Pain is inevitable but suffering is ur own choice

for those of u who r turning to my blog for a new bk review, i am sorry i am not getting enough time and energy to go thru new bks n comment on them.

Today i was looking @ one of my friend's online page and saw the quote in the title "Pain is inevitable but suffering is ur own choice ". The page contained an article abt love and the pain u feel in being ignored. I read that article and thought a lot abt the feelings of the person who wrote it. It was the same old story of a person who was ignored by his lady love. It looks that the person was a lovelorn, a person who was carelessly ignored, never did anyone feel sympathetic for him for the suffering that he had undergone. The Person had lots of similarities to the Knight in the poem by John Keats " La Belle Dame Sans Merci " ( The woman without mercy).......

At the bottom of the article there was a quote which is nthin but the above title. Immediately i serched for this poem on our best friend Google. I started looking at the knight's character keeping in mind the above quote and lots of questions popped up in my grey matter. Was the knight wrong in falling in love with the most beautiful woman he had ever met ?? was he wrong in believing that the woman too had the same feelings towards him after all that love and effection that she showed?? or was he wrong in wandering all over the place in search of that beautiful lady without mercy after she had ditched him ?? Finally i got the answer. Yeah the knight was right in falling in love with the lady but once he came to know that the lady had ditched him he shuld have returned to his normal life or atleast shuld have made an effort. I feel, this is the biggest mistake on part of the knight.

Yes , as the article in the link at the bottom states love strikes u @ some point in life. As they say it might probably be the most beautiful and joyful experience that u ever encounter. It might make u look @ everyone and everything in the world with a different frame of mind. Everything is fine till this point, But this is ur case, what abt the girl/guy whom ur having feelings towards ?? Is It the same with her ?? The answer is might not be.... One of my frenz @ college once said she is very sure that love is a feeling from both ends. What she ment and still means is When u get that feeling of love towards a person it is almost (she gave a 100p.c) sure that the person also has the same feelings towards u. she might be right, she might be wrong but the point i want to make is are we not treading a very thin line here and taking a lot of risk. U fall head on heals in love with the person and when u hear that inevitable words of "Sorry, I just thought u as a frend ", u turn out to be another knight in the making. But this might not be the case with all ppl, there might be some of them who avoid making that terrible mistake of thinking that everything is lost in this world and suffer, this is because they understand
"Pain is inevitable, but suffering is ur own choice"......

reference :
http://varun.manipal.googlepages.com/

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

The story of the china's development in the past 20 years has been nothing but phenomenal. With comapritive advantages of cheap labour and a 150 million strong middle class providing the necessary market, china was able to attract huge amounts of investments from the Industrial gaints of the western world. Inspite of being a late entrant into the race another rising Economic powerhouse in Asia, India, too had a fair amount of success in attracting Foreign Direct Investment(FDI) over a span of Ten years starting from 1990-92 when India opened it's gates for FDI in various sectors. This article is a comparison between the two nations which, have the potential and the necessary resources to cajole the framework in which the global market operates.

The 19th century undoubtedly belonged to the western world. With the rapid progress in technology, sectors like manufacturing became more productive. This led to the rise of comapnies like General motors, Ford etc... which gradually became the giants of the industry. However,the rising costs of labour and costs of other resources in the western countries forced these companies to look at other alternative territories that are rich in cheap labour and resources, thus came the term Global Companies and GLOBALIZATION. Countries in the east especially china and India accounting for 2/3 of the total world population provided these companies the ideal base to relocate their operations.

China opened its economy in the late 70s and the early 80s while India was able to do so only in the 90s (Communism Vs Democracy). This led to the establishment of huge manufacturing facilities in china by the fore mentioned companies and the others followed their suit. Industries like automotives, Textile, Leather have registered high CAGRs(compounded annual growth rate) in the past ten years in china.SEZs ( special Economic Zones) with attractive dollops like evasion of tax and other costs, were setup and Infrastructure was given the highest priority. Highways, Express ways, Bullet trains along with loads of other facilities like hospitals, shopping malls, Schools were built which attracted the foreign companies to put their money in the Dragon's basket. Soon most of the manufacturing has shifted to china and it got the sobriquet "The Factory Of the World".

While much of china's development and progress can be attributed to the manufacturing sector which requires cheap and unskilled labour force, India's success ( though less in comaprison to china) can be attributed to the semi skilled or high skilled sectors of IT, BPO and Pharmaceuticals. With huge pool of English speaking labour force and a democratic environment supported by a good legal setup(better than chinese communism) has prompted the western investors to put their money in India. Software Goliaths like IBM, Microsoft, Dell found India to be the ideal place for their BPO and IT Development business. The progress though is not only restricted to IT, Pharmaceuticals has also had it's share of growth. Comapnies like Ranbaxy, Cipla have made their mark in the Western World and have setup their operations over there.

Inspite of the much hyped Globalization taking place in both the countries it should be said that the fruits have not been reaped fully. The development in both the countries has been restricted only to a few cities. The likes of Shanghai and Beijing in china and Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore in India are the few cities where development has taken place. While the lack of a proper democratic setup along with a rigid legal system to protect the investments, a poor banking sector(gave away NPLs of 133bn$) are a major hitch for china, corruption and lack of proper infrastructure are proving to be the road blocks on India's path. Taking into consideration the fact that these nations are very young in the internatonal markets these problems very soon may fade into oblivion ( though china's case is doubtful).

On the Whole The rise of the Indian tiger and the Chinese Dragon have forced the world to sit up and take a look towards Asia. The global companies have realised the importance of India and China in their plans and now it is not a quetion of India or China but it is both India and China and making most of the synergies that are existing between them. As The great French Conquerer Naploean Bonaparte once quoted "Let China Sleep because when she awakes she will shake the world" he probably would have forgotten India in this quote but we can say the tremors from asia are already bieng felt all across the world.... are we in for an Earthquake ?? only time can answer.

Reference : Business Outlook (Special Issue, 5th june 2006)

Manchu Parvatam -- A Review

andariki vandamu !!

"dhavala VarNam too dhaga dhaga merusthu niSi kanya asthitvanni savaalu chesedi a manchu parvatam......
ushOdaya veLa bhanuni ki tellani chiru navvuto swagatam cheppedi a manchu parvatam.........
yuga yugaluga endaro kavulaku , kala karulaku spurthinichhinadi a manchu parvatam......
pranava nadaniki nilayamga , pranava swaroopuni natyaniki veedikaga praabhavanni santarinchukonnadi a manchu parvatam........"
( this is my own )

intaTi charitra kaligina a parvatam meeda unna manchu karigipOtE manaki gOcharinchEdi oka maamuulu parvatam........pratii manishi oka manchu parvatam vanti vaaDani........manchu ni kariginchaTaniki sUryarasmi saripoyinaTlu manishilo asalu manishini valiki teeyaTaaniki oka chinna sandarbham chaalunani cheppe yanDamuuri veerEndranaath rachana meeda oka chinna vyaakhyaanam..........

This is a recent addition to the number of books i have been going thru in the past few months. for a change this is a telugu (my mother tounge) book and it has to be said that it has all the right ingredients to make it worth reading. Of course, when u start readin a Endamuri Veerendranath novel all u expect is it to be Gud at the minimum.

Coming from the pen of one of the most prolific writers in telugu language Manchu parvatam is a story about four young girls Vijayanti, Bhargavi, Anuradha and Vaishali who at the dawn of their youth part each other in pursuit of a nice future(higher education to be exact). Before they leave the college they make a pact to meet in the same college after 15 years and discuss their experiences and the things they have learnt in course of time. The rest of the story is about how the lives of these four girls change over a span of fifteen years.

The storyline is nice with a gud narration style that has been a HallMark of Endamuri for quite sometime now. The Title MANCHU PARVATAM(Snow Clad mountain) suits the story well. For those of you who have gone through some of the other novels of EV like tulasidalam, Atade ame sanyam etc... u might find this a bit discomforting. For an author who has made his mark in the action domain EV has made a commendable job in trying to present a different theme. The story speaks of how every human in this world resembles a Snowy mountain.To put in the author's words
"Every one is a like a snowy mountian. Though it looks a lot peaceful and a lot beautiful on the outside, the mountains true nature and the unevenness it has got is revealed only when the ice melts. Similarly, Every person has an inner self which gets revealed at the appropriate time."
On the whole it can be said that this book is a gud one to read and Ofcourse thumbsup to EV.

"The Alchemist" a review

Hi all !!

Every book contains a lot of characters, but as all of us know the theme that the author wishes to convey through the book is mostly put to us through one central character. The success of a book almost depends on how good that central character is and also on how good the theme is. Well then there is no doubt that this book " The Alchemist " is a huge hit, a very ambitious central character in the form of "The boy" and a very good theme "Realising ur dreams" have made this small book very intersting to read.

Coming to the story, As i said before the underlying theme is about making your dreams come true or atleast trying to fulfill them. Looks simple, but very difficult @ d sametime. The story is of that of Santiago, a spanish sheperd boy who gets a recurring dream in which he sees an extravagent treasure in the Egyptian Pyramids. In pursuit of his destiny he gets to meet "The Old king" who provides him the necessary motivation to start in search of his destiny. From the spanish lands known so well to him to the Egyptian desert the boy's jouney is a mixture of elation, enthusiasm, suffering, despair, hope, determination, learning and success (mostly in the same order) . The most interesting part of the story comes in the second part of the book where the much awaited character of "The Alchemist" enters. The fatefull encounter of Santiago with The Alchemist and the conversations that follow can be said to be the best part of the book. The rest of the story is about Santiago fulfilling his dream with the help from the alchemist.

The above story might look something straight out of the fairytales, the narration is a bit poetic but the theme that is conveyed through is fascinating. Simple style of narration is an asset of Mr.Coelho and it makes the book an interesting one to read. This is a small book ( i love to read those books which hit the point straight) and it can be finished in a couple of hours but upon finishing it you get transfered to a realm of mild delirium, u learn alot but might not figure out how to exactly understand it or to put it in another way how to apply it. Here is where a second reading of the book helps u(i read it thrice) to get a better understanidng.

Engrossing and captivating story line along with a simple narration style, this book has the right ingredients to keep u going untill u finish it. A must for all those who wonder how to spend the coming sunday. Choose to read it and u can be assured that ur in for some very gud time.

Who Moved My Cheese ?? a review

Hello World !!

These days i find enough time to read books ( which i enjoy the most) and to blog( another recent passion of mine). so this post is the result of the interaction of the above two phenomena and here i am writing a review on this book"Who Moved My Cheese??".

A pretty small book ( probably the size of a 1st class book) but with plenty of info which would make us think for a life time, probably this is the most apt comment that can be given for this book. As a quote on its cover page says " It takes just under an hour to read this but has a lifetime worth moral in the content".

Enough of introduction now let us see what the story is about. The concept is simple "Change Mangement". A couple of years ago i read in one of my courses(POM - principles of management) about Porter's analysis of the change in an organization, the few examples presented in this book follow the same principles. So all i can say is it has both a technical as well as a bit of motivational touch to it.

Coming to the story it is about four characters (as the picture shows), two of them are mice SNIFF and SCURRY and two of them are little people HEM and HAW. These names are not just to appear funky but they depict the nature of each of those characters. While sniff can sniff a change(oppurtunity) Scurry on being told wat to do acts on accordingly and immediately, Hem as the name suggests always expresses dissent @ change and Haw though initially reluctant to change with the situation, learns in course of time the need to change and the benifits that one can get.

The story is simple, All four of them live on cheese and they search for it in a maze. One day they find a very good store of cheese in a corner of the big maze. In due course of time the cheese gets over, Sniff and scurry who are ready for the change sense it immediately and after a lot of hard work find another store with lots of cheese. Hem who is always reluctant to change keeps on wondering " Who moved my cheese ?? "and Here comes the character i loved the most-- Haw. Though reluctant to change initially Haw decides to search for new cheese as the situation worsens. He is a higly motivated person and derives his motivation from whatever small success he achieves on the way. This is shown by the incident where he keeps on searching the maze just because he is able to find small crumbles of cheese here and there. Finally he reaches the same store where sniff and scurry are enjoying the cheese. He remebers all the lessons that he had learnt on his adventure and tries to apply them to his future.

In a way or two all these characters represent our thought process in life. There are a gifted few who can sniff change. There are others who get this golden oppurtunity to be guided by those gifted few and take full advantage of that, like Scurry. But for me most of us are like Haw who might not expect change but are willing to give it a try hoping for the best. It is these kind of people who can survive in a world Where change is the only constant thing. But people like Hem who never want to change have only one option left..........

I would like to put here a couple of quotes presented in the book through Haw's character.
"Smell the cheese often so that u know when it is getting old"
&
"It is safer to search in maze than to remain in a cheeseless situation"

I dont say all of u turn out to be sniffs overnite on reading this bk, but there is a gud chance that u start trying to be one. So to know which character of the four lies in u start reading " Who Moved My Cheese??"

Complexity

The complexity of the complexity is complex to understand, but if the simplicity behind the complexity is understood then complexity is no more complex, So instead Of trying to understand complex things n making life complicated, it is better to understand the simplicity behind that complexity of those complex things hence making the seemingly complex complex things simple.

** for most of u : This is my Own Quote and not copied from some source.

A session with the instructor

hi guys !!

As most of u agree Sessions with ur instructor @ college r sometimes ( probably most of the times ) the worst things ever to undergo, A recently concluded session like this reInforced my belief.

One of the worst things is submitting reports. We as part of our final sem course are required to submit a report ( i dont understand the requirement of one page report, I always felt a reoprt shuld be as big as BHAGAVADGITA) . We scratched our heads for around two days and finally put in some words on that white sheet and submitted it to him, only to see him tearing the papers @ will just for a simple reason that we wrote them in ink instead of taking a prinout. This was a fortnight ago.

But today was simply horrible. We have a GD as an Evaluation component and it was like all ur worst nightmares coming true when he asked us to discuss about the " Jet taking over Air Sahara" or "Mittal taking over someX somewhere in Europe" . I knew nthing on both the topics n it was all lost even b4 it started. The later was finally selected (i myself voted 4 that only to regret later).

I never knew that the comapny was a European one. Soon, I started speaking like it was in India but escaped safely coz i never mentioned that it was in India. A Few seconds have passed and suddenly my friend, sitting next to me took over and started saying it would bring in a lot of revenue for the country n all. Another of my frenz who had a fair knowledge of that topic elobarated to us that it was actually a European company n not an indian one. Everyone started laughing( including our instructor) @ the persong sitting next to me :-) . The discussion went on for 5 more minutes n our embarassement increased with time, We knew nthin n spoke nthin....@ last to my delight my instructor concluded the GD with some of his viewpoints( he took 15 mins while all of us together took 5) ...........It was a session i would never 4get in my life.

Strengths And Defects : How to turn the later into the former ??

Hi all !!

Here I go with the third of my posts. Well this is also inspired by a story somone told me years ago. As u can see in the title it is about the strengths and defects which play a huge role in the daily life. We often hear alot about losing games and etc.. because of certain defects. So Is it always true that ppl loose beacuse of their defects ?? no atleast for me it is not, they loose because of their inability to use their defects to their advantage.

To emphasize my point i put in that story which was told by a close friend of mine six years ago. Here it goes :

Long Long ago in china(dont know why many stories are of chinese origin) there lived a women who used to earn her living by collecting firewood from a near by forest and selling it in the market. This woman had two pots one of which had a hole @ its center while the other one was perfect. Daily the woman used to fetch water using these two pots from a lake situated deep in the forest. The place was far and the woman had to walk a mile or two (approx) daily. Beacuse of the defect in one of the pots she used to have only 1 and half pots of water everyday. Seeing this the pot which was perfect teased the other of being useless. The defective pot, that night asked the woman the reason for which she was still using him. In reply the woman asked the pot to carefully observe the path on both sides the next day.

The next day evening the woman asked the pot if he had noticed any difference among the two sides. The defective pot replied by saying that there were alot of flowers on his side of the path. The woman simply laughed and said it is because of the hole which the pot had that she was able to grow those flowers which she was selling in the market to earn some extra money.

So frenz this might just be a small story ( largely ineffective for most) but as i said there is nothing defective or effective, It depends upon how we perceive it. Many might look @ this as any other story but some might look @ this as a small source of knowledge. Perception, it is that which makes the difference between a STRENGTH and a DEFECT.

**feel free to post in ur opinions

Do you know why only female mosquitoes bite us ??

It is a well known fact that only the female mosquitoes suck blood from the humans. but do you know why ?? ok here goes a story

There was a small farmer in a remote village in china. This farmer was Happy with whatever he had but the same was not true with his wife who was always geedy. She wanted to be the richest in china and used to pester her husband always.

Legend had it that the "Mystic Mountain" in southern china is a residence of gods with supernatural powers. This legend travelled far and finally reached the farmer's wife who was becoming more and more troublesome as the days passed by. The farmer inspite of all this trouble loved his wife and tried to explain to her that too much of money is not advisable.

Days passed by as the seasons changed and the winter came. Unable to withstand the deadly winter the farmer's wife passed away still thiking about the riches on her deathbed. The farmer who loved his wife dearly decided to take her to the Mystic Mountian to get her back to life. Having decided so he made the long and tedious journey to the mountain. At the foot of the mountaing he met an old man whose beard was as white as the snow. The farmer after narrating everything to the old man pleaded him to bring his wife back to life. The old man agreed to do so but warned the farmer that it might not be wise to go aginst the laws of nature. The farmer however, was reluctant to miss this oppurtunity. Seeing his determination the old man asked the farmer to put three drops of his blood on his wife's lips. The farmer quickly did as he was ordered and to his astonishment his wife came back to life. Both thanked the old man and left the mountain.

On their way home the farmer asked his wife to wait by the river side and he went to fetch some food for both of them. While he was gone a rich merchant who anchored his boats on the river shore came over to the lady and offered to marry her. This lady who always wanted to be rich went with that merchant ignoring her husband. The farmer returned back only to learn about his wife's disloyalty. He decided to take revenge and went to the merchant's palace. He found his wife sitting in a golden throan with a lot of servants around her. Seeing her former husband the lady said " I would not come with u as this is the life i had always yearned for !! ". The farmer in reply said " I no more have the desire to accept u as a wife. I came to take back the three drops of my blod." . The lady sensing an oppurtunity to get rid of him immediately cut her finger and gave him back the three drops of blood. As soon as she did this she started to shrink and turned into a mosquitoe. She started to bite her Ex-Husband to take those drops of blood. The farmer who was clever enough to sense this ran to the "Mystic Mountain" and became the old man's disciple. The mosquitoe( who cant enter the mountain now) meanwhile was able to suck only two drops of blood and still is searching for her husband to get the third.

So frenz this is the reason why only female mosquitoes bite humanbeings.

Sunset, one of the best pictures anyone can take and desert, one of the best places to see Sunset and Sunrise. A combination of these two came across my Cam when we went to JaiSalmer last year. Here I post it for u all.