The urge to succeed

"How did you become this successful ? " a young boy asks Socrates - the Greek philosopher. Socrates takes this boy to a near by river and the drowns the boy's head into the flowing water. The boy tries to set himself free to gasp some air but Socrates tightens his grip over the boy's neck. After two minutes the boy through his effort gets himself released from the clutches of the philosopher and the pale turned boy looks up to Socrates in disdain. Socrates grins at the boy and says " what did you want when you were underwater "? "Air" - the boy replies. Socrates with a stern voice says "if you want success as badly as you wanted air, you will succeed".

The above four lines means a whole lot in one's life - if one can draw parallels to the story - If success is treated as the only thing for survival, then success is guaranteed. Success should never be an option, it should be the prerogative. There should always be a craving in you to succeed in whatever you do.

Success means different things to different people - If you are an archer try to become William Tell, if you are an aspiring football player - Messi should be your pick, or when it comes to tech stuff - Never settle for anything less than Steve Jobs or if you are the business of stock markets - Soros should be your benchmark.

Always pick a person whom you can associate with and slowly march towards them and one day you will definitely get past them.

Success is not attained sitting on a La-Z-Boy recliner - it is achieved by greased shirts. Success is not easy - the windows auto-correct for success is "hard-work" and unstinted devotion to the goal. There was once an art Connoisseur who is immensely moved by the master's depiction of the guernica bombing by the Germans - and exclaims " I would give my life for creating such a master-piece". Master in his mellowed voice replies " I did give".

That is the degree of hard-work we are talking about. There are about half a billion babies added to the planet every year. Only a handful of them grow up to be achievers. what makes them different from the rest? the answer is simple - hard work and more hard work.

We are living in a world where free-thought is highly revered. A person's intellects fetches more ROI than a block of cash. Google was born in a garage in Menlo Park in 1996 as a project in the Stanford University. The initial funding for Google was a $ 100,000 check from Andy Bechtolsheim, Co-founder of Sun Microsystems. Today Google is worshiped and is currently a $ 166 billion company. Google is a classic example of where your intellect can take you.

Mere survival in this world without leaving a mark is an insult to the creator. Japan after the nuclear debacle has come a long way to be the country with second largest foreign exchange reserve in the world of $ 1 trillion. All this was built from shambles. If Japan can do it - why not anyone?

An urge to succeed supported by a strong will will lead us to glory!

Where do you belong?

Roshan gets up in the morning later than his usual time and grudges at his alarm clock and nudges past chaotic city traffic to his programming job. This is his daily routine and all through his work hours his mind is somewhere else - Books ! Yeah, he always wanted to be an author but his financial condition did not give him that freedom. So here he is, crunching some monotonous codes, debugging some bugs, and answering some on-site calls at ungodly hours. All for what - Money! Does he get to follow his dream of being an author? Only he got to tell.

How many of us have the guts and kill in us to do what our heart thrives upon, where the your passion lies? Very few people take up things which are close to their heart, most of the people follow their mind. Mind follows money.

I'm no different. I've been chasing money and doing something which dosent give me the satisfaction. Do I atleast take time off to do things which are closer to my heart? Not till date. But now the time has come.

I've always had this urge for doing a trip to himalayas for a long long time. Its still unsatiated due to nature of work I do. I feel i should take a sabbatical sometime and make a visit to the god of the mountains the Himalayas.

Waking up to the nerve breaking chill, putting on you hiking shoes and scaling the himalayas is like a dream for me. A bath in the one of the natural geyser will be just amazing. I will also make a trip to Mt. Kailash (meaning Crystal in Sanskrit - so is the place) - the abode of Lord Shiva and take a dip in Manasarovar - the purest lake in the world.

My next wish in my bucket list is to make a trip to the Khadrung-La - The highest motorable pass. Sipping a tea out there would be my life's most fulfilling moment.

I would also like to spend atleast a month in Leh, Meditate at the shanthi stupa and live life on bare minimum necessities. I want to be snapped of communication with the outside world, have just a back pack with stuff which will make just make me survive.. I would want to be like Christopher McCandless - enjoying my solitude in the land of purity/sernity/divinty call it anything

Himalayas is like Shangri-La to me- the land of no worry, outside the human interference and a place where serenity still prevails....

So when is this desire of mine be fulfilled, I wont say the usual dialogue "The time will tell" may be it will... but I will make it happen...

My time has come. My footprints in Himalayas are not far away... My Salute to the great Himalayan mountain! That is where I belong!

Signing off....
Ramki

Jillinu oru life: Review of Vinnai Thaandi Varuvaaya!!

Jillinu oru life: Review of VTV!

Review of Vinnai Thaandi Varuvaaya!!

I Got to watch the vinnai thaandi varuvaaya this sunday. Went in with lots of hype created around the movie.

The movie started with the usual girl-boy relationship, the boy madly in love with the girl, the girl being one year elder to him and caste issue being at the fulcrum of the love story.

But I felt something fresh in this movie - Simbhu - sporting a guy - next door looks, Trisha - Never found her so beautiful - she is fresh as an apple. Every reel of the film has been shot with a feel in the heart which could be sensed from the picturesque the movie has turned into.



The shot in the final leg of the movie where Simbhu - describes his new found girl which happens to be trisha, Romance was up in the Air!!

The songs have been shot in jaw-dropping locations and Trisha looks eye-candy all through the movie.

Overall an amazing light hearted feel-good factor traversed my heart as i was leaving the theater.

I will watch it one more time for sure - this time not to miss the first song - Hosanna!!

Ramki

PS: I intentionally have not commented on the music of the film, I never comment on gods!!

Break on through to the other side!

Music - What does it mean to you?

To me music means everything, I embrace music in whatever form it is, be it Acid rock, heavy metal or hindustani. Basically I dont care about the genre of the music. If a song can put you into a state of trans - why care about genre.

I started tripping on english music 2 years back - I was influenced by few of my friends from the previous company and later i got sucked into it. By English music I mean the legendary bands like - The DOORS, Led Zep, The Kinks, Grateful Dead etc.

Listening to the the LedZep's stairway to heaven and no quarters have made me have mood swings - whenever I'm low on morale I play these tracks and i get back to my full vigour. No day passes without listening to Kinks - "You really got me going" - The voice of Dave Davis puts me into a world of "no- worries". Any music lover would love that song - its just a 2.11 minute piece but delivers an ever lasting impact on what music was during the sixties.

If ever God grants me a wish - I would ask me to put me back into 60's where i could grow up listening to these great bands.

And if given a second wish I would want to meet Jim Morrison - the god of music. His song "Light My Fire" made every person in farthest part of planet run crazy. His voice was magical and the songs he has given to the world during his short stay in the earth (he died at 27 - yes same like Jimi Hendrix; Great people die young!) is still raved about. I love this guy just for his attitude. You guys must have heard of this phrase : " Dont live in this world like you rule it; Live it like you dont give a damn whoever rules it". He was a epitome for this phrase.

Let me quote an episode which reiterates this. The Doors was given a chance to perform in the Ed Sullivan's LIVE show - then considered the Mecca for the rock bands. They had to perform their No.1 single - "light my fire". The production manager of the show made one small request to the band and asked them to change one world in their first stanza of the song which goes like this :

"You know that it would be untrue,

You know that I would be a liar,

If I was to say to you

Girl, we couldn't get much higher"

The production manager wanted the last word changed from "higher" to "nicer" as it was provocative and vulgar those days. After some confrontation - the band agreed.

When the show was aired LIVE - Jim continued with the original script and stuck to "higher" as he didnt want to change the song for anyone.After the song was over the band was thrown out of the studio and the remaining contract to perform for 4 more shows were terminated. Ray - the key board and pianist of the band, came to Jim and asked him " Jim, Do you realize that we will not be allowed perform the greatest music show on earth "the Ed Sullivan's show" ?

Bang came the reply " Ray, we just peformed on the Ed Sullivan's show". This shows the attitude which he owns and flaunts.

Apart from the english music scene I also love our Tamil music.My all time favorite is Munbe Vaa.and I love hindi music too! The latest peppy numbers by A.R.Rehman Masakali and Dilli-6 has made me go crazy.

If english music and filmy music makes my head turn, Carnatic music is not far away.

we have been blessed to listen to the likes of Smt. MS Subhulakshmi, Shri. Maharajapuram Santhanam, Shri. Madurai Mani Iyer and other great souls.

"Kurai ondrum illai" rendered by MS soothes every nerve in the body and "Bhaja Govindam" sets in you a sense of self realisation.

Okay let me take a break now. I dont want to bore you guys anymore.

My Farewell letter to my co-workers!

How lucky I'm to have something that makes saying Goodbye so hard

I passed out my CA exams in July 06 and I was almost clueless what I was going to do next. Whether to continue what I was doing till then - Auditing or to try my hands at something new. I somehow landed up a job with ThinkEquity in Oct 2006. the words "equity research" sounded too exciting to me.

As the dust settled I got introduced to exciting world of equities. There was not one day I repented my decision for taking up the equities as my career path. After a while my stint at TEP was like a song so melodious and soothing.

After 30 months or so the time has come for me to depart this beautiful company ( I mean it - it meant everything to me) I want you all to know that I am truly leaving here with mixed feelings; happy about my new career opportunity but sad to be leaving many wonderful friends and colleagues. The last three years as a member of the TEP India team was the best period of my career so far.

I always felt that TEP India was my second home and never felt tired even after staying for 2 days on a trot in office - this place was so enthralling, believe me! I became addictive for staying in office. You guys made the office so beautiful - I doubt whether I would get such a great set of friends in my future professional life.

Now its the time to say goodbye!

I always believe good times are always punctuated and never gets terminated. So our good times together are to continue.

I part with a heavy heart and I'm sure we only part to meet again!

Thanks for everything guys! Please stay in touch - I mean it !

My personal email ID is ramakrish.pt@gamil.com

For good times to come!

Ramki

www.thinkramki.blogspot.com

Go go, they say you got to go!!

The song by Jim Morrison - "Light My Fire" comes calling at these distressed times.

" you know that it would be untrue...
you know that i would be a liar,
If i was to say to you,
Girl i was never fired"

In this tumultuous times getting fired is is like catching a cold so common and contagious. People are just being thrown out of their jobs in a very systematic and smooth manner and Pink is the color in vogue. Axing, sacking and other job cuts adjectives take the headline in all the dailies starting from Financial Times to Mylapore Times. Once the famous hailed upon Wall Street is cracking up and the so called dooms day has become a daily affair. United States, the Goliath of the world's economy was diagnosed a Cancer patient a few months back, sticking to its basics the disease started spreading into other countries and every economy started imploding. The economists of the world are still trying to arrive at a magic formula to treat this cancer which has already taken a toll on the most part of the body. The economists of individual countries though had a different opinion, they thought their economies were intact and was de-coupled from the world's debacle. Yes they thought that the world could take a shelter from a few growth economies like India and China. These countries once considered piping hot economies has started showing signs of influenza. What could a panda and tiger do when the whole forest is on fire.

So is world coming to an end? Are we in for an another depression, apologies, let me be honest, when do we get out of this depression? When do we again see John Thains and Vikram Pandits start raking in millions through bonuses?

Even the world's best economists don't have the answers for these thought-provoking questions. We are in deep muck and it should take years (how many??) before we come on a firm footing.

Whos responsible for all this? or may be whats responsible for all this?

May be that's like the first question in the show - "who wants to be a millionaire?" so easy and so insulting - "Greed". If there are 12 gods as per greek mythology, there are hundreds of gods of greed and Wall street was abode of these gods - One stop shop. Wall Street housed classics like like Bernie Madoffs and Dick fulds (of the Lehman's fame). Wall street people always thought that they were straight descendants of the greek god of wealth Pluto conned every investor (victim of greed??) and company to amass sacks and sacks of money through complex derivative (considered WMDs of the financial world) instruments.

It is often (mis)quoted that even a sweeper in wall street earns about $600K per annum. I used to be surprised at this fact and used to think to myself that may be the wall street analysts and fund managers sitting on high rise building have too many dollars that some of that might overflow on to the roads of the wall St. Wall street was always like wonderland and we were like Alice. I hope atleast now people come out of their perpetual derangement and realize that the cliche "wall street" is now in history books and its time to get on to the main street. The raging bull has been tamed long before!

I'm stopping here right now as I got to get back to my work - hope its still on!!

More to come ... stay tuned..and stay in a job!!