Beggars and Religious People

I am not a Religious kind of person. Not an athiest either. It may sound like a Paradox, but it is not so.Because I am not sure about the existence of God. I don't deny His so called Divine Existence also. It will be foolishness on my part, if I accept something about which I have heard only. Again it will be arrogance on my part if I deny something only because I don't have any proof on that. Rather I would play safe in thematters of Relogion by creating a group of my own, instaed of joing in these two groups-Religious and Athiests.
Religious people ascribe all their successes and failures to God. But some of them depend so much on Him toachieve their goal that they always try to please Him at any cost. Be it in the form of keeping fast, or visitingHis holy shrines or donating their valuables to the temple. Simply they will do anything but the required duty toachieve their goal.
Atheists in other hand believe in creating their own destiny. Some of them can go to any extent of sweating out to reach the finish-line. They credit all their successes to themselves only and their failures to the circumstances :)only.
Without any intention to hurt anybody, I find a good comparision of these two groups with Labourers and Beggars.
Labourers do not live on anybody's mercy. They work hard to reach their immediate goal, which is to earn their livelyhood. If they don't work, they don't expect anybody's help also.
Whereas Beggars live on the mercy of others. They don't do any work eventhough some of them are capable of doing it to support themselves. What initially started as a way out to escape from hunger, with due course of time, becomes their main occupation(?). To get the alm, they try to please their doners with all the good wishes.
Perhaps this similarity has something to do with the close association of Religious people with Beggars. You willfind Beggars mostly at temples wooing temple-visitors for their mercy and these Religious people also get satisfaction of being blessed by the Almighty by giving away the alms.
I think these two groups must be giving too much of headache to God, if at all He exists. I'm sure He must be annoyed with these people for burdening Him with such silly demands. After all He has made them capable of performing the duties assigned to them and leaving the result on Him only.

My Birthday Gift

Among the list of hobbies people usually pursue, reading Books is a very common one. Those people who have an inclination towards this are considered as real scholars, at least by me. Because two things I’m scared of the most, one is Book and the other one is its reader.

I can not understand from where those people acquire the patience for that. It takes a lot of self-persuasion and thousands of divided attention to finish a page for me. Just imagine about me reading a book. I have never completed any journey through a short-story from the beginning to the end. People even finish a book in a day, that too a non-fiction. Really, they must have a rare talent.

But yes, I love books for one occasion. Those help me in sending me to a slumber, even when I don’t feel like that. Let me tell you one incident in my life:

While I was in college, a girl joined in our college as a fresher. I discovered that she was spending most of her free time in the library. That means both of us were diametrically opposite in that habit. But I liked that girl. So only to impress her, I started visiting library regularly. Anyway at last I managed to befriend her.

Once I invited her for dinner on my Birthday. She gave her consent and kept her words also. She handed me a birthday present, beautifully wrapped and written on it a beautiful quotation, only can be written scholars in my definition.

But I had more interest in the gift inside, than any quotation. I had to control my urge to open the pack till she went to her place. After I saw her off, I reached for the packet and carefully opened the wrap to see the surprise inside waiting for me.

It was “Midnight’s Children” – the famous Booker awarded book by Salman Rushdie. Have you ever seen that Book? It is like a never-going-to-end kind of book, at least for me. Now just imagine my situation…..

Sedentary Livewires ...

Sitting in Resource Pool (in common parlance of IT company employees - "Bench") is a totally different experience than working in a Project. Here you will find all sorts of people; by that I mean both in terms of Technology and mentality. Rather I'll say it is a perfect place
for any psychologist to experiment his theories.

This is because those people are relesed from some projects due to either completion or postponement of projects. Sometimes they might be the victims of company's cost-cutting measures especially at this juncture of global economic recession.

If you happen to enter in the room where they have been forced to sit (because there you will find no AC facility, but only machines in the dilapidated state), you can feel a deja vu of visiting a mental asylum. A bunch of well-trained but helpless Professionals doing stupid things and thereby self-insulting their talent.

You will find some of them busy in going through e-books of their technology, some in orkutting, some in chatting and spreading the rumours they have just heard, and some in doing what they are best at - sleeping.

By throwing a simple glance on them(no need of careful observation of their behaviour even) it won't take much strain on mind to judge the time dimension of their coming into the Resource Pool. If you find a person in a very gloomy mood but having an alert ear for any kind of gossip related to either HR or Firing or requirement in any project, then get sure that he is released very recently. If a person is either sleeping in peace as if away from all the worries or browsing net and hunting for some coooool stuffs, then he/she is an old monkey in the business.

And all others are in between these two groups.

So enjoy your experiment on these gunea pigs....

Moving Away From Problems .... Makes No Sense.

Socrates was sitting outside of the gates of Athens when a man came up to him and said, ‘I am thinking about moving into Athens. Can you please tell me what it is like to live here?’
Socrates replied, ‘I would be happy to tell you, but first would you please tell me what it was like in your previous home city?’
The man quickly roared, ‘Oh, it was awful. The people stab you in the back and rob you blind. I am not leaving any friends, only enemies.’
Socrates frowned and sadly continued, ‘Well, you best be on your way because you will find the same thing here in Athens.’
A little while later another man stopped to speak to Socrates and inquired, ‘I was considering moving here to Athens. Can you tell me what it is like to live here?’ Socrates again replied, ‘I would be happy to tell you, but first would you please tell me what it was like in your previous home city?’
The man smiled and said, ‘Where I come from the people all work together and help each other. Kindness is everywhere and you are never treated with anything but the utmost respect.’ ‘Welcome to Athens,’ smiled Socrates,‘ You will find the same thing here.’

Difference of Life and Death ....

Strolling along the beach, a woman catches sight of a young man who appears to be dancing at the water's edge. The young man bends down, straightens to his full height and then casts his arm out in an arc.

Drawing closer, she sees that the sand is littered with starfish and he is throwing them, one by one, back into the sea.She says, ‘There are stranded starfish as far as the eye can see. What difference can saving a few of them possibly make?’

Smiling, he stoops down and tosses another starfish out over the water, saying, ‘It made a difference to that one.’

How a Tech Lead works in a Team....

This is an old parable about the grasshopper who decided to consult the hoary consultant of the animal kingdom, the owl, about a personal problem.
The problem concerned the fact that the grasshopper suffered each winter from severe pains due to the savage temperature. After a number of these painful winters, in which all of the grasshopper’s known remedies were of no avail, he presented his case to the venerable and wise owl.
The owl, after patiently listening to the grasshopper’s misery, so the story goes, prescribed a simple solution: ‘Simply turn yourself into a cricket, and hibernate during the winter.’The grasshopper jumped joyously away, profusely thanking the owl for his wise advice.
Later, however, after discovering that this important knowledge could not be transformed into action, the grasshopper returned to the owl and asked him how he could perform this metamorphosis.
The owl replied rather curtly, ‘Look, I gave you the principle, it’s up to you to work out the details!’

Company Policy

There was an interesting experiment that started with five monkeys in a cage. A banana hung inside the cage with a set of steps placed underneath it. After a while, a monkey went to the steps and started to climb towards the banana, but when he touched the steps, he set off a spray that soaked all the other monkeys with cold water. Another monkey tried to reach the banana with the same result. It didn't take long for the monkeys to learn that the best way to stay dry was to prevent any monkey from attempting to reach the banana.
The next stage of the experiment was to remove the spray from the cage and to replace one of the monkeys with a new one. Of course, the new monkey saw the banana and went over to climb the steps. To his horror, the other monkeys attacked him. After another attempt, he learnt that if he touched the steps, he would be assaulted.
Next, another of the original five was replaced with a new monkey. The newcomer went to the steps and was attacked. The previous newcomer joined in the attack with enthusiasm!Then, a third monkey was replaced with a new one and then a fourth. Every time a newcomer approached the steps, he was attacked.
Most of the monkeys beating him had no idea why they were not allowed to climb the steps or why they were joining in the beating of the newest monkey.After replacing the fifth monkey, none of the monkeys had ever been sprayed with water. Still, no monkey ever approached the steps. Why not? Because as far as they knew it was the way it had always been done around here... and that is how company policy begins.