The Power of Perspective!

Its sad part of the world is that so many people see the worst in others. They see through their own eyes of anger, fear and limitation. We tend to see others through our own perspective and make judgements, rather than understanding the truth.


Only few human beings in this world get up every day in the morning and think how to screw someone else’s life today. Most of the mistakes people make are due to lack of awareness. So, a true leader sees the truth and analyse with other’s perspective.

I was watching an interview of Raj Thackeray in Times Now (This was in Hindi and I would have been more happy if this was in English because of the fact that both host and guest were struggling with Hindi and more ever I had a tough time in following the speed); I realised how important is thinking through other’s perspective.

Through many years I have been questioning the stand of Raj Thackeray when he says he will not allow North Indians (Read UP and Bihar) come and settle in Mumbai/Maharashtra. I always argued that what if, other states where people from Maharashtra have migrated start saying the same thing? I always felt constitution gives us right to migrate to any state and settle. I simply thought he doesn’t support anyone coming to Mumbai.

But now, I got the other perspective. What Raj argues is that he is never opposing the migration to Mumbai; in fact, he says; he never said anything against Karnataka, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh state people who migrate to Mumbai/Maharashtra; which is true. I never heard such opposition to at least Kannada people of Pune/Mumbai; where I have some contacts. They are being treated as part of the main stream and being actively involved in business and politics.

His argument is, the people from certain states migrate and they get involved in criminal activities and that is what he is opposing and he gives statistics to prove that. He proves through crime data that more than 50% crimes are being committed by certain set of people.

No, I am not defending Raj Thackeray or supporting his party or I support his thought process. But point I am making is the different perspective people might bring in to our thought process. In this above example, my thought process changed when I heard Raj’s perspective on the subject.

Point I am making is, how many times in our life we fail to understand other perspective and end up in making a mind-set which is not the truth?

How many times we failed to understand a colleague who is trying to give a true perspective about the business he/she is running and we have tried to pull him down saying he/she is not performing?

How many times we have simply failed to understand the underlying truth because we tend to see the things in our view rather than other perspective?

Forget about, migration, Mumbai, North India migrating and the political mileage someone might be trying to gain. What I am trying bring up is a pure learning of seeing the things from other’s perspective.

Great learning ..

Happy Father’s Day to all wonderful dads of the world!

It’s a special feeling.


Thanks to my daughter, Aprita, because of her I got the post of ‘Father’.

Fathers are special, they teach you how to stand up and live with your head above rest of the world. He acts as a friend when you need a suggestion, he acts as coach when you need some guidance, he runs with you so that you don’t fall, he walks with you so you don’t get bored, he sings with you the song of joy, he consoles you when you cry.

That is the world of dad for you!

As a father, it’s a learning experience for me each day, to answer her questions or it might be just a feeling that she might not like it; it may be change in behavior because of the fact that she doesn’t like it. Or it could be as simple as sacrificing my favorite baseball game such that she can enjoy her cartoon. Or trying to teach me to make some drawings or force me to dance like her. It feels great. I feel I have also grown with her as a person, as an individual.

Simply put, I have learnt to see the world through her eyes!

Thanks Arpita, you made me a father, bought me in to a separate world. It’s a wonderful world of dads.

Stockholm thoughts….

In Stockholm today; after too much of waiting at airports, first in Delhi and then in Frankfurt. Tired!

I have been thinking ever since I started from India, why I am traveling? :)

Why this feeling? Is it because of emotional rollercoaster? Or just, plain physically tired? Or it is really there is no business involved?

No, third can’t be true, I have about three and half dozen meetings lined up in next two weeks and very important decisions to be made; so there is a need for this travel.

So, it’s either one of the two remaining.

I was watching a demo robot in Frankfurt airport; sometimes it’s better to be a robot, emotionless!! But, reality is you are not a robot.

And you can’t be one either….

’Main Khelega’

December 1989, Sialkot, Pakistan. It was fourth test match between India and Pakistan. And it happens to be fourth test of Sachin Tendulkar’s career.

Making debut at Sixteen, Sachin was seen as a precocious talent. However, several young stars had sparkled briefly in India’s cricketing sky and almost suddenly faded away as fast as they appeared.

The series was tied 0-0 after three tests. Despite conceding lead of 65 runs in first innings, Pakistan hit back through blistering spells from Wasim Akram and Waqar Yonus reducing India to 38 for 4 wickets. Experienced pros like Shrikanth, Manjrekar, Shastri and Azarauddin were back to pavilion. In walked Sachin, to join Sidhu.

Waqar bowled a nasty bouncer that went smack on Sachin’s nose. The poor sixteen year old was badly hit and his nose was bleeding so profusely that every one watching the match started feeling bad about this brutality.

As Indian team physiotherapist rushed to offer first-aid and Pakistan gathered to check out the bloody sight, where Sachin was shaken and was still bleeding. As the physio tried to stop the bleeding Sidhu suggested Sachin that he should retire hurt and come out later. That would give him some time to get his nose fixed. Even physio suggested him to get back to pavilion.

‘Main Khelega’ said Sachin, I will play!

A star was born. Those two words verbalized the fierce determination of a young man who was not going to quit.

Sachin could have gone into the relative comfort of the dressing room but he didn’t. The heat was on, India was in trouble. The pace attack had its tail up, the blood was staining his gloves, his shirt, his face, his spirit. But the kid would have none of it, Main Khelega, that’s it.

Sachin went on to score 57 runs and shared in a match-saving 101 run partnership with Sidhu. With two words- main khelega- talent transformed in to genius in Sialkot.

It’s always like that, what separates champions from mere mortals is not just talent, its attitude. Its mental strength, its willingness to fight when chips are down, its Main Khelega spirit. The spirit which keeps team’s need ahead of one’s own interest.

There are many times in our lives when the pressure mounts and we feel like throwing in the towel and calling it quits. That is just the time when we need to raise our hands and be counted. Time to say Main khelega…

Some years down, long after the little master blaster has retired, when we tell our grandchildren about the batting legend, we should remember to tell them and teach them, those two magical words that defined the spirit of the champion and which translates talent in to performance.

Time to say, Main Khelega…

A day spent in thoughts!!

I took couple of training sessions last week; it took me out of present tense and one day of weekend spent in the thought process and old memories.

By and large, ours is a teacher’s family, most of my relatives/cousins are teachers, lecturers or in education department.

I myself was taking tuition classes during my graduation to support myself and my engineering expenses. I like this profession a lot and have a normal tendency to be associated with students.

I kept on thinking, what I would have been if I were not in to this software industry. I bet you, I would have been a teacher or lecturer. I can’t think of any other profession!

But, life is a trajectory which always surprises you and takes turn when you think I took control of it. Sum of all the consequences is what we finally end up being.

Everything is a predestined in life, whatever supposed to happen will happen, and only that happens which is supposed to happen!

What is life?

What is life after all?

It’s about 100 grams of toddler, 300 grams of childhood, another 300 grams of youth, 200 grams of maturity, 150 grams of old age?

It is about very few liters of happiness, few liters of sadness, few liters of disappointment, half liter achievement, few milliliters of success, and few liters of fight to achieve few milliliters of success?

Krishna says in Bhagavad-Gita: it is not possible to understand life as whole; we can only understand a part of it.

So, why try understanding it? Let it be complex!!

My Autograph!

Nopes, I am not writing my autograph as yet; this is the name of a Kannada movie I watched on TV today.

It’s about a guy, looking back at his life and picking up few instances since his childhood. He takes his marriage as an instance to invite all his old friends.

The beauty of this movie is about how he picks up so obvious things like village primary school incidents, how he transforms in to a town high-school kid and then to collage and his job and colleagues. The pains, the obvious confusions one goes through, ability to sustain failures; it has been built up very nicely.

I will be dishonest if I say I was not nostalgic for few hours after watching this movie!

Embracing Tough Times

We seem to have become afraid of sadness. There’s been so much emphasis on positive thinking and being happy, we are in danger of forgetting that an important part of being a complete person is learning to handle the tough stuff as well.

The things happening around us easily make us sad and the impact becomes noticeable.

Obviously, the positive emotions are more enjoyable and easier to live with, but it is perfectly normal to occasionally get sad because of disappointments in life. Being sad about things is one of the basic emotions as per human psychology and learning how to deal with it will teach us better lessons.

If we look back our lives, we learned biggest lessons when we faced problems or sadness. The lesson learnt in hard way or when things are going tough; is not very easy to forget. More ever a patch of sadness gives us a new layer of energy to go about new things, new definition of happiness or new height to scale.

In addition to this, a sad patch will make us understand the importance of happiness. Even our vedic scriptures said, life is all about having correct mixture of happiness and sadness & how important to face them with balanced mindset.

So, it’s ok to be sad. I feel, rather than trying to cheer up ourselves forcefully, I would rather give myself a little time, a little space and room to come out of it.

I think, life is all about continues learning, no matter which phase of life you are!