Being SK

Re-framing your questions

2006-10-17T17:33:00.001+05:30

A forward mail I got...

If we are not going in the direction that will ultimately lead us to our goals, one of the problems may be the questions that we ask ourselves. It may be time to reframe some of the questions. Here are a few examples:

Original question: What am I getting?
Reframed question: What am I becoming?

Original question: Why is this happening to me?
Reframed question: What can I learn from this?

Original question: Why can't he/she understand me?
Reframed question: How can I communicate so that he/she can understand me?

Original question: How can I get to the next position so that I am better?
Reframed question: How can I become better so that I get to the next position?

Original question: Why should I be proud of working for my company?
Reframed question: Why should my company be proud of me working for them?

Original question: How can I find a cool company to work for?
Reframed question: How can a cool company find me to work for them?

Original question: How can I get this task done?
Reframed question: What is the right configuration of resources to get this done in the most optimum fashion?

Beauty of English

2006-07-22T12:05:00.000+05:30

A fwd mail I got...

Ever noticed how deleting one word after the other in a sentence can lead to a nice story?

Here's an example:
=========================================================

Oh John please don't touch me at all...!

Oh John please don't touch me at...!

Oh John please don't touch...!

Oh John please don't...!

Oh John please...!

Oh John..!

Ohhh......!!!!!!!!!!

Devil's Advocate

2006-06-13T14:38:00.000+05:30

Devil's Advocate (n) - One who argues against a popular cause or position, not as a committed opponent but simply to make people discuss and consider it in more detail.

I became a big fan of Karan Thapar after he starts to play the role of Devil's Advocate. Every sunday I eagerly waits to watch the programme in CNN-IBN (usually airs @ 8:30 ). A class program in which he interviews top-notch personalities ( politicians, more-often-than-not ) on burning issues. I just love the way he makes fool of the interviewee. He always started asking simple questions and pull contradictory words from their mouth. He makes them really uncomfartable on their stands by asking embarrassing questions augmented with pukka proof. Everytime I watch the programme, I couldn't help myself from correlating it with the famous interview scene in the film Mudhalvan.

Last week it was finance minister P.Chidambaram, talks on what basis the ruling government proposes reservation for OBCs in higher education. Really a good one. Click here to read the full interview. Three weeks back it was HRD minister Arjun Singh on the same topic and was undoubtedly the famous one of the series. Arjun Singh was all at sea on it. Click here to read the full interview and just know how stupid our ministers can be.

Karan Thapar surely knows the art of interviewing and he rocks!!!

Cheers!!!

Risk-SK

2006-05-16T10:44:00.000+05:30

"Take a risk. All life is a risk"

Last saturday, I took a big risk along with two of my mates. No, no skydiving, no rock climbing, and no downhill skiing. We went to a theatre and watched Perarasu's magnum opus(!) 'Thirupaachi' ;-) Painful two-and-half hours in life.

Vowed that, I never will do somthing stupid in the name of risk-taking hereafter. Cheers!!!

Now i understand what politics are

2006-04-27T17:05:00.000+05:30

This is the best story i have heard of, defining politics....

A little boy goes to his dad and asks, “What are Politics?”

Dad says, “Well son, let me try to explain it this way:

#1. I’m the head of the family, so call me The Prime minister.
#2. Your mother is the administrator of the money, so we call her the Government.
#3. We’re here to take care of your needs, so we’ll call you the People.
#4. The nanny, we’ll consider her the Working Class.
#5. And your baby brother, we’ll call him the Future.

Now think about that and see if it makes sense.”

So the little boy goes off to bed thinking about what Dad has said.Later that night, he hears his baby brother crying, so he gets up to check on him. He finds that the baby has severely soiled his diaper. So the little boy goes to his parent’s room and finds his mother sound asleep. Not wanting to wake her, he goes to the nanny’s room. Finding the door locked, he peeks in the keyhole and sees his father in bed with the nanny. He gives up and goes back to bed.

The next morning, the little boy says to his father, “Dad, I think I understand the concept of politics now.”

The father says, “Good, son, tell me in your own words what you think politics is all about.”

The little boy replies, “The Prime minister is screwing the Working Class, while the Government is sound asleep. The People are being ignored and the Future is in deep s%*t.”

Sachin 33

2006-04-25T15:42:00.001+05:30

"It really surprises me - you are so consistent and I'm not"- Sachin Tendulkar, on his 33rd birthday, thanks mediapersons for their unwavering love and affection.

oops, what else he can say with the current form he is in. One can feel the pain in his words, his quest for runs. Am sure he will come back with a bang. (So will my 'Thalai' Sourav). Just wait and see!!

Cheers!!

I am 12% stupid!!

2006-04-20T14:53:00.000+05:30

I took this test and the result i got was

Result Summary:

85% scored higher (more stupid),
3% scored the same, and
12% scored lower (less stupid).

What does this mean? You are 12% stupid. This means...
You are far from stupid. Congrats on a great accomplishment!

Demi Gods!!

2006-04-18T16:10:00.000+05:30

After living a well-respected life of 76 years, Kannada's cine icon has passed away last week. This is just a news to me. But what is shocking to me was the mob violence against the police by the furied fans, who were not able to see the face of their superstar, one last time. Lot of public properties have been destroyed. Worst-of-all 6 peoples were killed. The fans could have given Dr.Rajkumar a better farewell.

Violence, bandhs and lives-lost, after the fall of a movie star is not a new scene. It has almost become a common scene in South India for the last 3 decades or so. Some ardent fans are ready to give anything for their film idols. Sometimes that includes their precious life also. As many as 31 people commited suicide on hearing the death of actor-turned-politician MGR. The numbers were equally high for NTR (Ramarao) also.

Now comes the million dollar question, why some people see actors as demi-gods? I feel this is because they are so emotional towards the movies. After their daily hard-work, the supreme form of entertainment to them is to sit in the front-bench and watch the movie( of course, dancing and whistling whenever possible) without caring about anything else in the world. Guys like MGR, Rajni won these people's heart simply by doing some of the down-to-earth roles. MGR choosed and acted in 'Padakotti', 'Rickshakaran' kind-of roles, which brought him closer to the have-nots. Rajni followed his footsteps by acting as a 'Autokaran in Batsha','Ulaipaazhi' kind-of roles and became a Super-dooper star. Now Vijay also is doing the same thing. In most of his films, he is trying to get the image of a man-next-door by acting as a mechanic, or a dull student in the college etc.,

People see the actors like demigods because they often correlate the movies to their lifes.Actor in those roles do what normally these people dream to do but cannot - like making a beautiful girl to fall in love with him, brings down the baddie and his sidekicks to dust etc., The demi-god image will live forever, unless these people understands that the reel life is different from the real life.

I will cast my vote this time

2006-04-11T14:02:00.000+05:30

The election fever is on. Everybody talks about politics. Glam-dolls (temporarily) lost their places to the smiling politicians, in the cover of the weekly magazines. All the public and private buildings are 'sticked-with-bills'. Almost all the entertainment channel has special feature programs on politics. News channels are busy updating people on things like who's supporting who and analysing the political parties election manifesto. From the corner tea-kadai in the streets to the cafe-coffee day, the talk-of-the-town today, is politics.

Yesterday evening one of my colleague told me a 'big breaking news' in politics with great interest. And really i don't know how to react. I told him i was never interested in politics & it never turned me on. He was surprised and wisely changed the topic to some other issues then.

Now in this lousy afternoon, i am thinking about my attitude towards politics. I am a complete ignorant and my knowledge is lesser than that of a frog-in-the-well, when it comes politics & politicians. All i know about politics was this one-liner, "Politics is made up of two words, 'Poli', which is Greek for 'many', and 'tics', which are a group of blood sucking insects". And politicians to me are mere jokers, whom never fail to tickle my funny bone with their statements & false-promises. So far, three times i have had the chance to register my vote & i really cared a damn about that. Moreover i never bothered to get my Voter ID card, until recently. That too, just for the sake of ID proof.

All of a sudden, i am so embarrassed on this. The patriotic dialogues & dialogues that tells the importance of voting are running wild in my mind. I decided that i am going to register my vote this time. I am going to collect details about the individuals contesting in my constituency & try to find the better guy among them. If none of them are convincing enough to win my vote, i will vote for '49-O' which says, "if an elector whose roll number has been entered in the register of electoral rolls in Form 17A, decides not to vote, a remark to this effect shall be made against the said entry by the Presiding Officer and the signature and thumb impression of the elector shall be obtained against such remark".I read about this in this week's Anandha vikatan and in the Hindu.

Anywhichways, this time i am going to cast my vote and with this i found a reason to extend my weekend and not to come to my workplace on May 8th, which is a Monday ;-)

Kundakka Mandakka!!!

2006-04-05T11:51:00.000+05:30

A man comes running to the doctor shouting & screaming in pain
"Please doctor you've got to help me. I've been stung by a bee."

DOCTOR: "Don't worry; I'll put some cream on it."

MAN: "You will never find that bee. It must be miles away by now."

DOCTOR: "No you don't understand! I'll put some cream on the place you were stung."

MAN: "Oh! it happened in the garden where I was sitting under a tree"

DOCTOR (in anger): "No, no you IDIOT! I mean on which part of your body did that bee sting."

MAN (still screaming in pain): "On my finger! The bee stung me on my finger and it really hurts"

DOCTOR (banging his fist, abusing and shouting): "Which one?"

MAN (innocently): "How am I to know? All bees look the same to me."

Fielding Positions

2006-04-04T10:15:00.000+05:30

Honest Reply ?!

2006-03-31T14:49:00.000+05:30

Divine Proportion

2006-03-31T14:01:00.000+05:30

I wondered why maths is called as the mother of arts & sciences and the language of the nature. Last night I got a little clue why. I’ve been reading the much famed book, ‘The Da Vinci Code’ lately (oh yes, i am reading an English novel!!). And found this very interesting piece of info, about the number PHI (1.618….) . PHI is an irrational number like PI( 3.142..). It is derived from the fibonacci series. The ratio, or proportion, determined by PHI is known as Divine proportion or the golden ratio (1:1618).

Now here is the amazing thing about PHI, in Dan Brown’s own words (excerpts from the book),

“Plants, animals, and even human beings all possessed dimensional properties that adhered with eerie exactitude to the ratio of PHI to 1....“

“PHI’s ubiquity in nature, clearly exceeds coincidence, and so the ancients assumed the number PHI must have been preordained by the Creator of the universe. Early scientists heralded onepointsixoneeight as the Divine Proportion....”

“All of you. Guys and girls. Try it. Measure the distance from the tip of your head to the floor. Then divide that by the distance from your belly button to the floor. Guess what number you get....."

“Want another example? Measure the distance from your shoulder to your fingertips, and then divide it by the distance from your elbow to your fingertips. PHI again. Another? Hip to floor divided by knee to floor. PHI again. Finger joints. Toes. Spinal divisions. PHI. PHI. PHI. My friends, each of you is a walking tribute to the Divine Proportion....."

Sounds strange? But it is actually true. I tried it myself and the numbers i got were approximately equal to PHI.

While googling to find out more on this, I found a site http://goldennumber.net/ dedicated to this. It has an intersting Theology for PHI. The site claims Fibonacci series & PHI appears in human body, animals, plants, DNA, solar system, art & architecture, music and population growth.

The saying, “Nature's great book is written in mathematics” by Galileo seems to be right. Mmm kanakku thaan ellam kanakku thaan!!!

Appraisal Letter

2006-03-30T12:58:00.000+05:30

I got this as a forward mail and incidentally this is appraisal time for me....

There was a contest in to write a fictional story for 500 words max which wud start with the line "On a dark and foggy night, a small figure lay huddled on the railway tracks leading to the Bangalore station"

This is the award winning story !!!!! I donno who wrote it.... But it's fabulous...

On a dark and foggy night, a small figure lay huddled on the railway tracks leading to the Bangalore station. At once I was held back to see someone in that position during midnight with no one around. With curiosity taking the front seat, I went near the body and tried to investigate it. There was blood all over the body which was lying face down. It seemed that a ruthless blow by the last train could have caused the end of this body which seemed to be that of a guy of around my age. Amidst the gory blood flow, I could see a folded white envelope which was fluttering in the midnight wind. Carefully I took the blood stained envelope and was surprised to see the phrase "appraisal letter" on it. With curiosity rising every moment, I wasted no time in opening the envelope to see if I can find some details about the dead guy. The tag around the body's neck and the jazzy appraisal cover gave me the hint that he might be a software engineer. I opened the envelope to find a shining paper on which the appraisal details where typed in flying colours. Thunders broke into my ears and lightening struck my heart when I saw the appraisal amount of the dead guy!!!!! My God, it was not even, as much as the cost of the letter on which the appraisal details were printed.... My heart poured out for the guy and huge calls were heard inside my mind saying "no wonder, this guy died such a miserable death"... As a fellow worker in the same industry , I thought I should mourn for him for the sake of respect and stood there with a heavy heart thinking of the shock that he would have experienced when his manager had placed the appraisal letter in his hand. I am sure his heart would have stopped and eyes would have gone blank for few seconds looking at the near to nothing increment in his salary.

While I mourned for him, for a second my hands froze to see the employee's name in the appraisal letter... hey, what a strange co-incidence, this guy's name is same as mine, including the initials. This was interesting. With some mental strength, I turned the body upside down and found myself fainted for a second. The guy not only had my name, but also looked exactly like me. Same looks, same built, same name.... it was me who was dead there!!!!!!!! While I was lost in that shock, I felt someone patting on my shoulders. My heart stopped completely, I could not breathe and sprung in fear to see who was behind......... splash!!! Went the glass of water on my laptop screen as I came out of my wild dream to see my manager standing behind my chair patting on my shoulder saying, "wake up man. Come to meeting room number two. I have your appraisal letter ready".

Mani, pls come back to Kollywood!!

2006-03-30T10:51:00.000+05:30

"Manirathnam decided to take his next movie 'GURU' in Hindi with Abhishek bachan, Aishwarya rai & vidhya balan. He is looking for the second hero to this film. Vivek oburai, John Abraham & a lot others turned down the offer" - After reading this in Mumbai mirror, i really feel sorry for the ace director.

My opinion(wish) is that, he should drop the entire plan and come back here to chennai and take the movie in tamil. I don't know what he is trying to prove by taking his movies in Hindi. If i am right, most of his movies, if not all, that earned him good name were originally made in tamil and later dubbed in Hindi. This time probably he is trying to make-up his image after the failure of Yuva.

I'm still thinking, when is the last time mani gave a blockbuster(in any language for that matter). It seems to me after Thalapathi & Roja none of his movies actually did well in box-office, though most of them like Kannathil Muthamittal, Aayutha Ezhuthu, Iruvar are acclaimed best by the critics.

These days Tamil cinema & cinema-goers comes off the age. Most of the young directors are bold enough to experiment & have the guts to come out of the so-called mainstream cinema. By saying "Guru is an universal subject, so i am taking it in Hindi", Manirathnam serves as a bad example to the directors in Kollywood. This certainly creates a negative impact among them. What all the upcoming directors require is someone to give them the confidence that they can register whatever they want in the Tamil cinema, someone to captain the ship & control the helm. Who better than Manirathnam can do this???

So, Mani sir, manasai 'alai-paya' vidame, olungaa kollywood-ke thirumbi vandhuthunge!! Universal-subject-a Tamilaiyum edukalaam.....

By,
S.K.Ramachandran
An ardent Manirathnam fan.