how to keep happy in these gloomy times

(Here are some small simple tips for keeping happy in these gloomy times)

· Smile at a stranger: If the world shows us a threatening face, why not paint that face with smiles to make it less threatening. Let's face it, if you smile at someone, they'll smile back (in all normal situations.. unless he is the brother of gal you are dating secretly). The more you smile, the more people will smile at you. The more you smile, the more people will smile at you. If everybody follows this advice, at least dentists will be too busy to fear world events.

· Volunteer: One of the scariest things about the world today is not just that it seems to be going downhill, but that we feel powerless to stop it. Worse still, politicians and diplomats are in charge (or not so in charge to do anything good). But we CAN take control and send the world uphill right in our own neighborhood. We can help the local animal shelter. We can smile with those small kids ar the NGO, We can work at the food bank. (That's my personal favorite, and NO you do NOT get free samples.) We can help little old ladies across the street. We can make a difference right in our own communities where the politicians and diplomats won't interrupt.

· Enjoy filmy gossip: I know it sounds strange coming from a guy (I enjoy being sexist at times) but this is specially for all the Indian filmy buffs. I know some of my frens think it’s none of our business to get in to the personal lives of the film stars but then I feel who cares if that gives us or people around us a small laugh or a light moment. We don’t have to take them so seriously. By the way.. I think Aamir took Ghajani too seriously…. Out of 2 years that went in making the film I guess he wasted 1.5 years building up the 8 packs and had no time to make the movie itself… didn’t like the movie at all… however Asin was very cute n simple..

Why was Karishma & Abhishek’s Engagement called off (whenever it was.. its been ages)?

We know that Karishma’s mother Babita is not in good terms with her husband’s i.e. Kapoor Family. And Amitabh is related to Kapoor / Nanda family through his daughter. Babita post the engagement had put a condition to Amitabh asking him to cut all ties with Kapoor family. Amitabh denied doing the same and the engagement was called off.

(how much of this is true.. I dono.. you are free to add in .. if u know of a different story..

Does anyone know why Kareen and Shahid got separated?)

Always Keep Smiling :-)

Are we getting the root cause right?

As someone said picture speaks thousand words so here is one i made (plz click on the image to see)

Lets Look for Solutions

I have seen the whole event on TV and felt it very closely. It is difficult to put in words how we feel when something like this happens in our city in our country. As i was listening to people on TV & Radio, there is a lot of Anger in people's mind, and rightly so. But everyone was talking about issues and blaming politicians...hardly anyone talked abt solutions (other than a war with Pakistan which i dont think is the solution)..so i sat back and thought of ......A Call to the PM's office and the following email sent to the PM

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Dear Mr. Prime Minister,

I am not sure if this would even reach you but still I want this to be heard. I am a working professional in Mumbai and wish to help in the hour of crisis in the country. I will try to make this as precise and to the point so that I don’t waste your time.

I am sure you have heard people’s opinion about politicians and authorities in the country post the havoc in Mumbai. Being an Indian myself I can totally understand the emotions. But I want to put my energy in to something constructive and suggest solutions instead of blaming people and talking about just issues.

The Idea:

To save its face and to save the country, the Central Government should run a campaign asking people of this country to suggest their ideas to curb Terrorism in the country. You should promise that the campaign will be wholly promoted by the PMO and some of the filtered ideas would be debated in the working committee and parliament for implementation (live telecast of the debate). I know the idea sounds overly optimistic but then I guess that is required at this point in time. The high energies of people in the country need to be directed in to something constructive and only you can do this through your team. Ask them to SMS, email or write letters with their ideas and put up a team of 100 people to scan it and filter it. It won’t cost much to implement this considering the following benefit.

Benefits:

• It gives People of India a feeling of involvement towards the country
• It gives some saving grace to the government by showing that it cares and is willing to take steps
• It allows the millions of brilliant brains of the country to come up with innovative (cost effective & practical) solutions
• It actually might end up saving my country, our country from many disasters
• AND IT’S NO SHAME TO ASK FOR HELP……. AFTER ALL EVERYONE IN THIS COUNTRY IS EQUALLY RESPONSIBLE


Please note that I am not questioning the intelligence your team has but I believe 1million brains will provide you a better pool of ideas to work with.
I am not sure if these emails are read by you, but I m optimistically looking forward to your reply.

Best Regards

Rahul Choube

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I dont know if this is the right way, but I truly believe that its time to consider it our duty to contribute in whatever way we can to solve the problem.

Looking for your thoughts

Cheers

Enjoy life and Be Happy

We in today’s world face soo many challenges and hard situations which literally force us to think “Why Me?”….. imagine Someone (who has a job) doesn’t like his boss, someone is not getting a job at all, someone is having issues in their relationships, someone is just irritated by their surrounding (raj thackray, terror attacks etc)… too many things around us (small or big) keep us low and entangled.

Sometime when I sit back and try to think, how much of our energies we spend worrying about these things and not enjoying our day to day life. I don’t mean we shouldn’t think about them at all, but do we think about the problem or the solutions or do we actually do something about the issue???

More than trying to get a solution to the problem which is a must ,I would say try to be positive about whatever happens in your life, I know it sounds easier than it is.. but then What the Hell… who says life is a easy ride.. at least we can try to make it enjoyable …

So the next time you feel you are not being treated well by your GF/BF, being scolded by your boss for no reason… just think… it’s up to you if u want to get hurt… at that time try to enjoy smiles of people around u (specially kids).. laugh on some of those stupid jokes of Laughter Challenge show.. some silly SMSs from your friends..or best… spend time reading silly blogs abt life.. you would get many reasons to smile J

I know this post sounds soo philosophical but then that’s what I have actually come to realize and I feel everyone should follow to keep themselves happy.

Here is a joke .. u get for bearing through my blog and come out of that feeling u got after reading it.. hahaha

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Man to doctor:
When I sleep, monkeys
play football in my dreams.

Dr:No problem,
just take this medicine b4 sleep.

Man: Kal se khaonga aaj final hai.

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KEEP SMILING

A Strange but “Innovative” Idea

It was a routine morning, and I was on my way in the train to office listening to Mumbai’s very own RJ “Malishka” (love the way she says her name). After the Blasts in Delhi, it was being talked about everywhere in media ; radio, TV, Newspapers etc.
Malishka then gave a very interesting thought which I wish to present here based on my understanding. It goes like this
“ When a blast happens and a terrorist organization claims it, what is their basic objective? Not only creating the terror but also letting the whole world know about it. What if a blast happens and its now shown anywhere. I mean the news about the blast is not published in any of the media forms. The whole objective of the Terrorist organization would be beaten. I know it sounds crazy and not practical but just think about it…. If the whole media unites for this cause and tries to do that.. what would be the implications? “
This came across as a very interesting and path breaking idea to me.. and it somewhere clicked that really can this be done? Will it somewhere hit the root cause of all these issues?

Let me know your thoughts…

Cheers


The “Pratham” Experience

Now this has to be one of the best and the most fulfilling experience of my life. All thanks to my sweet friend Mr. X (Name not mentioned due to security issues.. he is too good and I don’t want him to be harassed by girls..:) ). Not that too many girls read my blog anyway… lol.. but just in case.

As a kid when we all dream to do something different and contribute to the society, even I had similar thoughts. These thoughts became more profound as I saw so many of my MBA friends in Toronto being active in contributing to the society and people around them. My friend X had been part of this NGO called “Pratham” in south Mumbai where they used to teach small children English & Computers.

I was interested in joining this NGO and I got that chance few weeks back. As we got out from the Taxi in the Masjid area in south Mumbai, we went through this tiny walkway “Galee” with small shops on both sides and a huge crowd. It was so bad that we had to walk like snails through that crowd. We finally reached the building which is called “Musafir Khana” (meant for people who are travelling via Mumbai and want to relax for sometime in the area of the Mosque). The Mosque had given the top floor of the building to this NGO. Obviously there was no lift, so we walked our way through the old building with those stone stairs. As we went inside all the kids (age 5 to 15) had already gathered and sitting on the floor with some of the other MBA students. They were too busy in their notebooks to even look at us.

My Friend X had plans to teach them India’s Pledge in English. Some of these kids already used to go to school and knew some ABC.. The room was like those old house rooms with stone flooring. we started sentence by sentence of translation of the pledge from Hindi to English. “India is my country; All Indians are my brothers & sisters”. The first thing to notice was many of us MBA graduates didn’t remember the pledge fully. However this fact re-enforced the urge to remember it and teach it to these kids.

The kids started on their note books and the most amazing thing I noticed was they were writing the pronunciations of those words in hindi below the English sentence. That was something they did on their own. It was helping them remember the pronunciations. Overall the 2 hours went in a jiffy.

The Sparkle in their eyes and their willingness to study so eagerly on a Sunday (when some people want to leave job early even on a Friday) was amazing to see. I truly enjoyed teaching them and wish to continue this and may be do something on larger scale.
I believe if we have the talent and some time, why not put it in a good cause. The pleasure and sense of satisfaction you would get then you see them standing in front of everyone and speaking the Pledge out in English would be much more than you can imagine.
Hope that more of us get involved in nourishing the true future of our country (i.e children)


“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. “

-William Butler Yeats

Questions in my mind

“Jor se bolo Jia Mata Di” “Sai Baba ki Jai” some of the enchanting we get to hear at various places in India which are of religious importance. This is common site Temples, Gurudwara, Masjids and all the other places of worship.

I have been thinking on this for quite a while but couldn’t find a way to explain it. I am trying to do that through this blog. Looking at thousands of people standing in the queue at Sai Baba temple or Tirupati temple, I wondered what was the outcome of these efforts other than some mental satisfaction? That too was taken away from the large queue and mental stress to even reach the temple. My friend who had gone for a trip to south for holiday also went to Tirupati. However his experience in Tirupati was the worst of all the places he visited. Reason again rush of people, wait times, lack of arrangements etc. Why do people spend so much time and energy waiting for a 10 second look at the image of the God or Goddess? The reason for getting this thought was “Law of conservation of energy”. This energy spent by lakhs of people everyday, what does it get converted in to? What happens to all this energy spent by those devotees of Shankar (called Kavidiyas in delhi) to walk barefooted to a city in North India? Similar are the cases in Maharashtra as well.

What if we could convert this energy in to something productive? How much energy will it generate to solve the energy issues India faces today? Is it even practical to think on these lines? Can people be made to do things which they are oblivious to?

I would love to know your views on this. Please note the more creative you get the better the result would be.

Keep Smiling J