Motivato

Some people motivate you by showing you the path, i.e walking on the path you want to.
Some others motivate by showing you the path you shouldn't walk.

You might wonder how the latter can be termed motivation. Any deviation or sense of direction is considered as motivation here. Anything that pulls or pushes towards a state that provides more hope and happiness is motivation.

Any state where you are capable to do more than when you are doing things that you know are bad, is worth calling motivated state.

Motivation is all around, you just need to pick the right one at the right time and move on. When you are excited, you tend to pick up more motivation from all around, and in the process also radiate some of it to others. That is the observed theory of motivation.

My heart goes out for some people who wait for a motivation. It is true that when you are depressed and quite unable to pick yourself up, you 'await' the motivation by other people, events or thoughts. But one thing you never notice is that even at that moment a choice is made to be motivated. And that choice is entirely yours. Hence you are enough to motivate yourself, but it is easier said than believed.

If you ever get motivated and do good things, the credit is entirely yours. No one who motivated can take the credit, unless they had undergone special pain to motivate you. In that case, what they deserve is a heartfelt thanks for lighting the lamp in you. And also, keep such people close to yourself. They are precious. But as your own motivational team is more important than the external one, give yourself the praise you need and then share it with the others too. Be proud for each time you beat the odds, each time you felt that you stood up for what you thought was correct, each time stood up after a big fall, each time you repainted yourself after a period of paleness..

Go ahead.. you need all the sabaashi you can get.

Be motivated to motivate the motivational motto :)

Finally a Kannada Movie

In spite of being in Karnataka for the last two years, it is now that I finally watched a Kannada movie.
And that too... without subtitles!!! Yeah!
(I still wonder how I managed.)

But it did happen.










The movie was "Mungaru Male" or Monsoon Rain(2006), a hit Kannada movie or rather as per what I heard, the only one until recent times. The movie was quite good, with lots of picturesque locales and nice cinematography. I struggled a bit at points where heavy dialogues were delivered. I might re-watch those parts with subtitles later on. But for time being, I understood their feelings and moved on ;)

Frankly, I didn't expect the subtitles to be absent when I started watching. But then I just got along, and saw the entire movie.

The part where they show the Jog Falls was simply awesome, because they showed the exact spot me and my friends had sat when we went there last year. It is an AWESOME location.

Sort of like the cult Malayalam movie "Thoovanathumbikal", rain has a very important role in the romantic scene. I loved that part very much. Leaving out some complicated dialogue delivery, it all seemed like a normal Indian movie. So it was very pleasing to watch the movie sitting in my cubicle at office :D :D

Psyched up games

"Speak out a word that comes to your mind when you hear my word"

So began the rules of the game I created sometime back during my college days. At that time, it contained a pinch of psychology to gauge emotional and intellectual depth of all participants. And it was a rage. I even named it Neural Network Mapping (NNM).

But when applied during long journeys in a large group of friends, it soon started turning plain as people lost out on depth. So the game metamorphosed into a more flashy style wherein all were encouraged to explore wacky and witty answers to maintain the tempo. During these changes, I discovered that the vocabulary and memory capacity of honest participants showed a remarkable improvement, especially for me as I played sort the role of a sort of referee.

Anyway this continued as a hit game into my corporate life, where I effectively deployed it during boring training sessions and long journeys. I even presented this idea to a trainer. That is when I came to know that it is a known method for psychoanalysis. I was pleasantly surprised and patted myself on my back for discovering the "psych frequency".

But, I was taken by surprise after nearly 1.5years when in the movie "Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara", Abhay Deol uses this technique to make his friends talk about their problems. Everyone in the gang which accompanied me threw me a glance, threw comments and appreciated as if my idea was used by the movie.

I was just walking a normal psychology line, where people's subconscious always has the real feelings. When the person has to talk about what he/she sees in the mind, it doesn't engage the brain. It comes directly from the subconscious. When the brain tries to restrict or modify, a significant and observable delay or stammering can be seen in the subject's response. Their lies the key to whatever is hurting the person. Key to psychology is observation, understanding and inference.

Happy Psyching!! :P

Zindagi Shayad Na Milegi Doobara

Heavy food, 60rs worth petrol in each bike's tank, full heart, empty roads and no plans.

So began our small trip.

Maybe inspired by the movie "Zindagi Na Milegi Doobara" which talks about living life king size, we guys decided to roam around instead of returning to our rooms.

It was fun! After a long time, the small group of travel-frenzy guys got together.
Adding routes and deviations upon each other, we wandered and sometimes stopped to crack some jokes or catch a glimpse of some beautiful landscapes.

Through the pouring rain, the two bikes moved at very even and normal pace, enjoying every moment. Every now and then, when we encountered unknown routes we just took a call and continued. It happened to lead us through new ways to our planned destination itself.

The plan was to get to Ooty ;) knowing well enough that all four were joking. But on the way, the lit up stairs to Chamundi came into view and we went there. What a beautiful spot at night it was. We climbed only a few steps and then climbed some rocks for an awesome view of the lit-up city. Sat there and discussed about the moon, the NASA missions and other blah-blah before deciding to go ahead till Bandipur forest owing to a fierce but crazy argument between me and another guy whether a hill we saw to our South was in Tamilnadu or Kerala. He said it was TN, whereas I stuck to the point that it is Kerala. Hence, we called a truce and decided to go there and check out.
But it was getting too late and a black cat crossing our path caused everyone to drop the plan and we returned.

Soon we realized that we circled the Mysore city thrice :)

List

Kemmangundi, Hebbe, Yana, Kudremukh, Agumbe, Kumaraparvatha, Kunthibetta, Sravanadurga, Brahmagiri, Mullayangiri, Meesapulimala, Chembra, Karakoram, Kanjanjunga.. Alps..

A day in the life of Vivek

Today was our product release. Yes, we have a weekly release(i prefer to call it 'weakly').

In spite of that, I went late. But did my part, helped everyone, calmed down things, solved problems, negotiated with concerned parties and other blah blahs. But unlike other release days, I went for a lengthy lunch- that too outside. Felt like college days.

Then like crazy college kids, we went for a ride around the industrial area through unknown roads. That too, without notifying superiors - especially after having heard a dress-down awarded to a colleague for behaving similarly.

Anyway from that moment I was getting the feeling that I was in a different world. Everything was so light and easy. I closed tasks in 1/10th the estimated time, zipped between cubicles handling various domains and various technologies as well. All done by 4pm. Smooth release, ours and our neighbors' - both involving my hands. Increasingly I was feeling that today was Friday and tomorrow is Saturday.

All was well, everyone left early. I sat down for a moment of quiet, reflecting on some strange behavior of our products. Rebooted the machine which was shutdown as a reflex. Sat through the scenarios meticulously simulating and ready to hammer it then and there. And lo - everything worked so smoothly that I wondered whether this was the same application everyone including myself cursed for the last week.

So got to the business of printing huge programming reference books ("Programming Pearls") for office purpose. After a marathon queue of print jobs, walked out to the printer - just to find dark corridors, wet with the fresh drizzle dripping through the slightly open windows. Suddenly felt so good about being there, but not about being there at that time. The clock said 7.30pm. Not good when you don't have any legitimate work in office.

Rest of the story is boring. Skipping it, prepared extended curd rice with special vegetable mix(mumbo jumbo).Mumbai Meri Jaan - Awesome.
Stirs the spirit of an undying attitude of perseverance.

The business spirit of India Inc.
A minute for the day to end.