June 4th, the day was very tensed for our family as Monika was in hospital in labor but soon after we were blessed with a baby boy. See him and you will fall in love with him.
During pregnancy test, all doctors had declared that in their experience they had not seen such an active baby. None of the doctors have been able to locate him to test his heart bit etc in the first go. He has been fooling all doctors and technicians.
Welcome my baby!
Saturday, June 7, 2008
OUR BABY IS BORN!
Sunday, May 25, 2008
MY HIGH SCHOOL
Feb 2008 was when I had an opportunity to re-visit my high school.
History: The high school was established by a group of educated people of the community, way back in 1970s. The reason why it was not established by the government is because of few reasons. Fristly, government did not have the will to establish a school at a place that is very remote. The nearest road was about 5 KM away (Pitajuri - my village) accessible via a muddy road. The road usually got very difficult to commute during the rainy days. Secondly, government did not have the will to take care of its financing. Thirdly, the none of the local government representative ever had a strong lobby for this.
The reason why these educated people of the community started this school is because they had no job that government could offer them. They could not necessarily get engaged in cultivation and were respected in the community for their education. They had to do something for their livelihood and hence cause this change of establishing the school. One man stood tall in this endeavor, he is Mr. Sailendranath Upadyay. He was well respected in the community and had a voice that was listened. He collaborated with the Landlord of Shaymsundarpur and cooked the idea of establishing a high school in this area. Since the area was very backward economically, the only way to run the school was to collect very meagre fees from the students and the villagers and fund the salary of the teachers. There were a lot of skepticism around both from the villagers and the students about the success of the school. But Mr. Sailendranath was not the one to be defeated - for the next decades his theme was - let the head to be chopped but it will not bow down to failure. Such was the power of this man!
The school gradually got its first set of teachers who eventually went on to teach next three decades in the school. They did everything that needed to do, to ensure that the school produced a quality students. Remember, the students were often from the economical background who really could not afford to loose another economic unit in their children. Yet, these teachers continued to motivate the students to do well and more than that they continued to teach the student with greatest care.
Decades went by and then government had to listen to this force and finally the school was undertaken by the government. This did not solve all the problems necessarily but defenitely gave the school much needed recognition it needed.
My School days: I was very excited to join this high school for a multiple of reasons. Firstly, my parents thought this was a very good school. Secondly, my maternal uncle had studied here and used to share a lot of interesting stories of the school education. Thirdly, many high school teachers knew me even before I was enrolled into the school. Forthly, I was getting an opportunity to go to the school even though my middle school had seventh class started that year (My middle school teachers did not want to leave me out of their school).
Finally, I joined the school and completed my metriculation with a record percentage. This record was not broken until a decade or so after I completed my education from this school. If you are interested, I will write about a lot of interesting stories of my high school days in separate blog but as now I want to share some of the picutres of the high school.
In the below picture from left to right: 10th class, 8th class, 7th class, 6th class and the office. The wall and the water pump has been built recently.
In the below picture towards the right side of the chopped trunk was the 9th class. This was tiled house with earth walls. The house has been broken as in the recent year new school buildings were erected.
In the below picture: The below well was the source of drinking water for us. In the summar the well used to almost dry up and the little water that used to be available use to be muddy. We used to drink this muddy water as there was no other option for us. The urine room has been created recently. We use to go to the nearest bushes for using them as rest rooms.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
IPL: ITS ALL IN CRICKET
Sunday, May 18, 2008
SHIKHISM
IPL: MUMBAI INDIAN VS DECCAN CHARGER
Anyway, the credit really goes to Mumbai Indians as they showed a lot of character to win 6 matches in a trot and now have their tails up. This seems to be yet another team like Rajasthan Royals who have come up like Pheonix. Well, I say keep rocking Mumbai Indians!
MY SUPER SUNDAY!
Thursday, May 15, 2008
NEXT WEB REVOLUTION - Web 2.0
Web 2.0 - From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A mind map (constructed by Markus Angermeier [1] presenting some of the themes of Web 2.0.
Web 2.0 is a term describing the trend in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aims to enhance creativity, information sharing, and, most notably, collaboration among users. These concepts have led to the development and evolution of web-based communities and hosted services, such as social-networking sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies. The term became notable after the first O'Reilly Media Web 2.0 conference in 2004.[2] [3] Although the term suggests a new version of the World Wide Web, it does not refer to an update to any technical specifications, but to changes in the ways software developers and end-users use the Web. According to Tim O'Reilly:
“
Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the Internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform.[4]
”
Some technology experts, notably Tim Berners-Lee, have questioned whether one can use the term in a meaningful way, since many of the technology components of "Web 2.0" have existed since the early days of the Web.[5][6]
What is Web 2.0?
What Is A Business Mashup?
Whiteboard//Session: What is AJAX?
Whiteboard//Session: What is RSS?
Whiteboard//Se ssion: What is an API?
JACKSON,MICHIGAN,USA
Sunday, May 11, 2008
SHAMEFUL SYCOPHANCY
India is a democratic country and there is no place of king/queen worship but the congress leaders continue to pledge their loyalty to person and not the country. The big question is how come we inherited this sycophancy? In my mind, the Nehru/Gandhi family has always treated India as their personal property and the followers who have supported that cause, has always been rewarded. Reward reinforces behaviour and if that reinforcement has been there for more than 60 years, it is bound to have deeply ingrained in the psyche.
Having said that, India has come a long way since Independence and have jolted many a misconceived faith on the way, but how are the likes of Arjun Singh still in the power and leadership position? My assessment is that the people of our country need to wake up and really stop electing such unqualified people into the leadership body of the country. These sycophants do not even know the simple fact that “loyalty to the country” is the ONLY thing duty each citizen has to abide by, that’s it!
Read the below except from the Times of India and feel how shameful it is to have leaders like Arjun Singh in the country.
In the statement, he sought to build bridges with the leadership by saying: "When I met Pandit Jawaharlal Nehruji in March 1960 I pledged my total loyalty to him and his fami ly. This was the commitment, which is an article of faith with me.
"For the past 48 years of my life, I have scrupulously adhered to it. I shall also do everything to maintain the loyalty and commitment to the remaining members of the family till I live," he said.
At the book release function where he did not take the name of Rajiv Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, in this statement too he spoke of the "remaining members of the family".
Monday, May 5, 2008
Competitor or Collaborator?
The value called “Efficiency with Simplicity” was created when the personal computing giant Microsoft collaborated with Enterprise software giant SAP. SAP traditionally has been very complex and data driven – an absolute need for a business application to function efficiently and effectively. But the world is moving fast in a direction where the user of applications are at the center of defining what will be called as new “value”. What it means is that the value of functionality and business effectiveness is already given and now the new value of “user experience” has to be created. Microsoft and SAP realized this need of the market and also realized that none of them individually could deliver this value quickly with great quality. Consequently, they collaborated to create an application that allows the users to perform their routine business application such as entering time, requesting leave, approving leave, running business report query etc right from their own convenient outlook application. To know more about the power of this technology logon to http://www.duet.com/
Duet is not the first application that was inspired by the value “Efficiency with Simplicity”; in fact there are a host of such applications. Another such application that takes out the complexity of SAP data out of succession planning and helps the user to do their what-if analysis, board room presentation and much more is known as Nakisa. Nakisa is a leader in visualization of workforce management application and is fast growing in popularity among organizations that uses SAP application. Think about your ability to produce graphical representation of organization chart, or an ability to develop visual matrix of all your high performers for a single position with information of how long each one of them would need to be ready for that position. Is it not interesting? There is much more to that and Nakisa offers a range of visualization solution in the Talent Management space. Not surprising that SAP realized their value addition and hence made them their official certified partner. To know more about Nakisa solutions logon to http://www.nakisa.com/
These are just some examples of collaboration it the SAP space but the key take away is that companies are going beyond the traditional boundaries of competition and are really getting engaged to create value for the clients that were not possible by any single company. So we are seeing some true client centric business dynamics and I think this is real healthy for businesses and consumers in general.
What do you think? Leave your valuable comments.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Popularly known as Sher
When I think of him, the first thing that comes to my mind is the way he laughs -we call it rabbit laughter. His artificial teeth are small and well shaped, giving them an appearance of rabbit teeth.
Talk about discipline and you will find this man scoring 100% or more if possible. May be his army background has taught him that way, but you would be really amazed about his will power at 87. He climbs up and down from third floor of his house many times a day, a feat that a young man would like to avoid. He hates depending on others and does all his work of bank, shopping etc on his own. Decades ago he had a paralytic attack but poor paralysis was at shame the way he dealt with it. Today, there is no sign of paralysis in his body. You want to find out his early morning schedule? Well, first of all you have to wake up early in the morning and secondly, you may end up doing a range of exercises that includes Kapalbhati.
Never attempt to test your general knowledge with him else you will find yourselves ashamed. He can not only talk current affairs in great detail but also discuss about important incidents and popular drugs of decade past. The other thing that you should never ever try with him is talking about travel plans; sure enough you will find glaring mistakes in your much researched tour. He is a walking database of Indian National Trains and he could literally tell you which train stops how many minutes in which station. Ask him about specialty of a place and what the place is famous for; your next few hours will be info-loaded.
Traveling seems to be a passion for some and a style statement for others. In any case, you will find interesting to note that this man has not only traveled across India (Including Pakistan in Old India) but also very heavily internationally. Look at his passport and you will hardly find any page that is not stamped. In essence he is not only a walking database of how to travel but also where to travel and what to do when you reach there.
Meticulousness is a word to be used with caution, because after you know about him you may be ashamed to call yourself meticulous. Ask him about a paper that he had a transaction written on 15 years ago, he can close his eyes and then walk upto the Almirah and locate it exactly in few seconds. As if this is not a true test, ask him to describe where to find that document and he will give you step by step instruction to find that and you will be surprised that he is exactly right.
Kids around the world love him the same way he loves them but there are some special ones for him and he does little to hide his inclination. Whether it is an occasion of buying clothes or a time to give his rabbit smile - it has always clear indication of who is near him. As you will see in the attached pictures he smiles only when his grand daughter Monika is around. Similarly, Monika is extremely happy to spend time with him and her love for grand parents is more than her love towards her parents.
There has not been a single birthday in 25 years when he has not traveled to Kolhapur to see Monika. Yet another record many parents will find hard even chasing, forget about beating. As they say love is always both ways and that is true as Monika used to be Amritsar every summer without any exception.
Such is the bondage between the two that when Monika decided to spend some time in Kolhapur this year, he immediately decided to stay with her in Kolhapur for the whole duration, even though he could have been staying some where else for other technical reasons.
Well, now you already know who I am talking about but what you do not know is why he is popularly known as Sher. Actually, there are quite a few reasons behind this and one of them definitely is his personality. He has a royal personality and impression of a lion. His discipline is unquestionable and his will power is unconquerable. But beyond these there are few more reasons why his is popular and you really do not want to be at the testing end of them. To know what I am talking about, you should see him when some one looses some thing or when some one commits the same mistake again and again despite his repeated advice. ha ha...you will see the Sher in form! But that is yet another reason why all love him because he is so straight, logical, clear and concise. Just an amazing personality with whom you cannot but fall in love.
This is our great Nanajee!...Popularly known as Mr. Sher!!!
We all love him!
Monday, April 28, 2008
Welcome Thought
A quick lookup of MS Word Thesaurus did not produce any result for the word "Blog". Not surprising - technology is improving at the speed of light and many old things are becoming obsolete and many new things are being created. But not all things change this way for example love of parents!
I dedicate my first blog to my parents and to parents in general without whom we would not have seen the world. My parents raised me in a village where there was no electricity till 1987 and yet they had great vision for my life. They had the unflinching commitment for my study and growth in my life, even when they did not know where I am heading to, as long as their heart said I am going in the right direction. Salutations to them, who have seen worst times in their lives but have not let them even touch us. How can I say enough for them, who have spent innumerable sleepless nights when I was ill; who could not savor food when I was upset.
I cannot forget the day when mom was hospitalized for an operation but they did not inform me as I was going for a job interview the same day. Such is greatness of parents that they get hurt hundred times more for a seemingly small pain of mine. To them the life is out when I am away from their eyes.
Recently when I was home, I was sharing about my work challenges and growth and their face would light up for every small achievement of mine. Papa never expresses his emotions easily but I could read his happiness without any difficulty. I wonder, what connection is this; that binds children with parents – a life to life connection; so powerful but inexplicable.
I sign off today by offering my salutations to my parents with immense love!


