Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Life is a balance - By Shamsher Singh Puri

Shamer Singh Puri Uncle sent these nice points in an email today

To be effective and successful, you have to balance between the following
1. Respect other’s opinions but differ with them when required.
2. Agree to disagree.
3. Be assertive without being dominating / submissive.
4. Communicate an unfavorable truth – pleasantly and positively.
5. Develop personal habits, and likes but adjust/co-exist with that of others.
6. Empathize not sympathize.
7. Courageously speak out your feelings but empathetically understand those of others.
8. Maintain individuality but respect other’s opinions.
9. Be tactful but do not manipulate.
10. Be concerned over matters not worried.
11. Make credits into the emotional bank account of others without the objective of withdrawing from it.
12. Develop abundant mentality and avoid scarce mentality.
13. Commit mistakes and learn from each mistake.
14. Act, do not react (Be proactive and not reactive).
15. Appreciate, do not flatter.
16. Discuss, do not argue.
17. Consider other’s criticism / appreciation but do not get guided by it.
18. Develop liking to those who dislike you.
19. Synergize, need not compromise.
20. Develop patience, but not procrastinate.
21. Respect other’s time but do not allow others to waste yours.
22. Understand others before being understood.
23. Compromise on modalities, techniques not on principles and values.
24. Win and let others win too.
25. Maintain commitments but do not commit what you cannot maintain.
26. Develop intrapersonal relationship before establishing it. (Interpersonal relationship).
27. Dedicate yourself to profession but without ignoring family and self development.
28. Be task oriented without relations getting affected.
29. Listen to others and make others to listen to you as well.
30. Develop honesty but ensure that others do not exploit it.
31. Have personal touch with people without compromising on safe distance which is professionally needed.
32. Socialize but spend time on yourself.
33. Make the other person feel important without understanding your importance.
34. Reveal yourself to others but to the trustworthy others.
35. Win the hearts of people not only the minds.
36. Work smart not necessarily hard.
37. Delegate work not responsibility.
38. Use personal influence to get jobs done but do not hesitate to use personal power when needed.
39. Be an exemplary leader and effective follower.
40. Believe in destiny without undermining human efforts.

Monday, May 05, 2008

And we say food prices are going up

This picture actually reminds me of Hammy in Over the Hedge, when he actually shows all the other characters the amount of food the human beings conserve. There is so much food around the human beings but it is still never enough for them. If they have had enough food they try to get rid of it (exercise, etc)

I wish we all could be a little more responsible when it comes to food wastage. Off late this issue hurts me a lot especially with the food crisis. In addition, we have innumerable human beings, across the world, who sleep without a nutritious meal

There are so many ways in which we can counter the wastage of food

1. Parties : We often have parties at our house and generally we tend to overestimate the food consumption and end up cooking a huge quantity of food. The other reason we tend to overestimate is because we want everyone to have enough of everything, they should over fill their stomachs and go home so that it leaves a good impression on the party host and we gather our cookie points. A caterer once mentioned to me that a normal human being doesn't eat more than 200 gms of food. If we probably stick to that figure its rare that we would over cook anything. Even if we have left overs from the party we should make sure that its not being wasted. Pack the food and give it to the guests, if you think that you cannot finish it later in a considerable amount of time. Yes very important that you estimate it correctly. Normally you wont eat the left overs more than twice a week and then if it still remains you are bound to throw it away.

2. Serve/ Take Less When you take the food in your plate make sure that you take the right quantity and finish it. It is really important for parents to inculcate this habit in children. Indian parents normally have the habit of finishing up the food left by their children. Sometimes we as adults too commit this mistake. When we are hungry we tend to take a good quantity of food in our plates, (the psychological effect) and end up putting half of it in the garbage. If we are serving the food, make sure we serve a little less quantity and come back later, if they still want some more. Don't try to impress them by serving more food in the plates, it aint worth it.

3. Community : Often in gurdwaras the langar gets overestimated too. The responsible gurdwara members should put up a guestimate of the langar quantity on the gurdwara websites. Also make sure that if there is langar left over, pack it up and give it to the sangat.
I remember a lot of historical gurdwaras in India wouldn't allow the sangat to leave if they didn't finish eating the complete langar. You probably will eat a little extra the first time but later on the discipline of finishing the food gets installed in you and you become more responsible as a result of it

4. India Marriages Woohooo...what do i say here ? Being a part of the north indian community i have witnessed the extravagant marriages and the money going in drain on all sorts of unnecessary things like tons and tons of variety food for dinner/lunch. Woof, cant even imagine how much of the food made during marriages/reception parties get consumed.

5. Shopping Don't go out hungry to do your groceries, you end up buying a lot of extra things. Also keep a very watchful eye on the expiry dates, make sure that you have a plan to finish them off before they get expired, especially fruits and vegetables. Go through all groceries when you do your check out, that is your last chance to make sure that haven't over-shopped.

These are just a few little things by which we could avoid the food wastage and contribute in some way for the hungry and the homeless. I am pretty sure you guys have many more such useful tips to reduce food wastage

Friday, March 07, 2008

First Marathon of my life

The sports genes don't run in my family. I have never excelled in sports (whatever form). If look myself in the mirror i find myself a jack of all trades and masters of none.

But finally I have something to talk about. With god's grace I ran my first marathon of 13 miles on 2nd March 2008. I took 3 hours and 12 minutes to complete it but this is all what i wanted. Alpharetta Marathon is conducted once a year and has 2 flavors

1. Half Marathon - 13 miles
2. Full Marathon - 26 miles

It just a week before when Trilok veer jee put forth the idea of participating in the marathon. My first reaction looking at 13 miles (forget 26 miles) was "hell no" but then he, with his calm and composed nature motivated me and I agreed, thinking If i can't complete i will run as much as I can.

1st day - I started practicing in the apartment gym. The first day i was barely able to reach 3 miles.
2nd day - I took some rest
3rd day - I comfortable ran 2.0 miles at the speed of 4.7 miles per hour. After little breaks i made it till 4.0 miles
4th day - I was little more comfortable now and wasn't tired or pain of any sort. I could complete 5.0 miles with the first non-stop stretch of around 2.5 miles
5th day - I managed 6.0 miles
6th day - took some rest
7th day - took some rest again , wanted to practice but because of some other commitments I couldn't make it

After these many days of practice I knew one thing that completing the race is just a mental game. I can even complete the race by walking 13 miles. I had noticed during practice that even brisk walking kind of gives you a 4 mile per hour speed.

On the race day, all I did was Ardaas and went to the race along with Trilok veer jee. Vijaya cautioned me that don't stress yourself else you will face adverse effects. We arrived just in time and therefore couldn't do a lot of stretching. After the US national anthem the race started and i started remembering my childhood days of sports events. Usually whenever such events happened during my school days i use to feel disappointed since everyone would go past beyond me but this time it was different. I started at my medium pace and allowed everyone to go ahead without disturbing my mind, remembering the Tortoise and the Hare fable. The initial 2 miles were very tough (lack of stretching) but then after taking some water i felt a bit comfortable and got into a good pace. It went fine till 6 miles smooth and steady. the ahead thing will be though i knew that and whatever distance i cover, its going to be a bonus.
I was at the same pace with a fellow runner, Chanda Provost. She accompanied with me till the last and probably only because of her i could finish the race.

Last 3 miles were brutal. I was taking my liquids on regular intervals and didn't feel famished but my knees (specially my right knee) was hurting the most. Although i was just jogging (people who were walking, went beyond me :-)), I felt as if i have tied a 10 kg weight around them. I just hoping that i don't spoil my knee ligaments or any tendons. There was one thing i said to myself "2 steps before the victory and you loose the cup". Your cup is participation and completion :-) and you don't want to loose the cup, coming this far.

It was such an awesome feeling going past beyond the finish line and wearing that medal. Trilok veer jee were waiting for me all smiling and happy. He completed the half marathon in 2:20 minutes.
I attribute my success to lord almighty who helped me through his creations, fellow human beings helped me finish the race. Its his win and not mine.

kbIr myrw muJ mih ikCu nhI jo ikCu hY so qyrw ]
kabeer maeraa mujh mehi kishh nehee jo kishh hai so thaeraa ||
Kabeer, nothing is mine within myself. Whatever there is, is Yours, O Lord.

qyrw quJ kau saupqy ikAw lwgY myrw ]203]
thaeraa thujh ko soupathae kiaa laagai maeraa ||203||
If I surrender to You what is already Yours, what does it cost me? ||203||


Half Marathon Finisher - 365.19

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Childhood:The Care-Free Season

The Childhood Season

I want to jump I want to fly
High, up in the sky
No tension No worries
No rush No hurries
who is worried of stocks or pound
who cares earth is square or round
Rain or Shine we will play
eat chocolates, forget tooth decay
studies, school, homework ?
these things, will make you jerk
Spiderman is my latest hero
Don't bother me he will make you zero
pizza, ice-cream, coke please
everything digested with utmost ease
All are friends, so close and dear
I have no foes, I don't fear
If you choose, the season will forever stay
all your life it won't betray

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Here come's another

In the gushing flow of social networking websites, here comes another one. started by a bunch of "geeks". Similar to the boom of e-commerce sites in around 1999, this seems to me mini boom of social networking websites.

A few things about pownce

1. They have a desktop version developed in Adobe AIR. Coming to think of it do I really need a desktop version of a social networking website? Anyways the desktop version did not work for me but it at least gives Adobe another proof of concept for their AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) framework.
2. It charges you 20$ for a pro account and with a pro account you can design your own custom theme, ad-free, send more files (i can use my gmail account to do that) Huhh ??
3. You can create links of other profiles like orkut, facebook, myspace, 43things, etc and they are visible on your pownce profile.
4. You can create events and inform your friends about it. They appear as a separate note(s) on your profile (your profile is combination of profile and your scrabook (orkut) / wall (facebook) )so when someone hits your profile he can notice all the notes. Between these notes there will be advertisements which will help pownce to run till the mini-boom lasts :-). I think the interesting thing here would be if some share of the ad revenue is shared with the person who helps generate the revenue with his/her notes.
6. They say that everything is developed to solve a problem, so what problem is Pownce trying to solve? According to pownce folks.

Pownce is brought to you by a bunch of geeks who were frustrated trying to send stuff from one cube to another.

This definitely sounds to me the most unresolved problem of IT and yes now the desktop version of the Pownce is some what justified so that i can drag and drop files, etc

5. Right now it is available only through invites. So if you need one, let me know. I have 6 invites pending :-) (reminds me of the early gmail days when we went around asking everyone for gmail invitation)

Good luck Pownce !

Thursday, October 04, 2007

Still behind ?









Indian Ambassdor's Message

When everyone is driving on information superhighway the indian ambassador in his latest letter (informing about the outsourcing of visa process) invites for suggestions by means of postal mail or fax. Looks like email is still a naive entity for him.

Friday, August 24, 2007


Came across this comment at digg over this old NY pic. God damn hilarious !!!

"Please, trade in your car for a horse. Do you realize the environmental impact of the entire nation or world owning horses. They shit 9 tons of manure each year, that's about 50 pounds a day. You also have to stockpile their shit and you can't have it close to any water sources, so anyone living in rural areas with a well wouldn't have a place for that, if the water source comes near the stockpile, all local water sources will be contaminated. Then you have to worry about feeding your shitting horse, which requires approximately 25-30 pounds of dry food per day and we have to clear out significantly more land for farms to accomodate for our 300 million new horses (there are approximately 5.5 million horses in the United States) which in turn will destroy the environment and ecosystem as it is. Not only that, but your dumbass shitting horse can only go about 9 mph for 25 miles before having to break, it would take me over 3 hours to get to work which is 30 miles away from where I live instead of the 30 minutes it takes right now. So instead of an hour of driving every day, I'd have 6 hours of riding and 2 hours of shit stockpiling and 2 hours of feeding my shit factory. Not only this but I have to build an accomodation so it can shit all day, and buy a ridiculous amount of feed and have more land... but I guess I wouldn't care about money at this point since I spend 10 hours of my non-working day taking care of my crappy horse.We have technology for a reason and the environmental impact of 300 million horses, and 300 million horse pens and 2.7 billion tons of horse shit every year would be absurd... "