My SWOT analysis

My SWOT (Strength Weakness Opportunity and Threats) analysis

 

1. Being a devotee of Sri Ramakrishna is one my big strengths. This is a low hanging fruit, on which I need to focus. Need to transform my devotion into armour which protects me from all the ups and downs of my life.

2. I am creative, always try to do something different from others. Looks like I overdo this. Being different just for the sake of looking different from others is not good. I need to balance my inclination towards creativity with pragmatism.

3. Being too much concious about ones own appearance (physical, behavioural and mental). This is because the way I have been grown. I have to free my self from this baggage of negativity and embrace the flight of fantasy.

4. Wrong preconceptions. Spirituality is alone great, talking about sex is bad, money orientation is sin, Selfishness is cruel. I need to reform my self with this regard. Life is too short to waste it in judging others, lets love them for love’s sake and not because of their qualities. I need to change my perception.

5. Health, Laziness, Procrastination, “I know it” attitude.

6. Fear of failure, fear of making mistakes. What people think about me.

7. Feel like I am gagged. I want to express myself, but something holds me back. I want to embrace the life with open arms.

9. Poor inter-personal skills.

10. Impatience & self doubt

Top ten inspiring quotes to help overcome negatives in life.

1. Work 4 a cause, not 4 applause. Live life 2 express, not 2 impress. Don’t strive to make your presence noticed, just make your absence felt..

2. Freedom is not worth having if it does not include freedom of making mistakes.

3. Be hungry, be foolish

4. I am the chariot, he is the charioteer.

5. A setback is a perfect setup for a successful comeback

6. If you want to walk fast, walk alone. If you want to walk far, walk together

7. The level of your success and happiness is proportional to the number of people you serve selflessly.

8. All things are difficult before they are easy.

9. Feel grateful for your very existence & all that you have received in Life.This gratitude will bring a flood of prosperity & happiness

10. The best way of functioning is to work silently and achieve surely. Success is achieved not by making big noises but by sincerity of purpose

Why I want to become an IAS officer?

Social recognition + Job Security + Job satisfaction + Power = IAS

Above definition of IAS is what is prevalent in Indian society. I am not greedy of power, I have achieved some sort of fame already so do not desire it, I have a good stable job, so Job Security is not relevant to me. The only thing remaining is Job Satisfaction. Is IAS the only profession which gives Job satisfaction? Off course not, from being a start-up founder to renowned musician, one can have job satisfaction, if  job is challenging and pursued with passion.

Then why civil services only?.

One thing, I cannot reject is the social recognition you get by becoming IAS officer. But, does that give me lasting happiness?  People will respect because of your position and not because of  your true self. So, its better to earn the respect rather than demand/command it by becoming an IAS officer.

After cracking IAS, I need not have to prove my capability again and again. I will wear a label of Genius all through my life. Inferiority complex will never show up again. But is it good to tie all our good qualities with a Job? If we loose the job, we also loose our identity.

The true reason is very clear to me, when I am on death bed, and before closing my eyes forever, I should have no regrets. I should feel content for serving my country to the best possible extent.In short, I am looking for a peaceful death.

How does IAS help me to get a peaceful death?

1. IAS will take me from duty of imperfect obligations to duty of perfect obligations. What is charity for others is duty for IAS officers.

2. Nationalism is the new religion of India as per Swami Vivekananda. And IAS gives us an opportunity to act as a key player in the national growth.

3. The IAS provides an exciting opportunity full of challenges, a mix of field and policy making opportunity. It makes one rich in experience.

Today I am not an IAS officer. I have a strong feeling that I will become an IAS officer one day and fulfil my dream of peaceful death. Down the line, after few years, when I read this blog again, I should have a smile on my face (either way :))

 

Contribution of Indians towards Information Revolution

Bhaskaracharya: Invented Zero
J C Bose: First Semiconductor device (Cat Whiskers) and inventor of wireless telegraphy
C V Raman: Raman effect are used in Scanners and CD players
Vinod K. Bharadwaj: the Father of Ethernet Switching (Founded Kalpana Inc)
Narinder Singh Kapany: Father of Fiber Optics
Vinod Dham: Father of the Pentium chip
Vinod Khosla: Co-Founder of Sun Microsystem (Java, Storage, Virtualization, OS)
Sabeer Bhatia: Founder of Hotmail
Ajay Bhatt: Co-inventor of USB

DR. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam ‘s Speech in Hyderabad

*Please read this article by giving 10 minutes from your busy life. Really good…. ** *

* The Former President of India DR. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam ‘s Speech in Hyderabad . *

Why is the media here so negative?
Why are we in India so embarrassed to recognize our own strengths, our achievements? We are such a great nation. We have so many amazing success stories but we refuse acknowledge them— Why?
We are the first in milk production.
We are number one in Remote sensing satellites.
We are the second largest producer of wheat.
We are the second largest producer of rice.
Look at Dr. Sudarshan , he has transferred the tribal village into a self-sustaining, self-driving unit.

There are millions of such achievements but our media is only obsessed in the bad news and failures and disasters.

I was in Tel Aviv once and I was reading the Israeli newspaper. It was the day after a lot of attacks and bombardments and deaths had taken place.. The Hamas had struck. But the front page of the newspaper had the picture of a Jewish gentleman who in five years had transformed his desert into an orchid and a granary. It was this inspiring picture that everyone woke up to. The gory details of killings, bombardments, deaths, were inside in the newspaper, buried among other news.

In India we only read about death, sickness, terrorism, crime.

Why are we so NEGATIVE?

Another question: Why are we, as a nation so obsessed with foreign things? We want foreign T. Vs, we want foreign shirts. We want foreign technology..

Why this obsession with everything imported. Do we not realize that self-respect comes with self-reliance? I was in Hyderabad giving this lecture,when a 14 year old girl asked me for my autograph. I asked her what her goal in life is. She replied: I want to live in a developed India . For her, you and I will have to build this developed India . You must proclaim. India is not an under-developed nation; it is a highly developed nation.

Do you have 10 minutes? Allow me to come back with a vengeance.

Got 10 minutes for your country? If yes, then read; otherwise, choice is yours.
YOU say that our government is inefficient.
YOU say that our laws are too old.
YOU say that the municipality does not pick up the garbage.
YOU say that the phones don’t work, the railways are a joke,
The airline is the worst in the world, mails never reach their destination.
YOU say that our country has been fed to the dogs and is the absolute pits.

YOU say, say and say. What do YOU do about it?

Take a person on his way to Singapore . Give him a name – YOURS. Give him aface – YOURS.. YOU walk out of the airport and you are at your International best. In Singapore you don’t throw cigarette butts on the roads or eat in the stores…… YOU are as proud of their Underground links as they are. You pay $5 (approx. Rs. 60) to drive through Orchard Road (equivalent of Mahim Causeway or Pedder Road ) between 5 PM and 8 PM. YOU come back to the parking lot to punch your parking ticket if you have over stayed in a restaurant or a shopping mall irrespective of your status identity…. In Singapore you don’t say anything, DO YOU?

YOU wouldn’t dare to eat in public during Ramadan, in Dubai .
YOU would not dare to go out without your head covered in Jeddah .
YOU would not dare to buy an employee of the telephone exchange in London at 10 pounds ( Rs.650) a month to, ‘see to it that my STD and ISD calls are billed to someone else.’
YOU would not dare to speed beyond 55 mph (88 km/h) in Washington and then tell the traffic cop,’Jaanta hai main kaun hoon (Do you know who I am?). I am so and so’s son. Take your two bucks and get lost.’
YOU wouldn’t chuck an empty coconut shell anywhere other than the garbage pail on the beaches in Australia and New
Zealand .
Why don’t YOU spit Paan on the streets of Tokyo ? Why don’t YOU use examination jockeys or buy fake certificates in Boston ??? We are still talking of the same YOU.
YOU who can respect and conform to a foreign system in other countries but cannot in your own. You who will throw papers and cigarettes on the road the moment you touch Indian ground. If you can be an involved and appreciative citizen in an alien country, why cannot you be the same here in India ?

Once in an interview, the famous Ex-municipal commissioner of Bombay , Mr. Tinaikar , had a point to make. ‘Rich people’s dogs are walked on the streets to leave their affluent droppings all over the place,’ he said. ‘And then the same people turn around to criticize and blame the authorities for inefficiency and dirty pavements. What do they expect the
officers to do? Go down with a broom every time their dog feels the pressure in his bowels? In America every dog owner has to clean up after his pet has done the job. Same in Japan . Will the Indian citizen do that here?’ He’s right. We go to the polls to choose a government and after that forfeit all responsibility.

We sit back wanting to be pampered and expect the government to do everything for us whilst our contribution is totally negative. We expect the government to clean up but we are not going to stop chucking garbage all over the place nor are we going to stop to pick a up a stray piece of paper and throw it in the bin.
We expect the railways to provide clean bathrooms but we are not going to learn the proper use of bathrooms.
We want Indian Airlines and Air India to provide the best of food and toiletries but we are not going to stop pilfering at the least opportunity.
This applies even to the staff who is known not to pass on the service to the public. When it comes to burning social issues like those related towomen, dowry, girl child! and others, we make loud drawing room protestations and continue to do the reverse at home. Our excuse?
‘It’s the whole system which has to change, how will it matter if I alone forego my sons’ rights to a dowry.’ So who’s going to change the system? What does a system consist of ? Very conveniently for us it consists of our neighbours, other households, other cities, other communities and the government. But definitely not me and YOU.
When it comes to us actually making a positive contribution to the system we lock ourselves along with our families into a safe cocoon and look into the distance at countries far away and wait for a Mr.Clean to come along & work miracles for us with a majestic sweep of his hand or we leave the country and run away. Like lazy cowards hounded by our fears we run to America to bask in their glory and praise their system. When New York becomes insecure we run to England . When England experiences unemployment, we take the next flight out
to the Gulf. When the Gulf is war struck, we demand to be rescued and brought home by the Indian government. Everybody is out to abuse and rape the country. Nobody thinks of feeding the system. Our conscience is mortgaged to money.

Dear Indians, The article is highly thought inductive, calls for a greatdeal of introspection and pricks one’s conscience too…. I am echoing J. F. Kennedy ‘s words to his fellow Americans to relate to Indians…..

‘ASK WHAT WE CAN DO FOR INDIA
AND DO WHAT HAS TO BE DONE TO MAKE INDIA
WHAT AMERICA AND OTHER WESTERN COUNTRIES ARE TODAY’

Lets do what India needs from us.

Thank you,

Dr. Abdul Kalaam

A Leader Should Know How to Manage Failure

Question: Could you give an example, from your own experience, of how leaders should manage failure?

Kalam: Let me tell you about my experience. In 1973 I became the project director of India’s satellite launch vehicle program, commonly called the SLV-3. Our goal was to put India’s "Rohini" satellite into orbit by 1980. I was given funds and human resources — but was told clearly that by 1980 we had to launch the satellite into space. Thousands of people worked together in scientific and technical teams towards that goal.

By 1979 — I think the month was August — we thought we were ready. As the project director, I went to the control center for the launch. At four minutes before the satellite launch, the computer began to go through the checklist of items that needed to be checked. One minute later, the computer program put the launch on hold; the display showed that some control components were not in order. My experts — I had four or five of them with me — told me not to worry; they had done their calculations and there was enough reserve fuel. So I bypassed the computer, switched to manual mode, and launched the rocket. In the first stage, everything worked fine. In the second stage, a problem developed. Instead of the satellite going into orbit, the whole rocket system plunged into the Bay of Bengal. It was a big failure.

That day, the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization, Prof. Satish Dhawan, had called a press conference. The launch was at 7:00 am, and the press conference — where journalists from around the world were present — was at 7:45 am at ISRO’s satellite launch range in Sriharikota [in Andhra Pradesh in southern India]. Prof. Dhawan, the leader of the organization, conducted the press conference himself. He took responsibility for the failure — he said that the team had worked very hard, but that it needed more technological support. He assured the media that in another year, the team would definitely succeed. Now, I was the project director, and it was my failure, but instead, he took responsibility for the failure as chairman of the organization.
The next year, in July 1980, we tried again to launch the satellite — and this time we succeeded. The whole nation was jubilant. Again, there was a press conference. Prof. Dhawan called me aside and told me, "You conduct the press conference today."
I learned a very important lesson that day. When failure occurred, the leader of the organization owned that failure. When success came, he gave it to his team. The best management lesson I have learned did not come to me from reading a book; it came from that experience.

Hollywood Blockbuster movie “2012” is inspired by Indian mythological story

Just go through the following story which is regarding the Vishnu’s first avatar.

In MATSYA Avatar, Lord Vishnu incarnates himself as a fish in this world. In the earliest yuga (era) of Sata-yuga, a king named Manu was performing severe penance for thousands of years. One day as he was performing ablutions with river water, a small fish came into his hands and just as he was about to throw the fish back into the river, the fish requested the king to save its life. Heeding its request, the king put the fish into a jar of water but the fish started growing and the jar was not big enough for it. Then the king threw it into the river, but it soon it outgrew the river and the king then threw it into Ganges and then into the ocean. The king realized that it was Lord Vishnu himself and then the lord made an appearance and made a special request to the king. It predicted that the world would come to an end by a huge flood in seven days and requested the king to build a huge boat and take the seven sages(hermits), seeds of all plants, one animal of each type and told him that he would appear as a fish to propel the boat to Mt Himavan for surviving the flood to the next yuga(eon). True to his word, after seven days the Lord appeared and the king tied the boat to the fish by using the royal serpent Vasuki and the fish took all of them to Mt Himavan and kept them there till the flood was over and in the new era, the king started procreation for the new era.

Coming to the story of the film. It’s almost same. World is coming to an end by a huge flood. They are also building big boat on the Himalayas. They are also taking one animal of each type. But there is one difference, in the story the great sages and all the great peoples were invited to board the ship. But in the film all the people who paid money were allowed to go on the ship. What a tragedy:(.

God is the constant witness

When you wake up lateAnd when you go to sleep often
Remember god is watching you

When you are eating mindlessly
And when you are talking senseless
Remember god is watching you

When you cheating yourself or someone
And when you are hurting yourself or someone
Remember god is watching you

When "what others think about you",
starts influencing your life.
Remember god is watching you.

When bad thoughts flash in
And when desire’s make you restless
Remember god is watching you

When laziness becomes routine
And procrastination becomes habit
Remember god is watching you.

When duty becomes tasteless
And when cowardice is not rejected
Remember god is watching you

God is omnipresent, nothing escapes his vision,
Your self is your constant witness
Remember god is present in you.

World is a “Hall of Mirrors”

A dog enters the hall of mirrors, it gets bewildered seeing so many different sized dogs in that hall. It starts barking at them. Barking is reflected back. It keeps fighting with all those mirrors. At the end, it collapses after exhausting all its energy.

Now, a prince enters the hall of mirrors, he corrects his dress, hair looking himself from various angles. He laughs and sees all the mirrors laughing at him. He enjoys the journey

The dog is the samsari. It is ignorant and keeps barking at others. It doesn’t know that everyone in the world are just his own reflection

Prince is an enlightened soul. He knows the reality. World is just the reflection of self. He controls the world by controlling himself.

So world is a "Hall of Mirrors" you see what you are 🙂

FEAR is an IMAGINATION of MIND

The emotion with which all of us are familiar from childhood days is FEAR. When we try to dissect this emotion, it appears that fear is just an imagination. FEAR is a fiction. It is never real. Always it’s about the future that we fear about not the present.

Let’s see one small story to strengthen our argument

In a beautiful forest, a pregnant Doe was about to give birth to a baby fawn. She went near a river, and made herself comfortable for the smooth delivery. As she was resting, she saw a Tiger hidden in the bushes and approaching towards her. She looked at the other direction and saw a hunter aiming his arrow towards her. She definitely cannot afford to run at such a condition, as it might harm her young baby. She knew that, the situation is not under her control. The only thing which is under her control is to give birth to a healthy child. It is her duty as well. Let’s pause this story for a while, & try to visualize ourselves at the position of the female Doe. When we would have seen the Tiger, hidden in the bushes about to jump on us, a terrible fear will run through our spines because our mind starts imagining that Tiger has caught you and you are being smashed down. This is just an imagination. This is something that might/might not happen in the future. But still we feel fear because of our imagination. Same thing will happen when we see the hunter aiming at ourselves. The possible thing that anyone of us would have done is to run madly. Doing so would have harmed the baby.

Now coming back to the story from where we left. The Doe, after realizing that the only thing that she can do, perhaps it’s her duty as well is to focus on the delivery. So the Doe closes her eyes and prepare her selves for the delivery. In the meantime, Tiger jumps on her, hunter targets the Doe. After a sudden lightening, we see the blood getting spilled over the earth. The hunter’s arrow was diverted due to the flash of light and hit the Tiger. The Doe gave birth to a beautiful baby fawn. So, let’s not misuse our imagination and bring trouble to ourselves. Fix your imagination and conquer the fear.

Happy Diwali (2013)

Once an unhappy young man came to an old master and told he had a very sad life and asked for a solution.

The old Master instructed the unhappy young man to put a handful of salt in a glass of water and then to drink it.

“How does it taste?” – the Master asked.

“Terrible.” – spat the apprentice.

The Master chuckled and then asked the young man to take another handful of salt and put it in the lake. The two walked in silence to the nearby lake and when the apprentice swirled his handful of salt into the lake.

The old man said, “Now drink from the lake.”

As the water dripped down the young man’s chin, the Master asked, “How does it taste?”

“Good!” – remarked the apprentice.

“Do you taste the salt?” – asked the Master.

“No.” – said the young man.

The Master sat beside this troubled young man, took his hands, and said, “The pain of life is pure salt; no more, no less. The amount of pain in life remains the same, exactly the same. But the amount we taste the ‘pain’ depends on the container we put it into. So when you are in pain, the only thing you can do is to enlarge your sense of things. Stop being a glass. Become a lake.”

Let us all enlarge our vision on this auspicious Diwali. Happy Diwali 🙂