The uninvited guest in our house!

It was 6 PM in the evening and getting dark slowly. We have generally good amount greenery in our layout. There are many houses in Royal Park Residency which is our layout; we do have some vacant sites too. Once in a while we see some strangers too!

But we had an uninvited and totally unknown guest yesterday getting into our house premises. The guest was looking quiet and calm, but appeared to be dangerous if not handled properly. My wife and kids were alone there at home.

In the evening my wife was trying to check the water level in our underground water tank and opened the first stone slab placed over there. So far so good.. but when she opened the second slab… Alas !! She got the shock of her life !!!

By now, you must have guessed it.. our guest was none other a Snake..! Not a king cobra.,. but a junior one.. 3-4 feet in length! probably one of kids! For a moment she did not know what to do, whether to place the stone back or take out the stone completely. Any of her actions would have caused either harm to the animal or herself.

She immediately called our daughter Anushree slowly pulled out the stone. By now even Anu was also little scared the way mother screamed. She approached her mother in lightening speed. But while all this was going on, our junior cobra fell into the water tank !! Water level was hardly 2-3 feet.  Mother and daughter duo looked at each other questioningly. Of course they had recovered now to good extent now, because they knew snake could not fly out of the tank and harm them ! J

They thought now for a while,  how to protect this guy, without harming him and themselves. In the meanwhile my son Chirag also joined them. All of their focus was now our guest. Initially they took a pipe and inserted into the tank. Naa..naa!!  Our guy is not able to hold onto that and come up..! Without losing hope, they inserted a think rope and asked the junior cobra to hold on to that and climb... still no..!! Probably he is not understanding their instructions.. what to do…? Language problem..!! :)

Now they were running of ideas.. suppose if the snake dies inside the tank..we have empty the whole tank and clean it up..naa..?  That would cost somewhere around Rs.1500 to 2000..! Oh my GOD..! Big financial risk!

You can imagine now, all three of them sitting on the side of water tank and doing some serious brainstorming on "how to protect this uninvited guest..?". At the same time, they cannot take their eyes off the gentleman who was swimming inside !!

Already 20 minutes passed by. Suddenly a thought flashed in Anushree's mind and she blinked her eyes! She said "Mummy ! We have got a fishnet like laundry bag.. no..? It is about 2 feet in length . Why don’t we tie it to a pair of strings and drop it inside the tank. Our snake maharaja will listen to our instructions and get inside the laundry bag!. (What an idea Sirji..? Sorry Madam ji..? )

But my wife Teju was not in a state any one's suggestion now! She immediately got into action.. rushed inside the house and brought the laundry bag. All of them like a sincere project team members tied the bag to two strings and dropped it inside the water tank.

I am not sure whether they were singing "Mai teri dushman" song from Sridevi starrer "NAGINA"...! But definitely after few attempts , our gentleman Snake got into the soft trap laid by my family members !

 

First hurdle cleared..! What next..? They slowly pulled the snake GOD along with the bag out of water tank. My wife Teju, the project manager of this massive rescue operation asked our two wonderful kids to get away from her. She walked a little distance away from our house and released this gentleman Snake to the greenery in a vacant site. The junior cobra quietly moved away without troubling any one!

Happy Ending!! Abba..! Teju sighed in relief, but could not help appreciating her daughters timely wisdom!  When I returned home in the night, there was a big story in store to be narrated!

My intent of sharing this story is not to boast about my family. I am sharing it for few reasons.

·  Our children are not burdened by other hassles of materialistic life outside. They are able to think differently. Their thoughts are so clean and innovative. There is nothing wrong in approaching them when we have problems in hands.

 
· If the same incident would have happened 10 years back, we would have killed the snake! I guess the awareness on wildlife is increasing slowly. Not even for a moment they thought of killing that snake! I appreciate them for this thought process and felt very happy for that. 

·   Most importantly they did not panic in crisis and took the right decisions. A slightest mistake would have either harmed any of them or the animal itself.

These are some of real life lessons. We don’t learn them in any classroom. I try to focus more on such lessons. I don’t mind if my daughter gets 60 or 70 marks in class tests, but on this occasion she got 100 out 100! I am very happy for her.  I wish and do hope our kids will score well in their real life's lessons.

My request to all of you would be – Please orient your kids and family on such things.  It will be a great help!

The role of thought provoking Movies in our life..

We all know the books you read, the places you go and the people you meet will all add up to your personality. We can gauge any one's personality by speaking to them for just 15-20 minutes. You can very well see that the variety of books they would have read, the places they would have visited across the globe and different personalities they would have met would be quite visible when we converse with them. Right,…?

But I would also strongly like to believe even the movies, plays and cultural shows add to our personality and definitely help enhancing our own self. I have always liked and appreciated such thought provoking movies, be in any language. I have my own collection of such movies. Whenever I find time, I just watch them again and again. It is such an amazing experience because these movies give you different perspective every time..! That is the beautify of such movies.

For ex :

I have watched two 1975 block busters “MAYURA”(Kannada) a movie starring late Dr. Rajkumar and bollywood all time hit movie “SHOLAY” again and again at different ages..say....7, 16, 27, 35 and then now at 40+!! J
 
Every time these movies have given me different perspective and view point. I have been able to appreciate their freshness and thought. But the point here is not that! There are some movies which actually influence the way you start thinking. Many times you may be able to overcome some of the flaws in your personality. There are many life's valuable lessons we get from such movies.

We, Indians many time don’t know how to feel proud of ourselves and suffer internally. Either we have tons of EGO or extremely low inferiority complex. While dealing with these two extremes, we forget ourselves and lose sight of objectives and goals in life.

With that back ground, I would like recommend two such movies which compel you to think about yourself. They are "English Vinglish"(Hindi) featuring Sridevi and "Queen"(Hindi) starring Kangana Ranaut. These movie speak extensively on one's personality, inhibitions, inferiority complex and tolerance to something that is very unreal. For me, “Queen” looks like advanced version of “English Vinglish”. Please do watch them in that order.

Both the movies are directed very well by respective directors Gouri Shinde and Vikas Bahl. The two leading ladies Sridevi and Kangana have very portrayed the role of protagonists amazingly well! These are some of the best roles they would have played in their entire career.

Those who missed watching them please go ahead, buy DVDs and watch them today itself.

Just one word of caution here!

While "English Vinglish" is a pure family entertainer which you can watch with everyone, "Queen" is a bit bold movie and only for 18+ audience. You should avoid watching "Queen" with your kids.

References :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Vinglish

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_(film)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayura_(film)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sholay

Message here is – do catch up on some good thought provoking movies whenever you find time. There are many of them!

Have a nice weekend!

A review on the book "Why I failed " wriiten by Shweta Punj

 

"Failure in life is quite shocking, an insult, a humiliation..You should not fail in life, it leads to embarrassment, lets you down..".  This is what I used to believe decades ago when I was a student. But over the years as I sailed through life, I learned failure is not everything, there is even bigger purpose and life ahead. That gave a sense of calmness and helped me take a more meaningful view of failure.

Recently this interesting title "Why I Failed" caught my attention when I happened to visit Sapna Book Stall, Bangalore. (By the way, they are celebrating their 47th anniversary and offering very good discounts on many new books! Go and make the best out it ! J ). When I flipped through the book briefly, I felt it would make a great weekend  read ! Believe me it did and stood up to my expectations.

Failing is not a mistake. You need to pick up the pieces and move on. That’s what I used I believed so far. This book further not only reinforced my beliefs, but took my perspective to a different level. A level where failure can be by design, can be a great experience in itself !

The book "Why I failed " is a great compilation stories from 16 Indian leaders from different fields about the failures in their lives and career. The author Shweta Punj,  business journalist working with Business Today,  has attempted to take a refreshingly fresh look on failure in this book.

The leaders have spoken their heart out and candidly narrated their stories. The language throughout the book is very motivating and inspiring and makes a breezy reading. You may finish the book in one go!

"Never confuse your being with your doing. You don’t have to live the way the world expects you to." Says Anu Aga.

"Do what you love. It is better to be the king of hell than be a slave in the heaven" advises Madhur Bhandarkar.

Every chapter is designed well with reasons for failures and key take aways from each leader. What appealed to me was the sheer honesty and openness from these leaders in sharing their failure stories. It definitely needs courage.  

The grit and determination with which these leaders carried themselves during  such situation is remarkable. The message that comes out very clearly is "Never give up when you are right. Believe in yourself. When your purpose is clear, you don’t have to fear any one”.

Every story is told very passionately and is quite engaging! I particularly liked the stories of Madhur Bhandarkar, Sabyasachi Mukerji and Narayanan Vaghul. Especially the last line in the Introduction "Happy Failing Everyone! " has a very deep meaning.

I would strongly recommend this non-fiction for

·         Those who have suffered because of the way people looked at their failures.
·         Ones who is in search of a purpose in their lives.
·         People who are willing to go experiment, take bold decisions, commit mistakes  and make a difference to society and system

It is very difficult for everyone to go and speak to such leaders personally on their failures and how they managed it. So this book serves as one single compilation which serves that purpose. Each chapter is life's one valuable lesson!

Some of the things that could have been better are - the cover page, but it seems keeping it understated was by design.
Overall, I feel the author has achieved her objective in terms of giving right perspective on failure. I would rate this book at 4 out of 5.

Happy reading… I mean Happy failing very one ! J