Eleven!!!!

Nancy has tagged me with a tag that is presently becoming very popular in blogosphere. I see this tag making its rounds in different blogs. Now, here goes my turn to attempt this. The rules are as follows.


1. You must post the rules.
2. Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post & then create 11 new questions to ask the people you’ve tagged.
3. Tag 11 people and link to them on your post.
4. Let them know you’ve tagged them!

1. If you could have any superpower, what would it be?
Without doubt, it would be the power to become invisible as and when I feel like. This will give me the chance to travel all around the world, investigate the unsolved crimes and find the criminals, find the corrupt politicians, secretly discover whether the celebrity gossips are true and the list goes on ;-).


2. What was your favourite childhood television program?
    I have a penchant for crime fiction right from childhood. This was first discovered through the serial called ‘Tehkikaat’ that was aired on Doordarshan. I used to eagerly wait for the fresh episode every week and loved the two central characters called Sam D’Silva and Gopi. Another serial that I really liked was ‘Alif Laila’, the picturisation of the ‘The Arabian Nights’.


3. Have / had any celebrity crushes ?
    I have never had any celebrity crushes but I like all the characters played by Hrithik Roshan, especially, emperor Akbar in the movie ‘Jodha Akbar’. I had a crush on Akbar after watching that movie ;-).


4. If you could visit anywhere in the world, where would you go?
    I cannot choose a single place. I would love to go on a world tour.


5. Name 1 thing you miss about being a child.
   I am happy in my present state when compared to my childhood but I really miss the long 2 months of summer vacation during school.


6. Name the one comic/book character that you loved the most and why?
    I like all characters created by Enid Blyton but the best two of my choice are Julian of ‘The Famous Five’ series and Darrel of ‘Malory Towers’ series. Both Julian and Darrel appeared highly mature, sensible, reliable, composed and bold. I loved these two.

7. What is the one thing that you are dying to try but haven’t had a chance to do so yet?
    One thing that I want to do is to climb on an elephant. I imagine myself sitting on the elephant, feeling really g rand.


8. Do you have a role model – someone you want to emulate? Whom do you admire the most?
    There are many people who have inspired me but then, I feel it is best not to have a role model. Just be yourself and follow your instincts.


9. What do others make of you?
     Ahem…. I am not sure.


10. Have you ever gotten into a fight or punched someone?
      I have felt like punching many people, especially those male chauvinistic pigs who have no respect for women. I have not punched but I have gotten into pleasant/unpleasant arguments.


11. For Girls – If you woke up tomorrow to find out you are Brad Pitt, what would be the first thing you’d say upon looking in the mirror???
For Boys – If you woke up tomorrow to find out you are Angelina Jolie, what would be the first thing you’d say upon looking in the mirror???

Pretty bad I let go Jenny :(

I am too lazy to prepare a new set of questions. With the same set of questions, I tag

1. My Era

2. Rohan

3. Renu

4. Bubblegum

5. Lostworld

Friendship breaking Factors

All through my life, I have seen a lot of friendships breaking. I have also experienced the same. Basically, I am a very friendly person by nature. But still, I don’t get very close unless I feel I am absolutely comfortable with the other person. Once I get close, it is for life. But still, I have also experienced harsh breakages. Not that I never made any effort to sustain those friendships, but they just never worked and I let them go. From my experience, there are a lot of factors that break friendships. In this post, I am going to jot down those factors.

Interfering in personal freedom

All of us need freedom at a personal level. We all have a certain comfort level with people indulging in our personal lives, we set some limits up to which another person can take freedom in us, we like to keep some of our personal secrets all to ourselves by not telling even the closest friends, spouse, parents and siblings, we like to make our own decisions without any external interference, we may like to be all on our own at times etc. Do you think that being the best friend of a person gives us the freedom to interfere in somebody’s personal decisions? Do you think it is correct to encroach into somebody else’s personal space? I had this friend in college who at the slightest opportunity, used to go through the Messages Inbox of my mobile; a fact I was not comfortable in putting up with. Not that I stored some dark secret there that nobody was supposed to see. But, I used to feel as if she was trying to investigate me and it used to make me mad. She also had this tendency to jump up and see the message that came to my mobile when it beeped to announce an incoming message. She also used to try to prevent me from interacting with somebody she did not like. At the same time, I never tried to stop her from being friendly with somebody with whom I had a problem. Due to all these factors, I used to feel highly suffocated in her presence until one day, I had to speak out and tell her what I thought of all her actions. Do I need to tell you that, that friendship does not exist now?

Emotional Blackmailing

This gives us a red signal about the person that he/she is not going to last very long in our life. This person always starts with “If you are my friend, you should ________________________”.This is also another factor that interferes with our personal freedom. We always stay in a constant fear as to what the person will think if we do certain actions. If you find such a ‘friend’ existing in your life, better think twice before proceeding with such a friendship. These people can burden you and make your life miserable.

Emission of negative energy

I know a person who has had too many tragedies in his life. These tragedies include a messy divorce of his parents, the mysterious death of his father and many other family problems that were too much for him to bear. He was an only son and did not even have siblings with whom he could share his grief. All these misfortunes made him a chronic negative thinker. His friends were more than willing to help him but he never tried to follow their advice even when he was the one who asked for it. Recently, I spoke to one of his friends who said that he started getting irritated because of this guy’s negative attitude and has stopped being in touch with him.
Another category of people always tries to induce negative things into you and try to pull you down. These people call themselves ‘your friend’ but they are never your well-wishers. They never support or encourage you in your endeavors and feel jealous of your achievements. Also, they badmouth you behind your back and try to get others to think about you in a bad way. After reading this, did somebody’s face popup in your mind? Better cut all ties with that person.

Selfishness

Some people befriend you solely for their selfish reasons. The friend that I mentioned in Point No.1 always used to make me feel as if I am being just used by her. When I say ‘used’, it means she just wanted me to satisfy her basic needs of going on errands, to accompany her to certain places like restaurants and shops, to get things done for her etc. All she thought about the times we were spending together was herself. I did not receive any real love or friendship from her and I used to feel very sad by her attitude. The numerous times I had tried to talk to her about this turned out to be ugly fights.

I have had broken friendships due to all these factors. It is a wise decision to not burden yourself for the sake of friendship when you strongly feel that you will be better off in life without a particular ‘friend’. Once upon a time, I was too naïve to understand all this. But, after removing and cutting ties with certain people, I have really had mental peace and happiness. Retain all the pure friendships of your life. Others are not friends, they are like cancerous growths that need to be chopped off.

Have you had bad 'friendship' experiences?

What is Confidence?

The word 'confidence' is one of the most commonly used words in corporate life. Ever since I started my career, I have been hearing this word constantly from my seniors, friends and colleagues.

My idea about confidence is the ability to present oneself without showing any inhibition through facial expressions or your body language and to freely communicate your ideas to others. Confidence is the fearlessness with which you speak your mind with utmost conviction and to stand up for what you feel is right. When you are sure about something you want to say or do, confidence automatically comes to you. In corporate life, the ability to show that you are a ‘know-it-all’ while knowing nothing is also considered as being confident. According to me, if you have the positive attitude to learn something that you don’t know and then take the trouble to do your job, it can also be attributed as confidence.

I have seen that many people DO NOT accept their weaknesses and mistakes with the grace they accept their strengths and achievements. We are always set to brag about our strengths and achievements but most of us always have this tendency to blame another person for the mistakes we commit and switch on our defensive mode when we are held accountable for something that went wrong. I don’t consider that as confidence and in fact, I feel it is purely arrogance or ignorance on their part. Very few people accept their faults and try to make amends or apologize. I strongly feel that a person is fully confident only when he/she is bold enough to accept his/her weaknesses and mistakes gracefully. In my opinion, that aspect also shows that person’s humbleness.

What is confidence, in your opinion?

PS: Please bear with me if I take some time to respond to comments. These days, I don't have access to the Internet all the time and I am also quite busy with work. I am free only during the weekends and this is the only time I get to catch up with everything happening in the Blogosphere. I read all your posts and comment for some. I am very much here even though I may appear to be missing :-).

Please Understand Us!!!!

I am writing this post on behalf of the ever-growing community of IT Professionals. If you are able to relate to the points mentioned below (as the overall public, autowallah or hostel/PG owners or as an IT professional) in any way, it is purely intentional.

@The Overall public

•  Being an IT professional does not mean that you always have to go abroad for project related work. Going onsite or abroad depends on the type of project that you are involved in. If you are working in a project that does not have any requirements abroad, you will not go abroad. You will go abroad only if there are opportunities/requirements in the project you work.
• Also, if an IT Pro has not gone abroad, it is not because he/she is a poor performer at work. That again attributes to Point 1.
• Please don’t think that we cannot get tired after work hours just because we sit in front of a computer system in an AC room. We may not have any physical labor but we do have to slog long hours using our eyes and brains (working with brains also consume a lot of energy. Are you not aware of that?) under tight deadlines for clients whose tempers flare at even the slightest delay or mistake.
• You don’t have to look at a person with sympathy because he/she does not work for a brand like Infosys, TCS, Wipro, CTS, IBM etc. There are small IT firms that provide really good opportunities to grow or as a professional and there are people who are extremely happy and satisfied working in these so-called ‘small’ companies.
• At your prodding, when a person who works in a ‘small’ company tells you about his/her salary package, don’t look at them incredulously because it is equivalent to insulting him/her. There are ‘small’ companies that are capable of paying really good salaries. As such, why do you need to know somebody’s salary?????
• If a girl working in the IT sector has rejected your son/brother/brother-in-law during a wedding proposal phase due to some reason, it does not mean that all the girls who are IT professionals are self-centered, snobbish creatures who are incompetent of running a family. There is no rule or written agreement that every girl should like and accept your son/brother/brother-in-law in marriage.

@The Auto wallahs

Just because you pick us up from Technopark/Infopark or any other IT park, don’t charge us with double the amount for the same distance you take a ‘non-IT’ person. After all, there are no money trees in our office to climb and pluck money from. We too get hard earned money for the long slogging hours that we spend in the office. Please have some courtesy when you charge money for your services.

@The Hostel/Paying Guest facility owners

Don’t keep increasing the rent and decreasing the quality of food mercilessly. As I told the autowallahs, there are no ‘money-trees’ in our office. Please be reasonable when you increase the rent. If at all you increase, please take some care in keeping our rooms and toilets clean and also to maintain the quality of the food you serve at a certain level.

Awarded and Tagged :-)

Renu has awarded me with a Versatile Blogger award. It has been a long time since I got an award and it has really made me feel very important. Thanks Renuji!!!

The rules for Versatile Blogger award are,

1. Add a picture of the award in your post.

2. Thank the award giver.

3. Share 7 random facts about you.

4. Choose 15 other bloggers to pass the award to and let them know that they’ve been nominated.

The following are the seven random facts about me,

1. I day-dream a lot….a lot means… a lot. At times, I will be so engrossed in my world of fantasies that I don’t even notice when somebody calls me by my name.
2. I am not joking when I say people ask me in which class I study in or which school I go to. People say I look very young for my age and look at me in disbelief when I tell them I have been working for the last 3+ years.  I feel secretly pleased when I hear this and fancy myself as a ‘Santoor’ mommy a few years down the lane ;).
3. Unlike many people, I am an ardent fan of changes. Every once in a while, I like having a change in routine, a change in location  or any kind of positive change that brings a smile to my face. Doing the same things every day bore me to the core.
4. I like being with people who radiate positive energy. I am not a highly positive person, but at the same time, I can boost a person’s mood if he/she is feeling down. I fear people who try to pull me down with negative thoughts and feelings.
5. I don’t make friends that easily in the real world. I behave with people in a friendly way but only a few go on to become very close.
6. When I was 4 years old, I almost drowned in a pool. A boy who was of my age pushed me into it while we were playing in the garden. The gardener saw me drowning and pulled me out on time.
7. My mom says that generally, girls are easier to bring up than boys. But, according to her experience, I was the difficult kid to bring up; exactly opposite to my brother who was a very easy and obedient kid.

I don’t have a lot of people to pass on this award because I think almost all bloggers have already got this. So, I pass on this award to only Rohan. Let me see whether this will bring him back to writing :-)