What do we really want in life?

What do we really want in life?

Now that's one FAQ without a single clear answer, isn't it?

Nope, I don't even claim to have the answer for you.  But I wish to share my thoughts here, and hope to know yours, and probably offer a single answer applicable to all.  And let me modify the question - what should we really want in life?

The most likely object people seem to be seeking is wealth.  At times people don't acknowledge it openly, but you'll find that money and material assets are the most popular objectives.  But that doesn't make sense to me.  I've hardly ever seen anyone satisfied upon having achieved this objective.  Firstly, rarely does anyone achieve his financial objective, cuz it keeps moving.  And then, even as he crosses his original targets, his discontentment remains the same, if not increases.  This is because we seek to be richer (than X, Y, Z), not rich.  It's a relative target, not absolute.  And as we upgrade ourselves to financially richer social circles, we find our new friends to be at our own or higher level, and obviously we again aren't rich enough.  As a peon toils hard to become a clerk and rise within his social circles of peons, he realizes that his new world is full of clerks, and he's hardly ahead of them.  I don't think we consciously think this way, but it seems the obvious explanation to the behaviour of many of us.

Satisfaction with wealth also hardly seems to give any satisfaction in life.  It doesn't assure that our kids will stay with us as we grow old.  It doesn't ensure the longevity of our marriage or even life.  It doesn't give us the social importance we crave for.

Well, maybe then a happy family is what we're looking for?  I guess having a warm and caring family surely keeps us happy, but it expects very little ongoing action or maintenance.  As intellectual beings, we need to keep doing something.  If a happy family is our end objective, I think we'll feel pretty incomplete or blank soon after we reach that level.

Social respect, or importance, or fame, is also something many crave for.  We seek attention from the day we were born.  Even rich people seek to get noticed by building and showing off weird-looking skyscraper homes, or naming universities after themselves.  Gangsters are also probably just fulfilling their internal desperation for some importance.  Politicians, after amassing enough wealth for tens of generations, still seek power, for power gives them the feeling of importance.  Some social workers do stupid things to stay in the limelight even after their causes have succeeded or crashed, because they're addicted to getting attention.

I am not sure if importance or attention will give us satisfaction.  It is addictive, for sure, but having it seems to cause more desperation than contentment.  And as I see in people who I think as successful - like Ratan Tata, or Peter Drucker, or Dr. Patt - they shun attention so that they can enjoy life more.  Their sense of importance comes from within only.

I think what we really should seek is sustained happiness.  I think this one is the winner.  This is actually the primary objective - it is for happiness that most seek wealth or fame or power.  Yet I don't think we realize that this is our real objective, because to achieve these superficial objectives, we compromise happiness very easily.  We easily give up the pleasure of listening to the sweet songs of birds or the coos of a sweet child or the smile of a customer, so that we can attend to professional priorities.  We do not realize how a kaka sitting outside his hut in a remote village can be happier than us, without having any iPad or laptop or even electricity!

So how can we achieve sustained happiness?  I believe we can do so by seeking happiness of others.  There is no pleasure greater than that found in making others smile.  Ramola teacher and Fr. Hector and Dr. Patt may not be as rich and famous as Mukesh Ambani, but they have inculcated knowledge and character in countless students.  Peter Drucker and Stephen Covey offered ways to be more effective, and win together by empowering and teaming with others.  Ratan Tata and Bill Gates and Steve Jobs delivered products that changed, elevated, our lives.  Interestingly, most of these received fame and importance, though they never sought it, still don't.  They enjoy seeing the effect of their work in people's lives.  They enjoy being in sync with their natural compass or conscience.

I therefore believe that we will find long-lasting satisfaction and happiness in life only if we make it our life's objective to see others happier.  Small acts of thoughtfulness and kindness and generosity, pleasant surprises to our friends and family, can lift our spirits every day, as our conscience gives us a thumbs up.  People who want more than a live-by-the-day approach can identify noble causes they believe in, and make that their career.  That may be building educational products for children, or researching effective management theories, or fighting the green house effect, or finding the cure to cancer - there are countless options.  Some professions have contributions built-in - doctors save our lives and health, pharmacists find cures to illnesses, civil engineers and architects build magnificent structures to serve our future needs, musicians create tunes to please our senses.  In fact, if we remain conscious about it, we can redirect almost any professional career towards making a positive difference in the lives of the people around us.

I am more confident than ever that people seeking others' happiness will be the most successful of all.  I hope you're one of those people!

Weekends & Productivity

My latest management experiment at Peach is the two-day weekend.

I have always wondered how people in the US and other developed countries, despite working just five days a week, deliver amazing output, at very predictable speeds.  I do realize that better education, superior management, different social traditions, etc. may be more influential in bringing about this efficiency; however, I have a feeling that a two-day weekend also plays a good role in improving productivity.  And, in fact, I feel that a two-day weekend is more necessary here in India than elsewhere, given our cultural tendencies.

I believe a weekend is supposed to be a break for us from the daily work routine.  The break should give us time to relax, reflect, and recharge ourselves for the next week.

Now I guess a typical professional here uses a one-day weekend to contribute at home (which is obviously tough on weekdays given exhausting work hours and the daily commute), spending time with family, buying groceries, eating out, repairing breakdowns in the house.  Add to that our countless social events - marriages, birthdays, engagements ("ring ceremonies"), katha, mundan, besna, what not...  In four months of the year, hardly a weekend goes by without a marriage to attend (btw today I have to attend two).  Now, a weekend is also the only opportunity we have to meet friends, cuz they're also lost in their careers.

Many of us manage to squeeze these priorities in a Sunday, but at a high cost - I find people more exhausted on Mondays (that's when I have maximum absences - we call it "Monday fever") than even on Saturdays.  Forget about getting relaxed and recharged for a new week.  Forget about reflecting on the week, and introspecting how we can do better, or learning something new.  Nope, it only adds to our exhaustion.

My hypothesis is that the two-day weekend more than doubles the effectiveness of a weekend.  And we deliver better output in a five-day week than in a six-day week (assuming, of course, that people are sincere).

I believe so because the two-day weekend is clearly more than sufficient to handle family priorities, social occasions, and fun plans.  We get so much time that we're forced to relax or think up work.  And that is the type of time we need for learning, enriching ourselves, and planning ahead.  Even an hour of sitting on the swing doing nothing, or a lazy afternoon nap, recharges us, as it erases the exhaustion of the previous week from our minds.

Work is also unlikely to suffer because people come refreshed on Monday, well-prepared for the week ahead.  Sincere professionals have time to simulate their priorities before they come.  As that they had enough time to handle personal and family priorities in the two-day weekend, they can focus on work without getting distracted.

I have initiated two-day weekends (on even Saturdays) at Peach, and intend to observe the difference in productivity in my own self and in my colleagues during the odd and even weeks.  This was the first such weekend, and I personally feel very rejuvenated, and am looking forward to getting back to work tomorrow.  I hope that more of us feel the same way....

Return to Innocence

A couple of days ago, a friend of mine shared her concern that maybe she's too innocent for the world.  Someone at work had warned her that it's a dog-eat-dog world out there, and someone might just make her a scapegoat if she trusts everyone, and she started wondering in what ways might people cheat her.

That warning might sound like common sense to us.  But I feel actually disturbed to realize that we find sense in being skeptical and distrusting people.

Actually, we must realize that this distrust is probably the worst feeling a human can have.  This distrust has killed millions in the past century alone - Stalin with his paranoia of even his own partymen, Hitler with Jews, and Mao with every intellectual in China.  It is not only stupid, but quite dangerous and destructive to distrust.  And it is quite contrary to our own natural instinct.

I think we were designed to be innocent, right from birth.  Babies do not know doubt.  They do not seem to worry who might hurt them, and go to anyone who radiates love and entertains them.  Not many babies end up getting cheated and hurt, do they?  We all know that babies mean no harm to us and have no hidden agenda to screw us.  Their innocent coos and smiles can only make us happy.  So our conscience prevents us from even thinking of hurting them.

We, foolish adults, ask them to unlearn this innocence, which keeps them happy and even protects them.  And then we teach them that the world is a nasty place and they'd be fools to continue trusting people.  

I strongly believe that we will not go wrong if we choose to lead lives of innocence.  Though this might take some effort initially.

Given that we're adults and not cute babies, there is a decent chance that someone may try to screw us, and their conscience might not try hard enough to stop them at first.  But that is when we should have the wisdom and maturity to tell them what they did was wrong, forgive them for it (infinite times if needed), and then trust them again.

Faith in God is also something that can help us maintain innocence.  First, God (as per most religions) has awesome abilities, including inspiring our thoughts, helping us through difficult times (generally cuz it's he who creates them for some purpose), etc..  So if someone screws us, it's just part of some plan, and we should take it easy.  Another way of looking at it is that God programmed us with innocence when we entered the world, so innocence is what we were meant to have.  Sure, we try to format that out, but his programming of our conscience at least tends to sustain longer.  We need to have faith that he maintains the same conscience in the people around us; nobody is intrinsically mean.  We need to have faith that he means well, and so will inspire only the right thoughts in people, so long as we follow our conscience and always intend well.

It may take a while for people to see the baby-ish innocence in us.  But when we keep trusting them and keep trying to do the right things, they will love us and respect us and care for us.  They will feel good and confident about themselves because we trusted them.  They will feel a sense of responsibility as they realize that we depend on them.  In process, we are strengthening their conscience, and tomorrow, we might even end up inspiring them to become innocent again.

As you can see, innocence demands some effort and a lot of character.  But it will make us feel good.  It will make the people we trust feel good.  And it will make the world around us beautiful in a sustainable way.

So let us resolve to love and trust people around us, like babies do.  Let's resolve to be innocent again!

:)

Rising in love

Now that's not a topic you expected in this blog, is it?

Well, I am in love with love.  And by love, I am not referring to the love for family and friends and pets.  I mean very much the love that most of the best films of Bollywood and Hollywood are all about, the love of Notting Hill and Love Actually and Dil To Pagal Hai. 

Love is the most powerful feeling we can feel.  It energizes us to change the world, and more importantly, change our own selves.  It is something the richest and most powerful person will plead for and feel desperate without.  It is something the most mature person will act foolishly for, and still be happy about.  It is simple, it is obvious, yet it is impossible to explain to someone who has never felt it.

The point I wish to make today to you, reader, is - enjoy this feeling, make the most out of it, don't shy away from it.  Allow the force of love for your girlfriend or boyfriend or spouse to change you.  Allow it to shape you into a decent, caring, thoughtful being.  If you feel like pampering the one you love, don't hesitate, put in all your creativity and effort to make him/her smile.  Don't put checks on yourself, don't evaluate his/her reactions or analyze their feelings, just enjoy doing your part.

Indeed, there are chances of misunderstanding love for simple sexual attraction or desperation to choose a mate.  Well, there is a clear way to identify love - the feeling should intensely motivate you to become a better person, strengthen your character & integrity, sharpen your talents.  If it drives you to lie and do things your conscience bites you about, you're on the wrong track - it isn't love, or it's misguided love.  Love should make you rise.  It should make you do better in every aspect of life - it will have plenty of positive side effects, be warned...

I am convinced that love is a feeling that is truly divine.  I believe so because it is beyond our control - we cannot fake or simulate the feeling, it just happens to us.  Because it is plainly impossible to ignore and forget, no matter how hard we try.  And because it is something that your conscience doesn't disagree with, even if your brain might.

So don't miss out on this lovely feeling, when it comes for you.  Don't give up on it, no matter how hard you think it will be to materialize it.  Yes, remember to apply the test of "rising" or "falling" to check if you are actually in love, when you start having this feeling.

And finally, to those of you who believe you're in love - with your bf/gf, with your spouse (or someone else's), remember that your love story doesn't end in marriage or a break-up.  You retain the privilege and joy of loving much beyond that; all your life.  Don't let your daily crises de-sensitize you from this divine feeling.  Always remain in love with love!

I <3 <3  ;)

Success in detachment

I believe that an important measure of the success of an entrepreneur is in detaching himself/herself from the business organization he/she created.

I mentioned in my previous blog that an organization must have its own objective(s), independent of those of the entrepreneur(s) who founded it.  That objective must be on the lines of providing some service, adding some value, to a set of customers, through information, labour, or goods.  The organization must keep growing till it successfully serves all the target customers, by which stage, it may have already evolved its objectives.

In this life cycle of the organization, the founder/entrepreneur has only one special role, and that is, to guide the organization through its infancy.  He may play other roles, but doing so simply means replacing an employee with himself, i.e., serving as that employee.  Let me elaborate further on that.

When an entrepreneur sets up his company, he is typically the only person working for it.  He then adds people to his organization, as he realizes that he cannot do everything.  Like in a software company, he hires a peon, a receptionist, an accountant, developers, team leaders, etc. as necessary and as cashflow permits.  He handles all unassigned work himself.  Another way of looking at it is - he defines a hierarchy, starts filling people into the slots of roles, and puts his name into the remaining slots.

Now this is where a small entrepreneur generally messes up.  He becomes possessive of the slots that he has put his name on.  Alternately, he subconsciously believes that if he puts others in every slot, his presence in the organization will not be justified.  So even if he can afford it, and even if he finds people more qualified than himself, he avoids replacing himself in some positions.  I have also observed that most hierarchies are filled bottom-up, and the entrepreneur avoids appointing senior people till it becomes absolutely necessary.

This mistake inevitably hurts the growth of the company.  The entrepreneur actually acts against the interest of the company by not choosing people better qualified for the jobs that he has been handling.  This happens most for management roles - the entrepreneur is the most possessive of these, and refuses to let managers and CEOs handle the company he set up.  As a result of this, many profitable companies fail to grow beyond a basic size that the entrepreneur can directly handle.

 

The entrepreneur's key strengths are generally focused - they could be innovation, or technical expertise, or superior management skills.  Unless it is the third (and it rarely is), he should try hard to restrict his involvement to the area of his expertise, as soon as he possibly can.

He should appoint managers to handle each functional area, such as administration, development, production, marketing, HR, etc. as applicable.  He should choose a CEO to supervise the overall operations and ensure growth of the company as per defined plans.  He should define the objectives and value systems and plans of the company, and then appoint a board (it can be informal) of directors to ensure alignment of the company with those.  Those directors may be able to do this job better than himself.  He should himself be on the board, but not necessarily as the CEO or chairman.

These actions will free the founder from doing things that he is not good at.  And they will free the company to grow beyond the limitations of abilities or vision of the founder.  With capable executives at the helm and a mature board to direct it, the company will progress faster towards its objectives.  The entrepreneur will stand to gain financial returns as an investor, satisfaction of accomplishment as the founder, and the pleasure of doing only what he enjoys as a professional.

Purpose of a business - how I see it

I believe that the way I look at organizations & companies is kinda atypical, and frequently renews a philosophical debate with Papa and some of my friends.  I felt like sharing my thoughts here; maybe some of you readers might feel like joining the debate.

Nature of the purpose

I find it absurd when someone claims that the objective of a company is to make money.  To say so is like saying that the objective of our life is blood circulation or breathing.  More on that later.

In my opinion, the objective of a business is to achieve a mission or to play a role.  Its objective is to serve customers in one or more specified ways, and to add value to their lives.  When people form a company, they specify how it will serve its customers, and who those customers will be.  GE was probably built to give us light bulbs.  Tata Motors might aim to offer cars and trucks.  Peach aims to help organizations become efficient through information systems.  The objective of a business may evolve over time, but at any time, a business must have a clear objective, for without it, the business ceases to have meaning, and will flounder and die.  I do not see much difference in the objectives of businesses and non-profits actually - for non-profits also seek to play a role and serve a specific market - IAC trying to drive out corruption in India, Red Cross to alleviate the suffering of the wounded, St. Xavier's Gandhinagar to educate & groom citizens of tomorrow, and Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation to maintain & enhance civic services.

Why businesses must expand

Businesses, like any organization, must strive to increase their effectiveness towards their objectives.  For a company to succeed in its objectives, it cannot stop at serving a few customers in its neighbourhood or town or country.  It must strive to expand the reach of its service to Africa and the Americas.  So long as there is an unattended customer, the company must continue making efforts to expand its reach.  When that is done, the company may simply close down - what does IAC need to do after India becomes corruption-free?  But generally, by then, the company would have already upgraded its objective by widening the range of its services or by upgrading the quality of its offerings.

The role of money

Money is blood and air for a business.  Businesses depend on several entities in order to succeed in their mission.  They need physical resources to house their operations.  They need materials and machinery to build their products and offer their services.  They need to avail services of external entities, such as transport, utilities, etc.  And they need a team to drive their operations - and they need to satisfy the roti-kapda-makaan needs of that team - and even do a bit more to attract good people to their team - cuz only motivated people can help a business cater to its objectives - of delivering the specified services.

But all through what I said, it is clear that businesses require money to maintain resources to offer its services, and expand its reach in doing so.  Money itself is not the purpose in any way.  It is like blood, because we cease to live without blood, but we do not live in order to make blood.

Frankly, I see no difference with non-profits even here.  Money is equally vital to achieving their objectives.

Money, more specifically profits, also serve another crucial purpose - they validate the meaningfulness of the purpose of the business.  If a business is not profitable, we must understand that either customers do not care enough for its offerings, or it does not have the resources required to serve them.  If it is the latter, it is inevitable that some other business will come up to cater to the needs that the first one failed to address - customers will not remain unserviced forever.

Likewise, in case of non-profits, if they do not generate money from their operations, they must generate money from donations - but generating that money is proof of validity of their objective - if they do not get enough to survive, it means that their mission is not something that people truly care for.

The role & attitude of the entrepreneur

When it is formed, a typical business is essentially just an extension of the entrepreneur(s) who formed it.  He/she forms it while declaring its purpose.  His own purpose may be to generate money to satisfy his basic needs or even materialistic luxuries, but that cannot be the purpose of his creation, the business.  If he does not realize that, the business will never grow into a mature organization.  People working therein will always face confused value systems, thus leading to bad quality of service, eventually driving the business down.

A mature entrepreneur must learn to detach the purpose of her creation from her expectations from the creation.  She has two roles - one as the soul of the business, and the other as a resource-provider.  She may provide some essential resources to the company - be it loans, management, technical expertise, whatever.  And as the soul/brain of her business, she should ensure that she - as the resource provider - remains satisfied and motivated, like all other resource providers in the business.  As the company grows beyond her personality, she may be replaced by a board of directors (probably including herself), who will serve as the direction-providing, strategist brain of the company.  And she may, independently, also remain as a resource - as an investor, as an engineer/worker, as an executive, or as an adviser.

So that concludes my sermon for today.  I hope you might have found my perspective here to be worth considering.

Finally, I must give credit to Peter Drucker, who I love to read, and obviously influences my thoughts on business, including what I've written above.

Saadhan Shuddhi - સાધન શુધ્ધિ - and IAC

This term always comes to my mind when I think of the "India against corruption" / "Jan Lokpal" movement.

I do believe in the need for a popular movement to eliminate corruption in our country.  Government-driven reforms are unlikely to stop corruption, because those have an inevitable conflict of interest - the cat cannot purchase a bell for itself.  The onus is on the victims of corruption - the people - to push for meaningful and sustainable reforms.  In that, I firmly believe that IAC is our best hope in a long time for a popular push.


But I am also quite disenchanted by the way the leadership of IAC has been pursuing its agenda.  I keep seeing that they are willing to compromise their means so long as they find their ends justified.  I find their strategy of promoting Anna as the symbolic leader of the movement to be not unlike the Congress keeping the Gandhi family.  It is an open secret that Anna hardly contributes to the strategy or direction of the movement - he is just a front to the less-popular-and-more-controversial leaders really driving it.  I do not accept the way they slander and mock our representatives with personal insults.  If we may not find the system that elected them to be fair, we should oppose the system, not the people who followed this democratic system and got elected.  Slandering them, accusing them of unproven things, is fairly comparable to the lies we believe politicians say.  Recently, I saw an IAC leader putting up an MP's mobile number online, so that people can bug him till he concedes.  Is that a sign of decency?

I also see people trying desperately to spin situations to show that IAC had contribution to election results, even when the opposite is obvious.  If IAC wishes to pursue a noble aim, it must maintain honorable behavior.  We should find no shame in admitting our failures.  Making efforts is in our control, results are not.


But it seems that, being made of humans, IAC is prone to face moral conflicts.  I strongly believe that how its leaders resolve these moral conflicts will determine the success of the movement.  If they resort to cheap tactics that they claim their corrupt opponents play, they may find initial support, but that will waver over time, and we can already see that.  If they choose noble and decent means, i.e. abide by saadhan shuddhi, they may find initial difficulties, but they will undoubtedly succeed in their mission.


Fortunately for us, we don't have to look far and wide for an example - we have Gandhiji to look up to.  Sure some of us now find reasons to blame him, but nobody can claim that he compromised his means.  We need to first seek to purify ourselves - by developing integrity and humility.  I am far from claiming that I myself have attained that - and like a friend of mine said - by claiming to have these virtues, we immediately deprive ourselves of them - and so we must simply keep trying to improve on these.  Next, we should learn to love everyone - even the people who oppose our missions, regardless of their sins and mistakes.  Loving them further ensures that we employ only the right means to correct those aspects where we think they are wrong.  And it opens the possibility that they may some day even change their stand and agree with us.  And finally, we should always be open to be corrected - being humans, we are going to make mistakes - by closing our ears to criticism, we are only compromising our ability to succeed in our mission.


Saadhan shuddhi is not simply applicable to a popular movement or dissent.  It is applicable in every aspect of our life.  It is applicable to business management, friendships, family relations and parenting, what not.  Saadhan shuddhi will make life easy for us, because we will always remain true to our conscience.


Give it a try.

About God

I am an agnostic theist - that is, I do not believe in the typical religions, but I believe in God.

I do not feel comfortable with the way the religions I know describe God.  Very often, God is shown to have human weaknesses like anger, ego, pain.  Or he (or she) is made accessible only through specific channels or people.  Or he expects certain formalities and rituals and respect and pleasing.  I believe in a perfect God, who only loves and forgives and inspires people to do better.  I believe that God can be accessed directly, in our own way.  I believe that we do not need any formal way to address God, or do anything to please him.  It is sufficient if we follow our conscience and do good. Frankly, I don't even feel any need to go to heaven to be happy.  I find happiness everytime I try to do something good, or try to make someone happy, regardless of whether or not I succeed at it.

Till very recently, I don't even think I was a true agnostic theist.  Cuz I just wasn't sure about the existence of God.  There were times I believed, and times when I doubted.  I used to pray, to be on the safer side.  But of late, for some reasons, I've really started believing.  And I feel a lot better, a lot more secure, ever since.  I realize that God is quite generous and forgiving to me, giving me success even when I don't deserve it, giving me more chances even though I keep messing up.  He has given me lots of capabilities, lots of well wishers, all the good luck in world, and I only need to do my part.  And He inspires me to do even that.

I feel that the biggest connection between God and me is my conscience.  Only God and I know what I'm thinking, where I'm really guilty (even if the world doesn't know or care about it), where I've done something good (even if it may not be appreciated).  After some thoughts, some inspirations, I've decided that I will no longer doubt the existence of God, and I will follow my conscience, and be a better person.  I have decided to strengthen my character.  I have resolved to keep making sure that I always be kind, and always carry good intentions for people around me.  And I have decided to work hard to maintain absolute integrity.  I think these will be the right ingredients for happiness.

Studying in the US

Quite some people have sought my suggestions or opinions about studying abroad.  While I am certainly not the most qualified to opine, I think I have learnt a bit from my experiences with various applications including my own, and I've learnt a lot from overhearing Papa advising people.  I've blended all these to form my own beliefs, which I share with people when asked.

It gets kinda boring when I have to give the same advice over and over again, so I thought of putting up my basic points right here:

(1) Preparation for tests like SAT, GRE, GMAT

I believe that these are some of the most well-developed tests around.  They have evolved over ages, and have been accepted by premier institutions.  Therefore, I find it pretty foolish when people try to "crack" these tests.

These tests require no preparation, yet they require years of preparation.  Funny statement, but quite true.  I meant that these tests have been designed to identify our knowledge or ability to learn, and not our ability to remember.  Even if someone wakes us up in the middle of the night and asks us to give the test, we'd get a score similar to one we'd get when we're "prepared".  They mostly ask for just decent English, common sense and logic.

Most people can handle the math and logic parts, but get stumped in English.  They try mugging up meanings, synonyms, antonyms; they try to practice lots of comprehension questions; yet they find it tough to get results.

I recommend that people planning to study abroad must plan well ahead.  If that's you, you should consider some of my suggestions, so that you can enjoy the process of strengthening your language:

• You should read lots of English books - written by American or English authors - like Dan Brown, Tom Clancy, Jeffrey Archer, Stephen King.  You should subscribe to English magazines, but be picky here - I'm not impressed with Times of India or Outlook - but you may consider Reader's Digest or India Today.  This will build your vocabulary.
• You should watch American sitcoms or movies.  That will familiarize you with lots of phrases that Americans use all the time, and we don't.  Some have obvious meanings, while some are outright crazy, but knowing these help a lot.
• You should write a lot.  You should request your English teacher (if it's Ramola teacher, you can't get luckier) to correct your language.  Maybe even I can be of help.  This will refine your sentence formation skills and grammar.
• And be sure to speak English a lot.  But do that only with people who know English better than you do.  I know from my own experience how speaking in English with people who speak crappy English can hurt one's own fluency.

In general, I strongly recommend that you pick a book, a good book (a publication of Kaplan or Princeton Review or Arco), and read it from the first page.  Avoid going to classes - they will only hurt your chances to excel, while ensuring you get mediocre results.  The authors of these books are far more accomplished than the typical guy running the classes.  So read the preface, introduction, everything, and follow the book in the way the author instructs you to.

(2) Selection of universities to apply to

I feel that one should typically apply to about seven universities:

• Two ambitious targets (like from the top-five)
• Three likely targets (ranked between six and 15)
• Two sure-shot targets (ranked between 16 and 25)

There is simply no point in applying to a university that doesn't make it in the top 25 for your degree area.  I say this because studying in an XYZ university reduces the chances of getting to study with good professors, good peers, and of getting a good job after graduation.  In case of undergrad applicants, going to an XYZ place may also imply getting exposed to the not-so-nice characteristics of misguided youth.

But studying in the top few is a real experience, which will define who you will be for the rest of your life.  You will get to study with peers having high IQ and different passions and strengths.  You will learn from professors who are deeply in love with the subjects they teach.  On the whole, you'll enjoy so much that you'll not feel like graduating!

You should consider the following factors while choosing a university:

• Ranking of the college you're planning to join (e.g. engineering, architecture, pharmacy)
• Ranking of the university
• Size of the university - bigger the better - you get more choices for majors, minors, specializations, electives
• Type of town the university is in - metropolis, university town, rural - prefer universities in university towns or rural or suburban locations rather than in big cities - e.g. Cornell (Ithaca), UT (Austin), U of I (Urbana-Champaign), Stanford (Palo Alto), etc. - I think such atmosphere is more conducive to learning
• Proximity to industries - well, I used to believe in this, but seeing the fact that even though UIUC is so far from most CompE industries, recruiters flock there, I am not very sure if proximity matters much
• Proximity to relatives or family friends - you need some place to feel at home at, someone mature who can guide you when you're in trouble.  But don't count on staying with them - not even if they're in the same town - it'll be impractical to commute.

If you're planning to study engineering, these are good universities to consider:

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Cambridge (Boston area)
• Stanford University - Palo Alto (San Francisco area)
• University of California at Berkeley - Berkeley (San Francisco area)
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign - about 200 miles south of Chicago
• University of Michigan at Ann-Arbor - close to Detroit
• University of Texas at Austin - my university, the best! - in Austin, 200 miles from Houston
• Carnegie Mellon University - Pittsburgh
• Cornell University - Ithaca, few hundred miles north of New York City
• Georgia Institute of Technology - Atlanta
• Purdue University - West Lafayette, Indiana
  
• Penn State University - College Park in Pennsylvania
• University of Pennsylvania - Philadelphia
• North Carolina State University - Raleigh
• Virgina Polytechnic University - Blacksburg
• University of California at Los Angeles - Los Angeles
• University of California at San Diego - San Diego
• Rutgers University - New Brunswick, near Philadelphia

I guess that's enough of information for now.  I'll update this blog if I think of more inputs to share.

Bye for now!

Choosing to be happy

I have complained enough about life.  I guess I'm not unlike others when I do so, and many might find my complaints well justified.  I feel disappointed when I lose a customer.  I feel frustrated when my development team takes forever to complete a critical task.  I worry about managing cashflow.  I get mighty pissed when my laptop or phone stops working.  I get frustrated when I see general deterioration in the society around - commercialization of education & healthcare, loss of civic sense, what not!

Yet lately I feel I'm being quite stupid when I complain or feel disappointed.  I feel I am the last person on earth who has the right to complain.  Cuz I have everything I need to be happy.

I have a wonderful family, which loves me infinitely.  All my loved ones have been gifted with the best of health and abilities. I myself have been given a fit mind and body; I can't even imagine the plight of people who cannot take that for granted.  I have been given sufficient wealth, education, social respect, and guidance to use as a platform for my career, for my company.  At Peach, I have a team full of really smart people, who work like crazy for me.  I've even been given some decent successes, so that I can feel proud and confident of my own self.  All I need to do now is make efforts.  And I should do that with confidence, because time and again, I've been shown that making efforts is sufficient for success.

I have thus resolved to be happy.  Every time I feel sad or disappointed, I will think of my countless gifts, including my own abilities.  And I will put in sincere efforts to use all my energy in creative ways, brightening the world around me.  I have the power to bring smiles on the faces of my loved ones, of the people who work with me, of even strangers.  I have the ability to apply my professional knowledge to make products that can touch countless lives positively.  I have all it takes to set good examples, through myself and my creations, and even that may suffice to begin a meaningful change.  Why waste a minute being sad, when life's so good?  :)