Happy New Year!

I know, it’s a tad late. But at least I’m back. There is a saying in Hindi that goes, 'Jab jago tabhee savera' which literally translates into 'It's morning, whenever you wake up' meaning that don't waste time lamenting how much time you have wasted but just consider it a new start whenever you realize you need to. So, here I am, writing again, for the first time in twenty ten.

Anyhow, so what is the industry definition of Inventory Control?

At its simplest, Wikipedia says - Inventory Control is the supervision of the supply, storage and accessibility of items in order to insure an adequate supply without excessive oversupply.


To run a successful business containing inventory of any kind, it is a very important concept you need to master. How about your own life? If you try to bring this concept in your life, what would inventory control sound like?

Exactly like it does in the industrial world.

We recently saw Revolutionary Road. A thought provoking movie that we saw pretty late, but as I said Jab jago tabhee savera :o)) Here is a couplet that stuck a cord.


Knowing what you've got, knowing what you need,
knowing what you can do without, that's inventory control.


And how true is that. Let’s work on them one at a time.


Knowing what you've GOT


If we are clear in life about what our assets, weakness and strengths are, our journey is halfway successful. Many of us fail to face the facts about ourselves and live in a dream world of the way we see ourselves, or worst how our family and friends want to picture us. In this charade, we forget our real strengths and assets, and see ourselves as the false image that is forced on us by our own unconscious or the external factors.


Knowing what you NEED

This is another point very close to my heart and about what I had written in my last article too. Most of us are totally lost when it comes to knowing what we really need. I’m not talking about the bare essentials that you need to survive. That would list down to just food, water, house, clothing (probably a dose of sex, but who is counting :o) ). What I mean is what one needs: to experience the life one wants to lead.

Personally, I need family and friends. No question about that. I can’t be alive (am not saying survive) without them. I need music and I need books. I need my movies and I need my laptop. But do I need a BMW, no. Do I need a bungalow at the beach? No. Do I need to pursue a career in IT till I reach the pinnacle? Probably not! And that is the beauty of it. It took so much pressure of me once I realized that. It gave me so much time to do what I really love rather than what I was doing to climb up the corporate ladder. That is not what makes me happy.
I only realized this in this last year and a half.

I’m not saying that this goes for everyone. NO! These are my needs. If you feel and YOU KNOW that being at the top of your chosen career or owning a Ferrari is what is going to make you happy, then pursue it by all means. That is what YOU NEED. It has to be YOUR need and not a need forced onto you by the society. Most of us are under the pressure to excel in your professions because otherwise you are a mediocre and there is no place for mediocre in this world, right? Wrong! I feel that it is perfectly fine to be a mediocre in one thing if you know and realize that this is only paying your bills. It is not your life. I love this fact about Europeans. They understand this concept to a large extent. Work doesn’t need to be your life. You can excel at something else, something that brings you pleasure and contentment. You need to find the right things that make you aware and happy and alive.




Knowing what you can DO WITHOUT

In a lot of situation in life, we let trivial things get into our way and stop us from moving ahead (It might be any sphere of life). We need to understand and evaluate what would be the consequence of not getting this or moving ahead from here. Would it really matter if you have daisies in your wedding ceremony instead of orchids? Can you do without one uncooked meal or eating a ready-made meal if it brings peace in your house? Is forcing your daughter to pursue being a doctor really necessary?

The bottom line is that if you are clear about what your needs are, and you can differentiate between what you need, what you desire and what is good to have, it can make your life much simpler.


As I always say, Life is simple and life is beautiful. It is we who complicate it with our own fears, desires and egos. We need to work on it to make it as we want it; we don’t need to make it a ring, that we keep boxing in.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~



Saw 'Wake up Sid' a couple of days back. An admirable hindi movie by Ayan Mukherji. In case you haven't seen it yet, I would highly recommend it. It's a story of a man’s dynamic journey into self realization. About this man who has just given his final exams in college, and is pretty aimless in life. The beauty of it all is that he is totally unapologetic about it. He meets a girl and she asks what does he do and he replies 'Baap ke paise kharchta hoon!' (I spend my dad's money) and then she asks what do you plan to do going ahead and he goes 'Baap ke paise karchonga' (I will spend my dad's money). Father has a hugely successful business and he wants the protagonist to start working there but he finds it really boring. The movie unfolds to show his love for photography and with some help from his lady friend, he gets into that line of business professionally.



Now I'm not saying that living off your parents while you lame away your time is good or that he would have achieved all this so soon had his father and his friend not pushed him so much; but ultimately the bottom line is that he ended up doing something that he loves and not enter into something just to please others or to fulfill the expectations set on him by his family and friends. If a person decides that he is the happiest doing nothing very significant in life but is living within his own means, then I feel that the world should leave him alone.

 

In India, so many people enter the software industry, ever since the late 90s, just because it pays well and there are jobs in it. If you pick a hundred software engineers in India at random, and ask their opinion, almost eighty would say that would rather do something else, if they find something that is equally rewarding financially. And that is why working closely with so many in my eight years of professional life; I've come across so many people who are highly inefficient and actually bad at what they are doing. It has a lot to do with the economic conditions of the country too so I can't blame them entirely. In US, I've noticed that in general the people in IT are technically sounder. Probably because the general living standard of people is not bad for the ones who don't go to college and directly go to work. So, the people who do go for higher studies are the ones who actually love the field.

 

But the point is that so many of us lead a life doing something because we were pushed into it. And it is not only a case in ones professional life but also in every sphere of living. Another European movie I saw had this line that has stuck in my mind… 'You can change, don’t be content to merely survive... you must demand to live in a better world; not just dream about it!'

 

The society is very quick to judge what is wrong or right. We have a lot of pre-conceived notions about almost everything. Our moral-o-meter is set so rigidly on certain believes hammered into us since childhood that it takes a lot to break out of that boundary. People drift through a relationship for years just because it would bring bad name to their family. I agree that you need to work on a relationship but not give up happiness and joy of life forever for some social barriers.

 

Whatever you do, you can never please everyone. Something good for one person might be a totally prohibited for another. Say, like eating non-vegetarian. But that doesn't make eating non-vegetarian food is a bad thing. It is a belief and there is no right or wrong about it. So, we as a society need to learn to set the cords of socially acceptable behavior a little loose and as individuals we have to stand up. We need to stop judging and start acting. Stop judging others for what they are doing and categorizing people into slots, and acting towards our own happiness. We need to find those areas, fields and activities that interest us and bring us joy and stop following everything that the world thinks is good for us.

 

As a friend very aptly put it, 'Happy songs are composed with major chords, and sad songs are composed with minor chords, but minor chords can also make someone happy. It perhaps takes some maturity to understand this'.





                                                        

As usual, I was confused about something concerning my son's school the other day and was talking (well, emailing but that's the way we generally talk these days, don't we); So anyway, I was EMAILing about it to a friend and she happened to mention something that struck a cord
.

Not that I am anti-feminist or something like that, but it happens to be true for my husband and I, and a few other people I know so I thought it was worth a mention. My friend quoted something her grandma used to say - Mostly women take the right decision the first time around, but then tend to think a lot about their decision and get confused, which is just the opposite of what men do...


And how true is that. HOW TRUE is that. For me - it's like a sentence out of my biography. A nail in my coffin. Should I have explored the other option more, should I have consulted my parents, should I have gone for it, should i have done this or should i have done that.

My husband is always firm on what he decides, though he might vacillate a lot before he comes to that decision. In most cases he never regret any decision he makes, or rather doesn't ponder about it. Once decided, it is to be. For me, to put it politely (for myself), I'm the thinker.

So, today, I make a decision that I'm going to stop fretting about stuff afterwords. And as my friend's grandma says - the first decision would be my best. I'm going to trust my instincts a little more. After all, nothing bad has come out of them yet!



Saw the movie 'Gran Torino' yesterday. Not one of his most successful movies, but Clint Eastwood has done a wonderful job here. Along with the story and the direction, he has acted out the role to perfection. To read the synopsis of the film, click here.

It is always easy to say that we should help out people and contribute to the society and yada yada yada. Most of us know that we want to do something, but we also know that we can't find the time to; we are all so busy in our lives with so many responsibilities and stuff going around. What if we forget about our desire to try to help the whole society and reform the entire system and just do it for one person. One person only. Anybody. It doesn't have to be a poor orphan kid or a very old helpless person. It could be your cousin who is going in the wrong direction. A neighbor's kid looking for direction in life. A person looking for a job. The only condition is that you need to help him with no selfish interest.

And that is the catch phase here - 'With no selfish interest'. She needs to be a person whom you would not bother about in the normal flow of life.

If you are into movies, and have not seen 'Pay it forward' - you should. It is a wonderful movie. One of the best I've e
ver seen.

It is a simple concept but something that can start a revolution if implemented. It works on the concept that one person helps three strangers totally unselfishly and expects nothing in return except a promise that they will in turn help three more pe
ople and so on and so forth. This tree can then grow and become a revolution. But, if this is too complicated and a little unrealistic for you, how about just one person.

God knows, after helping one person and seeing her happiness, you might get addicted to it. And it might inspire that person enough to help out ahead and it might indeed start a chain reaction.

So, I implore you to go find that one soul, or
at least if she comes to you, don't let her go disappointed. It might
be your calling - God's knock on your door, your redemption?




My parents are visiting us for a couple of months and hence the big gap in my writing. Apologize for that. Nothing can define the pure joy that I feel on having these two months with them. They are like those stolen moments that you would not give back for anything in life. And so, I'm enjoying them to the fullest. I, amazingly, still find some time to read and am currently reading a book called 'Eat Sleep Pray' by Elizabeth Gilbert. It came highly recommended by a friend, who was also kind enough to lend it to me. I'm taking a long time proceeding with it (because of the above mentioned reason), but really liked some parts of it. It talks about a concept that I really liked and I just can't resist not discussing it here.

It said that every city could be defined by a word. That word is what is on the mind of all the people in the city. If the word is on your mind too, then you would feel at home in the city or else you don't belong here and you feel like an outsider or a tourist. As an example, think what could be the word for New York... achieve. Los Angeles... success. Rome... sex. All these words define the very nature and tempo of the city and the people who inhabit it.

And similarly every person should have a word too that defines her and can put her into focus. Think of a word that you would want yourself to be identified with; it can be a noun, adjective, adverb... whatever... Success, achiever, family, love, emotion, friends, creativeness, loneliness, music, technology. If this is the word you want to be identified with or think that this is the word that should define you and you can truly say that this actually does define you right now, then you, my dear friend, have arrived. Otherwise, you are either in search of your true self (if you don't know your word) and the hunt is on for you or you are pretending or trying to be someone you are not (if the word that you want and the word that you are, are different).

You can, of course, use different words to define you at different phases of your life... you might be a high achiever in your 20s and 30s but later family takes precedence. So, the word doesn't needs to be a constant but a variable that you are aware of.

I thought a lot about what word can define me... and honestly speaking, I couldn't come up with one. So for me the hunt is still on... how about you? Do you have your word?


                                    

Is a person who is deeply religious, a good human being in every aspect and contributing to the good of the society, any better than an atheist who is doing the same? This question has been bothering me a lot lately and I for one surely like my questions answered.

What defines religion? And what makes a person religious? Does being religious just mean offering your prayers on time and following the rules laid down through the centuries?

How would you define God? If you open your mind for a second and look as an observer, you might agree that everything good, beautiful, natural, sincere that we know of in the world, every good characteristic, things that are the best, are what we relate with God. Whereas, everything ugly or negative that might lead to disharmony or evil is associated with the devil. In short, everything good that is or can be is GOD and everything bad that is or a human can think of is the DEVIL. So, a person who knows his good from bad and has his conscience in the right place to guide him through, is actually following what we would define as Godly or God’s path.

Religion, according to me, is only a path to keep people from committing the wrong and trying to attune them to the goodness in the world: and we all wish to attain that! That is what keeps us straying from our paths of righteousness. We have all heard people say ‘Bhagwan se daro’ or ‘Fear the Lord’, and this is what they are trying to say. Most humans are prone to deviate from the right path to follow their own selfish ambitions or needs and the love (or fear) of God helps them to stay on course and not harm others for their own desires.

All religions, at the core, preach the same - peace, harmony, brotherhood and respect. They just talk a different language. I recently heard a song by Death Cab by Cutie from their album Narrow Stairs that has a line that goes "... It's like a book elegantly bound, but in a language you can’t read." He was talking about a potential relationship between a girl and him but I can totally relate it here. As centuries go by, all religions have been molded by the preachers in their own selfish quest to grow and attain greatness. At the core, no religion teaches anything other than the core values mentioned above.

I totally believe in the existence of a force that helps keep the cosmic balance in the universe: call it God, fate, destiny, conscience or faith. I was born a Hindu, but I call myself SPIRITUAL and travel the path laid by Hinduism to strive the ultimate quest.

One of the main philosophies of Hinduism mentioned in Geeta, preaches that God is within each and every living being. So if we recognize the God within, and the God within the person next to you, you would do no harm. We spend hours praying or fasting or helping our pet but would bicker about the next door neighbor for parking his car too much to the left. Our job as humans is to recognize the voice within and do the right Karm (Action). Everything else follows.

The different activities, that we recognize as superstitions, which are associated with religion, in fact, have very scientific explanations. They got associated with religion because in general, the populace would not accept doing something on a daily basis but the fear of God and religion makes them do it all the same. Like fasting for a day a week - Nothing wrong with that, it cleanses your body and gives it time to revitalize. It was said that if you sweep after dark, the Goddess of money goes away. Earlier, when there was no electricity, it was useless to sweep in late evenings since you could hardly see much, but people would do that just to get the job done. And hence it got associated with this superstition since no one would want to make the Goddess of money angry for sure :o)

Most people have their own path to travel to that point of ultimate goodness, and I feel that it is their decision to make, like being a Hindu, a Sikh, a Jain, a Budh, a Christian or a Muslim is. If you believe in a guiding light that helps you choose the right path and make the right decision, then you are spiritual and as Yoda says you just need to "Feel the force within you!"

 








Our grandparents had a dozen or so kids and lived a happy life. The expectations were less and the kids didn’t have too many demands. If they could get a decent education and have a circle of friends to play with at the end of the day – they were a happy lot. Kids would study in school and play outside at home. There were large families in general where either the aunts and grandparents took care of the kids or the elder kids took care of the young ones. Raising a kid was never an issue.

Then came our parent’s generation. Don’t you think we had a wonderful childhood without the Nintendo’s and the Wii’s, without the computers and a hundred choices if you want to buy a bicycle? Like my husband was saying the other day, having a straight bar bicycle was the highlight of the neighborhood. You were the king if you owned a bicycle like that. The trend became that our parents started sticking to the policy of having two kids – a policy spread by the government rather aggressively because of the growing population in India that it wanted to keep under control, with a very effective slogan “Hum do humare do” – literally meaning we two, our two!. People also realized that they could educate and provide better for two kids rather than for half a dozen. So the so-called policy became the new mantra among the urban educated crowds in India. The parents got a life (over and above taking care of kids) and we got our Lego’s and Barbie’s – everyone was happy.

Jump to our generation and suddenly one is the new two. No more two kids – no more people praying for a girl if they were already blessed with a boy to carry on the family name or for a boy if Laxshmi (The arrival of a girl child is equated to the arrival of the goddess of money) has already graced the house. The argument in favor of the notion is that the times are very expensive. And I don’t disagree with that. Sure, from the very time the kid is born till the time she finishes college, it is a series of expense after expense. We want to give our kids the best of all resources. Be it monetary or time. With mostly all husbands and wives working, there is a shortage of time for sure. We wait for the time to be right when we would be able to give the second kid the same amount of time and care and comfort that we could offer to the first one. Some people also believe that however fair you might try to be, you would always have a slight inclination towards one of the kids and sparing a kid from that is also a factor for them to decide on sticking to one.

Hmmm! Agree with most of it. But here is another point of view. As soon as the kid is born, does she ask for the fairy tale nursery, for the best available stroller and the GAP dresses? Does she ask you to throw her a dream-like first birthday party with a guest list spanning the who’s who of the town? The kid might be equally happy (and successful) in a decent public school or an affordable private one (in case you are staying in a country/area that don’t have good public schools). I feel, to a large extent, a lot of the expenses are just status symbols for us or our vision of the perfect world that has nothing to do with what the kid’s upbringing would actually cost us. A couple of hours (daily) of quality time spent with a kid is much more than all the joy a Nintendo would bring him (Agreed that things might be much different when the child is in her teens or nearing that)… but the point is that in those two or three hours every day you can instill the right values in the child that would show him that love and care and family are much more important than monetary things. I understand peer pressure but I guess you do understand the gist of what I want to say.

Or, are our lives too hectic... are we a bunch of self-centered people who want to live and enjoy our own lives for a change and not spend all our time raising kids. It means a lot of additional responsibilities and lot of time and devotion. And not to forget, a lot of money. What we can spend on a bigger TV/car or a vacation, how about that dream house I wanted to buy – a three bedroom with a modern kitchen (with an island of course) and a porch, a garden where I can ask the landscaper to come and help me make it a house out of a pottery barn catalog. Time, of course, is another contributor to the whole debate. With one kid only, we don’t have time for 'us'. How do you fit another kid in the equation? As a friend very aptly put it - I think we are a generation sandwiched between our modest upbringing and the modern life exposure! 'Cause the irony is, that we understand the need of a second child but are not able to take the plunge due to the life that we are leading. May be we would have been better off if we were truly homely or truly career minded... but we are both (or at least trying to be)!!

I think the love and closeness you can experience with a sibling can very rarely be seen with a cousin. And the sole reason is that in today’s times cousins don’t live together, and don't even meet often enough. Only kids can be pretty lonely and even more so as they grow up. It’s difficult for them to learn the concept of putting others before themselves and hence, are more likely to become self-absorbed individuals. As Katy Abel explains in her article, only kids do not experience the competitiveness that kids with siblings do and parents have to work extra hard to provide them with the stimulation, camaraderie and competitiveness that comes naturally with siblings. Parents also have a hard time keeping the kid grounded since they are always the center of attraction and are used to getting their own way.

My brother and I are very close and I know I always have a person who I can turn to in any circumstance and I hope he knows the same. Do we have the right to deny our kids of that comfort zone?