Exams !!! How to crack it :)

Yesterday was the last exam of my study life. Exams have been a part and parcel of my life right from my school days till being a MBA. i have an uncanny habit of performing well in the exams . i remember my colleagues used to ask me how do u do so well in the exams and what is the funda of getting good grades/marks in exams ?
i really dont have an answer for this. i remember exams time have always been tough time for me. i have always been an one-day player. slogging out in the last night before the exams. i get impressed by people who used to read regularly and i always thought of replicating the same but no success as of now :)
But i certainly will tell some of the factors that really helped me scoring well in the exams:
1- Getting up early on the day of the exam and doing revision of all that u have read ( i remember my mom used to wake me up at 4 am during my school days. i developed this habit from then. it was fun waking up so early then sleep for 5-10 mins in between which always got elongated to half an hour - 1 hr :) also i and my younger brother used to cherish the movements of my sister who used to sleep while studying and then mom's advice to go and wash ur face :)i have done enough of that in my MBA tenure and quite successfully :)
2- Try to cover most of the course, may be not very thoroughly. i had this habit of not leaving anything untouched. maybe u can say that my risk profile is less ( MBA jargons :D ) Mind u, i am telling all this to score well. Knowledge wise i will always say go deep into the subject matter. i enjoyed some of the subjects during my engineering and it is a great feeling knowing more than what other knows. MBA's hectic schedule never allowed me in getting deeper understanding of any subject.
3- How you approach the questions is also i feel can be very vital. always start with the ones u are comfortable with. this will give you immense confidence. i always used to keep a tab on time while answering. i used to divide the total marks with the total time which gave me the no. of marks i need to attend in say an hour or so. and by attempting the easier and the ones i am comfortable answering, i always used to outperform on time :) this way the pressure never used to build up and i was able to complete my paper in time with enuf time for a recheck.
4- Keep a pencil,rubber always with you. it helps in answering multiple choice questions and questions you are not sure of .
5- To remove the anxiety of big exams ( CAT, XAT, FMS..) just before the exam, i used to dream about myself working hard for the exam and beleiving that i am fully prepared for it and i have given my best and now its all on the almighty.
This releieves the anxiety quite a lot.
6 - Try to attempt all the questions and never leave one. Time management is again the key here. it may happen that you know a lot about some question but that does not mean that u will write in lots. assign an approx. time to all and keep checking whether you are going in line with the time assigned.
7- Attending classes regularly and making class notes are of big help during the preparation for the exam. i would specially suggest my MBA folks that with so much less time and so much to do, good class notes can crash the preapration time required considerably.
8- Group study helps as the recall and understanding is better.

These are some of the tips ( tested quite lot of time ) which i have been following all thru my study life. i always wanted to share my experiences and wisdom :) i have got thru writing exams ( i have written a tonne of them ).Hope this may be of some help to the ones still not graduated.

All the best to the juniors for the Bani's paper

Have a nice day :)

Status Messages :)

I have developed a habit of looking out for Status messages and Mind U !! many of them are really very interesting and have a mesage behind it.
Sharing some of them which i collected :)

The essence of true friendship is to make allowance for another's little lapses...

Spend Today as if it were Your Last...

And on the 8th day GOD created me...

We can do anything we want as long as we stick to it long enough..

Alcohol doesn't solve any problem, but then neither does milk...

Ambition Never Comes to an End...

Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get, it's what you are
expected to give..which is everything...

EVIL is just spelled LIVE backwards..are we living then ??

True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing...

Its so much more simpler to hate ppl for their shortcoming than to make an effort to like them for what they are...

You don't get to choose how you're going to die. Or when. You can only decide how you're going to live now...

All who have accomplished great things have had a great aim, have fixed their gaze on a goal which was high, one which sometimes seemed impossible...

Love is born of faith, Lives on hope, And dies of charity...

and the list goes on.. Keep checking them :)

Have a nice day :D

Bye Bye XIMB !!

The day has finally come. i never wanted it :( My XIMB days are over. My heart is getting heavier day by day as the last day is approaching. I am not able to think of the day when i will not be here among my dear Ximbians :(
"Ab to aadat si hai mujhko...aise jeene main "

How will i change my aadat now ? :(
(In tune with purani jeans antras)

woh ! uthna jaldi aur uthana sabko
woh ! gaane gaana kai hazaar
woh ! jaana Library kabhi kabhaar
woh ! padna magazines aur akhbaar
woh ! jogging karna ground pe
woh ! lagana chakkar roj teen baar
woh ! khelna football aur cricket
woh ! tennis court aur badminton court
woh ! mess ka khana itna bekaar
Mess secretary bhai kuch to karo upchar
woh X-cafe ki adrak wali chai
saare tension aur sardi mitaye
woh ! dinner karke tahalna apna
woh ! gappe maarna yaaron ke saath
woh ! jaagna raaton main
woh ! lena jhapkiyan classon main baar baar
woh ! rang aur bhang holi ke
woh ! patake chodhna diwali main saath saath
woh ! id manana, christmas cake khana
woh ! jana ram mandir kai kai baar
woh ! JLT main naachna
woh ! gaane gaana doston ke saath
Assignments aur projects
inpe time kiya hamne bahut waste :)
woh ! govindrajan ke quizzes
unhe bhool na payenge hum hargiz
woh ! mukti ka humain jogging karana
woh ! placements main paar lagana
Woh ! IC ki case studies
Ramanna sir aur bani sirki yaadein bhi
woh ! Father ki short stories
woh ! XIMB ki sweet memories
orientation se maxination
it was all great fascination
woh ! parichay aur sambandh
woh! karna kisiko bahut pasand
bahut yaad aayenge yeh sabhi pal
bhagwan chaahe toh milenge hum sab jaroor kal :)

Ab toh dil yeh hi pukarta hai ...

Yeh dolat bhi le lo
yeh sohrat bhi le lo
bhale chhin lo mujhse meri jawani
magar mujhko lauta do, XIMB wale din
woh raaton ki masti,woh cooler ka paani :)

My Best Wishes to all my fellow Ximbians. May GOD bless u with all u desire. AMEN :)

Maxinations 2006 and My Best Friend's Wedding :)

There is no connection between Julia Roberts starred movie "My best friend's wedding" and my blog title. I would like to say here that " sabdo pe jao , bhawnaon pe mat jao :) "
I was very excited about the marraige as it was the first marraige in my friend circle that i was attending. i had to miss a few as i was not able to make it from NIT jaipur :( My friend confirmed the dates with me so that it did not clashed with anything and it was not, until the maxinations dates were announced :( it was clashing with the last day of maxinations.. i did not wanted to miss any of the two :( Most of my events in maxinations like sargam and blockrock ( i really wanted to participate this time ) were on the final day. again the maxination JLT was something i was craving for. so, i was totally confused as both mattered to me quite a lot but i felt that my absence will definitely hurt my friend and this i never wanted to happen. He has been a very good friend of mine right from my school days. we have shared a lot of great momemts together right from the stories that we used to tell while paddling our way to and fro to the school, classroom masti, cricketing moments, playing cards, roaming around the city on his bike and many more. he was always there to pick me up when i returned from NIT jaipur or XIMB to my hometown sambalpur. i can say that although we were far apart but he never made me feel that. His calls were always there :) i know he cares for me a lot and i too. i really cant hurt him at such a important phase of his life. I am sory to all A-blockers as i was not able to contribute on the D-day. I did my level best on the 2nd day and i was actually enjoying the jingles that we made and sang throughout the fruit expo and the propaganda slots. it was really fun and great experience working with the juniors and my batchmates..For those people who were expecting or wanted me to do the role of basanti, i am sory but i was not in a mood to play the role this time. i would like to congratulate sougat for the brilliant performance of his.
it is rightly said that "all well thats end well". i was very happy to hear that A-block did a nice performance and were runners up.. i will like to congratulate B-block for being the Maxinations 2006 champions :)
I would also take this oppurtunity to congratulate the MAXIM team and all the block teams for making Maxinations 2006 a grand success :)

Long Live Ximbians :D

P.S There were many great moments i had during my My best friend's wedding which i will be sharing with u all soon :)

Divine Thoughts !!!

"As one thinks, so he becomes" these thoughts of mine were today reinforced by the great saint and teacher "H.H. Paramhansa Prajnanananda" who happened to visit XIMB campus today. There were many takeaways from the talk. Although we know most of what he talked about but the way he explained the same with the help of nice anecdotes and short stories made it imprinted in our minds.
The agenda of the talk was “Peace, Harmony and Living a Positive Life”. He started with the example of the shiva family wherein Lord Shiva, Goddess parvati, Lord Ganesha and Lord kartikeya although have a lot of disimilarlty among themselves still they live in harmony. The point he want to underline was that there has to be acceptance and respect for others no matter of whether there is a clash of interests or ideas. Every person is unique and you have to respect the uniqueness of every individual. It is generally seen that we want everybody to be in the same lines as we are. And we reject and abhor people who do not fall in line with our expectations.
He also underscored the point that we have come empty handed in this world and will go empty handed as well. So falling prey to materialistic desires is something one should avoid. Also he said that we have come on this earth with a purpose. when yaddi asked that what is the aim in life, he very rightly said that it should be peace, harmony, love, care, happiness. No matter how much money one earns, if he is not in peace, if he is not happy, if he is not getting love then his/her aim in life is not fulfilled. he will not feel the inner satisfaction.
I was discussing with Aftab about What is success and how to define it ? he said success is a very relative term. Take example of our placements. Before placements we thought that if we get a 5 lac + job that will be great. but what happened after that. Again the relative thing has made many not very satisfied. we try to compare with others and make ourself unhappy in the whole process. why is my happiness dependent on others. why cant i set my own benchmarks for sucess and not relative to others. There may be 100 things for which we can feel sad about but there are atleast 5 things for which we can feel happy. and we should try to enjoy the happy things in our life and forget the sad part.
Again, It is said that we should be content with what we have. There is a counterpoint to it as well. if we become content ,we will never strive for betterment which will hamper our growth. but my question is why do we strive for betterment ? probably so that we will feel happy after we achieve it. but what about the process? the whole process we are unhappy..we are discontented, frustrated with ourselves. I beleive that "Happiness is the whole journey and not the destination". we should be happy all through the process of betterment. we should be contented and happy with what we have and as swamiji told that the desrire to learn should never die no matter what the age is.so, we should keep learning and improving but not at the cost of our happiness. we should enjoy whatever we do. This is what should be the aim of life :)
The simile of air, cool breeze and storm with the breathing process of ours was again a nice way to make us understand that we should never resort to anger, fear, etc as it is going to harm us as the storm does. we should try to make a steady breath so that we feel the cool breeze and be happy always :)Nihilism, pessimism, optimism and mysticism was again beautifully explained by the glass and water example.
To end with i would like to again quote Swamiji as he said that God first thought about the creation of mankind and everything and only then it was realised. similarly the various inventions,discoveries were first created in mind and then finally took a shape. so thoughts are very important and one should always try to have positive thoughts because "As one thinks, so he becomes"

Be Happy and Positive always :D

Maxinations : The Big Fight

With Maximations 2006 round the corner and every Block getting on their toes for the Big Fight, i would like to share my experiences of Maxinations 2005.
Maxinations is the most Grand event of XIMB after "Xpressions". It is organised by MAXIM ( Marketing Association of XIM ). It is basically an inter-block competition.
It spans over 3-4 days with host of contests starting from Skit, Painting, singing, dancing and not to forget the Brand quiz, Meet the press, Adzap, Advertising campaign and many more. All these events are allocated some points which the winners get. Finally the block with the highest overall point wins the Maxinations. Winning a Maxinations is a big pride and every Block gives their best for it.
It may seem , from whatever i have written is, that Maxination is just another event but to tell is that its involves lots of intricacies. It tests all your skills right from leadership, creativity, resource utilisation, communication, time management, talent management and things like tht :) i remember we were allocated some virtual money with which we had to bid for adspace ( all around the XIMB campus) and ad slots..this was a critical decision for the advertising campaign. Also to decide who is going to represent the block in a particular event is one major issue as there are so many things going on and you have to match the competencies of the person participating with the role requiremnts ( HR fundaes ). again utilising the limited money that we have efficiently is very important ( there are points for good budget utilisation and one has to submit every penny detail of where and how the money was spent) ..
Now coming to the people factor ( being an HR guy, this is something i like the most analysing :D ) i could see the whole of Block coming together. I remember the block meetings we used to have where lot of brainstorming used to happen regarding the various strategies and tactics we are going to follow, how to beat the competition..
During the process, i actually got to know a lot more about the seniors and my colleagues ( I still regret that I was not able to give much time in this regard courtesy the tight MBA schedule )
Some of the most memorable events for me were the jingle " JUJU power machar maar, agency tnusami, alien JUJU " which i and johri came out with just like that while preparing for the singing competition . we never believed that this will get so much acceptance. It clicked like anything.
Also my role as Anarkali was something i will never forget for life. The circumstances under which the skit came out and became a winner are worth elaborating. I could see the anxiety in Bisu ( he was the skit coordinator) as one full night of brainstorming was not leading us anywhere. but somehow all of us didnot loose hope and finally came up with flying colours. A-block started with a bang as always :) there was so much excitement and the Maxinations title was floating in front of all of us and we all wanted to grab it :D
i was happy that i have rediscovered one aspect of me which somehow got lost after my stint as Lord Rama in school drama. I was enjoying each and every moment of maxinations. we were working day in , day out ( 24 hrs) for the 3 days and everybody was putting in their best. The good thing was that we were all working towards the common goal and this goal brought all of us together. I hope the same happens when we, the employees, will work for the fulfillment of company goals..
But there was something about Maxiantions i did not like. i agree that there has to be some competitive spirit otherwise there will be no fun but it should not get personal and should not lead to good friends become enemies of each other. i would like to say that plz do not take this so much close to heart. Take it as a fun event. Take it as a opportunity to make the Ximbians bond more stronger.I would request the organisers and the participants to please take the learnings from last year Maxinations and make Maxinations 2006 a grand success..

My best wishes to all :)

Show how much you love and care !!!

I just came across a very beautiful poetry and it seemed very relevant to share the same on Valentines day. It may help somebody to speak out his heart to the one in his/her heart :)

Show How Much you love and Care
To the 0nes you Hold Near n Dear...
Before It's Actually Too Late
& U're Left With Nothing But Regrets!!

Too often we don't realize, what we have until it is gone;
Too often we wait too late to say, "I'm sorry - I was wrong."
Sometimes it seems we hurt the ones, we hold dearest to our hearts;
And we allow foolish things, to tear our lives apart.

Far too many times we let, unimportant things into our minds;
And then it's usually too late, to see what made us blind.

So be sure that you let people know, how much they mean to you;
Take that time to say the words, before your time is through.

Be sure that you appreciate, everything you've got
And be thankful for the little things in life, that mean a lot!!

May GOD bless you with the love of your life !! Amen :D

My Experiences in a Business School " The Jhabier Xperience" :) Part-2

XIMB Orientation programme was again an experience of its kind. i have scrapped some notes on my diary ( before blogging i used to diary many a times and i still do ) after the programme. i actually submitted the same to snigdha ma'am on her request but i have no idea of what happened to it. This is how i used to think before MBA and although i believe that these 2 years of MBA has taught me alot but there are many basic things in the diary which i still possess. i will like to share the same with you all.

19th june ' 04 " THE UNBELIEVABLE "

Believe me, the orientation programme was exactly opposite of what i perceived it would be. and i was not alone... i suppose everybody of us thought it would be monotonous lectures with their usual advices ( dhamki jyada :D ) Even some of my friends took novels, magazines along with them on the very first day. But what it came out was really scintillating. It was great fun with learning and very engrossing.it actually served the purpose of breaking the ice between us and i am very proud to say that i atleast know 40-50 of them by name & face until now.
Being an engineering graduate from NIT jaipur ( The pink city )and passing out just a week ago, i was yet to bury my memories of there but believe me i was so engrossed and involved in the proces that i hardly got nostalgic.
The various thing i noticed during the programme was that there is a lot of creativity within us. It is just than we haven't unbundled it. but i sincerely feel that XIMB will provide us with this opportunity to explore our hidden talents. Also i saw a lot a lot of people, apart from their career goals, want to serve back to the society in their own way. I don't know how many ot them will actaully will actually turn up but i feel that evenif there is a conscience that we are getting a lot from the society and we should do something for the society will ultimately serve the purpose.
Rain claps, japenese claps, scout clapping were very euphonous because we all were together and i thought that unity is sweet.It enriches our life and it gives us strength to fight the various ups and downs of life.
Stories were inspirational and to be very honest i liked the one that of a pot with a hole. after seeing so many friends of mine outperforming me in many respects i felt whether i am worth here at XIMB but this story really drained away all my negative thoughts. I am happy with what i am and the biggest strength that i feel i have is the ability to mould myself according to the environment and the desire to learn. So, i know i will be able to cope up with XIMB pretty well.
The thing i liked most about XIMB was the cooperative nature of everybody. I hope that it will continue all along our stay in XIMB. I always wondered why most of the CEOs( even our faculty members do have) have great sense of humour. i got my answer now..
Finally, the questions to reflect upon and the feedback helped us to be more clear about ourselves.
I am not a writer but i am just putting my hands into the untested waters( which i am very fond of ). i always feel that in life u have two options: To be happy or to be unhappy. I have always chosen the former one and beleive me life is the way you take it. Although everybody now says that the happy part is over and the unhappy part coming soon. i ask all my friends to take the unhappy part happily and since now we are all together, i sincerely believe that together we will conquer the world and make a mark of ourselves.

LONG LIVE XIMBIANS :)

My Experiences in a Business School " The Jhabier Xperience" :)

I am very happy to say that this is my silver jubilee blog and i would like to thank my blog readers for their constant appreciation, support and genuine suggestions. Ther was no other title as close to me as my "XIMB days". I am republishing my "jhabier xperience" as i felt my valentines special overshadowed it somehow :)

So, Where do i start ?? There is so many things to share and i also have to keep my blog readers request of keeping it short :) May be i will write a series of them :D
With my stint in XIMB almost coming to end, i was just relecting back on the 20 months i spent here..
After i got through XIMB, i was very curious to know more about the place where i am going to spend my next 2 yrs.. Alas !! there was no ximbians.com for my help ( Kudos to Mickey for the fantastic site and it has been of great help to the new joinees. it was the lifeline for many during our summers :) also it is a good way for the ximbians to stay connected ). Somehow i got into the yahoogroups of our senior batch and bombarded them with my genuine queries which i would say they answered very kindly.But to my dismay, after reaching here at XIMB campus i became the most sought after person for the seniors. I still remember the calls of my seniors " Where is Anand Jalan, The Kotler " .How do i become Kotler ? Actually i was getting the kotler book at a discount price in Jaipur ( My last year in NIT, jaipur ) so i jst enquired in the yahoogroup :) that whether i buy it or i will be getting it there from the college and secondly somehow i was able to make it to the TOP 20 list of Govinda which was a big achievement.( More than half of the batch got "F" in these quizzes) i hope My batchmates will be remembering it quite well :)
i was ragged thoroughly ( i actually enjoyed it very much ). some of the very intersting ones i remember, i will share with you..the very first day, I was called to a room with around 8 seniors.. the room was quite dark and the seniors were drunk to the top :) they asked me to go to my room and identify their names from the AIS( Academic Information system ) within 10 mins. i remember, i rushed to my room and tried to figure out them and their names..AIS photos are somehow really funny and far from reality :) if u have not checked then do chk it..i could see time running fast, somehow i was able to remember the names but i jumbled them there in front of seniors :P actually 2 of the seniors looked very much similar on AIS :) I was astonished to find out that there are twins in ur senior batch..
so i had to do the exercise again and the time was reduced to 5 mins.. somehow i was able to make it :)
My next experience was a horrible one..Alex and team ( ur seniors) came over to my room at around 2 am ( i was feeling horribly sleepy )and told me that there will be quiz on Kotler chapter 1-6 tommorow morning for you.i remember i had the first night out of my life and the quiz never happened :(
I remember our batch was also fooled by the seniors on the same lines but yes the quiz happened wherein the questions were from another world alltogether :) it was real fun with our seniors..
I was the most called after person in the night assemblings. i hope the junior batch will also appreciate these assemblings. For non-ximb people, in a night assembling, the whole of the junior batch gets asssembled and the seniors rag them in many ways starting from throwing bucket full of water from the top ( getting wet at 1 am in the night that too in a open air set up and they will make sure that you dont dry up ), intoductions( they will always find fault in that) and anything you can think about.I always had the lions share of it whether its laughing on a sine, cos wave or the introductions or the yahoo group issue..
I remember the logic of dev (our senior) that his computer crashed because of the mail i sent on the yahoo group :)
As i sit now and reflect back, i could see that there were many memorable moments i had with my seniors.. i really admire them a lot and they were of great help to me during their stay here and now as well( i m in contact with most of them). i actually miss them many a times.. But this is how life goes..Anyway, I will stop here and will continue from here in my next blog :)
Happy Reading :D

Girls : Still a Mystery :)

With Valentines day just 3 days away and me still looking for one, i was just pondering that why are some guys very successful and others not ?
As i see myself over the years, i could see that i was a shy person( by shy i mean i never took the initiative to talk to them, the girls) right from my school days. Being the topper of my school, i was always approached by many including beautiful girls for my class notes and i readily helped everybody. Topper does not mean that i was very studios. Infact I remember, after the school(a morning school) and after taking the lunch, i used to run to my neighbourhood places and play host of games starting from maachis, photos( filmi), patte ( cards: i was very good at it :D ) imli biza, baati (kanche), delo baati (white and big kancha), saboon desh ( a series of stone one above the other: we had some experience of it in XIMB as well courtesy Zahid and the skill city team )and offcourse cricket, badminton, kabaddi, gulli danda and many more. i was lucky enough to have a friend circle from all quarters of society i.e the well off families, middle class and the poor. similarly from all religions like the muslims, bengalis ( i lived close to pathan pada and bengali pada), oriya, marwari, gujrati, sikhs and my school was a chirstian school. All this has helped me in having a basic respect for everybody irrespective of the caste, creed, religion, affluence.
Sory for the diversion into my childhood memories. What i basically want to say is that till class viii, i was not very keen on girls. After that as i entered in my adolescence, due to the biochemical changes i started having a differnt feeling towards the girls like i started thinking about them, dreaming about them ( i would specially like to mention my friend "deepak" as he told me all the intricacies involved between a girl and a boy ;) ) i started having crushes but due to my shy nature towards girls which i have developed over the years, i was never able to express my felings to them. whenever i sit down now and think about it, i feel very sory about it. i have missed lot of good opportunities :(
i remember one crush i had on my schoolmate after i left the school and one in my college with whom i never spoke..i somehow reconciled myself that probably in engineering i will do something but to my dismay, the boys girls ratio was less than 8% in NIT jaipur. In our electronics dept, there were only 3 girls and as the demand supply formula says. due to shortage of supply there was huge demand and i would say there was better contenders than me... people who had the time, money and patience.
i somehow made some news in MNIT also ( as always :) ) i remember we used to propose our collegeaues in funny ways on valentines day. Again in the evening time, we used
to go to the most hanging out place of MNITIANS, GT (gaurav towers). I remember once i was made the leader of the FOSLA ( Frustrated One Sided Lover Association) and we raised slogans " fosla group zindabad " untill the security police came with their long lathis and we had to disperse. I used to see couples being formed and always dreamt of me having one which unluckily never happened :) so the engineering days were over but i never lost hope and i was looking forward for some action in XIMB :D
I was happy to see so many nice girls on the very first day here at XIMB. Thanks to Orientation programme and seniors that helped us getting closer to the girls. i remember we used to check AIS photos of both our seniors, batchmates and even the RM ppl :) and try to shortlist some ( The targets :D ). Again talking to the opposite sex was something i started developing and enjoyed a lot :) I remember my first crush in XIMB. she is a very sweet girl and a very good friend of mine.. but a friend of mine fell in love with her and my story ended there :) ( some editing on request ). i m happy that whatever happened it was good for me and her :)
i was a little sad but thanks to MBA schedule which helped me forgetting it. The MBA first year passed away in NO time. after we came back from summers, I could see the excitement about the junies in our batch. many of my batchmates actually tried hard :) i somehow had become more focussed about my career and did not gave a fight although i liked a few of them :P i will like to stop here and one thing i would say looking back at the experiences of my life is that" communicate your feelings !!!" and Valentines day is one such great day or i would say an opportunity to express ur love and fellings to ur beloved.
I wish you all in advance " Happy valentines day " May success be yours and you get the love of your life :D

Working woman or Housewife ???

After placements, i have been attending quite a lot of marraiges ( thanks to relatively free schedule this trimester and the marraige season which is currently going on ). Watching my friends with their wifes ( bhabhijis) , i always try to visualise how would my wife would or should be ???
i know i still have quite a lot of time (atleast 2 more years) but somehow i have started thinking about it (courtesy mamijis, bhabhijis, didis and my friend circle who contantly keep prodding me on the same topic)..Infact i have already done a research on the same starting from my family members as their point of view has a very heavy weightage :)
About Myself, I belong to a business family and have been the lucky chap in the matter of studies and qualification obtained among my whole set of relatives both paternal and maternal..most of them have to sacrifice their studies in the middle of their career..But my family and my mamaji always supported me in continuing my studies.. also my younger brother who was very much interested in my father business did not let my absence felt to my father.. I love my brother alot.. he is very cute :)
My mother whom i admire more than anybody in this world was the first target of my research. i have seen her all through my life and to tell you, i consider my father the most luckiest person in the world to have a wife like her. she has been my role model right from my childhood. she is very understanding, very caring, good at her work... somebody on whom one can bank upon for advice.
I had a good number of memorable moments with her.. i was just pondering that would i got the same amount of caring, if my mom would have been working??
A working woman would be having her own career aspirations, her own set of responsibilties and things like that. But for a housewife, life starts and ends with her husband, children, her own family !!!
I was just thinking that how good it will be feeling if u come to know that for someone, you are everything. when you will come back from office , you will get the proper attention and care that u aspire for. your children will be given proper personal care and attention, which is very essential for them...which will actually make the bond between the parents and the children more stroger.. i was just looking at an episode where the daughter was put in a boarding school very early as both the parents were very busy making their career. Now the daughter grows up, she could hardly feel that bonding and love for her parents.. she infact says that to her parents that " you were not there when i needed you the most.. How can you expect me to have feelings for you ".
With a working woman, u actually have to make a lot of compromises.. take it food, household work, child care..I was thinking that i will be making more money than what my father is making ( i mean to say is that money will never be going to be a problem,thanks to GOD for that ).. then why should i compromise?? why should i marry a girl who is very career conscious and want to make a mark of herself.will she be able devote as much time for me and my kids as a housewife can ? Never !!!

The Picture till now reflects that Housewife scores a lot over working woman...
Now let us see the other side of the picture. till now i was thinking from my point of view and not from hers..
Consider the scenario, i am posted in a Metro and have working hours from 8 am - 7 pm ( it is definitely going to extend courtesy the big salaries :)) so i was thinking what will a housewife do all this time?? ok ghar main thoda bahut kaam hota hai par still there will be enuugh time with nothing to do. probably TV will become her best friend but how much time.. after some point of time, she is get bored of this routine. she would be having 100 things to talk to me which she would have thought all throughout the day.. and it may happen that i have a bad day and i am not interested to listen her talks which she is very interested to tell me. for me, there are many things in life to think about ( my job, career , office friends...)but for her i am the only person and if at all she is not getting the duo recognition, attention and love from me, then it will sadden her which will definitely affect the relationship.
Now replace her with a working woman, she will be also having somewhat the same working hours so no point of getting bored in the home alone..secondly, now she will be having her own set of friends, job responsiblites..so for her, there will be lot of other things in mind other than me.. Again being a working woman, she would able to appreciate me and my job responsibities far better as she herself will be undergoing the same..
So, apart from double income, both of us will be more independent and more happy than in the case of her being a housewife.
Again i have heard from my friends whose both parents are working that the scenario is not that bleak in the case of working woman as i have painted in the early part of my blog.. The most important thing in such cases is that there has to be good amount of understanding between the two.
i always thought about why at all arranged marraiges are more successful than love marraiges . In love marraiges there are better chances of one understanding the other person and making a informed and well thought out choice..what i have figured out is that in most of the arranged marraiges, the woman is not financially independent and hence has to make a lot of compromises.. i have seen my didis, mamijis, bhabhijis doing the same and there will be many like them...
i sometime feel sorry about their situation.. why is that, they have to make most of the compromises? have they done any crime to be a female ?
i always believe in equality, be it any relationship. Kissi ka dil nahin dukhna chahiye.
Now coming back to the topic, what i can say is that what i have thought about it. i will prefer a working woman :) i always feared that my family may not accept this that but to my surprise i have actually got positive statements regarding that..
But yes, i will ensure that my kids does not suffer becoz of our career aspirations.They should get the proper care, attention, nourishment and advice that they need.I know that it is possible with a working woman and for all this there has to be good understanding among us and i know it will be :)
AMEN :D

" LOVE IS BLIND "

I always used to hear that "Love is blind " ...Pyar karte nahin hai, ho jata hai...people in love dont think from their head but from their heart...My friend i think is a case study which proves the above statements...He is one of my best friends and i could tell you that such nice souls are very rare in this world... i mean he was always there when i needed him and not only to me but to all...very honest, sacrificing... infact i am so impresed with him that i would have loved to have him as my brother in law... Now this nice chap happened to fall in love with a girl( love at first sight ) in the very first year of engineering.. My friend although being very sweet and honest was a little fat and was called upon as "motu" by all including the girl..he was actually very bulky ( 100 + )... He always wanted to stay close to the girl.. do all the help, she needed..in her projects, roaming around the new place i.e jaipur ( My friend was a localite ).. there developed a good friendship between the two..yeh kah sakte ho ki din bhar uthna, baithna, ghoomna, classes karna , everything they did together..
Now my friend was conscious about his being overwieght and started doing exercises, dieting and many such things and things worked in his favour as he was able to reduce his weight considerably.. but since his name has been set as "motu" so people do contniued saying him the same ( he always get hurt when somebody used to tell him the same especially in front of the girl ).. Now the feelings in him about her started growing day by day..and the closed friend circle came to know about his feelings and started teasing him on her..and to tell u he loved them although on the face value he always rejected them... but when somebody try to put her name with someone else he was the first one to react...The girl may or may not be knowing of the intense feelings my friend had for her...
my friend who has been a very shy guy ( like me :) in my earlier days and to an extent now too ) was never able to express his feelings to her..his condition was getting pathetic as days were passing by...he used to dream about her day and night ...in the dreams he used to picturise her as his wife and they spending a happy married life...
The love was already 3 yrs old now.. i could say that for a person in love , 3 yrs is a big big time..i somehow convinced him to propose her ( I have always been doing that :) ) and after much of pressure from me and his inner desire.. he somehow took her to Mcdonalds and conveyed his feelings to her...U can call it a bias or whatever, but i was always sure that she will be very happy to hear the same from such a nice and caring person..but to my dismay, things did not worked out.she infact rebuked my friend and said that she never thought of him in that way...its ok yaar, she has her own life and her own perceptions and she has the right to decide what she wants.. but the only thing i felt bad about her was the way she tackled it.. i mean a person is so much in love with u for more than 3 years and i still doubt that she did not had any inkling of it.. she never stopped him doing that...may be she was enjoying it...many people like flirting around..i do not oppose flirting.. it is fun.. but if u see that the person is good friend of urs and very honest , caring.. then u must stop doing it... it can actually hurt the other person very badly..and it actually did..
It was like hell broke on my friend but thank GOD that he gave him the courage to stand the pain of that... i mean when i think of his situation( 3 yrs of true love and suddenly nothing is there , ur true love does not recognise u ), it sends shivers down my spine.." Bhagwan jab dukh deta hai to usko sahne ki bhi sakti deta hai " ...
Yeh story yaha khatm nahin hoti hai...To his bad luck.. the girl got selected in the
same company in the campus placements... i could see the hope in him still now that she may come back...he still loves being teased on her...he wants to divert his feelings and thought process by indulging into other things.. but her sight bring back the memories of all the moments they spent together and it hurts him deep inside...I always pray to GOD that some good girl come into his life and she inundate his life with her love so much that all these feelings which keeps hurting him get washed away...

"LOVE IS BLIND"

P.S. This is what i have percieved from the interactions i had with my friend and what i could feel .. They may be biasing and wrong judgements from my side and i apologise for that..But i have been genuine from my side ..

"Communication"

Today during the stroll after the dinner, me and my friends discussed a very important topic which i feel affects each and every person..My friend who has neither taken PGL( Personal Growth Laboratory) and OCD( Organisational Change & Development) asked what is this subjects all about ? It made me think and what i felt and said, i would like to share with u all..for those who have no clue what PGL is all about i will just give a brief description of it( Though actually u can appreciate it better when u participate in it)

"A Personal Growth Laboratory (sometimes called Human Process or Human Interaction or Sensitivity Training Laboratory or T-Group) is an event designed for a group of 8 - 12 individuals to study themselves on the basis of their experience of participation in the group. The event covers a minimum number of hours of interaction.

The group is not provided with any predetermined agenda or schedule, except the objectives and the time schedule of the group's meetings. A professional trainer also participates in the group as a facilitator of individual and group processes. The methods of learning are experiencing, expressing, data collecting, hypothesising, reflecting, experimenting, and conceptualising. Typically, the concepts generated are not abstract, but derived from the live data of the group's life-history during the event.

Objectives of PGL are to enable the participant to :

become more deeply and clearly aware of himself or herself and his or her patterns of behaviour;

focus on his or her interpersonal interaction, and to act towards finding greater meaning and satisfaction from such interaction; and

improve his or her ability to deal with conflict."

Now this is what the text says..as a participant of PGL what i make out from it was that it is basically about communication..communicating the feelings ( both good and bad ) that u have regarding the other participants, about urself.. and the good thing about PGL is the set up is such that it actually helps in people speaking out whatever they have in their mind regarding others and self..Many a times in our life, we keep the feelings within ourselves...e.g. we didnt like a thing about a person but we dont express the same to it..may be becoz we feel that it may hurt him/her or may be becoz of our ego does not allow us to do that... and there can be 100 such reasons..
What i personally has experienced is that keeping things within ourselves actually makes us feel too heavy and it affects our normal life and behavior whereas speaking the heart out actually makes us feel so lighter and believe me..u will love the feeling..
u can take this in any context..between lovers who never expressed their feelings and hence their true love died .. between good friends who somehow got into an misunderstanding and never expressed themselves and lost a good friend in the process..between an employee and the HR/Superior , wherein the employee was never able to explain his/her dissatisfaction and hence leaves the company he never wished to and the company also looses a good employee...between parents and children, wherein parents tried to force their wishes on the child and never let the child spoke his interests and ambition in life...between husband and wife...between teacher and student...between siblings...between saas bahu :).. i mean it can happen between anybody...

i was imagining an ideal world wherein everybody expresses their feeeling and "Thoughts" to others and there is no misunderstanding and we will not be needing things like PGL for speaking out our heart...

i really like people who are clear from heart and speak out what they feel..although sometimes at the first instance, they seems to be rude but their genuine comments actually make me think and i try to work on that which leads to my self improvement..and to tell you the bond of frienship or any other relationship tht u have actually strengthens..u look up to the person for his genuine comments...
specially in this world wherein there is so much of backbiting and hypocrisy going on, people really look forward for genuine people..atleast i do..
What i firmly believe and used to say is that most of the problems, misunderstandings, etc will get resolved if we start "communicating"... People who have read my earlier blog "I love U" may appreciate better the importance of communication and how communication helped my friend getting his ladylove..
It will be not wrong now to say that " Communication is the key to most of the problems in the world" ...

Also before ending the post, i would to like to underscore the point that while communicating please make sure that the reciever percieves what u intended to say( Remember IBHA madam's funda of I = I'' ) i mean sometimes there is a misunderstanding here also..Infact many a times, i feel that some of my points are not percieved the way i intended..many people somehow percieve me very differently of what i am...I would like to thank bloggers.com for giving me an oppurtunity to portray the real myself to the world...I believe in my blog title which is Thoughts "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he" ..I hope u can make out from reading my " Thoughts" what type of person i am :D

Keep communicating :)

"Discouragement"

After reading the discouraging comments of ha ha ha and he he he, i was a little sad. it made me think and hundreds of questions were coming to my mind..is my blogging worthless ? is it too cheap ? am i doing the right thing or should i stop blogging ? I asked GOD and the inner voice told me that i am on the right way..

I remembered the Lord Shiva, Goddess parwati and nandi(ox) story..for those who dont know i will just tell the same..Once shiva and parwati were riding on the nandi and when people saw this, they started criticising shiva and parwati saying that they are so cruel on the poor nandi who has to take the load of both of them.. hearing this, Lord shiva came down but people still criticiesd parwati for being so disrespectful to her husband who is walking whereas she is seating comfortably on the nandi.. looking at these, parwati also came down.. but people still did not left criticising..they said how fool shiva and parvati are.. they have an ox to ride still they are walking..

MORAL OF THE STORY: There are some people who will keep criticising no matter whatever u do... one can never satisfy everybody.

I remembered my school days.... Although it was an english medium, but we never used to speak in english.. i used to see convent students speaking in fluent english and i also felt the desire to do the same but everytime i wanted to speak in english, i used to hear discouraging comments like " dekho english bolta hai,English babu ban raha hai, apni angreji apne paas hi rakh " these comments used to kill the desire in me and i used to revert back into the normal hindi dialogue.. i remember our school also once tried to enforce english speaking by putting fine of Re. 1 for speaking anything other than English once and like wise it used to add up... this did not worked out well as there were many problems and hence the initiative was doomed.. As i entered into NIT jaipur for my engineering and specially with NITs having a diverse group of students from all parts of the country.. i used to have little bit difficulty while talking to south indians and since it was the only way to communicate , i did not have much choice..Being very active in all the college activities, i used to get a lot of chances of comparing, etc.. but since i have not developed my english fluency during my school days, i always use to take the back seat in such matters and used to get involved into other activities..also to my bad luck, NIT jaipur has 50 % state quota and most of them were from hindi medium..the mentality of them was again the same as my school day friends..So everytime i used to start on this front, tons of discouragement used to kill my initiatives..But somehow, I was lucky enough to have some like minded friends during my 2nd year( people preparing for GRE).. also my MBA scholarship did a great help to me in this front and Infact it was instrumental in my getting selected into XIMB.

What i want to say is that whatever u do , there will be some people who will definitely try to discourage you . I am not critising those set of people as it has become an human tendency.. It is rightly said " It is very easy to criticise anything " ..We use to cricise about our friends, relatives, country, system and 100 such things.. Just try to recall how many things do we admire or How many people do we give a pat on the back for their good work.. we hardly do this.. why do people do this?? i dont know and also i really dont know the logic behind it. What do one get from this?? I have suffered a lot because of discouragment and i dont want to suffer anymore. I will listen to everybody but do whatever i feel like " Suno sabki, karo apne manki "

To tell you, i have been a very lucky chap as i have been very close to GOD right from my childhood and used to chant bhajans when i was as small as 6 yrs of age..We used to have regular Satsang ( it included chanting bhajans, discussion on good thoughts, etc). Again my family members specialy my mother has been quite high on spiritual quotient and i have imbibed a lot of that into me. Now about my blogging, i always wanted to share the good thoughts that used to come to me hoping that even if one person subscribes to the good thoughts of mine and it somewhat transform him/her, my pain of putting my thoughts into this blog will be worth the reward..
and to tell you, i am really happy that many people have got inspired from my blogs and even some of them have started their own blogs. I could see my purpose getting served. I would like to take this oppurtunity to thank all my blog readers for their love and encouragement..and i assure you that my blogs will keep coming as and when some nice "Thoughts" come to my mind..I would also like to thank ha ha ha and he he he as they were instrumental in the making of this blog :)

GOD BLESS U :D