My Son: Ishaan

2 Days Young


 

 

7 Weeks young

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What's there in Name !?

Shakespeare once said "what's there in name?" But ask me.

I happened to read a book on numerology, it was stunning to know that my name (spells "Girish") is neither beneficial nor harmful to me. But if it is spelt as "Gireish", it is friendly and beneficial to me. The reason: "Gireish" in numerology is equivalent to digit 7, which in turn, is beneficial to my Date of Birth, which is also equivalent to digit 7. Bla bla bla...

It is interesting. Many actors and film stars have been changing the spelling of their names as per numerology like for instance Karishma Kapoor is now Karisma, Tushar Kapoor is now Tussar Kapoor, Vivek Oberoi is now Vivek Anand Oberoi and Akshay Khanna is Akshaye Khanna. Why not me?

I was ready for a stunning change and I love changes. I want to try this out for fun. I changed my display name on office email ID to "Gireish Nalgirkar" from "Girish Nalgirkar". The change was evident to all and everyone could see that I have done something with my name.

Then started the music.

Boss: Do you believe in numerology or something that you have changed your name? Have you consulted a numerologist?
Me: Yea, he is a very famous numerologist and in relation to Shweta Jummani.
Boss: Do you think it will bring luck to you?
Me: Yea, why not! (if your hand is on my head)
Boss: Are you going to change everywhere like passport and certificates?
Me: Ummm well lets see (no answer)
A Friend (in email): Hey Girish opps sorry..., Gireish,,
Another friend: Sab bakwas hai re? Kis pagal ne tere ko ye advice diya?
Me: Yea for sure (nevertheless funny)

Today after a month or so, I am confused about what my real name is, because everyone is writing me emails pronouncing me as "Gireish"; clients sincerely believe that I am "Gireish" and not "Girish", my birthday cake was written for "GirEish" (I noted that E was in Caps). All in all I understand and believe that I am "Gireish Nalgirkar" for this corporate world and have accepted it and will enjoy the change till the time I wish to do so. Right ?

The Roman Colosseum

I visited Rome on the eve of christmas and it was a delight to watch the beautiful old city: A food for eyes. There is a monument on every square and corner of the city. It shows how much efforts have been taken to preserve the Roman History.

One of the 7 wonders in world is the Roman Colosseum. Immediately it reminds us about the hollywood flick, Gladiator and Russel Crowe. Though the movie is a fiction work and nothing to do with the actual history, the movie depicts the true version of the killing amphitheatre, the Colosseum.

The Emperor, Vespasian in the 1st Century of AD, in 72, started the construction of Colosseum in order to create the entertainment centre for his subjects. The Colosseum had been completed up to the third story by the time of Vespasian's death in 79. In 80 the 4th floor was constructed and eventually inaugurated by his son Emperor Titus with 100 days of public events including the bloody gladiator fights. It is said that 9000 wild animals were killed during the inaugural games of the amphitheatre. The building was remodelled furhter under Vespasian's younger son Domitian, who constructed Hypogeum, a series of underground tunnels used to house animals and slaves. He also added gallery to the top of the colosseum to increase the seating capacity.

As for those who have seen the Gladiator, the even is shown to have occured during 180 AD. Here is the digitally created picture in the movie "Gladiator".

During the 3rd Century in 217 AD, The Colloseum of Rome was restored after being heavily damaged by a lightning-caused fire, which destroyed the wooden upper levels of the amphitheatre's interior. It was not fully repaired until about 240 and underwent further repairs in 250 or 252 and again in 320.

During the 404 to 435 the gladiatorial fights were outlawed by the Emperor Honorius. Animal hunts continued until at least 523.

During this period (476 to 1453 AD) the Colloseum of Rome deteriorates due to 2 severe earthquakes one in 443 and another in 1349, when the outer south side of the colosseum collapsed. The tumbled stones from the site were used to build palaces and churches including the St. Peter's Basilica. In 19th Century the popes championed the restoration of Colossesum of Rome, preserveing it for future generations. This is the insightful of Colosseum History.

According to the Codex-Calendar of 354, the Colosseum could accommodate 87,000 people, although modern estimates put the figure at around 50,000. They were seated in a tiered arrangement that reflected the rigidly stratified nature of Roman society.

Little remains now the Original Oval Arena floor.

Hypogeum (Underground tunnels) are clearly visible.

Accounts of the inaugural games held by Titus in AD 80 describe it being filled with water for the display of Sea Battle, although there is a debate on how the arena could have been water proofed, nor there would have been space for warships to move.

Visitors wonder to see the place of deaths, the place where gladiators fought till death, the place where, on the thumbs down of emperor and crowd the fighters were slained, the place where battles were enacted, animals hunted, the first ever place to host the reality show of martyrdom and barbarian killings. It is said that the stadium used to be planted with bushes and the animlas from Africa would be introduced to populate the scene and killed for the delight of crowd.

The Colosseum today is now a major tourist attraction in Rome with thousands of tourists each year paying to view the interior arena and feel the Roman History.

Dreaming Big..

There is a proverb which says, “If you want your dreams to come true, don't sleep…”

In reality most of us dream big and then go to sleep. We dream of creating wealth, we dream of luxuries in life we want lots of riches but unfortunately we do not stay awake to plan for those dreams and make them reality – we just daydream about them. There is difference between dreaming and daydreaming. Someone who dreams has desires, aspirations, ambitions etc. On the other hand a daydreamer only builds castles in the air.

First step to realize any dream is to crystallize it. It is not good enough to say I want luxury car. It is important to be specific – I need luxury car worth Rs 10 lakh after 6 years. Do not have it in the ‘back of your mind’ to save money for your goal. List it down.

Having crystallized dreams next step is to create reserve for those other events that can upset our plans to reach those dreams. Suppose if we have not made provision for these events and if they occur then they will deplete funds, which has been created for our dreams.

After creating contingency reserve, we should evaluate our existing insurance. First verify whether we have sufficient health insurance for self and family. Obtaining sufficient health insurance we should also focus on disability and life insurance.

After we have ensured that there are sufficient provisions to withstand perils that may cross us, while we are moving ahead in our journey to reach our dreams, we should move to savings and investing.

Do you know the biggest hurdle, which stops us from saving sufficient amount for our dreams? “OURSELVES.” Our habits of procrastinating and spending are the biggest barricades in making us reach our goals. Sooner we start walking on our path to reach dream destination, by regularly saving and investing, faster we will reach. We should not procrastinate. Also stay focused on to our dreams.
Don’t just dream about future, plan for it. Remember famous saying “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”

Child Adoption

In America last year 941 orphan kids were adopted from India. Most of the kids were adopted by the NRI settled in America. If you think of a reason, you will come to a conclusion that these NRI felt guilty of having not done anything for the country and in attempt to serve the country, they adopted the Indian orphan child. This is the maximum number till today from a single country.

The second highest was by Italy. The reason, I feel, Indians are black haired, look similar to Italians except colour. So over all, the white Indian child looks like most of the Italians. Similar is the case with Spain, which is third highest in the rank. Here I don't feel that the number is because of NRI.

The fourth highest adoption of Indian orphan child was by Denmark. But here the reason could be, the rarely dense population of Denmark. The rate of population rise is very low and the human race is becoming extinct there.

The Godfather

Mario Puzzo's "The Godfather", the movie is the way of life for men. It makes a huge impact on your brains until you finish seeing the three parts. It's a huge knowledge bank. The movie glorifies the don and puts some interesting management techniques the don uses.

What interests most of us are the dialogues. Let me list some impactuous and interesting dialogues from the movie.

1. "My father made him an offer he couldn't refuse.." Mikey to Kay

2. "It means Luca Brasi Sleeps with fishes..." Tessio to Sonny

3. "Its too dangerous..." Vito and Mikey.

4. "He's thinkin' of goin' to mattresses already.." (Sonny thinking of going to allout war) Clemenza to Paulie.

5. "Leave the Gun. Take the Cannoli.." Clemenza to Paulie's murderer.

6. "Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday, Saturday.." Apollonia to Mikey.

7. "Mention it. Dont insist..I didn't know until this day that it was Barzini all along" Don to Tom.

8"Listen, whoever comes to you with this Barzini meeting; he is the traitor.." Don to Mikey.

9. "My Answer is this: Nothing.." Mike to Senator.

10. "I never knew no Godfather.." Pentangili to Senator.

Software India Limited

India was a cheap country, where a common man could feed his family with a mere $ 3 income per day. But the situations are changing today with the onset of globalization. India has been put on global IT map as the cheap, software developing, English speaking country. Due to our economy and low operating cost, we could get the jobs outsourced to India.

Now as the software industry is growing, bringing more and more people into IT industry with more IT jobs to India, the economy has started growing. With this, starts the need for more man-power recruitment. Fresh engineers are being recruited on a large scale with high salary. There are companies looking for skilled professionals, so these people change the jobs for high income and in turn create a huge vacuum for new professionals. This started a rat race; attrition rate increased and the companies have to pay more to retain the people. This in turn makes India loose the cost Advantage over the other countries in near future.

The growing scale of highly salaried people has taken the living cost in India to a new high level. These are the fruits of globalization that people are spending more as they are earning more. But the question is, are we all 100 crore Indians part of this globalization? Are we all enjoying the fruits of globalization? No!

Poor sections of society are becoming poorer as the earnings to the cost of living ratio is decreasing eventually. IT boom helped professional to buy the apartments, causing the real estate industry grow at high pace and today one has to pay thrice for the same apartment which used to cost before one year. But here this brunt has to be bared by non-IT people too.

Inflation rate is at its all-time peak and the competition to survive is like "fittest of survival". The one who is fit economically and also growing at a high rate financially can only sustain this competition. Rest all, who think are well settled, should know that the financial leaking hole is becoming larger and larger, day-by-day.

Random Thoughts

I have closely observed how different the European and American people live their life as compared to Indian counterparts. The reasons behind the differences could be varied.

They enjoy the freedom in real sense. Their minds and thoughts are far freer than us. Their thinking window is broader than us. We are bound by many good and bad things; we fear to speak, we fear to do various things, like "What will people think if I do like this", "Oh that's too far from my reach”, “that’s so stupid of me to have said like that”. Our people too respond in similar manner, “he is an idiot, he doesn’t know how to talk”, “he is mad”, “he is a hypocrite” and bla bla bla.

They talk about ideas and events. We talk about people, gestures and their ways of living and some imaginary things, which we call dreams.

They enjoy when it is time to do so and never bother of any damn thing. We sit idle or watch an idiot box or a stupid movie and chat. They play sports till the age of 50 and go outing on weekends.

Young people enjoy the youth and remain young for a long time. Till the time we get settled with substantial income source and spouse, we miss the youth and till we begin to enjoy, the young age would have passed by. That means from childhood we directly enter the adult hood and we miss the youth age completely.
They spend more and save less; and enjoy the real financial freedom; we spend less to save more, as we realize the money would be required for future. They think money is for them; we think that we are for money.

They sit and only work in the office time, and rest of the time they are somewhere else away from work. We enjoy while we work and waste lot of time; furthermore we end up sitting day and night to finish the work.

Not all things are good in them. Such as;

They need to take an appointment from parents to have dinner with them. They are far away from each other as a society. They need to go to pubs to find a girlfriend and live a very short marital life. Marriages end in abut seven years anyway, hence no need to spend more on the event. When they grow young, they abandon their parents and in the old age parents end up in old age house. Respect for elders is not there. They live only by the principles governing state laws, which is a religion for them, as they don’t follow the so called religions.

Real Happiness

This is one most difficult thing to find in the world. We are loosing our values and some important things behind nothing. But the cost paid for the same will be too high in long terms.

India as a secular country has lost its originality. Everyone is running behind "mrigjal". It is harsh reality. We run behind comforts of world and we forget that we need just a 6 feet by 3 feet space to sleep and much less to stand.

We have lost the Indian values. Happiness can be achieved in a small amount of money but may not be retained in large amount of money. We were happy, but something tempted us to change and and run behind money; we lost sleep and now we need pills to sleep. But for what? Name, fame and glamour are relative. Who says that all glamourous people, rich and famous people are happy? Does anyone? Money is just a mean of getting some ammenities but not everything. Glamour has ruined many.

Everyone I see today has become a money hopper, follower of western culture and only religion is profession. We dont even know ABCD about our religion. Religion is identity of a person. It teaches us the values of life and ways to achieve Moksha. But profession or the rat race teaches us only how to earn money, more money and then more and more money. We need to be first good Indians, better religious and then preach the world. Then world will definitely follow us.

With degrading ideas and morals only destruction is possible and not real happiness.