Did you do anything today?

I go for my music class every Thursday, I am learning violin (I had learnt it as a school kid, but never enjoyed it because it was not taught to be enjoyed - it was Carnatic music & I never liked the way my teacher used to make it so God-ly a thing & hence impose too many restrictions), western classical - 40 minutes of practical followed by 40 minutes of theory. Entire week, I look forward for the class. I religiously close my work at 5PM on Thursdays & set my mind completely for the class. I like playing violin. I realized creative visualization helps learn the best - when I see a new piece of notes & start playing, I often stumble over. But I sit for a while without the instrument, I see the notes carefully & I visualize the instrument & play in mind. <I hope you are able to understand what I mean>. I play really well when after that I take the instrument & start playing the notes actually. I am a very big fan of this concept called Creative Visualization.

Well...this Thursday, as usual, after a tiresome day at work, I went to the music class, I completed the practical class & went to the theory class. For the past few classes, I have not been able to understand certain notes because theory is mostly based on piano & violin is different - sharp notes, tonic triads etc. aren't so relevant. So, the 'sharp' & hence the 'major' & 'minor' scales were becoming very difficult for me to understand. I was actually stuck at this lesson & was unable to do anything on the worksheet I was supposed to do. This time I had learnt sharps on violin, but was still finding very difficult to relate to the major scales and so on.

5 minutes before the class ended, I had actually not done anything again on the worksheet. The teacher came and asked, "Did you do anything today?" - I understood this question was based on her observations about me for the past few classes too. I smiled to myself, (Ha! Ha! Ha! I wanted to laugh aloud actually) and remembered those days when I used to teach. I had asked this question to a couple of my students too. I won't name them here though I know they would read. <While reading this, you people are smiling - I know!>

I smiled further and remembered instances of the classroom, the time I spent with my dear students in the class. I would want to write those sweet memories down & send to them some day.

To all my dear students, big thanks for all those memorable moments.

What A Life!

What is so striking about India, as a country is that there are very strong pros & cons in everything. Just about anything can become an opportunity as well as a misfortune, almost anything can have its own benefits and in anything to everything, there are hidden advantages for some life. There is a "latent" demand existing for each and everything that one can think of and which is why there is no dearth of opportunities possibilities, solutions, answers for some, as much as there is dearth of the same for others!

I was going around for a walk with Bruno, my 3-year old beagle when I was not liking the grass grown beyond limits, all around stinking due to rains and the roads literally cut in many different shapes making it absolutely impossible to drive without the fear of a puncture in the tyres.

I hate putting this picture on this blog as much as I love pondering over it :-)

While I was walking with this feeling sinking into me to a lot of depth and while my analytical brain starting to think of any possible solutions and the judge in me trying to curse the government and the authorities, I found a pig sleeping in this mud water (the water must have been there for about a week now!). It was in the most sound sleep, feeling like heaven, enjoying the sleep to the fullest!  Now that's what I call boon for someone whereas a curse for someone else!

It was a pleasure watching that creature having so much of pleasure & enjoying its own little world to the fullest! The population of pigs have multiplied to 4 times in the past 1 year around our residential area and so is the dirt around - the unwanted trees grown up beyond limits, the rainy season bringing in a lot of unhygienic air around and what not!

It is these amazing trade-offs that we live with, in our country, at every stage and that's what probably makes us more flexible, tough to hold on to any situation, versatile to think beyond a structured approach & processes, adaptable to any situation around us, being self-dependent to find out solutions for any problems that we face and so on... and so forth!

Was the world awaiting 'Google+'?

Google+... Yes, it is there, all over - again!

As I keep reading the reviews, I somehow get a feeling that the entire world was just awaiting for Google to launch something like this. [There was (or is) Orkut, I myself would put it 'dogs' in the BCG Growth-Share Matrix.]

Honestly, I have a lot of respect for the company & I would want to always see it remain the internet giant on all platforms possible - so why lose out on one platform? I never liked when I seeing the failure of orkut. I wasn't convinced that it wasn't capable, or as some comments say 'social networking is not what Google can do', but I was always wondering why wasn't it trying to improve orkut. May be it didn't want to. Well, now I know there was a purpose in not running behind orkut or just out of the blue launching a social networking product.

I see the purpose behind Google+ is not just to get into social networking too, but a much higher strategic initiative to benefit the users, again! I somehow see a deep breath taken by the entire world in seeing this initiative - they know they are going to be benefitted, in many ways which may not be thinkable as of now. 'Why can't Google launch just this one thing?', was probably the question the entire world was asking the internet giant for long now, and here is the answer by the company that puts users first and yet another initiative to 'to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful'.

Again I want to say - What A Company!