I am grateful for …

Navaratri Dandia is a great leveler where every one dances together forgetting all differences.

 Below are some thoughts I had while playing Garaba this evening. I guess the positive energy in the atmosphere there gave me these thoughts. Jai Mata Di!
When I was born, TV was a luxury in India and it had basic state-run phone service and automobile in the form of an indigenous car, Ambassador and a Mahindra Jeep; forget about computers. Today, I use a mobile phone with Internet access, write this on a laptop computer, and drive a fancy car (by Indian standards :-)). In half a lifetime, we have transitioned from no TV or car, to TVs, mobiles, Internet and (soon) self-driving cars, while looking forward to NetWorld (IoT) and smart homes.

I read literature in Marathi, Gujarati, Hindi and English while eating Gujarati cuisine and developing computer software for American/European/Australian and Indian clients from my office in a tier-2 Indian city. Isn’t that amazingly fortunate?

I am sincerely grateful for having the good fortune of …

·  being born in free and democratic India, my motherland
· spending my childhood in an Indian village and living in a tier 2 city after having lived in New York and Mumbai
· being born in a Gujarati family and living in a joint family with my parents and brother’s family. Having spent time with my grandparents who contributed significantly to my value system.
·  studying in Marathi medium
·  ability of computer programming and project management
· reading a bit of PL Deshpande, VP Kale, GD Madgulkar, Atre, Balkavi, Dinakar, Nirala, Subhadrakumari Chouhan, Harivanshrai Bachchan, Shahabuddin Rathod, Narsingh Mehta, Khalil Gibran, Stephen covey, Malcolm Gladwell and many more.
·  for the liking for reading.
· listening to Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosale, Hrudaynath Mangeshkar, Suresh Wadkar, Yesudas, AR  Rehman, Gulam Ali, Gulzar, Suresh Bhat, Kishor Kumar, Mohd. Rafi, Shreya Ghoshal, Sonu Nigam … the list is too long!
·  spiritual guidance personally from Sri Sri Ravishankar and Baba Ramdeo
·  eating Gujarati cuisine and Enjoying Garaba/dandiya
·  having a wonderful life partner and son
·  having an opportunity to care for a special child to the best of our abilities
·  guidance and love of so many smart friends with diverse background, geographies and age groups
·  wonderful and loving extended family of all aunts, uncles and cousins
·  for all our customers who gave us an opportunity to serve them
· working with a great team at Harrier and some of the smartest people in India and the world, who shared their knowledge and experience and taught me so much!
·  for the great teachers who cared for us as if we are their own children, in spite of constraints of Indian education system, particularly in villages
·  for the good health and all working senses
·  for the wealth God has blessed me and family with
·  for exposure to various religions like Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism.
· for exposure to various streams of life like Science, Commerce, Arts (a little bit), Spirituality, Atheism and others; and the ability to accept those are different ways of life than being judgmental about any.
·  watching Sachin Tendulkar, Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil deo play cricket
·  watching India reaching Mars
· watching movies of Aishwarya Rai, Nasiruddin Shah, Om Puri, Amitabh Bachchan and Amir Khan
·  the Internet, Web, Yahoo, Google, Wikipedia and all the technology
·  the sense of gratitude for all of these (‘sadbuddhi’) by the grace of God!

The List is literally endless. Can I ask for more? Yes, this is only half the lifetime, and I have many dreams, miles to go and promises to keep … bus itana sa khwab hai (I have a small dream)!! J

Hope you like it. Shall highly appreciate your thoughts and feedback.

Location: Nagpur, Maharashtra, India

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Irony of customer satisfaction!

We have a strong relationship for over 3 years with a reputed client, with 2 mission critical systems delivered and being maintained by us. We get multiple repeat orders from them every year. I thank them for their business. We were recently restricted from bidding for a relatively large project by the client saying that we are too small to bid for the project. The BRD for the project is written by us. This almost felt like a slap for providing delighting service to the customer over years at a price no one can beat! I don’t know how to react and hence this blog post. The lesson I learned from this is that its not always timely service at reasonable cost with good technical capabilities (overall, proven track record) and personal relationships, that help you grow. There are other factors at play beyond pure value-proposition that determine the choice of a vendor. Immediate reaction to this was that we increased our pricing to make sure we increase our profitability, as that i...
Read more

Digital, Global and Available!

Some of this may sound repetitive but is increasingly relevant with each passing day. Considering the way, the Internet is evolving and engulfing various aspects of life, soon we may have one gigantic network, and any screen for all of the following, and more… ·        Information (the Web) ·        Communication (phone, email, chat, instant messaging - Whatsapp) ·        Entertainment and media (Videos, TV, Movies, Media, Social Media) ·        Education (information and knowledge as text, images, video and audio) ·        Commerce (Catalogs, Banking, payments) ·        Maps and Navigation (GIS, GPS, Uber and Ola) ·        Tourism and hospitality (Trip Advisor, Yelp, AirBnB!) ·        Healthcare (Telemedicine) ·  ...
Read more

Lending and borrowing for interest is a Sin!

Let me start with a disclaimer that I am not an expert in Banking or Finance. In fact, as my family and some of my friends know, I am pretty bad at handing and managing money. Having admitted that, while thinking about subprime crisis and reading about ponzi schemes and loan defaults by some of the well known so-called Indian industrialists, I started wondering if the idea of lending and borrowing and the greed is the root cause of all this evil. Being a hardcore Hindu, the best thing I like about Islam, is the principle that lending and borrowing for interest are sins! Perfect! I think at least half the financial troubles in the world may disappear if just this one rule is put in place. If not complete ban at least there has to be a ceiling on the amount that can be borrowed or lent, to help in case of emergencies, and education for deserving student. Below are some of the consequences I could think of, of such a move. Farmers in India may stop committing suicide be...
Read more