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.

In the below picture: The current state of the then 10th class.

In the below picture: Current school building

In the below picture: Current school building

Thanks

IPL: ITS ALL IN CRICKET

Its all happening at IPL, well set Mumbai gets to see a defeat in a thrilling final phase of the match with Kings XI and finally, BRC gets to smell a win defeating CSK! Well, it looks like today for IPL was a day for major upside down.

Did you notice one thing in the Mumbai's match? Most often than not when Sachin scores well his side looses. I have seen this happening in many international matches as well - of course there are exceptions. May be Sachin should be in the side and may be should do well with the ball but just not the bat;)

For BRC, I think it was Anil Kumble who made the difference. That was such a low score to defend for BRC and yet the won!

I would say, Kumble better perform like this in next few matches as well otherwise you may also be in the same like as Rahul, Dada & Laxman virtually out of India team.

SHIKHISM

Yesterday Mannu (Manpreet is my neighbor, here in Jackson,MI) told me that she has a speech for Sunday. Mannu is of 13 years, so when she mentioned about this I thought she has a school debate or function and I said I want to attend your speech. Then I forgot about it today until Harmeet (Her younger brother, 10) came up and reminded me of going there. It was almost 2.09 PM and I was not ready. Knowing that we had to be at the site at 2.30 PM, I asked for 10 minutes and got quickly ready to go.

When I came down, I was greeted by her maternal uncle and grand father. We drove to Spring Arbor University at Downtown, Jackson, MI. By now, I knew that it was her grand father who is really giving a speech on Shikhism and she is talking briefly about few things related to Shikhism. Curious enough, I reached to the University and walked upstairs to enter into a room packed with people aged between 50-70 (roughly).

They greeted and asked us to take seat in the front side of the square shaped area created by assembling tables. Mannu's grand father started to talk about Shikhism in no time and people were listening with pin drop silence. There were many thoughts crossing my mind in the mean time; how come these people got interested in Shikhism, what these attendees really do in their real life and what motivates them to come here and listen to Shikhism. To give you a little background, Jackson is a small town and has the very less Asian population. Most of the Asians are here because of the project that I am involved in.

Anyway, as the speech progressed, I was clear that some one of the group met Mannu's Grand Father and invited him to talk about Shikhism. Mannu's Grand Father started to talk about Shikhism right from its evolution to today's state. He taked about the major values of Shikhs and principles that guide a Shikh in his life. He talked about, how to recognize a Shikh and what are the five different things they always need to keep with them.

It was interesting for me as well because even though I am married to a Punjabi and being Indian I am aware of many things related to Shikhism, few things were not in my knowledge database, such as; Shikhs also talk about 10th Chakra (Agnja Chakra) situated in between the eye brows, as the source of spiritual power and emancipation. I thought, how is it different from Hinduism? These thoughts were not foreign to me at all. The answer really came from him as he was talking about why Shikhism was formed as a new faith. He talked about the 10th Guru, Sri Guru Govind Singh who had to save his man from oppression of Muslims and their torture and force to convert Hindus into Muslims. Consequently, Guru formed a God's Army who were ready to fight and die for the sake of self respect and dignity. Gurujee, created a command called Khalsa and the followers of this command were called Shikhs who always carried a sword as a tool of self defense.

Mannu also joined her Grand Father and listed various festivals amongst Shikhs and talked about their importance and meaning. Once the speech was over, people started to ask question in tons and Mannu's Grand Father answer them one after another. He was also joined by his son in answering some of those questions. There were many interesting question and I will try to list few of them here

What is the meaning of the Title Singh, why Shikhs have Singh as their Title: They answered, the literal meaning of the word "Singh" is Lion and Shikhs are considered fearless people and have the attitude of a King, just like Lion is the king of Jungle. This in fact is true at the source of genesis of the word - It was Gurujee who once declared that he needs few heads to be chopped for the sake of Shikh. There were more than ten thousand participants in the meeting where he had declared this and only five man came up to him. As each man came up to him, Gurujee took him inside and came out with a bloody (apparently) sword in his hand, suggesting that the man was killed. However, at the end of this test, he declared that these five man were the most important man for him as they were not fearful of sacrificing their life for the sake of a faith. Such as the Shikhs, and hence the Title Singh.

There was a sequel question to that; why are Title of women is "Kaur". Literally Kaur means crown of prince and yes it has a male connotation and there is a reason behind it. Actually, in the eyes of Shikhism, man and women are equal and that is why you would notice many Shikh names are used for both male and female. One such name is; Harpreet.

There was another question about how where did the culture of Meditation in Shikhism came from? The word Meditation has been used in almost every Hindu scriptures and Hindu Rishis were knows to do Meditation to please the gods. In the recent times, Buddhism had a major emphasis on Meditation and yet later Shikhism had this as one of their main values of life.

The discussion went about 2 hours in total after which people did their mini discussions before they departed. I found out that these group of people are all retired (almost retired) and are interested to spend their time little more meaningfully and as a part of this quest, they have formed a group to discuss various religion/practice and also atheism on a regular basis. They enjoy doing this and in my opinion this is great effort as this creates vibration of tolerance and understanding among people and countries.

Good job!

IPL: MUMBAI INDIAN VS DECCAN CHARGER

In my previous post today,I was hopeful that DC may win today considering the fact that they were very keen to get back and were really doing well in balling initially. However, I guess the team really did not want to get out of its rut of losing spree. It looked like Gilly had almost given up and was only keen to put up a good show irrespective of winning or losing.

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!

Below is the most current points table of IPL

MY SUPER SUNDAY!

IPL: CSK Vs KNR

My day started with an early wake up, cannot afford to miss IPL Cricket! Yesterday, I betted with my neighbor that Chennai Super Kings will win the match and that is exactly what happened. However, CSK won the match without having to play the full match, thanks to the Local Rain God called KAL BAISHAKHI. Well, arguably, CSK was anyway set to win the match even if they had to play the entire 20 over, I sound pretty confident don’t’ I? Really anything could happen in Cricket but statistically CSK was always on top of Kolkata Knight Riders today.

IPL: MI Vs DC

Right now I am watching the next match, Mumbai Indians Vs Deccan Chargers. I know you probably want to me predict who will win and really see if I am correct at the end of the match! Okay, I will try; to start with I was thinking it will be an easy match for Mumbai Indians but right now 94/3 I think Deccan Chargers are on top of the game. Keep in mind that Deccan Chargers always come closer to win and then loose finally. As I say this, Afridi took another catch and the way they are going, I have to say that DC is the favorite to win! So, wait and see another upside down match today in IPL.

MY AWARD

Just before I started writing this, I was casually checking my PDA and was surprisingly greeted by a mail from the project partner. The mail was to give me an applause award with a dollar value for my work in the current project. Good way to start the morning is it not? Well, to tell you a little about this project, it is a huge project of SAP implementation of Enterprise Asset Management, Customer Care and Service & Enterprise Resource Management. The project has been running for more than 2 years and I have been here for more than 20 months now! At one time the project really needed some one to manage its progress and get it to closer to the comfortable feel to go-live. I guess I did well in this effort, the award is just one proof of that, is it not?

NEXT WEB REVOLUTION - Web 2.0

You may have heard about the next web revolution - Web 2.0. In this page you will find a lot of good information about what is Web 2.0 really is.

Learn more about Web 2.0 by reading, watching videos etc. Have fun!


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?

Tim O'Reilly on What is Web 2.0?

What is a mashup? - ZDNet

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

SHAMEFUL SYCOPHANCY

The Congress Leader and HRD minister Arjun Singh, once again has demonstrated that sycophancy is deep down within the congress party. The congress leaders are not ashamed of worshiping Nehru/Gandhi family, who are no more than common citizens of the country.

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!

See my comments in TOI

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/usrmailcomment.cms?msid=3029823&usrmail=manoj_kumar_das@yahoo.com&mailon_commented=1

Read the below except from the Times of India and feel how shameful it is to have leaders like Arjun Singh in the country.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/3029823.cms

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".

Competitor or Collaborator?

The world is fast changing as ever and so is the business world. The dynamics and definition of competition is being redefined and reshaped. Traditional competitors are no more an absolute competitors and they may be a competitor for one segment of offering but collaborator for another. Take for example two business powerhouses; SAP and Microsoft: In the past Microsoft has been a competitor of SAP and has even tried to buy out SAP but today they are collaborating in a space that has produced a new solution called Duet.

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.

Links: http://www.sap.com/ http://www.microsoft.com/ http://www.duet.com/ http://www.nakisa.com/