Implementing Disqus comments and trackback & A new blog

I am using Disqus comment system for this blog to provide a wider conversation scope.

I have also started a new blog to review the books I have read at ABookStation and find my review of 'Waiting for the Mahatma' there.

The Right size..

Seth Godin today wrote a post on the right size for an organization and how technology has enabled companies to work with a very few people.

He gives a good examples about deciding the scale of our business.

Creative Computing delivered an MP3 player. That was the unit. Apple changed this and delivered the player, the software, the music store, the headphonesand the retail outlet. Both sold music, ultimately, but Apple choose a far wider unit. Very risky, but it worked.

He gives another example of Ford where scale doesnt look good...

Ford Motor used to hire shepherds to tend Ford sheep on Ford land so they could weave Ford fabric to put on the seats of Ford cars. Today, of course, that's crazy. One day soon there will be car companies that have 200 employees.

What is the right scale for a business ? When should we scale up? When should we ramp down?

I feel when company feels it should expand vertically like Apple did, only if it can dedicate considerable amount of resources to do that and work on it as if it is their original business, if they are going in only for the cost arbitrage, then surely they will fail.

When should they scale down - When they cant invest into improving each part of the solution, then they should considering leaving that.. Taking the bigger scale is tougher, riskier and more rewarding... Even then whereever technology helps anything be done more easily and efficiently, it should be adopted as soon as possible.

One question which arises is what to do with those who are retrenched and lost their jobs.. I feel that if the company is not a dying position, then the best thing is to have some innovations sessions and think of some problems they could solve and get working on them. This way their experience is used, their motivation is increased and it might even contribute unexpectedly to the bottom line ...

Great realizations...& a touching story

I loved the book - Seven Habits of Highly Effective people, it is a great book... It brought about a sea change in me... 

So when I saw the book 'Seven Habits of Highly Effective Families' I wanted to read it to understand what insights Steve has shared in it. 

Apart from things I already know, I liked this lines

The desire to love itself is not love... Love is an act of will - namely an intention and an action. Will also implies choice.. We do not have to love.. We choose to love. No matter how much we may think we are loving if we are in fact not loving, it is because we have chosen to love and therefore do not love despite our best intentions. On the other hand, whenever we do actually exert ourselves in the cause of spiritual growth, it is because we have chosen to do so. The choice to love has been made. 

I will write a detailed review of it somewhere, I just want to share a story which really struck a chord with me... 

I came home from work the other day, and my three and a half year old Brenton met me at the door. He said "Dad, I am a hardworking man!"

I later found out that while my wife had been downstairs, Brenton had emptied a one-and-a-half gallon jug of water from the fridge, most of it on the floor. My wife's initial reaction had been to yell at him and spank him. But instead she stopped herself and said patiently, "Brenton, what are you trying to do?"

"I was trying to be a helping man mom," he replied proudly.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"I washed the dishes for you." 

Sure enough, there on the kitchen table were all the dishes he had washed with the water from the water jug. 

"Well, honey whey did you use the water from the fridge?"

"I couldn't reach the water from the sink."

"Oh!" she said. Then she looked around. "Well what do you think you could do next time that would make less of a mess?" 

He thought about it for a minute. Then his face lit up. " I could do it in the bathroom!" he exclaimed

"The dishes might break in the bathroom," she replied. "But how about this? what if you came and got me and I helped you move a chair in front of the kitchen sink so that you could do the work there?"

"Good Idea!" he exclaimed happily.

"Now what shall we do with this mess?" she asked.

"Well" he said thoughtfully, "we could use a lot of paper towels!" So she gave him a lot of paper towels and she went and got the mop. 

As she was telling what had happened, I realized how important it was that my wife had been able to catch herself between stimus and response. She made a proactive choice. And she was able to do it because she thought about the end in mind. The important thing here is not the clean floor. It's raising the boy. 

It took her about ten minutes to clean up the mess. If she had been reactive, it also would have taken her ten minutes, but the difference would have been that Brenton would have met me at the door and said, "Daddy, I am a bad boy!"

Previous posts on Seven habits here: 1

Best Music Sharing Site for Telugu Songs

I am looking for sites where songs from latest websites are available soon and where they can be embedded into websites. I was doing this from music mazaa. But due to some maintainence it is down these days and though the old embedded songs are working fine in this site, I am not able to embed new songs from music mazaa. Are there any other websites which do this thing for telugu songs? 

I have seen raaga.com, dishant.com but these dont have the share feature.

Ilike.com has this but the problem with ilike is that we ourselves have to upload the song there which is not possible for me. 

Do you know of any sites from which we can embed our playlist in our website where latest albums are updated soon? Any site which can beat the functionality of MusicMazaa? Please let me know. 

Music Post - Jaanaki Jaane Raamaa...

This is a song sung by N V krishnan, a devotional song on Rama.. 

It is very good as the whole environment seems to become peaceful after hearing this.. 

These are the lyrics, but there is lot of dragging for each word, so couldnt write the exact lyrics.. Song embedded below.. enjoy. :) 

Janaki Jaane Raama...By N V Krishnan | Upload Music

Raaamaaaaaa......Raaaamaaaaaaa...... raamaaaaaaaa... 

Jaanaki jaane raamaa, jaanaki jaane ..... 

kadanavidhanam naa hum jaane,

 mokshakavaadam naa hum jaane.. 

jaanaki jane...raamaaaaaa..raaamaaaa..raama..raama.. jaanaki jaane..raama...(rep)

vishaada kaale sakha tvameva.. bhayaandhakare prabha tvameva 

vishaada kaale sakha tvameva.. bhayaandhakare prabha tvameva 

bhavabdhinauka twameva deva..

bhavabdhinauka twameva deva..

bhaje bhavantham ramabhi rama..

bhaje bhavantham ramabhi rama..

jaanaki jane..

dayaasametha sudhaaniketha, chinmakarandha nathamunivrunda.. 

dayaasametha sudhaaniketha, chinmakarandha nathamunivrunda.. 

aagamasaaara, jithasamsaaara.. aaaa...aaaaa...aaa....

aagamasaaara, jithasamsaaara.. aaaa...aaaaa...aaa....

bhajebhavantham manobhi ramaa

bhajebhavantham manobhi ramaa

jaanaki jaane... raama jaanaki jaane.. 

kadanavidhanam naa hum jaane,

 mokshakavadam naa hum jaane.. 

jaanaki jane.. 

Waking up to a dream

Everyone at some point or the other questions what is real in this world. Why things dont work as we expect? How to achieve everlasting happiness? What is the goal of our life on earth? As I was plagued by these questions, I began reading everything I could lay my hands on which remotely covered this topic. 

I have read about the three different schools of thought dvaita (duality), advaita (non-duality), vishishta dvaita ( qualified non-duality) 

Qualified non-duality says that living beings are different from non-living beings and both are different from God and the ultimate aim of human life is to attain Moksha...  I reject this as it is not giving me any other opportunity rather than spending my life in service of God. 

Duality says that each one is different from other God from humans, human from another human, human from non-living beings(matter),  God and matter, between matter and says that each of them depend on God for their existence. It says that humans are bound by Maya and sadhana through Vishnu Bhakti is only way out of it. I reject it due to the same reason as Vishishta Dvaita

Non-Duality doesnt differentiate between anything as says that we are God and everything else is an illusion. Till here it is empowering but it also says that we should understand that the nature of world is misery and we should have eternal longing for Moksha. This  theory was good and empowering but that final line that life on earth is miserable and hence we should long for Moksha makes it unusable in this world. 

(Source: Wikipedia)

After reading all these, I felt that nothing has a rational framework of living on earth, all that they say is that we should always work to attain Moksha.. 

Then I had a chance of going through all the ways of attaining Moksha.. I read the books by Vivekananda about Karma Yoga, Gyana Yoga, Bhakti Yoga and Raja Yoga...Each one says it as 

Karma Yoga: If we do our work without any expectation or attachements with the results, we will ulitmately reach Moksha (taught by Krishna to Arjuna in Bhagavat Gita). It looks good but very difficult to follow as we always tend to associate with the results. 

Bhakti Yoga: If we just surrender to God and love him with all we have, then we will get Mukti.. This path is followed by lot of people like Annamayya, Meera bai etc.. but it doesnt have worldly relevance to me. 

Raja Yoga: Its source is from Patanjali's Ashtanga yoga. 

The eight limbs of Ashtanga Yoga are:

• Yama - code of conduct, self-restraint
• Niyama - religious observances, commitments to practice, such as study and devotion
• Āsana - integration of mind and body through physical activity
• Pranayama - regulation of breath leading to integration of mind and body
• Pratyahara - abstraction of the senses, withdrawal of the senses of perception from their objects
• Dharana - concentration, one-pointedness of mind
• Dhyana - meditation (quiet activity that leads to samadhi)
• Samādhi - the quiet state of blissful awareness, superconscious state.

(Source: Wikipedia). 

This looks like a good way to go, if we have a good guru and we leave everything in the world to work on it. 

Gyana Yoga: It says by observation you will know what is true and what is untrue and you will attain the knowledge to live in this world and attain Moksha.. As seen it doesnt tell anything but asks you to find out based on observation and thought.. And I went ahead with this way....

I didnt find anything which answered this question and I found that I was looking through the lens of objective reality. When I became of aware of the concepts of subjective reality . It says that we are living in a dream world which is created by us and us only. My world is created by me. You are also part of my creation only, you dont exist by yourself but you are part of my consciousness and hence if I want you to exist and if I wish otherwise you will not... I am not my body but something greater than that and if I raise my consciousness to that level, then I will understand that I am in a dream and it is through my body that I am acting in the dream. The dream may end at any time but I will be there. Hence I need not be afraid of anything. Everything is my creation and hence with my thought I have the power to change it.  This is the thing proposed by Buddha. This looks like an empowering model but if we truly believe it then I was thinking of applying it in this world to achieve what I want looks so ridiculously simple as just having a thought about this. I am going to explore this thinking for a while and let you know of the results. 

All we have to do to get that power to is wake up from the dream and understand... 

Blogging Course

Simpleology is offering a free course on blogging... 

And you can get it for free by just writing about it on your blog.. 

i will go through that and review it 

I'm evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they're letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog.

It covers:

• The best blogging techniques.
• How to get traffic to your blog.
• How to turn your blog into money.

I'll let you know what I think once I've had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it's still free.

A Lazy Day

As the first rays of sunlight, 

clear my mind of twilight...

I wake up with hopes great,

of filling a blank slate,

of pouring my passion,

to achieve my mission,

to create something with love,

and gift it to the world to have...

As the sun becomes bright and midday starts,

I wish away my romantic thoughts,

to feed my hunger and spend time in slumber,

to dream again and wake up and wonder,

what happened to the passion and mission?

which were so bright to my vision?

As the lazy day comes to dusky twilight,

I will just wait for the night,

viewing the flock of homecoming dove,

completing a day of toil for love,

teaching me to learn if I will,

its not the dreams that fulfill...

But it is  the sweat to realise the dream

that will make our hearts gleam... :) 

Interesting links from all over

Whenever I read something interesting, I have the urge to share it with you all so that you can also read it. But I am not interested in reproducing it in my blog verbatim or put the link as a post, so I added a linkroller on the right side of this blog with the name 'Interesting Links from all over'. There you can find amazing reads. Keep reading :) 

Get Ready To Vote

We all dream of a great India, an India where there is no corruption, an India which is  united, an India which is happy, an India where everyone is safe, an India where everyone is educated and is in control of his life. 

And luckily we are free, we are not being ruled by some foreign power or a ruthless dictator. Yes I do accept that we have criminals as our leaders, we have people  without right values as our leaders. 

And we all have dreamt of changing these things…And when elections come, seeing the way people get elected by distributing money and liquor etc , we are disheartened. We feel this is never going to change…We often feel that our vote is not going to make a difference… And sadly it seems to be true too

This is from Ramesh Ramanathan, the founder of Janaagraha, an organization which works to increase political awareness among the people says

 

On the politician front: many politicians have told me over the years that the urban middle class is irrelevant. Politicians are market players, they react to the signals they receive from the people. So, this observation is not a value judgement, it’s a statement of reality.

Politics in India is still substantially driven by identities of caste, subcaste, subcommunity within that. Elections are like chess games, with each major party watching whom the others are nominating in each constituency like hawks and then working to break the numbers: getting relatives from the opposition candidate’s family to stand, incentivizing some independent candidates to step up, buying off others who could swing key blocks. With each move, the calculated aim is to splinter the electoral math and nudge the needle by the barest minimum margin for victory.

But its not the right thing just to fold hands and sit… We have to make our voice felt and our vote count.  

Rajesh Jain, the person who started the famous MyToday service, says (Read the post here)

We are 400 million of us. We may not have one voice, but we have a common dream - of an India with more economic freedom, of an India with more personal freedom, of an India where education matters, of an India where good governance is the norm rather than the exception.

What can we do? If its 400 million of us, then surely it should make a difference. But it will make a difference only if we vote, if each of us votes.. We should leave our indifference and apathy and get ready to vote. Most of us think, we dont require anything from the government and hence it doesnt affect us think otherwise… 

Think of the Mumbai attacks - are you sure you are safe?

Think of any thing you wanted to get from a government office - Is the experience great? Do we want it to continue? 

If the answer you get to any of the questions is no, then you can have a shot at improving it or changing it by using the power to vote and selecting leaders with good values… 

So do you have the prerequisite for voting? Have you registered yourself? Do you have a Voter ID card? Even I didnt have it till recently but I have got one myself. Dont be lazy to get it. The people at jaagore  have made it even easier to register yourself. You just have to fill a form and submit at your muncipal office. They will even give you the address of the place you have to submit the form. Lets not lose this chance to improve India and ourselves. 

Lets make our voice heard by voting this time.

Back From Vacation...

Last week I took a one week vacation leave and went home. This was my first one week vacation after 3 years... It felt so good yet so different.. The weather of spring was very good and I had nostalgic memories of my school days when spring meant preparation for the exams. Ate, rested, relaxed and read to heart's content... 

Watched the oscar awards presentation and one quote by Rahman struck a chord with me - "All along my life, I got opportunities to choose between love and hate. I always chose love and it brought me here." I am also of the belief that at every turn we do get options to choose between them and what we choose makes all the difference. 

Thought of reading Silas Marner, but couldnt read beyond first few chapters. On the other side read few novels from telugu called 'Maa manchi Mastaru' which is about how a dedicated principal can change the hearts of the students as well as others in the neighbourhood. Next I read a novel called 'Chikatlo Chirudeepam' which is about how in this fast paced lives of two working parents, children are not getting the love they deserve and how it is affecting their lives. The author has captured all this in a very beautiful story about how such an ignored child becomes a drug addict and fortunately falls in the hands of a loving old man and a young girl who give him enough love for him to become normal and shine in the world. 

I am back in Hyderabad and I should get prepare my environment to eating healthier and staying healthier.