Choices

Life is all about the choices we make, ranging from what to eat or what to wear, where to go or when to meet. And it is these choices that we choose, that we become who we are.

Technically, a choice consists of picking from a given range of options after thorough analysis.The best thing to do when faced with multiple options to choose is to brainstorm the options matching the pros against the cons for each option.

Here is my technique when life decides to let me choose:

• List out all the available options
• Analyze the pros and cons of each option
• Mark each option with a score
• For each option, add a point for the option which meets most of your needs or benefits you
• For each option that affects your life or your near ones, deduct one point
• For options that do no good nor any bad, do nothing
• Tally the points and pick the one with the best score and ignore the one with the least score

Life does not give us many options all the time. When it gives us something, it does restrict the availability of some other thing. And it is upto the inidividual to to rightly value the options available.

Most of the time when we choose something, we keep thinking about the options that we had available to us and how our life would have been different had we picked those options. But the best thing after making a decision is not to think about the past options but to be firm and think positive about the option picked.

Monsoon Magic @ Malshej

The onset of the monsoons with thunders, lightning and heavy rainfall was hugely welcomed by the Mumbaikars as it brought the sizzling summers to an end. As rainy days are meant for exploring outdoors using various adventurous activities, Team Mumbai decided to indulge in the monsoon magic.

Sharp gray cells brought back memories of Mumbai’s debutant outing to the rain kissed lush mountains of Malshej Ghat full of mist rendering a walk in the clouds. While the trip organizers plunged into making arrangements, announcement mailers were sent introducing the ‘La Destination De Choix’ as an exotic locale in the Sahyadri hills of the Western Ghats, extremely enticing under dark clouds and dense fog.

4th July 2010 dawned with cloudy skies in Mumbai charging the CSPians with enthusiasm. The trip kick-started by loading the bus specially booked for the event, with delicious and healthy gourmet.

Zooming from streets to highways, striking against the names of attendees, before long the bus was full of vivacious CSPians. Not wanting to deter their high spirits, the coordinators served breakfast sandwiches and juices energizing the CSPians into oozing chirpy cheer.

What started as a game of Antakshari, instantly turned into a mad chase of songs and syllables. The decibel levels shot up and everyone could sense the unusual fervor in the air. Finally when the human juke boxes were exhausted, a lesser known game Name-a-Brand was started. Slowly and steadily the number of participants grew and the bus was now clearly divided into two armies. Unbothered by the commotion, there were few who were dumbstruck with their close encounter with Mother Nature and preferred to sit back by the window, relax and comfort in the lushness of the beckoning greens.

As the engines roared to enter the Malshej Ghats, greetings unfolded in the forms of foggy skies and amazingly beautiful waterfalls justifying the reputation attached. Every eye tried to catch a glimpse of the captivating dense green valleys, cascading waterfalls & fog-smothered massifs.

Singing and dancing all the way through the turns and curves of the Ghats, we headed towards the Flamingo Resort perched at the edge of a cliff. It overlooks a moist deciduous forest and we saw the rugged mountains towering all around. We were humbled by the sight of the indomitable mountains. We were awestruck by the high velocity winds blowing across and the white clouds that enveloped us. We were so close to the clouds that we could virtually see and feel the clouds transforming into rain drops. Far from the maddening crowds and the dust & din of the usual Mumbai life, we felt as if we were purified from within.

Left all by self, CSPians were busy showcasing their photography skills, while some were savoring hot piping tea, and the rest busy relishing flavorful corn spiced with a little heat from chilli peppers and lime. Nobody wanted to come out of this scintillating realm of experience which was far above our wildest imaginations. But nevertheless, we had to board our bus to proceed to our next place of visit “Shivneri”, the birth place of Shivaji Maharaj - The great Maratha warrior.

We reached the foot of the Shivneri Fort after an hour drive. The route from the resort to the Fort was awesome. The bus was moving along a sloppy and curvy road from one side of the mountain up the slope to the other side of the mountain down the slope.

From the starting point itself, we could see the steep rocks along which the fort is built. We climbed more than 260 huge steps to reach to the top of the Fort with a lot of zeal. A halt on the way for nimbu pani refreshed us all. As we reached the top we were lethargic but the mind boggling bird’s eye view of the Junnar district was rejuvenating. We visited the temple dedicated to Goddess “Shivai Devi” and offered our prayers. King Shivaji was named after this deity. Right on top, is the “Shiv Mandir”, the place where King Shivaji was born. After resting for a while and clicking a lot of photographs we started our trail back.

As nobody had eaten the official lunch, we stopped at the Flamingo Resort on our way back. The caterers took 15 minutes to lay a lavish yummylicious steaming buffet. There was a pin drop silence as the hungry bellies were laid to a rest and the energy slump revived.

Night was falling and almost everybody was feeling sleepy, thanks to the tasty food and the lovely climate outside. A round of dumb charades began soon and this time CSP Mumbai found some wonderful artists. Thereafter, those occupying the front seats fell in the arms of slumber while those at the back grouped together and sang some amazing numbers which doubled as lovely lullabies.

It was as late as 11:30 p.m. when the last batch of tired trekkers alighted in Mumbai to head homewards. It was definitely a trip to remember for all that it stood for; lovely sights, untiring spirits and a wonderful display of team-work by CSP Mumbai.

Why be upset?

There are so many times we get upset over the happenings around us, obviously when we are involved. These can be issues like a blatant statement or a big argument or certain behavior of a friend or a work colleague. We then start analyzing and breaking our heads on its debugging. We try to think why we are facing such situations and tend to wonder why such things occur.

A day back, I found myself in one such situation. It was some change in my colleague’s behavior that blew the fuse of my mind. I tried talking to a good friend, who himself was experiencing a bad day having forgotten his bank password. He tried his level best to make me understand, but it was not like what I was looking for. He tried justifying to me that I had pre-set upon myself a negative set of thoughts and that I should not be feeling bad about my colleague’s behavior. I could not take his opinion at least at that time. May be for a moment, I wanted him to understand me and explain to me the current situation in which I may be right in feeling bad and left-out. May be I wanted his consolation that yes, that girl was doing something incorrect as a result of which I was feeling bad. And yes, she did do something which made me feel that way. I could not talk to him any longer on the call when he tried to tell me that my thought process was wrong. So I decided to resolve it on my own with his inputs.

To start with I reloaded the moral of an article I had recently read: “Understand if the problem that you think exists does really exist before you start working on its resolution”. So I summarized my problem. I noted down each and every pin short circuiting my heart and each and every action of my colleague that had lead to overheating of my mind. Then I tried assessing whether the problem I had stated was really existing. So I asked myself the question(as told to me by my friend): “Is it a right thing that she did?” The answer was ‘Yes’. Then I asked myself, “If she is right in doing what she did, then why am I having a problem with it?” I answered with all the possible reasons justifying each of them. So I tried validating each of the reasons. For eg. I told myself, “Is it wrong to point and show certain places of improvement in the code?” I could not say it was wrong because we all need to work as a team and improve the quality of the deliverable. And just because I felt bad at her pin-pointing attitude, I should not nullify the right thing she was doing. May be her intentions were right but her way of displaying was utterly wrong.

And that’s when I remembered our GEC professor of “Software Engineering” explain to us the concept of “5 Whys” of problem analysis. He had stated that no matter what the problem, it is possible to determine the root cause of a defect or problem. And yes, it had worked for me. I had realized that my nature of disliking sudden changes affected me and made me think totally negatively, which was incorrect and needed improvement. It is okay to dislike changes but it is always appropriate to adjust accordingly within certain time. I was not able to accept her right actions; so I decided to accept them. For each unjustified action, I thought of a proper justified re-action and a display of the same in a controlled manner.

So to summarize, for each and every problem, we need to find a justification and an answer. We need to classify it as a right and a wrong action from a broader perspective, keeping our individual benefits and concerns aside. If it is right, we have to accept it. If it is wrong, we need to properly handle it while remembering not to act according to the flow of emotions. And as we all are human to err, let us try our best to have a second thought before we react sharply to anything that affects us.

A Quote that motivates me forever..

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
- Mark Twain

Team Member Types

It all starts with the type of person working with you. To manage your team members, you need to understand the type of person he/she is. Let me try to explain the various types of people.

First is a category of people “Hyperactive” as I would call them. These people are very hard-working and need continuous flow of work. These type of people want to keep on learning and working all the time. You will hardly find any person belonging to this category either lying idle on facebook/orkut or any other networking websites or easily available for chat on the communicators. They quickly complete the work assigned to them and wait for more to be assigned. These are the attention seekers and hunger praise, well after all they do deserve it after all the amount of hard-work they have put in. If you have too many of these in your tem there is a likelihood of a work drought in your team. From a Lead or Manager’s point of view, they are good resources to be owned. Yet at the same time, they are tough to manage. They are demanding obviously due to their quality of work and can quit if they are not provided with what they desire. If you happen to be a relaxed Lead/Manager, they can royally screw your life first by complaining to you about the mismanagement ofcourse not by directly pointing fingers to you and then by ensuring that you are doing your amount of work on time and according to their pace.

Next is a category of “Useless“ people. I call them so coz they do not give a value add to the team. These can be easily identified by the ones hanging around idle on networking websites or on chat communicators or listening to music while in office. There is a high possibility that they will find hundreds of excuses why the application was not operating on their system and how they had connection issues. They will not finish the work assigned to them. They just seem(or pretend) not to have the brains to make it all work out. Unless the Lead/Manager is after their life, pinging them every now and then, it is difficult to find them working. Most cases, these people are quite intelligent but seem to have kinda lost interest in the current area of work and are stuck at this job.

Next is a category of “Sensible” people. These people mind their own business and finish the assigned tasks in kinda the amount of time assigned. Incase they are unable to finish their work on time, they will ask for more time. They are perfect team members and do not bother their Leads/Managers unless there definitely is a problem. They work good under either hardworking or lazy types of Leads/Managers. They are easy in understanding and compromising according to situations.

Apart from people belonging to above categories, are the special types of people that I would place in the ”Exceptional” category. These special case people are rarely found and stand-out on their own as an individual. These category people do not have anything common amongst them but are just grouped together because of their nature of being unique.

So which type are you?

I Can Cook..

When I was small, my mother used to involve me in her cooking. As a “Puppet” that I would call myself when helping her, my skills were restricted to chopping of vegetables and following the strict instructions of my mother. I would demand the responsibility of cooking an entrée but she would be busy with her own.

So being left with no chance of cooking something for the main course, I would try cooking some sweet dishes or some snacks. Sometimes they would turn out good and my brothers would praise me. The other times I had to finish ‘em myself. I remember this one particular time I attempted to make something called "Mango Fool". It was a recipe from my favorite cookbook (actually the only one I had) which instructed me to whip together fresh Milk cream, Mango puree, sugar and vanilla essence. I used my mom’s mixie and poured the contents into few finest Glasses. I served my brothers but they were not interested in relishing the mango fool. When I tasted it, I didn’t like its thick creamy consistency and finding nobody to buy it I decided to drain it into the wash basin. But then came my father, who seemed to have got a perfect opportunity to teach his daughter the lesson of how not to waste food and how to cook sensible recipes that would actually make good food. So he made me drink that “fool” glass while I was weeping and my brothers laughing at my foolishness. Now when I think of it, I guess it was a good learning experience coz I learnt to mentally visualize and taste the food cooked according to the ingredients and the instructions.

With all the lessons learnt, my culinary passions continued till the end of college by which I had mastered steaming puddings, baking cookies and cakes and frying parathas and pancakes.

Then came a time when I came to Mumbai on my first job posting and I took accomodation in a PG. Here all girls used to cook their own food. And I being alone and new amongst this Mumbai crowd didn’t know where and how to start cooking. I started with simple vegetarian recipes I knew because now I was introduced to a new concept of Vegetarian people who would not eat meat or eggs and could not either bear the smell of it(so unheard in Goa). Later I teamed with another Goan girl who had joined me in my company as a colleague and in my PG as a roomie. Remembering my mother’s basic cooking tip we could cook any vegetable altering either the masalas or the vegetables: “Heat Oil, Add Mustard/Cumin, Add Green chilies and onion, When Onions turn brown add tomato and masalas, Finally add the vegetables”.

My PG roomies in Mumbai and my company colleagues staying with me during my stay in UK also helped me learn multiple Indian recipes which were added to my Indo-Goan cuisine.

On this post, I think it is worth mentioning few words about my famous “Dal Makhani” that I happened to cook once in UK on some random thoughts. My colleagues-cum-friends liked it so much that they did do anything to make me cook it. I was new to this kind of flattery that I received and I must agree that I liked it so much that I would cook it on every request of theirs.

Now when I see my journey as a cook, I believe I can cook. Cooking is something I enjoy doing and forget my life’s tensions and worries. Finally thanks to the notions of my friends who believe I can cook and show others to cook, I am planning of publishing a cookery book “I Can Cook”. I will post a few recipes and wait for your comments to know whether I should really go ahead and give it a try.

Blind Faith

Religion is a very delicate issues to talk/write about. Everybody has sentiments associated. So when you decide you want to say or write anything you have to be very careful.

I was reading an article today where one of the Politicians was accepting moral responsibility for the demolition of the Babri Masjid. And a few thoughts crossed my mind.

Where does God tell us stop praying, but ensure that the place where He was born, the place He lived, the clothes He wore need to be maintained no matter what it takes. Did he ever say that we can kill each other and hurt each other only to maintain/preserve the materialistc things of the world? Why do we forget that when we will die none of these earthly things will remain with us?

We say we believe in God and our Religion. But our practice are such that that even God will not approve them.