smile came across his face. This was the weakest bull he had ever seen. This one was his bull, he said to himself. As the bull came running by, he positioned himself just right and jumped at just the exact moment. He threw his hands to grab….. But alas….. The bull had no tail.

Moral: Life is full of opportunities. Always grab the first one.

“PROGRESS is IMPOSSIBLE without CHANGE, and those who CANNOT CHANGE their MINDS, CANNOT CHANGE ANYTHING”

For those who can’t understand Tamil please excuse… I don’t have time to post transcript of this speech in English… I missed this program because I felt festivals are time to rest and enjoy it like we use to do it in our childhood days… I can understand this speech makes sense… But like any other normal man I’m putting it behind and preparing myself to run the rat race for tomorrow…

But there are two things I’ve realized from this guys speech;

• Firstly I thought myself to be Unique; but just realized that am one among the rat racers.
• Secondly I’m out of my guilt that I don’t visit relatives, friends, marriages etc. My entire generation is like that.

For those who understand tamil and missed this program during Diwali… Understand the real position of todays youth…