The Art of Giving

"Rivers do not drink their own water, nor do tree eat their own fruit, nor do rain clouds eat the grains reared by them. The wealth of the noble is used solely for the benefit of others?

Even after accepting that giving is good and that one must learn to give, several questions need to be answered.

The first question is when should one give ?

We all know the famous incident from the Mahabharata.

Yudhisthir, asks a beggar seeking alms to come the next day. On this, Bhim rejoices, that Yudhisthir his brother, has conquered death! For he is sure that he will be around tomorrow to give. Yudhisthir gets the message.

One does not know really whether one will be there tomorrow to give! The time to give therefore is now.

The next question is how much to give.

One recalls the famous incident from history. Rana Pratap was reeling after defeat from the Moghals. He had lost his army, he had lost his wealth, and most important he had lost hope, his will to fight. At that time in his darkest hour, his erstwhile minister Bhamasha came seeking him and placed his entire fortune at the disposal of Rana Pratap. With this, Rana Pratap raised an army and lived to fight another day.

The answer to this question how much to give is "Give as much as you can!

The next question is what to give. It is not only money that can be given. It could be a flower or even a smile.

It is not how much one gives but how one gives that really matters. When you give a smile to a stranger that may be the only good thing received by him in days and weeks! "You can give anything but you must give with your heart!

One also needs answer to this question whom to give .

Many times we avoid giving by finding fault with the person who is seeking. However, being judgmental and rejecting a person on the presumption that he may not be the most deserving is not justified. “Give without being judgmental!

Next we have to answer How to give

Coming to the manner of giving, one has to ensure that the receiver does not feel humiliated, nor does the giver feel proud by giving.

In giving follow the advice, ’Let not your left hand know what your right hand gives? Charity without publicity and fanfare is the highest form of charity. 'Give quietly!

While giving let not the recipient feel small or humiliated. After all what we give never really belonged to us. We come to this world with nothing and will go with nothing. The thing gifted was only with us for a temporary period. Why then take pride in giving away something which really did not belong to us? Give with grace and with a feeling of gratitude.

* When you help someone in need, give it before he asks for it; for if you place him under the necessity of stretching out his hand, you take away from him his self-respect which is worth more than the value of your alms.

What should one feel after giving?

We all know the story of Eklavya. When Dronacharya asked him for his right thumb as "Guru Dakshina", he unhesitatingly cut off the thumb and gave it to Dronacharya.

There is a little known sequel to this story. Eklavya was asked whether he ever regretted the act of giving away his thumb. He replied, and the reply has to be believed to be true, as it was asked to him when he was dying.

His reply was "Yes! I regretted this only once in my life. It was when Pandavas were coming in to kill Dronacharya who was broken hearted on the false news of death of his son Ashwathama and had stopped fighting. It was then that I regretted the loss of my thumb. If the thumb was there, no one could have dared hurt my Guru.

The message to us is clear. Give and never regret giving!

And the last question is How much should we provide for our heirs?

Ask yourself 'are we taking away from them the gift of work'? - A source of happiness! The answer is given by Warren Buffett: "Leave your kids enough to do anything, but not enough to do nothing!

I would conclude by saying: let us learn the Art of Giving, and quoting Saint Kabir:

"When the wealth in the house increases, when water fills a boat, Throw them out with both hands "

First class Management Lessons

One day in a school in London, a teacher said to a class of 5-year-olds

I'll give 10 pounds to the child who can tell me who was the most famous man who ever lived."

An Irish boy put his hand up and said, "It was St. Patrick."

The teacher said, "Sorry Paddy, that's not correct."

Then a Scottish boy put his hand up and said, "It was St. Andrew."

The teacher replied, "I'm sorry, Hamish, that's not right either."

Then a Jewish boy put his hand up and said "David",

The Buddhist boy said "Gautama Buddha" and the Muslim boy said "Mohammed".

They all were not successful. Finally, a Gujju boy raised his hand and said, "It was Jesus Christ."

The teacher said, "That's absolutely right, Jignesh, come up here and I'll give you the 10 pounds that I promised."

As the teacher was giving Jignesh his money, she said, "You know Jignesh, since you're a Hindu Gujarati; I was very surprised you said Jesus Christ."

Jignesh replied, "Yes. In my heart I knew it was Krishna, but Bijness is Bijness!!!!! !

Moral : Talk the language which listener (Customer) wants, not that which you know.

Extract from "The Life and Writings of Abraham Lincoln"

On his first day in office, as President Abraham Lincoln entered to give his inaugural address, one man stood up. He was a rich aristocrat. He said, “Mr. Lincoln, you should not forget that your father used to make shoes for my family.”

And the whole Senate laughed; they thought they had made a fool of Lincoln.But certain people are made of a totally different mettle. Lincoln looked at the man directly in the eye and said, “Sir, I know that my father used to make shoes for your family, and there will be many others here, because he made shoes the way nobody else can. He was a creator. His shoes were not just shoes; he poured his whole soul into them.

I want to ask you, have you any complaint? Because I know how to make shoes myself. If you have any complaint I can make you another pair of shoes. But as far as I know, nobody has ever complained about my father’s shoes. He was a genius, a great creator and I am proud of my father”.

The whole Senate was struck dumb. They could not understand what kind of man Abraham Lincoln was. He was proud because his father did his job so well that not even a single complaint had ever been heard.

Remember: “No one can hurt us without our consent.”

“It is not what happens to us that hurts us. It is our response that hurts us.”

10 things to learn from Japan Source: Outlook Magazine

Via Pattabhi Ram Sir

1. THE CALM: Not a single visual of chest-beating or wild grief. Sorrow itself has been elevated.

2. THE DIGNITY: Disciplined queues for water and groceries. Not a rough word or a crude gesture.

3. THE ABILITY: The incredible architects, for instance. Buildings swayed but didn’t fall.

4. THE GRACE: People bought only what they needed for the present, so everybody could get something.

5. THE ORDER: No looting in shops. No honking and no overtaking on the roads. Just understanding.

6. THE SACRIFICE: Fifty workers stayed back to pump sea water in the N-reactors. How will they ever be repaid?

7. THE TENDERNESS: Restaurants cut prices. An unguarded ATM is left alone. The strong cared for the weak.

8. THE TRAINING: The old and the children, everyone knew exactly what to do. And they did just that.

9. THE MEDIA: They showed magnificent restraint in the bulletins. No silly reporters. Only calm reportage.

10. THE CONSCIENCE: When the power went off in a store, people put things back on the shelves and left quietly

My new's years take

To view the video on youtube, follow this link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYlvYOhI-q8

To download,

Goto keepvid.com

Wishing all of you a wonderful year

Smile A While

'Champions' in the making

The recent times, the Indian team has achieved the ICC top respects as the Best Test team in the world.

While admitting to the obvious — that India has attained the statistical milestone and, to its credit, held on to it for the better part of the year in defiance of the attempts of the dethroned Aussies to snatch it back — I would argue that India is still a long way away from being a champion side.

That goal is a journey, a process — not something that is attained through a calculator. And that process is long; it is accomplished one incremental step at a time; it is a function of identifying the bedrock basics of the sport and becoming extraordinarily good at every aspect of it.

Somewhere along this journey, there will be moments where opponents outweigh you through sheer brilliance; there will also be moments when — blame this on the fact that even a champion is, first and foremost, a human being — you just don't show up, individually and collectively. At such moments — the latest, from an Indian perspective, is the first Test against South Africa at Centurion, now in its last phase as I write this — you confront the cliched "test of character". It is then that not just your ability, but your resilience, your willingness to square up to the challenge, is tested. And the manner in which teams or individuals respond to these situations ends up as the defining sub-text in the holistic narrative that the journey aims to signify.

Today's Indian team – the product of 75 years of patchy brilliance — is by consensus one of the best ever to wear national colors; it follows automatically that it is also one of the most successful ones to play for the country.

What is far more significant however is that this team is one of the most resilient ever. It has what its earlier versions did not possess — the ability to be dogged, be ugly, be scrappy; qualities that are not sexy but ones that somewhere along the line are as valuable, or even more so, than individual brilliance.

At the domestic level, this is what has historically marked Mumbai out as a champion side — the ability to be dogged, to persist, to never give up; to play khadoos cricket, if we were to borrow from the vernacular.

The recent past has seen repeated manifestations of this attitude. Consider that 10 years ago, if India were confronted with a 470 run deficit as it started its second innings, the collective attitude would have been to throw their hands up, offer up some kind of token resistance, and then go down meekly. Fighting back when all is seemingly lost never used to be a trait that characterized the Indian team.

Now, it is. Vide Centurion, as the latest example. As South Africa piled on the runs and the agony, and then declared with two full days and the best part of two sessions to go, who would have betted on India dragging the game on till the final day? To do that takes a different attitude, a bloody mindedness that the Indian team is growing into. It is an attitude that says, the hell with this, the game may seem lost but we are going to hang in there for as long as we possibly can, we are going to guts it out.

Such an attitude may not win you matches too often, but is a key component of a champion team, and the fact that India fought back the way it did at Centurion is what leads me to believe that while we are not yet a champion side, we are certainly moving in that direction.

The core belief underlying this new found doggedness is that you never know what may happen — a great escape is not out of the bounds of the probable. Consider Lord's, 2007, where India chasing an almost impossible target of 380 against England ended up with 282/9, largely thanks to Mahendra Singh Dhoni manning up and batting for over six overs with Sreesanth to save the Test. A year later against Australia in Bangalore, a late-order rescue effort in the first innings from the likes of Zaheer Khan (57*) and Harbhajan Singh (56) almost helped pull off an improbable win. It didn't happen — but that resistance provided the stiffening of the spine that helped the team win the next game in Mohali. It happened again in New Zealand, in early 2009 where, following-on at Napier, and chasing a deficit of almost 314 runs, India managed to knock off the deficit and even take a 100+ run lead.

What stood out in these instances is that even as things went against the team, there was no sense of panic; there was no intent to throw in the towel, to concede the game as a lost cause. Maybe this is indicative of the environment prevailing within the team; maybe it is a sign of new found maturity; maybe it is an indication that the team is now ready to take that next step towards attaining champion status. Whatever — it is perhaps the most welcome development in recent times.

And it is producing results. Consider Ishant Sharma and VVS Laxman's memorable partnership at Mohali, which not only typified all these attributes, but even resulted in an unlikely win against Australia. Or consider Harbhajan's heroic effort at Ahmedabad after walking in to bat in extraordinarily difficult circumstances.

It would be negligent to ignore some of India's dramatic collapses in this same period, beginning with Sydney 2008 where the team just couldn't be bothered to deal with Michael Clarke's pies, or even the 138 all out against Sri Lanka at the SSC, at a time when Ajantha Mendis was still a mystery in the making.

What is significant is that earlier, such collapses were the norm; now, gradually, they are becoming the exception. I still believe India have a long way to go in terms of being a team that doesn't just win consistently, and across conditions, but one that is increasingly hard to beat. But the good news is that we're making a demonstrable effort to get there; that we are increasingly developing the mindset of not giving up on a game until it is actually over. Consider, as I said at the outset, Centurion — going into the second innings, every self-respecting fan would have given up the game as lost; and in times past, so would the team.

Yet, India fought back, in alien conditions, against a high quality bowling that had scented blood — a stirring counter-attack at the top of the order by Sehwag and Gambhir; a bit of a slump in the middle but, rather than fold like an accordion, yet another fight back authored this time by Sachin Tendulkar and MS Dhoni. All of it may merely have delayed the inevitable, but such bloody mindedness is one of the hallmarks of champions, and it is heartening to see India getting there.

As someone who follows Manchester United closely, this is exactly the spirit every footballer donning the Red is expected to have - a spirit where even in some of the most unwinnable battles, he's expected to show an unflinching desire to work as hard as he'd ever do and come up with a moment of inspiration that might just unlock the sturdiest or the stubbornest of defences.

All of this begs the question — what more does India have to do to truly merit the champion tag. Right through this piece, a bulk of my argument has focused on the batting, which is the only area where India is showing the requisite resolve. On the bowling front, however, concerns remain — and examining the landscape leads to the fear that the concerns in this area are a long way from being resolved. The two fast bowlers at Centurion were literally clueless about their respective lengths, and the "lead spinner" looks like the most confused bowler in the world at the moment. More on that later in the week — for the moment, let's just say that for India to truly earn its champion tag, the bowling attack needs to mirror the mindset, and performance, of the batsmen.

What we get now, however, is a combination of listlessness, poor excuses and inferior body language, all of which adds up to a bowling lineup lacking both inspiration and will. Currently, the bowling unit is about making excuses: the best bowler is injured; the Kookaburra is difficult to bowl with; insert your favorite excuse here. What ‘attitude', and the ability to never give up, can do was best exemplified by Dale Steyn who, late in the day on Day 4, at a time when he could not have been blamed for being tired, stepped up with a fiery burst to cut the legs out from under the Indian resistance.

That's the kind of spirit I'd like to see from some of our bowlers — they need to want the ball, rather than wait for it to be thrown to them; they need to learn from the newly discovered bloodymindedness of the batting lineup.

If, when, they get there, India would have taken a giant stride towards champion status. Meanwhile, Durban awaits. Lets see how the ‘Champion side in the making’ provides answers to all its die-hard fans !!

Rajni Mania - Mind It !!!!

I don’t want to imply that Rajnikanth’s jokes are more famous than his movies. But let’s face it how many Rajni movies have you actually seen? And now count how many jokes you have come by - through sms or email forwards. Surely, much, much more!

Somehow his jokes turn out to be great LOL moments

Here are a few :

1. Rajinikanth doesn’t wear a watch. He decides what time it is.

2. Rajinikanth has already been to Mars, that’s why there are no signs of life there.

3. Rajinikanth killed the dead sea.

4. If you spell ‘Rajanikant’ wrong on Google it doesn’t say, “Did you mean Rajinikanth?” It simply replies, “Run while you still have the chance.”

5. Rajinikanth can play the violin with a piano

6. Rajnikanth once wrote a cheque, the bank bounced!

7. Micheal Jordan to Rajini: I can spin a ball on my finger for over two hours. Can you?

Rajni: Rascala; how do you think the earth spins!?

8. Rajinikanth once ordered a plate of idli in McDonald’s, and got it.

9. If Rajnikant was born 100 years earlier, British would have fought to get independence from India.

10. When Rajnikant logs on to facebook.com, facebook updates its status message!

11. Rajni once killed 20 men just by saying "BANG"

12. Rajinikanth knows Victoria’s secret.

13. Rajinikanth can divide by zero.

14. Rajinikanth has counted to infinity, twice.

15. When Rajinikanth gives you the finger, he's telling you how many seconds you have left to live

16)Rajnikant died 20yrs ago.death has not the courage to tell him.

17)Rajnikant doesnt pay attention. Attention pays him.

18)He participated in race & stood 1st 2nd & 3^rd

19)There are no weapons of mass destruction in iraq rajnikant lives in chennai

20.When Rajinikanth does push-ups, he isn't lifting himself up. He is pushing the earth down.

21.There is no such thing as evolution, it's just a list of creatures that Rajinikanth allowed to live.

22.Rajinikanth can drown a fish.

23.Rajinikanth can delete the Recycle Bin.

24.Rajinikanth once got into a fight with a VCR player. Now it plays DVDs.

25.Rajinikanth can slam a revolving door.

26.Rajinikanth once kicked a horse in the chin. Its descendants are today called giraffes.

27.Rajinikanth can build a snowman out of rain.

28.Rajinikanth can strangle you with a cordless phone.

29.Rajinikanth can make onions cry.

30.Rajinikanth destroyed the periodic table, because he only recognizes the element of surprise.

31.Rajinikanth can watch the show 60 minutes in 20 minutes.

32.Rajinikanth never wet his bed as a child. The bed wet itself in fear.

33.The only man who ever outsmarted Rajinikanth was Stephen Hawking, and he got what he deserved.

34.Rajinikanth doesn't breathe. Air hides in his lungs for protection.

35.Rajinikanth kills Harry Potter in the eighth book.

36.Rajinikanth does not own a stove, oven, or microwave, because revenge is a dish best served cold.

37.Rajinikanth has already been to Mars, that's why there are no signs of life there.

38.Rajinikanth doesn't move at the speed of light. Light moves at the speed of Rajinikanth.

39.Water boils faster when Rajinikanth stares at it.

40.Rajinikanth goes to court and sentences the judge.

41.Rajinikanth can handle the truth.

42.Rajinikanth can speak Braille.

43.Rajinikanth calls Voldemort by his name.

44.Who do you think taught Voldemort Parseltongue? Rajinikanth did.

45.Chuck Norris once met Rajinikanth. The result - He was reduced to a joke on the internet.

46.Rajinikanth got small pox when he was a kid. As a result small pox is now eradicated.

47.Rajinikanth’s calendar goes straight from March 31st to April 2nd, no one fools Rajanikanth.

48.Rajinikant can give pain to Painkillers and headache to Anacin.

49.Time and tide wait for Rajinikanth.

50.Rajinikanth sneezed only once in his entire life, that's when the tsunami occurred in the Indian ocean.

51.As a child when Rajinikanth had dyslexia, he simply re-scripted the alphabet.

52.Rajinikanth can answer a missed call.

53.Rajinikanth doesn't need a visa to travel abroad, he just jumps from the tallest building in Chennai and holds himself in the air while the earth rotates.

54.Rajinikanth's brain works faster than Chacha Chaudhury's.

55.Rajinikanth doesn't shower. He only takes blood baths.

56.To be or not to be? That is the question. The answer? Rajinikanth.

57.The quickest way to a man's heart is with Rajinikanth's fist.

58.Where there is a will, there is a way. Where there is Rajinikanth, there is no other way.

59.Rajinikanth's every step creates a mini whirlwind. Hurricane Katrina was the result of a morning jog

60.Aliens do indeed exist. They just know better than to visit a planet that Rajinikanth is on.

And the Final PUNCH !!

“We live in an expanding universe. All of it is trying to get away from Rajinikanth.”

:-P