In Layman's Terms...

On our way back from school, walking to the parking lot...

Me: How was your day baby?
Baby: It was fun, Dad.

M: What did you do in school?
B: We played in circle time

M: And then?
B: Shared my little Ariel toy during show & tell... And I passed it around for everyone to touch & feel it...

M: And then?
B: then... we practiced for our concert, we sang the speckle frog song....
(I don't know what on earth is a speckle frog!!!)

M: And then?
B: then.... we played the freeze dance and... Kavi is not my best friend...

M: Oh! why?
B: Because he pushed me...

M: So what did you do?
B: I said... stop it... it is not nice to push friends...

M: okay...
B: So, what happened in Office?

M: I was working in the office
B: what work did you do in the office?
(Where is this going!!??)

M: Well, I attended meetings, wrote emails, talked to people
B: And then?
(This is definitely not getting good...)

M: And I attended more meetings...
B: You already said meeting, what else?

M: And I worked on documents (trying to simplify spreadsheets & proposals)
B: That's Mama's work, she writes documents...
(aahh... so a similar talk had happened on the other side too...)

M: OK, but I too have to work on documents
B: What work do you do with documents?

M: Well, Baby, do you like this song? Do you want to sing along?..
(We are already in the car by then and the stereo starts playing when I started the car...)

There was a time when I grew up in school where I used to think what do so many people do developing banking software while all that a bank does is to keep your money & give it to you when you want it... And later when I joined one of the German banking giants as a software developer, I realized that 'retail banking' is only a very small portion of the larger business called 'Banking'...

And another one was that - a company/factory would have an engineer who helped make the machinery (my understanding of engineering was only mechanical... LOL), so what do all other engineers do for a living?

How difficult would it be to explain what you do for a living? - in layman's terminology.
Does anyone want to try it out?

Thakara (തകര)

A word, A statement, A comment - When used in a wrong fashion, that can ruin your day, sometimes even a week.

That is what happened with me today. When you give all that you have got for a genuine cause, when you go beyond R&R in running that extra mile for your team, the last thing that you want to see is mistrust, skepticism and doubts on integrity. It just put me off today - first thing on the first day of the week.

I always believe that when it comes to knowledge, the more you share, the more you get. Same applies to teamwork and networking. What really matters is what you are giving to the team/network. When you do that, leverage will happen & will just come in search of you. You dont even have to ask... And I can vouch for it from my own experience... anyways...

Thank you 'X'! You proved it once again! And it is a shame.

Note: The heading (തകര) is a type of weed. It is a symbolism that I use for such instances in life.

Shortcut to Success

Is there a shortcut to success? Of course, it is a magic potion that has the following ingredients - commitment, hard work & perseverance!

I stumbled upon a videoclipping from a Tamil movie - Mayakannadi - the last day (Thanks to Pam's orkut updates) and I was pleasantly surprised that even now, there are some movies made that does its small bit of social justice to the community as a medium. You could hear various kind of arguments that justifies the storyline in various movies about the mass appeal, box office formulae and some amount of poetic expression of ideas & stories. Whatever may be the underlying factor, there is no doubt that cinema as a medium has an impact on the viewing public. It only varies in degree by the personality of the viewer.

I grew up viewing a lot of movies where we have the protagonist who has a poor financial & social background - have to face real hardships and finally we see him go off to "Bombay" or "Madras" - Time flies in a few seconds on the screen and we see a very well-to-do person return back to his hometown to take "revenge" (huh!?) on the people who insulted & assaulted his family in the past.

What happens to the protogonist during exile? How does he get so succesful in a short span of time? What makes him an overnight success? What other quality does he develop in a short span of time that he did not have in the 25-30 years he struggled in his village?

I feel dissappointed when I see a lot of youths nowadays who take on to making a quick buck, but not really ready to work or invest their time and efforts towards it. There are definitely a lot more smart ways now - than earlier - to develop a successful career or build an enterprise. Provided, you have the commitment towards that, you put in your hard work in building that, and finally having the perseverance in trying again and again when ever you fail!

I used to have a bookmark with me (forgot who gifted that to me!) which read like this -> It does not matter whether you get knocked down, but what matters is whether you get back up on your feet!

And here is the clip that I saw on youtube:-




I have started to like Cheran as a film director for some of the thoughtful movies that he had made in the last few years. Take out some of the sentiments & the masala from the scene above, I guess the message is loud & clear...