Tuesday 17 June 2008

Two sides of a Coin...

The Mirage

He stood in a crowded bus
His wallet with few rupees
He came to the town from
His village, in a poor form

His first ever travel by air
He sat silently in Gulf-air
His heart filled in dreams
He came to desert in rags

The gruesome work realities
That grilled him as penalties
To rise before scorching Sun
To race ahead of evading fun

Failing one day to show up
Friends, after a door break up
Found him dead in the barracks
Freed from the worldly shackles

He endured many dust storms
His endeavours to earn in riyals
He returned to homeland lying
Having lived ever without lying!

The Oasis

He stood in a crowded bus
His wallet with few rupees
He came to the town from
His village, in a poor form

His first ever travel by air
He sat silently in Gulf-air
His heart filled in dreams
He came to desert in rags

His gruesome work realities
Had grilled him as penalties
He rose before scorching Sun
He raced ahead of evading fun

He endured many dust storms
His endeavours earned him riyals
He returned to homeland flying
Having a family, eagerly waiting!

-by Dammam Bala



Monday 31 March 2008

Surya Speaks..

You Got Game?-----------------------------

1. What is the game?

So think of your life as a game. Or your career. Or you weekend club game. Whatever. Take any situation that you are facing. Think of it as a game. To be successful in it you ought to be able to answer these questions.

2. What is the prize?

This reminds me of an old saw. A young boy was asked to run 50 yardsfast and was promised a plastic cup as a prize. The boy ran for the cup. An older man was asked to do the same. He asked why? He said,I'll give you the cup, you run! In other words the prize has to fit the stage in life you are in to be motivated

3. What are the rules?

In a regular game the rules are written. But in the game of life (or career) it is mostly unwritten rules that we will need to learn in addition to the written rules (laws)

4. Who is your competitor/ opponent?

Nothing focuses the mind like your opponent. India-Pakistan incricket. Coke-Pepsi. FedEx-UPS. US-USSR.

5. What does it take to win?I believe it takes head-heart-guts to win. All three. Not just brains. Not just drive. But also, as we say in tamil 'dil irrukka?'

6. What happens when you lose?

Grace under pressure. Does one lose sorely? Or be gracious in defeat? (Al Gore's 2000 concession speech). What does one learn. How does one come back? Life is full of second chances. So how do weget away from the 'all is lost syndrome' after one loss.

7. Practice

There is a fantastic story about Ronald Reagan. He always photographed well. All his pictures of meeting visitors were great. Why? President Reagan knew that each visitor valued the visit to the white house. But he himself saw hundreds, so he could get bored. So he made a routine out of it. When a visitor came, he would go to the exact same spot in the oval office, with the exact same pose - so that each visitor would get a great picture. Practice makes perfect.

8. Peripheral Vision

We are good at looking at what is in front of us. But as humans weare gifted with peripheral vision as well. When I was playing basketball at college, more than anything else, it was peripheral vision that I found helped us the most. When I was playing center, I could sense our star player (Prof's son) coming from behind me towards the basket. I would look the other way and get theball to him through my peripheral vision. Those were some of the most satisfying points we scored.

9. Final Whistle

In any game there is the final whistle. Boy, if you sit on your lead and hope to run the clock out, you are in big trouble. As they say,it ain't over until the fat lady has sung. You can be pipped at the last second. Ask the Lakers as Larry Bird of the Celtics repeatedly singled them with a last second three-pointer.Or Miandad and Chetan Sharma at Sharjah.So awareness of the final whistle and what it takes to get past it is important.

Finally,
10. LegacyThink of the Gavaskar-Border trophy.

Think of the Masters that BobbyJones left behind. What is one's legacy through sincere contributionto ones field of endeavor? Has the contribution been meaningful. Can you look back with pride and satisfaction at what has been.

Is one's honor and dignity intact?------------

It seems to me that if one asked oneself of any endeavor he or she is embarked upon, that these 10 questions above might frame the motivation to excel as well as the aspects of action that could lead to long-term and lasting success.I am sure that there are several more questions you can add (and hope you do) to extend this metaphor.

So....you got game?

Sunday 30 March 2008

Blog the Beautiful

  • Blog the Beautiful
    From President’s Desk
    Zamil Toastmasters

    Toastmasters share one common habit. That is the habit of reading. This reading habit, which started when we were young was limited to reading printed media in the past. Later it extended to reading internet media on and off line. While reading was easy, authoring and publishing had their limitations always. In spite of having writing skills, many of us had difficulty in conveying to the world due to their limited resources and restricted access to the editorial groups of famous magazines.

    Advent of internet in the 90’s had simplified this task to a larger extent. Colourful articles with multimedia and photos and videos sharing individual life style and experiences could be easily shared across the internet by web authoring. However, this process required knowledge of HTML authoring and expertise on web programming.

    Web authoring as of today has become “A Child’s Play” thanks to Blogs. Blog or Web log is a boon for a common man (in the sense, not a software professional) to directly pen his ideas, share the multimedia information he wishes to share with the world through internet.

    The blog sites have lead to a larger circle of amateur writers, radically different kind of thinking. Writing is no longer the monopoly of elite few. And it is not limited to English. Those who have special attachment and affinity to their mother tongue can now, read, write and publish in their native language now.

    For example, Microsoft windows XP currently has built in support for Asian Languages. Classical Language like Tamil can be invoked from Control Panel – Regional Languages – Add Asian Languages. Software like E-kalappai bring into your PC, the Unicode (UTF-8) Tamil font into your task bar. Switching over to tamil font, articles can be typed using a user friendly phonetic key board and published into blogs in a jiffy.

    My dear toastmasters, I am sure many of you will be having your own blogs and your favourite blog sites for worthy reading. Please do share those with us.

    In Zamil Toastmasters, we share and cherish our knowledge and know how on “Internet Publishing and E-books”
    Apart from reading, we share another common objective.. that is “Express Your self in Many ways”