I am unique ... or 'Add Value'

Always remember you're unique. Just like everyone else.

In today's world, one of the most important thing people want is to be unique. You can succeed only if you are unique. Only if you are different. So, there is constant urge to be different and unique. The problem happens when everyone does that. One professor (not very good at statistics) said proudly, "all the students in my class are above average!" Try telling him that it is statiscally impossible. All the advertisements say how that particular product or brand is different. What is your USP, unique selling proposition? Just imagine, if someone advertises, "Our soap is good, but it is like every other soap", will we buy it?

In the professional place too, people want to stand out. Read recently an article on organisational issues. How everyone is adding value to company's efforts these days, and why it has become even counter productive! Here are some excerpts for us all to muse...

"The trend of 'adding value' is taking the corporate world by storm. This has transformed into an addiction to excellence as we are always, consciously or subconsciously, looking to add value. Everything from meetings to brainstorming sessions to the simplest discussions moves to a solemn plane. It is not about sharing opinions, solving problems or generating ideas anymore, but has more to do with squelching others and scoring one over everyone else.

For instance, picture this: A person just starts floating a simple idea, only to have everybody else interrupting with different (read:better) ways to tackle the issue. Nobody is willing to listen, minds only whir to churn out another way of doing things. And, obviously the best one is always 'my way'.

It is goodbye to teamwork and collaboration. The overpowering drive to add value does yield instant positive effects by way of an initial motivation and spur in productivity, but not for long. It is not sustainable and soon poisons the entire atmosphere."

After reading this and learning an important thing in life, I have decided not to add value to the world and just be like everyone else and accept others' views. I have decided today not to try to be unique. But, till everyone else also changes, that is an unique thing to do! Aha!

Teachers - Unfair treatment

Teacher : "Ravi, if two and two is four, how much is twenty and twenty?"
Ravi : " That is not fair! You always do the easy ones and leave the hard ones for me."

Teaching profession is a difficult thing. Especially in the primary school level. If more than twenty years of your life are spent in interacting with very small kids, something will surely change in your mindset about the world, isn't it? Imagine, always living in a world where you knew all the answers. And, only you knew all the answers and no one else around you! You better be, when it is you who ask the questions in the first place...

Isn't there a danger of we getting a superiority complex when we are always surrounded by students with 'less' knowledge? When day in and day out, we keep 'teaching' them what they do not know?

And, like in the joke on top, you can answer easy questions and leave all the hard ones to the kids. Modern education system motivates the teachers to be friendly with the children, treat them as equals and importantly, to be honest with the kids. But, when I was a kid and went through one Government school after another in my school years, teachers were the most powerful creatures in the world. They did not teach us concepts or the logic behind many things - but merely made me get very good marks in the examinations, I guess. But, my reverence to some of them still stays. I thought at that time that they knew everything.

And, I can remember, some of them were quite charismatic! Being in a small town, they took liberty and went overboard - some of them kept cracking jokes, a few used to come to the school in white shirt and white pant; pop unbelievable questions in maths at you, but solve them in a few minutes; when we give answer sheets, they will tell you (without looking at it) the mistakes we would have made! My Tamil teacher, while teaching poetry, used to sing them all. High pitch and all that. I wish, we had such colourful personalities around us today...

The ancient practice of guru-shishya is gone now. Teaching is also a profession, even though some of them have passion to it. The personal link that a teacher enjoyed with the children and their families is gone now. We have big factories churning out students with impossibly high marks.

Personally for me, I will never be able to teach small children. I am sure, I will fail miserably. But, I enjoy teaching adults. The problem is that I know so little which adults want to learn. So, it is restricted to things like debit and credit, and of late, something to do with computers. Even there, I do the two and two, and give off the twenty and twenty to them!

Blessed in Gudalur!

For the last three or four months, I am blessed a lot. Almost every day, six or seven times, people bless me. I am having a sneezing fit and various medications are able to control only to a limited extent. I am blessed only in Gudalur, because when I go out of Gudalur for a few days, my sneezing stops. So, if I want to be blessed, I must stay in Gudalur!

The easier way is to get used to sneezing and that is what I am doing now.

But, people around me are blessing me whenever I sneeze. In my childhood, never heard of it. If we get hiccoughs while eating, my mother will say, "Somebody is thinking about you!". Nice sentimental thing to say. But, sneezing? No, we were never blessed in our little towns of Tamilnadu. So, what is this ritual?

There are many stories about the origin of this 'Bless You' ritual. Tried to search in the net and got some interesting facts. The most popular explanations were two.

One, most people believed that the heart stops when you sneeze, and the phrase "bless you" is meant to ensure the return of life or to encourage your heart to continue beating. This sounds quite scientific, but surely is not true. Because, people are blessing me only during the last couple of years, even though I started sneezing right from my childhood and still managed to survive and my heart didn't seem to have stopped.

Two, - and I like this - Your soul can be thrown from your body when you sneeze, and saying "bless you" prevents your soul from being stolen by Satan or some evil spirit. Thus, "bless you" or "God bless you" is used as a sort of shield against evil. Some people have even written that, this stops evil spirit from entering into our body through the mouth and throat.

If this were true, I am the most soulless person during the last four months. The way I have been sneezing, any soul - if there was one - would have decided to quit and gone in search of a more comfortable place to live.

However, the current breed of doctors are just saying that it is not so much a shield against evil spirits as against bacteria and the like. "Bless you" in response to a sneeze might be to bless or thank a person who sneezes but covers his or her mouth and nose with a tissue, handkerchief or even a sleeve as an act of concern and courtesy to others, in order to avoid spreading the germs expelled so as not to sicken other people. Presumably, a person who fails to demonstrate such concern and courtesy by not covering the mouth and nose during a sneeze would not be blessed or thanked.

But, many bloggers have written that these days, one says "Bless you!" because it is expected, not out of concern for the wellbeing of the sneezer's soul or a need to disassociate oneself from the dying. It is more a socially done thing. Saying 'Bless You!' has become as much an involuntary or beyond-our-control thing like sneezing itself.

Nowadays, if I start sneezing, it is not just once. My nose will be satisfied only if there are four or five episodes. People trying to bless me are having a tough time catching up with me. Is there any norm for such quick-succession of sneezes? Apparently, there is. "During a multiple sneeze episode, bless once after the first sneeze and once after the last. Blessing each time gets tiring." Lo! But, I wonder how they will know this is the last one and I am not going to sneeze after that?



There are other interesting facts as well. Sneezing can send tiny particles speeding out of your nose at up to 100 miles per hour! Wow! Scientists should start devising methods to harness this enormous energy. Invent some small machine (in the shape and size of a napkin, of course) which can store this energy into a battery or something when people sneeze, and use it to light your torch or calculator or something like that.

I have seen cats and dogs also sneeze. It seems, except squirrels, almost all the animals sneeze. Why not Squirrels? There you have me. I wouldn't go near an elephant when it sneezes. But, a cat sneezing is supposed to be a good omen for everyone who hears it. Other superstitions say that a cat sneezing once means there will be rain; if a cat sneezes three times, the family will catch a cold; and a sneezing cat is a sign of future wealth.

It may be good to have a sneezing cat around. But, many people start sneezing when there is any cat around! Cat-22 problem?

Obama and Change

The most buzzing word in the world today is Change. Obama has given it a fillip in this Presidential election that no other word would have got. But, can he change things? Got this cartoon from Premila today saying there isn't any big change in Obama becoming the President of America. Click on it to read the letters!

I too am quite doubtful - what one man can do? Born and brought up with Democratic ideals and the virtues of parliament, I am a bit sceptical about the electoral system of America which talks so much about the White House, but not so much about the Congressmen and Senators.

But, on the other hand, if one man can cause so much havoc in the world, we can just hope another man can also cause change! It took just one George W. Bush to bring America to such a stage - unilateralism in world affairs, unwanted war in Iraq, global financial turmoil (even as late as yesterday, he said in the G-20 meetings that we should all swear by unlimited capitalism and free market and warned us that we should not go back to 'protect the economy'!).

One thing is already evident. He has already inspired our politicians in India. Each one clamouring to say that change is coming to India and he (or She) is the Indian Obama. Is Mayawati the Obama of India? Is actor Chiranjeevi the Obama of Andhra Pradesh? While talking about our office accounts, I almost said, "let us change this voucher. Yes, we can", and felt like the Obama of Thottamoola road!

Anyway, inspiring people is one thing. Inspiring machinery (the official one) is another. The bureaucracy, state systems, national and international institutions etc. are so much clogged that I wonder whether any one person - however inspiring - can do anything. Let us hope that Obama can bring about a change and optimism in the minds of young people about politics.

Long Nose

We have heard of people unnecessarily interfering in other people's affairs. We get annoyed with them, saying "don't poke your nose in other people's affairs!". But, some people have really a big problem. A long Nose.


The Young World magazine of Hindu says,

"The largest human nose ever recorded was that of Englishman, Thomas Weders who lived in the 18th century. It was almost 19 cm long."

Can you believe it? While walking hither and thither, he would have surely poked his nose in everyone's affairs around. Poor chap.


I am known to be an introvert, minding my own business. For all my other faults, no one can accuse me of one thing. Of poking my nose in other people's lives! I can prove it, My nose is exactly 3.6 cm!

Yours?

40 tips for better life - Part 4 of 4

Here is the last part of the serial.

31. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.

32. The best is yet to come.

33. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.

34. Do the right thing!

35. Call your family often.

36. Your inner most is always happy. So be happy.

37. Each day give something good to others.

38. Don't over do. Keep your limits.

39. When you awake alive in the morning, thank GOD for it.

40. Please Forward this to everyone you care about.

Phew.. That does it. I should remember to have a very long life so as to put all these 40 tips into practice. I wish the author had given the tip no.38 right in the beginning. I would have cut short this list and provided a condensed, abridged version of "Just 3 glorious tips for a better life" or something like that.

Lunar Land Grab

Whole of India is proud of our Chandrayaan success! Indian scientists successfully sent the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, India's first unmanned scientific mission to the moon. With the successful launch of Chandrayaan, India now has joined an exclusive club of nations including the US, former Soviet Union, European Space Agency, China and Japan to have sent missions to moon.

OK, as a patriotic Indian, I am happy and pround of this achievement by our scientific community and all that. But, I always wondered why go to moon at all. It is such a nice thing, all alone far away from all our human endeavours. One of the few romantic things left in life. Even at this ripe age, walking in / observing a full moon makes me glow and wonderful.

Why are our scientists keen on going to Moon?

Along with expressing their happiness on the historic moment, the country's top space scientists said in unison that with the first lunar mission from India, the country had entered a new era of planetary exploration.

Brought up with sentimental songs about moon right from childhood, it is a special thing and one would like to keep it going that way. This planetary exploration will surely erase all those sentimental and romantic stuff and will translate moon merely in terms of minerals and oxygen and yes, helium-3.

One of India's aims in reaching the moon is the possibility of harvesting helium 3, a key fuel for nuclear fusion. Although fusion is not commercially viable today, scientists say it one day will be, and that once it is a fuel, supply will become a problem, as the earth is believed to have only 15 tonnes of helium 3. The moon is thought to contain upto 5 milliion tonnes.

Oh my God! Surely this is the end of my dear moon. After finishing the coals of our tribal jungles and oil in remotest of places (after causing melting of ice in Alaska with exploration activities), now man has put a foot on moon also with this mission. It may be a small step today, but ironically, a giant step for the human kind in destroying moon and fighting over its resources. Now, countries will try to fight over the lunar territory?

Officials at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) remain tight-lipped about the possibility of a lunar land grab. U.R.Rao, a former director of ISRO, was less taciturn, pointing out that the moon might have 'enough helium 3 to produce energy for 8000 years'.

This view echoes that of the head of China's Chang's project, who told the China Daily in 2006 that 'each year three space shuttle missions could bring enough helium 3 for all human beings across the world.

If moon is any wiser, it should immediately release all its helium-3 into the space or wherever and free itself of any material that will be of interest to man. Otherwise, after some years, our kinds will be taught this way only :

நிலா நிலா ஓடி வா
நில்லாமல் ஓடி வா
மலை மேலே ஏறி வா
ஹீலியம்-த்ரீ கொண்டு வா

And, within a few years, I am sure we will manage to bring power-cuts into moon as well. Every Monday night, India will have lunar power-cut from 10 to 11 PM etc. Or, we will have two or three New Moons in a month; and the Full Moon will be restricted to once in 6 months or some such thing.

Instead of being romantic, the moon light may become like hot sun and lovers will associate moon only with their fights rather than the long lingering walks.

Why can't we leave nice things as they are?

To keep the Equilibrium

Quite a few people think that I am useless. This is a majority and I am happy to say that I too subscribe to this view. However, there is a lunatic fringe which considers me as a very useful person dedicated to my work and convictions. And, what not! This fringe seems to be growing and I am alarmed!

I need to take steps. I invite this group to visit my home. If you can come to my parent's place, still better. Just a few days of stay there will dispel any myth you may have about my utility and helping tendencies. A perfect slob and an invalid-by-choice will be on display. While all the womenfolk slog it out in the kitchen and elsewhere, you can witness Manoharan passively consuming all the delicacies and read and drink (tea) and sleep.


During Diwali 2008, I came out with an intellectual explanation for this criminal laziness.

"I do this to keep the equilibrium of my image and get a thick edge which insulates me from the adulation of the misinformed folks.

I help them join the mainstream."

Are you in the mainstream or in the lunatic fringe?