Seeking Forgiveness - Micchami Dukkadam !!!

As this week comes to an end, one can find people belonging to the Jain religion, irrespective of their age, sex and location, greet each other with folded hands, seeking forgiveness for having offended their friends, family members or any other soul possible. Yes, it is the week of Paryushana - the most auspicious and the most prestigious religious festival for Jains all over the world. Most of us are aware about Paryushana, but for those who are not, shortly put, it is a week of worship, intensive study, reflection, and purification. For more on Paryushana - Click Here.

There are a number of rituals followed during this entire week of Parsyuhana, which honestly I am not even aware of. There are morning prayers, knowledge sessions, evening prayers with special recitals, fasting etc. Every Jain, for sure observes certain food habits different from their regular habits wherein, they avoid such foods as potatoes, onions, and garlic--the eating of which entails killing the plant instead of just taking its fruit. Many Jains also fast during Paryushan, some for the entire period. At the end of Paryushan, those who have fasted for the eight or ten days break their fast with a special meal during which they do not touch food, but are fed by friends and loved ones in honor of their achievement.

Well I was on my way to do that, and somehow I got a feeling, which is called "Bhava" which means to have an inner feeling, an inner voice to get your soul drift towards achieving something. And this time, somehow I wanted to fast for 8 days and do what is known as "Atthai". In such a type of fast, one gives up eating for 8 days - which means, no food at all. To add to it, one cannot brush their teeth for 8 days, have no form of medicine, liquid or other forms of eatables. The water is the only source to survive these 8 days, and that too has to be boiled before drinking. Once the sun sets, drinking water is also not permitted.

I started off on Sunday, which went quite well, but I felt the challenge on Monday afternoon, as I was working on my job, and had nothing for almost 36 hours since saturday midnight, except for 3 bottles of boiled water. Somehow I went through Monday, made my mind not to go to work on Tuesday and went past Monday night. Tuesday dawned, and I was almost on the brink of vanishing from normal human eyesight. Having lost 3 Kgs in 3 days, I was still holding on to my wish of going through 8 days of this ritual. My stomach had now stopped making noises as the intestines and other surrounding members had settled in a much painful coiled position which used to give me chest pains and burns every hour of the day. Tuesday evening, I could barely manage to open my mouth to talk properly, and yet wanted to carry it for 5 more days. But maybe, it was God's wish, or meant to be, I somehow went through a lot of pain on Tuesday night before sleep, and made up my mind not to carry it any further and break my fast on Wednesday.

Felt sad initially, but still managed to do, what is known as "Attham" - which is fasting for 3 days only on boiled water and no food. Maybe this year, my limits were pushed just that much and at the end of the day felt glad having done whatever I could.

Like a child, with no exaggeration, I literally used to have dreams about the following things which came with wings attached to them, went right past my nose and drifted away during those 3 eventful days of fasting:
Taco Bell's - Grilled Stuff Burrito with Halapeno Sauce
Naan n Curry - Malai Paneer
Chinese food from Temptations (Mountain View)
Drunken Noodles and Spicy Fried Rice from Sala Thai (Fremont)
Pani Puri, Chaats from every damn road-side cart vendor
Animal Style Burger from In n Out (With Extra Cheese)
Of-course all the Jain food that Dipali used to cook ...
And much much more ...

The first morsel of food on Wednesday morning tasted like heaven. Everyone told to take it lightly as I was just coming off 3 days of no food and need my system to adjust to it, and so I did take it lightly as I just managed to eat about 3 regular bowls of beans, approximately 5-6 Puris, some rice, some sweets, one bowl of curd and boondi, 3-4 Parathas with approximately two bowls of Garbanzo beans ... lol ;-)

With this experience, let me take this opportunity to e-wish each and everyone out there in my surrounding, near and far, to grant me forgiveness, as I come before you with my folded hands, to wish you all "Micchami Dukkadam".
"If I have caused you offence in any way, knowingly or unknowingly, in thought word or deed, then I seek your forgiveness".

Cheers
Samy

Point10Solutions - A Portal for a Good Cause !

A lot of times, we have heard, people and associations all round the world, promoting ideas about helping others, their ideas involving donations and monetary support for the not-so-lucky people in the society, individuals setting a tone of contributing to the welfare of the ecosystem, organizations (profitable and non-profitable) going beyond their limits in helping youth, retired people, homeless in some way or the other.

With this notion in our mind, some of us truly thank God for everything that he has blessed us with, and making us a little bit more lucky in terms of providing us with a slightly better life than others. Be it a well nourished child-hood, a great circle of friends, supportive parents, loving partner, good wealth but far more greater health and one such thing that ranks somewhere in the middle of these blessings (which is nowadays becoming a lot more important) is the luxury of good education.

Up until recent times, education was considered just another "requirements" of life, but lately has turned into a much needed necessity of a person's career. Of-course we can sit down and argue, that most of the successful millionaires and billionaires of the world at some point of time gave up studying and education, yet turning out to be great successful entities. But then, these very same people have been found promoting education and literacy too. It is not so rightly said, that only an educated man will be successful in life, but it could be very much rightly said, that studies and education is surely not going to hurt anyone and who knows, at a later point in time, they might just turn to be your life savior recipes.

Having said that, I have recently joined a group of people, certain individuals who want to give something back to the society, students and professionals who want to contribute their share of blessings so as to help those needy students realize their dreams. This group called "Point10Solutions" breathes on a vision which states "Revitalizing the Education Ecosystem".

I came across this concept through a friend (Hiren Panchasara) whom I knew back from USC and just casually sifting through their blogspot for Point10 figured out that this could be a good start for a noble cause. Everyone of us has some kindness and goodwill hidden inside us, but sometimes, just due to a lack of proper platform, or a medium, we tend to shy away from coming forward and extending our hands to give a little bit of support.

Well, I liked their concept, and to be honest, I liked that this is not just any other association who is going to go places performing like a social service group. This is something different. Their first concept about "Books10Solutions" is doing great rounds everywhere (and some of you might have heard about it in the news), as the team is gathering up individuals from all around the industries to come forward and sponsor 1 single student for only 1 year, in terms of the cost of his/her books. The price? It's just a bare minimum of 2000 Rs. with a maximum limit of 5000 Rs., which I guess should not be a major concern for professionals like me and many more. But the benefit? Just imagine how much benefit those students who are in real need of such sponsors can get from this kind gesture.

I have been now involved in this group through Hiren and Jatin, who are doing a wonderful job with this vision. My role in this group is to maintain the blog, articles, news, posts, invitations etc - basically anything to do which involves composing and creating textual content and getting involved in any kind of other activities to get this project rolling further. Anything right or wrong you see up on the blog, the invites, the articles etc you know who to blame now ;-) ....

Well I hope, all my friends, relatives and the hidden anonymous visitors of my blog, would come forward and support Point10Solutions for a good cause. Looking forward to all and any kinds of contributions (Funding the students, donating books, professional help/guidance, improvisation ideas etc ...). We have received tremendous support from leading industrialists, university faculties, business owners, job professionals, students and other common people from the society. You can check out Point10 Solutions latest updates and their coverage in the news recently. Also check out the upcoming event being organized in Ahmedabad.

Make a visit to read about Point10Solutions concept, vision, upcoming events and more at:

Point10Solutions - Parent Portal
Books10Solutions - Funding Books for 1 Student for 1 Year
Education10Solutions - An Educative Networking Portal (Coming Soon)
Jobs10Solutions - Coming Soon (The Point10 Way into the Industry)
Projects10Solutions - Coming Soon (Work While You Study)

Point10Solutions Team Members Profile:
Click Here

For more details you can drop a line at: team.point10@gmail.com
(Or contact me directly)
I look forward to a lot of participation, feedback, comments and suggestions to help Point10 Team move forward.

Cheers
Samy

A Mid-year Mini-Vacation !!!

I have not been able to keep up with my blog recently, and to be honest, I have ran out of ideas lately or let me put it this way : I have no great updates from my side of the continent. Things have been ridiculously following a strict monotonous routine and Dipali has also now slowly discovered the challenges of doing a full-time job and managing everything else on a daily basis. It amazes me that how much important the Saturdays and Sundays are for people like us who go through so much the entire week.

Well to ease out my stress and give myself a fair amount of relaxation time, I was blessed with a week of shutdown by my company. What does that mean? Well in the world of bad economy it means, companies who want to ensure cost cutting force their employees to take some days off - either paid or unpaid. In my world, it means, totally freak out, hang out in your room, not getting off the bed unless you get a nature's call, delay your baths, watch loads of movies, eat like crazy and the most important : Sleep like you have never ever slept before.

For the past whole week, starting 3rd of July, I have been enjoying a mid-year, mini-vacation of sorts, the first 3 days turning out to be hectic, going places ,being social, but the next 5 days, let me say it again, 5 "working week-days", lol, were just the best in terms of doing only one thing - "NOTHING" !!! I wanted to set all kinds of records, and to be honest, I simply wanted to see how much a lazy ass I can be and I think I lived up to my own expectations. Sleeping, Eating, Movies etc I think I almost set all new records with personal bests.

The first 3 days were all about going places in the hot California summer, 17-mile Drive, Yosemite Park and Bean Hollow Beach. Links to the pics are on my Facebook and/or Orkut profile ...

The rest of the days went by really quickly with me sticking to a strict routine of catching almost 15 hours of sleep every day. Slept like crazy in the summer afternoons, reminding myself of those wonderful days back in school, where one used to devour the Mangoes and sleep 4-5 hours like a log of wood. I was too lazy to even write something on the blog, and thought that it could be done at any point of time, but this divine time will come once in a life time :P

Boy, the days did go by pretty fast, and with the weekend approaching the heart felt gloomy but yet a bit happy, as for workaholics like us, a few days are still OK to enjoy, but given some more lazy time, the mind gets more crankier than ever, and with nothing to do things tend to get out of their normal course of life. Of-course a zillion ideas pop up when the vacation is about to start, with some bullets on the stick-it notes all over listing down things to do, things not to do etc but I guess we can hardly stick to those as the vacation kicks in ... One feels just too lazy to even bother looking at those stick it notes... :)

Finally, as I opened my Outlook Inbox on a Sunday which felt no different as before, after deleting all the trash emails, I got a shocker to see approximately 80-90 emails which would require at-least a one line response from my keyboard :( Bummer !!! What an end to a vacation and what a start to another work week ahead ...

Having said and done, I did conclude upon 2-3 useful constructive things all through my holidays to work upon for the coming months ... Let's see how those go and one of that is to blog more frequently, with at-least one blog post a week ... Preferably on weekends ... (After all, that would surely help me get my essay composition and construction abilities all roused up for Dipali's GMAT exam to help her out ... Believe me, it is really really HARD to concentrate on a single page filled with black words for more than 10 minutes after a gap of 3 years from the educational front ....)

So after, 10 days of holidays, 3 places with approximately 1000 pics, around 150-180 hours of sleep, 10-15 pounds of food and more food, 14-18 movies, 2 hours of GMAT (hard work), basketball, cricket, helping a friend move to SF, multiple games of Sequence, lying around like a lazy ass, 2-3 constructive ideas, ZERO blog posts, I am finally back in the grind, looking forward to another batch of toiling 4-5 months before I am off to India for my marriage ...

Phew !!! Days really go by fast on my side of the continent ...

Cheers
Samy

Men of Steel - Book Review !!!

I have been reading these kind of books recently, not for any particular reason, but due to a natural human fact that we are always interested to read stories about others, and believe it or not, its a human trait to actually take interest in other people's life. Until and unless it all remains under a healthy cause, such an interest is surely bound to give us all some positive inputs, teach us all some much needed lessons and more importantly these kind of readings surely broaden and increase your thinking ability and the dimension that you can cover and expand.

Men of Steel, a book from Vir Sanghvi, speaks about, not many, but just 11 prominent figures of India. These are not stories about how they made it big (just like personalities covered in another book which I reviewed - Stay Hungry Stay Foolish), but these are more towards a conversational style manuscripts which Vir has no doubtedly produced in his own unique style of writing. If you are a true Indian by heart, you are surely to love this book, which offers nothing special or great in terms of the history but does give a unique perspective in each of these men, who now are responsible for not creating and being successful with their own brand, but more importantly leading the brand "INDIA" and placing it on the world map amongst different sectors.

Personalities that Vir has interviewed are :
Ratan Tata
Uday Kotak
Nusli Wadia
Sunil Bharati Mittal
Subhash Chandra
Rajeev Chandrasekhar
Kumar Mangalam Birla
Bikki Oberoi
Azim Premji
Vijay Mallya
Nandan Nilekani

Some of these are household names which even a common man knows of through their products and businesses, while some are dominant business men with their own successful brand names.
Note: Please note that these interviews have been taken in the year 2005 and lot of things have changed since then.

Overall a nice book to read a little bit more about these people and add to your already existing knowledge about their success stories.
You can follow Vir Sanghvi here and the details about his own book from his perspective are here.

My personal rating: 8.5/10

Cheers
Samy

(PS: If you wish to read these stories, you can do so by clicking each of the above names, and these are the exact same stories as produced in the book published by Vir Sanghvi)

1st Birthday - Happy Bday Blog !!!

Exactly a year ago, this idea which had been in my mind for some months then, surfaced up and I floated my own personal blog - Samkit's Reminiscence. Today I celebrate my blog's first birthday, and it seems the destination is still too far away. The journey has still just begun. There is much more to come.

It amazes me as to how time goes by, and it seems as if within a blink of an eye the year just flew by. Well was it that fast? To an extent yes, but more amazing are the stories that revolved around this entire year in my life, in my surroundings and the idea of this blog was born out of that concept as to why not have some medium to reflect back upon and capture these moments. I believe in frequently looking at the past, to re-collect memories, to guide me through the coming future. Of-course one should not hold on to the past, and let it go, but I am a firm believer that there is no such teacher and no good lesson which can be learned, if one cannot catch a glimpse of the past.

Having said all this, where do I move on from here? Well as always I still am not sure, but out of many things that this blog has given me I cannot overlook a few like, a great deal of personal satisfaction, a feeling of achieving something worthy, a dream to follow, a talent to nourish and improve upon, a medium of communicating my thoughts, a source to reach out to people, an entity to express myself, and above all, a lot of new friends, well-wishers and admirers. Of-course anything "good" cannot be left alone without it's step-brother the "evil" but in my case, it should be rightly called the "critics" and not something "bad" or "evil". I have had and my blog has had it's own personal share of criticism at times, but at the end of the day, it has been a great journey to look myself into the mirror and see the change in me, and my thoughts, and my ability to pen down something worth reading and reminiscing.

There have been all kinds of posts on my blog, from memories to book reviews, from cricket to festivals, from nonsensical random posts to some fun-filled email forwards, but the part that I will cherish for years to come, down the lane, around the curve where I will be walking with a stick in one of my hand, would be the event when Dipali entered my life and luckily enough, this blog was already in place. Having came quite far by then, I took that chance to put in front my emotions and feelings just to reflect upon them, and even now when I read that post, it brings back so many wonderful memories, the goosebumps that I get I can hardly express them in writing.

This ride so far, has given me a lot of new friends from the blogosphere, some hidden followers, some known critics, some regular readers and I thank them all from my heart, for keeping me going. Things would not have been the same without you all, and I thank you all out there who have been reading my posts, have been visiting my blog frequently and more importantly a special thanks to all of those who have been taking out time to comment upon my posts. I really have loved all your feedback and I look forward to more down the future. Keep them coming :) There have been people who have really praised and admired the way I write, there are some who have appreciated the efforts that I have put into my blog and the posts, while on the other hand there also have been some who have used even this little entity, my blog, and the opportunity to make fun and get up on my nerves, and even further there have been some serious critics to my style of writing - in all - there have been plenty of feedback for me to work upon and I have tried to do so with each passing day.

I would like to quote this : "To criticize a work, a talent or a creation, is too easy a task for a common man, but to produce a work, flaunt a talent or create a piece, is not within any common man's trait, but a naturally gifted God's blessings."

Lastly, I don't want this to be like an everlasting birthday speech (or to make it sound like an achievement speech or a retiring speech), but my blog would have no meaning without the love, support, understanding and constant feedback from my Mom, Dad and Dipali. Mom and Dad have been the most avid followers of my blog from day one, and have been really active in commenting, and I repeat "commenting" and not false "pampering" on my posts. They have always followed the principle: "The true sign of a true admirer is that one day he/she is your friend and the next moment your biggest critic." Dipali too now has taken an interest slowly but now loves it even more when I mention her on my blog lol... I love you mom, I love you dad and I love you Jaana... You 3 complete the puzzle of my life !!!

To keep it short and sweet (Lol) - Happy 1st Birthday to Samkit's Reminiscence !!!

Cheers
Samy

(PS: In this past year, if I have hurt anyone, said anything which someone would not have liked or have had their feelings rattled - well I just got one thing to say with my deepest condolences - This blog is not for the weak hearted people, so kindly take a hike LOL... Just Kidding ... Of-course I apologize for any such behavior and posts that have touched your feelings... Peace)

Solve Your Problems: The Birbal Way - Book Review !!!

To start with, this is not the typical philosophical book we find off-the-shelf, the ones with lots of inspirations and plenty of morals and whims to portray and conclusively make you think and work for your own good by motivating your self, changing your personality and more or less making you think about certain techniques and behavioral changes one needs to cultivate to achieve success and blah blah !!!

In fact, this small novel is not at all a life-guiding chronicle, but it is in fact a very simple, easy book to treasure, read it, learn something new, but in a very creative way. The book talks about all sorts of different principle and management morals and techniques, but all with a pint of story telling type short instances, and about whom - the most respected and intelligent soul of fables - Birbal.

The authors, Luis S.R. Vas and Anita S.R. Vas, have brought the little delights of all the famous incidents and stories from the past, taking us down the history lane, and yet have cleverly put forward a lot of Management techniques, Morals filled with Wisdom, and more importantly to depict a problem-solution scenario and at the end of each story give out a little advice to relate to that story. The fun part is, that as a reader you can explore your own creative thinking ability and try to figure out a solution by your own to the problem put forward, and then later read what Birbal's solution was. It helps one to be in Birbal's shoes, trying to figure out a solution, and then take back a moral or two to cultivate in daily life to overcome certain obstacles.

Overall, a light-headed reading, fun to recollect Birbal stories and yet learn something valuable. At the end the author nicely portrays the meaning of each letter of B I R B A L's name thus creating a BIRBAL formula to learn.

My Personal Rating: 8/10

Cheers
Samkit

California - My Love (Year after Year) !!!

Well, if we Californians are paying more taxes to the US Govt., then we are also reaping the benefits of being in the Golden State. The weather is just starting to ripen with the mercury rising keeping the sun upbeat, and giving us all a glimpse of a typical warm CAL summer on the horizon. For the past 10 days or so, I somehow felt the pain of paying taxes to this economy, drift away, when I started enjoying the typical weather which we all Cali people boast of, and especially up over here in the Northern Cal, the silicon valley, the famous bay area, it has just been an awesome welcome to the warm warm days. The winter was just too long I guess :)

Speaking about famous, one more thing that I have now understood for the past 2 ½ years of my residency in the Bay Area, and a total of almost 4 ½ years of staying in a famous place - the city of Angels, Los Angeles, and the Silicon Valley, is that, no matter whosoever your friends, relatives or anyone coming from India or other coasts, whenever they land up at these places make sure you have plenty of energy and enthusiasm to take them around. By taking them around, I don’t mean to say just driving them in a car, giving some half earned knowledge about the surroundings in which you live, but what I meant was literally visiting the same old places over and over again. Of-course they who would be visiting California would be overwhelmed at the aura of this state, but ask us, who have been living here for the past 5 years or so what is the pain of visiting the same old places year after year, which by the end of the day you almost feel, you are taking your visitors to a trip in an estate or a farm which righteously is owned by you lol … It feels as if you are the king, and you are just taking your subjects around in your kingdom … As if you are taking them on a merry go round ride in your ancestral land lol … It was painful in Southern Cal, Los Angeles, by going to the same old Universal Studios, Disney Lands, Santa Monica Beaches, Beverly Hills, Hollywood phew, the list won't just end...

Well I experienced something similar, this time in Northern Cal, and last weekend, I made my, let me guess, umpteenth trip to Golden Gate Bridge (LOL), Crooked Street (more LOL) and The City – San Francisco (almost dying with LOL) … It happened so, that one of my cousin visited the bay area (completely sponsored by Yahoo – where the heck is the economy crisis in Yahoo???).. She was visiting for the first time, and as one would expect, the places to go on the list were all those which I named above plus some local eateries which somehow have made their name back in Yahoo India. More amazing was the fact, that in spite of reducing the work force and all the rumors and news about people getting laid off from Yahoo Inc., my cousin and her team got to stay in one of the most posh districts of our bay area, the Santana Row, and the hotel in which they were given accommodation was like a center piece of attraction in the famous Santana Row street.

Anyways, so it was left to me and Dipali to take her around and oh boy, I was so much so fed up now of visiting the Golden Gate that I thought of just buying a part on the top of one of the towers and staying there… So that any of my relatives and/or friends come by, then can just come to see me on the top of the bridge in a local sightseeing tour. And when I am fed up of it, I can just take a dive into the Pacific ocean beneath lol … But, of-course one cannot blame the visitors, and it is just plain luck that I landed up residing in such a famous place, which is world known for its bridges, the bay, the private harbors, the city, night life, piers, eateries and what not … But was it that bad ? Really? Nayyy, I don’t think so, and once again I found and experienced something new this time, something that I had heard and read about on the net, but saw it in person … Nothing great, but just Mother Nature’s amazing phenomenon and I luckily capture them in my DSLR lens to share with everyone…

The theory is called formation of Advection Fog. I do not know a lot about it, but I had randomly heard about it and read something on the net. But this time, when I actually saw it I understood what does it mean. For a more simple definition it means: An advection fog forms when warm and moist air travels over a cool surface. Advection fog forms when humid air from the Pacific Ocean swoops over the chilly California current flowing parallel to the coast. The fog hugs the ground and then the warm, moist air condenses as it moves across the bay or land. This is common near any coastline.

Click here for the photographs taken by me.

Click here for some random professional photographs of the same event.

At the end of the day it was not that bad of a trip, after all, the looks and the built of the amazing San Fran city always mesmerizes me and it was fun altogether. Crooked street was still buzzing with activity and I pity people who actually live there, wondering how fed up they would be listening to the hustle and bustle of thousands of visitors flocking and crowding their driveways. The ride to the top of a new place on the other side of the bay was amazing, and I went there for the first time to actually see the complete skyline and the GG bridge from the top. And more importantly it was a bright clear day for photographs, and as always I did not show any reluctance in clicking the pics.

BUT, sarcastically as I would comment, that as mother nature loves to play pranks on all of us, for me, she has gone a bit more far, and I think due to some kind of special bonding with Golden Gate bridge and the San Fran city, she is going to draw me to these places two more times this year, when one of my friend visits me from the East Coast, and one more time when one of my uncle will pay a visit to this famous place. Grrrr !!!

How much I love being in California isn’t it? LOL !!!

Cheers
Samy