The power of good deeds

A poor wood-cutter was on his way home, after a long, hard day’s work in the forest. On his head he carried a big bundle of wood – the fruit of his toil.

On the lonely forest track that evening, he saw a tapasvi, a holy man, coming towards him. Courteously, he stepped aside to let the holy man pass.

“Drop the bundle down!” the holy man said to the wood cutter.

Astonished, as well as puzzled, the poor man did as he was told.

“Untie the knot!” came the next instruction.

Lo and behold! As the bundle was untied, a deadly, venomous snake came out of the logs. The wood-cutter shrieked with fear and horror at the sight of the snake but it crept away quietly into the undergrowth and disappeared.

Still shaking with fright, the wood-cutter fell at the feet of the holy man.

“Master!” he exclaimed, “You saved my life!”

“You are mistaken,” replied the holy man quietly. “Tell me, did you perform a good deed today?”

“Alas master! All day long I worked hard cutting wood! It is not for humble ones like me to perform good deeds,” replied the wood cutter.

“Think again,” urged the holy man. “You must have done something special today!”

The man’s eyes widened in remembrance. “O master! I grew hungry and I sat down to eat my meal. I had two rotis with me. As I began to eat, a poor man came by. He told me he had not eaten for the last two days – poor soul! I shared one of my rotis with him. Apart from this, I have performed no good deed at all!”

The holy man blessed the poor wood-cutter.

“Brother,” he said, ‘today, you were to die of this snake. But your good deed has saved you from death, and blessed you with a new lease of life!”

Change in Homepage?

The look and feel of the Google homepage has been changed since yesterday. Did you notice the elongated search box and the keywords that we enter are in bigger font size?

When I first saw the page, it appeared as though it had a UI defect. I was under the impression that some developer had missed to apply style sheet and deployed it into production server when he was half asleep.

Later I realized that it was a ‘CHANGE’.

I don’t like it. :(

Sweet Spot

Few days back I had a technical discussion with my developer and the client on one of the critical projects that I am working for currently. My developer (hereafter referred to as ‘SA’) is a very sincere person who always aims for quality deliverable and also puts the best effort to meet deadlines. My client is a very systematic person who works in early bird schedule. So a technical discussion in the night is obviously an irritating thing for him. Unfortunately the discussion exceeded the scheduled time and SA was not convinced with the discussion. The more he was trying to clarify, the client was becoming impatient. Unexpectedly the discussion was not very fruitful.

I spoke to my SA immediately after the call and explained to him that it was right to focus on the client’s needs rather than giving a best solution for long term when the client is ready to rework after a while. I understood SA’s intentions that he wants to give a best solution rather than thinking short term solution.

A few days back I had another discussion with my supervisor. We were talking about different resources who report to me. He commented about SA that it was very tough to work with him and there were few people who haven’t preferred to work with this person. Hence he was trying to find out if I faced a similar situation. I said my relationship with my team is absolutely fine and I am satisfied with SA’s work too.

The point that my supervisor conveyed to me was, sometimes people become unhappy when the person works beyond what is expected. It was the same problem with SA. He worked so passionately that he doesn’t deliver until he is satisfied with the quality.
I said that was the quality that I was very impressed about SA and I am fine with that.

This lead to a discussion on one of the articles my CEO had written about ‘Sweet Spot’.

Here is a Venn diagram that shows the sweet spot:

The highlighted region is the sweet spot.
A- refers to company
B- refers to Personal Interests of an employee
C- refers to employee’s strengths

Sweet spot is defined as a region which helps an individual grow along with the organization's growth. A person has to have the caliber to do something; the one that interests him and is expected by the company showcases him as a talented person.

Having strengths but no interest; having interest but struggling to do a task; having interest and strengths but doesn’t meet the company’s needs are 3 combinations that make a person unsuccessful.

In the case of SA, he has high caliber and interest but most of the times doesn’t meet the expectation set by the company/client, rather exceeds them resulting in dissatisfaction.

I defended SA because I have never let down any of those who have worked with me so far. I know the fact about sweet spot but did not completely agree with my supervisor because I have been in similar situations before.

This discussion reminded me of 2 incidents in my life.

Incident 1:I had a very tough time before I found my best first job. I applied for a job position for one of the telecom giants based out of madras. There were 8000 candidates who had applied for the same job position. After having attended many interviews and knowing the time that it was a recession, I had very less expectations when I went to the aptitude test. I did my best and was very happy to know that I cleared the test. I then had a technical assessment which covered almost all the areas of engineering concepts. I was delighted to hear the results that I passed the test. Immediately there were 2 technical discussions on the same day. I was little bit nervous but slowly my expectations and confidence were building very fast. Both the interviews went on very well and I was waiting to hear the results again. Imagine the mental state of a person who had to hold the breath several times on the same day. I was informed that I cleared the interviews as well.

From the 8000 that appeared for the selection process, only 42 were selected after the technical discussions. After a weeks time, there was a HR interview and I got to know from sources that they were going to select only 35 of us. My interview went on well. I was very sure that I would be selected. But to my dismay I was told that I was one among the 7 who were rejected. Also the HR added to the point that those who were rejected don’t mean that they are not capable but their strengths does not fit in the company’s expectations J

Oh what a diplomatic way of conveying! Isn’t it? But that moment was very hard to digest and I was dejected. It took me at least a week’s time to think about the next step. But that was when I realized that there is going to be some other time in my life when my strengths would be recognized by someone else.

My thinking was true. I continued to put in my effort and was offered 2 jobs from leading companies at the same time.

Incident 2: There was a time when I used to work for a very critical project in my company. We had very odd working hours. Some of us used to work crazily and hardly had time to sleep. My superior was a person who was never satisfied with the work delivered. He was always a person who pointed out the scope for improvement. Sometimes when there was a delay in best of intentions to deliver quality product, it was often mistook as deliberate delay to let my superior down. How disgusting!

Soon after that project was completed, I moved onto a different team. Surprisingly for the same amount of effort that I had put earlier, I was appreciated at least once in a day. How funny life was!

My grandpa thought me a very important lesson to me. Tough times in a person’s life are inevitable. One has to suffer and get through those times. But when one continues to do good they will be rewarded the best during one’s best times…..wondering why? Its for the best deeds accumulated.

The lesson that life thought me many times was continued effort, good thought and good work will be appreciated one day or the other and I firmly believe it till day.

I also believe this holds good for many situations and relationships in our life.

So coming back to the original point, I planned to send appreciations for SA because one of the tasks that he had worked was highly appreciated by the client.

Pippa's song

The last time when I posted, I forgot to include these lines from Pippa's song by Robert Browning.

God does everything for a reason and we realise it later.well, there is a lot to be written here but I am not very good in expressing. Here you go and its self explanatory.

The year's at the spring,

And day's at the morn;

Morning's at seven;

The hill-side's dew-pearled;

The lark's on the wing;

The snail's on the thorn;

God's in his Heaven --All's right with the world!

Random Post

1. For a while now, I have been thinking about this. Why do people always want the one that they don’t have? I am not an exception….But the moment I am disappointed about something, I also realize that I have grown up and am matured enough to digest the fact that mom had always thought me in my journey so far “unakkum keezhe ullavar kodi, ninaithu pathu nimmadhi naadu”.

2. Why are some people hypocrites? It feels sick when I could read minds and categorize some people as hypocrites. I have seen some of those in my workplace.

3. I watched a wonderful movie “Abhiyum naanum”.My sister told me that she liked it.
The relationship between a father and a daughter has been wonderfully brought out in the movie.

4. Why do people render service to the society and take pictures when they help the needy? Is it telling everyone that their service needs to be recognized? Whom are they making happy? Do they get pleasure in serving the needy or feel happy when others talk about their helping nature? I am confused.
I know many who do great things and never talk about it.

I hate to see pictures in newsletters of foundations those help the needy.


5. I finished reading a book. I literally hated the story. The woman in the story was very indecisive and I hated the way she dealt the situations.

6. I had an informal meeting with my previous manager few days before. She always liked talking to me and felt bad for not having me in her team. She is the only woman in her team and she misses me. Every time when she talks to me, I am reminded of MK. That reminds me how MK never wanted to loose me but she always respected what I wanted.

5 star *****

Do you remember this old tamil advertisement for 5 star?
I was reminded of the 5 star advertisements….


It’s like this…….A girl tries to become a pop singer and fails miserably every time. The song goes like this…

Asaigal nirasai anadhe
Kanavum kai nazhuvi ponadhe
Nambikkai tharum manadhile
Oru pudhuvazhi udayam anadhe
Kai patruvom star ai sadippom viraivil vaa……..
Kai patruvom star ai sadippom viraivil vaa……..

As the song goes, she eats a five star to gain confidence and we see a pop singer on the screen :)For the past few days I have been searching this ad in you tube……
By now you know what the search result was… :(

No ad…No five star :(

God’s in his heaven, All’s right with the world

One of my very best friends used to tell me, one should have pure thoughts on a Monday morning and the entire week depends on how one experiences Monday. I don’t believe much in these kinds of sentiments. Every day is special to me. There were times when I wore same colored clothes almost the entire week. Some of them have asked me, “is that your lucky color?” Well I believed when I wore a dress of my choice and liking, I was more confident. But I have this inadvertent love for dates. I am working on it to overcome.

When I was up this morning, unfortunately I was not sure how my day is going to be. Although I was identified as “The Woman” in an organization I had worked previously, that is the smilie I wish to be one today.

I had 4 tasks to be deployed and they were expected to go live in a week’s time. All of them were critical ones. I was appreciated for some of the tasks that were fabulously carried out so far. But I was also criticized that out of many things that go wrong, 2 of the 4 tasks require some more effort. I did not get a “GO” from the business and hence we put them on hold.

I was not unhappy or dejected. I was just tired.

I have this very senior colleague in my office who is a blind motivator for me. She does the testing for most of the code my team develops. She asks numerous questions and is sometimes confused too. I just walk over to her place for the respect I have for her age and explain her patiently. Sometimes when I have other priorities, there can be no other person in my office to understand me better than her. Today I had to ask something to her and I was relieved to get a timely help. All that I could say her was “Thanks”.

She replied me back…I am moved with your patience to help me out every time. There is not a single time when you have said “No”.

I was happy.

God’s in his heaven, All’s right with the world.

Google Profile?

Web 2.0 refers to what is perceived as a second generation of web development and web design. It is characterized as facilitating communication, information sharing, interoperability, User-centered design and collaboration on the World Wide Web. It has led to the development and evolution of web-based communities, hosted services, and web applications. Examples include social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs, mashups and folksonomies.

Although the term suggests a new version of WWW, it does not have any up gradations to technical specifications whereas gives a new tilt to the way end users utilize the web.

Got to Wiki for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0

Now, do you wonder why am I writing a post on web 2.0 here? The answer is pretty simple. As usual I was exploring one of the features of Google. As a google adherent, I thought of sharing information about Google Profile.

In the current day, we have so many social networking sites bumping each other. LinkedIn is one such site with a different outlook to the SNS .Its a “Professional SNS”.
It’s a place where one can put their professional information there by floating ones information in the WWW.

Orkut on the other hand is a “Personal SNS” with a similar motive.

Today majority of the people ranging from school going kids to elderly people have got them registered in Orkut, LinkedIn, youtube, Picassa, reader, blogger, facebook & so on..

We know most of these products are under the very big umbrella called Google. Now what is different about Google Profile then?

Google Profile can be logged in with the usual gmail account and is built on the “Web 2.0” concept. It’s basically a place where one can register to have public presence. If someone wants to track a person on the web and the person being tracked has a google profile created, everything becomes pretty simple. It has link to all the google products and shows all of those where the logged in member has registered with.

Most of us log into any google related products with the same id. We don’t maintain different ids for different products when they always popularize the product with the fact that one can login if h/she has a gmail account. Thus the web 2.0 concept emerges.

For example, when a person logs into google profile with the gmail id, it shows their blog links, you tube membership details, presence in picassa, any journal membership, orkut, facebook and twitter and so on.


In the past when you did a “Vanity Search” ( if you wanted to be listed in search results for your own name), it would not have showed up the results as expected and often you needed your own website. However in April, Google has started giving Profiles a prominent placement in search results. If you set up an online profile with Google, a person looking for you online will be able to find you more easily. Google will let you know if they need more information before having your profile listed in search results.

Do you want to take a look to see a profile looks like? Search for Tim O'Reilly( web 2.0 guru) on the web.

Read for more details:
http://seodenver.com/2009/05/20/how-to-create-a-google-profile-and-manage-your-online-reputation/

I was very excited to learn about web 2.0 a year and a half back. But when I realized the concept in real-time, I have my own thoughts reserved for this.

I was analyzing the pros and cons of Google profile. I don’t want to discuss about it here as it might be a very good topic in a technical forum.

Although I jotted out many points, my question is still open.” Is Profile a boon or a bane?”

Power Outage

Couple of days before, at work…..
I was starring at the monitor without moving anywhere as if I was glued to the chair. I was trying to open some document and all of a sudden the mouse stopped working. The computer got disconnected from the network. All the lights were turned off.
I realized it was a “Power outage”. After coming to the US, it was the first time I encountered a power outage.

Ah…….Probably it was a time to take break :)

Some of my coworkers started heading to their home. I was wondering what next to do?

But this brought a kind of happiness in everyone’s face as though no one is compelled to work anymore.

In school and college days it was really fun when an unexpected holiday was declared. Especially the bombs scare kind of rumors. I remember running to the play ground once during a bomb scare in the school.

Will a similar thing happen today? When I cannot afford to take a day off, it’s ok to expect a leave announcement.
Such was a kind of thought running through my mind and unfortunately everything resumed in 15 minutes.

रेशम

वो लोग रेशमी कपड़े पहनते हैं

बोलते हैं कि वो अमीर हैं

वो समझ्तें हैं कि अमीर्पनका नमूना रेशम है

मन्दिर मे भगवान को धूम धाम से सजाते हैं

अगर्बती का मतलब इस मतलबी दुनिया में खो गया है

लोग समझ्तें हैं कि रेशमी कपडों में भगवान् की कीर्ती बद्थी है

रेशम की कीमत अनमोल है

लेकिन लोग माया के वश में हें

क्या रेशम कभी कफ़न बन सकता है?

कफ़न हमेशा सफ़ेद ही है

वह दुःख का नमूना है

For Hindi Aspirants, the poem means :

Everything in this world has its own significance. One cannot replace the otherones value.

A silk cloth cannot be used as a shroud.

Also this means ones value is not influenced by the others value. Our greatness lies in the quality of our inner self. For example, god is a supreme power.He is not a supreme power because of how we decorate him or what we offer to him.

उदार

किरण जब ऊपर पड्त्ती है

आहिस्ता आलस उतारकर खिलती हैं ये नन्हे कलियाँ

फ़िर मुस्कुराती हैं फूल बनके

अपने दैनिक जीवन की सोच थोडी भी नही है

चारों तरफ़ खुश्बू फैलाकर हमको खुशी दिलाती हैं

इस स्वार्थी दुनिया में एक दिन की खुशी देकर स्वर्गीय बन जाती हैं

क्या ये सारे फूल हरि के लिए हार बनती हैं ?

आपस में हर एक फूल तड्पती हैं

एक दिन की परियां , हरि के गले में जब चड्ती हैं, तब उनका जन्मदिन है

क्या इन सबको वो मौका मिलता है ?

फ़िर भी खिलती हैं, हिलती हैं , खुशृबू फैलाती हैं, मुर्झाती भी हैं

The Garbage Truck

I read this story very recently. Sometimes we know very clearly what to practice in our life. But we fail to do it due to circumstances. However, we get reminded of them when we read such stories or articles. Here is a very nice story.

How often do we let other people's emotions affect our mood? Do we let a
terrible driver, or a rude comment ruin our day?

The mark of a spiritual aspirant is how quickly we can ‘regain our focus’ on
what is important. One man learnt this experience while he was in a New
York City cab. Here's what happened.

He was traveling in a taxi, on his way to Grand Central Station. All of a
sudden, without warning, a black car jumped out of a parking space right in
front of them. The taxi driver slammed on his brakes, skidded and missed the
other car's back end by inches.

Then, the driver in the other car, who nearly caused a huge accident,
whipped his head around and started abusing the taxi driver. So did the
companion sitting next to him! One would have thought that it should have
been the other way round!!!

But the taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy. The startled passenger
sitting in the taxi said, "Why did you take it so easy? The guys almost
caused your car to crash and send us to hospital!"

The taxi driver laughed and then related what he called, "The Law of The
Garbage Truck."

"Many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of rubbish,
filled with frustration, bursting with anger, and packed with
disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it. And
if you let them, they'll dump it on you. When someone wants to dump it all
on you, don't take it personally. You just smile, wave, wish them well, and
move on. You'll be glad you did. I assure you.”

The passenger started thinking how regularly he let garbage trucks run right
over him? And how frequently he took his own garbage and spread it onto
other people, at work, at home, or on the streets? It was that day he
promised to himself, "I'm not going to do it anymore. Enough is enough!"

Over time he learnt how to distinguish when a "Garbage Truck" was coming to
dump all over him. He noticed the junk they were carrying and prepared
himself to avoid it all being unloaded onto him. Like the taxi driver, he
did not make it a personal thing; he just smiled or waved or wished them or
did all of these and moved on!!!

We generally get disturbed on reacting to situations, to people’s opinions that we don’t like. Don’t we? Also we have an aversion to a rude comment, those who tease us, those who underestimate us, those who gossip about us and lot more.
A few years back, I started incorporating “The Law of Garbage truck”. I ensured that I don’t let anyone’s negative thoughts influence me. Generally we forget what to do when we have many more challenging situations and that’s what happened to me. I forgot totally about this law. I was reminded of this law sometime during last year.

I know a person who keeps smiling always. When someone talks rudely, he just doesn’t react. He says it’s our duty to keep our heart as beautiful like a flower and we need to try all possible ways for that.

But our mind is like a coin that has two sides. We can take conscious effort to practice good things. But isn’t it tough to remain the same always? When I do that I get a feeling, am I trying to clone “Mother Theresa”? Also it gives a feeling of being fooled. No……I don’t want to do that. I just want to remain the way I am.
That’s when we forcefully unlearn.

We can practice all good things and we can do it only till the threshold. Once that’s reached, we just can’t bear things and we react. No harm in it. Sometimes we need to let the world know what we are and who we are.

Shouldn’t we?

राह

राह में बटमार दूर निकलने लगे

तमन्ना पुरी होने जैसे लग रही थी

लेकिन राही की छाया डूबने लगा

तब महसूस हुआ कि राह का दीप बुजने लगा है

For hindi aspirants, the poem means:

"When the tough gets going, the going gets tough" and thats life and we need to face it.