The Luck Factor

The Luck Factor

How to knot a tie

http://www.stockmann.lv/portal/2300/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FppCJ46C31A

Positive Attitude

A baby mosquito came back after flying the first time. His dad asked him "How do you feel?"
He replied "It was wonderful, Everyone was clapping for me!"

Now that’s what is called “Positive Attitude”

"Only two persons are happy in this world. One is MAD & another is Child. Be a Mad to achieve what U desire… Be a Child to enjoy what U have……."

Class test excuse

One Night 4 College Students Were Playing Till Late Night And Didn’t Study For The Test Which Was Scheduled For The Next Day.In the morning they thought of a plan. They made themselves look as dirty and weird with grease and dirt. They then went up to the Dean and said that they had gone out to a wedding last night and on their return the tyre of their car burst and they had to push the car all the way back and that they were in no condition to appear for the test.

So the Dean said they can have the re-test after 3 days. They thanked him and said they will be ready by that time.

On the third day they appeared before the Dean. The Dean said that as this was a Special Condition Test, All four were required to sit in separate classrooms for the test. They all agreed as they had prepared well in the last 3 days.

The Test consisted of 2 questions with the total of 100 Marks.

Q.1. Your Name…………………….( 2 MARKS )

Q.2. Which tyre burst?……………( 98 MARKS )

        a) Front Left

        b) Front Right

        c) Back Left

        d) Back Right …!!!

Drinking Water at the Correct Time........!!

Drinking water at the correct time maximizes its effectiveness on the Human body:

- 2 glasses of water after waking up helps activate internal organs
- 1 glass of water 30 minutes before a meal - helps digestion
- 1 glass of water before taking a bath - helps lower blood pressure
- 1 glass of water before going to bed - avoids stroke or heart attack

Give some time to read it!!

Vivek Pradhan wasn't a happy man. Even the plush comfort of the First Class air-conditioned compartment of the Shatabdi Express couldn't cool his frayed nerves. He was the Project Manager and entitled to air travel. It was not the prestige he sought, he had tried to reason with the admin guy, it was the savings in time.

A PM had so many things to do! He opened his case and took out the laptop, determined to put the time to some good use.

"Are you from the software industry sir," the man beside him was staring appreciatively at the laptop.

Vivek glanced briefly and mumbled in affirmation, handling the laptop now with exaggerated care and importance as if it were an expensive car.

"You people have brought so much advancement to the country sir. Today everything is getting computerized."

'Thanks," smiled Vivek, turning around to give the man a detailed look.

He always found it difficult to resist appreciation. The man was young and stocky like a sportsman. He looked simple and strangely out of place in that little lap of luxury like a small town boy in a prep school. He probably was a Railway sportsman making the most of his free traveling pass.

"You people always amaze me," the man continued, "You sit in an office and write something on a computer and it does so many big things outside."

Vivek smiled deprecatingly. Naivety demanded reasoning not anger. "It is not as simple as that my friend. It is not just a question of writing a few lines. There is a lot of process that goes behind it." For a moment he was tempted to explain the entire Software Development Lifecycle but Restrained himself to a single statement. "It is complex, very complex."

"It has to be. No wonder you people are so highly paid," came the reply.

This was not turning out as Vivek had thought. A hint of belligerence came into his so far affable, persuasive tone.

"Everyone just sees the money. No one sees the amount of hard work we have to put in." "Hard work!" "Indians have such a narrow concept of hard work.

Just because we sit in an air-conditioned office doesn't mean our brows don't sweat. You exercise the muscle; we exercise the mind and believe me that is no less taxing."

He had the man where he wanted him and it was time to drive home the point.

"Let me give you an example. Take this train. The entire railway reservation system is computerized. You can book a train ticket between any two stations from any of the hundreds of computerized booking centers across the country. Thousands of transactions accessing a single database at a given time; concurrency, data integrity, locking, data security. Do you understand the complexity in designing and coding such a system?"

The man was stuck with amazement, like a child at a planetarium. This was something big and beyond his imagination.

"You design and code such things."

"I used to," Vivek paused for effect, "But now I am the project manager,"

"Oh!" sighed the man, as if the storm had passed over, "so your life is easy now."

It was like being told the fire was better than the frying pan. The man had to be given a feel of the heat.

"Oh come on, does life ever get easy as you go up the ladder. Responsibility only brings more work. Design and coding! That is the easier part. Now I don't do it, but I am responsible for it and believe me, that is far more stressful. My job is to get the work done in time and with the highest quality. And to tell you about the pressures! There is the customer at one end always changing his requirements, the user wanting something else and your boss always expecting you to have finished it yesterday."

Vivek paused in his diatribe, his belligerence fading with self-realization. What he had said was not merely the outburst of a wronged man, it was the truth. And one need not get angry while defending the truth. "My friend," he concluded triumphantly, "you don't know what it is to be in the line of fire."

The man sat back in his chair, his eyes closed as if in realization. When he spoke after sometime, it was with a calm certainty that surprised Vivek. "I know sir, I know what it is to be in the line of fire," He was staring blankly as if no passenger, no train existed, just a vast expanse of time.

"There were 30 of us when we were ordered to capture Point 4875 in the cover of the night. The enemy was firing from the top. There was no knowing where the next bullet was going to come from and for whom. In the morning when we finally hoisted the tricolor at the top only 4 of us were alive."

"You are a..."

"I am Subedar Sushant Singh from the 13 J&K Rifles on duty at Peak 4875 in Kargil. They tell me I have completed my term and can opt for a land assignment. But tell me sir, can one give up duty just because it makes life easier. On the dawn of that capture one of my colleagues lay injured in the snow, open to enemy fire while we were hiding behind a bunker. It was my job to go and fetch that soldier to safety. But my captain refused me permission and went ahead himself. He said that the first pledge he had taken as a Gentleman Cadet was to put the safety and welfare of the nation foremost followed by the safety and welfare of the men he commanded. His own personal safety came last, always and every time. He was killed as he shielded that soldier into the bunker. Every morning now as I stand guard I can see him taking all those bullets, which were actually meant for me. I know sir, I know what it is to be in the line of fire."

Vivek looked at him in disbelief not sure of his reply. Abruptly he switched off the laptop. It seemed trivial, even insulting to edit a word document in the presence of a man for whom valor and duty was a daily part of life; a valor and sense of duty which he had so far attributed only to epical heroes.

The train slowed down as it pulled into the station and Subedar Sushant Singh picked up his bags to alight.

"It was nice meeting you sir."

Vivek fumbled with the handshake. This was the hand that had climbed mountains, pressed the trigger and hoisted the tricolor. Suddenly as if by impulse he stood at attention, and his right hand went up in an impromptu salute. It was the least he felt he could do for the country.

PS: The incident he narrates during the capture of Peak 4875 is a true life incident during the Kargil war. Major Vikram Batra sacrificed his life while trying to save one of the men he commanded, as victory was within sight. For this and his various other acts of bravery he was posthumously awarded the Param Vir Chakra - the nation's highest military award.

A Panchatantra story, American banks & lalit modi …

Something which is crucial to the financial services industry is the concept of being too big to fail, which has been put to good use by Citigroup, Bear Stearns, and Goldman Sachs over the past few years in sucking money from American taxpayers. This beautiful concept was also invented by an Indian - Vishnu Sharma, the author of the Panchatantra, in the story of the Weaver and the Chariot Maker.

The story of the weaver and chariot maker is one of the Panchatantra stories that usually doesn't make it to primary school textbooks or Amar Chitra Katha, mostly because it's full of sex, war, and moral hazard. Since you probably haven't read it, here's a quick summary.

A weaver sees a princess during a festival and falls in love with her. As a weaver, he has no chance of marrying her, so he sinks into depression. His friend, a chariot maker decides to help him out. He designs a flying chariot in the shape of Garuda, dresses the weaver up as Vishnu, and tells him to fly the chariot into the princess's room, tell her that he is Vishnu and wants to marry her Gandharva style. That is, the wedding is kept a secret from everyone except the princess and the faux-Vishnu. The princess agrees, and the weaver comes back every night to consummate the marriage.

Eventually, the maids notice that the princess is spending her days in total bliss, suspect that she's in love, and tell the King. The King asks her what's going on, and she tells him that she's married to Vishnu himself. The King is absolutely delighted, and decides that there's no point in paying tribute to the Chakravarti now that Vishnu himself is on the kingdom's side. The next night, he catches the weaver as he enters the princess's room and asks him to fight the Chakravarti' s army.

The weaver is horrified. Pretending to be Vishnu was fine when it allowed him to make sweet, sweet love to the princess, but taking on the role of Vishnu to face an imperial army single-handed is another thing altogether. On the other hand, if he confesses to the King that he is not actually Vishnu and has been boinking the princess under false pretences for the past month, he will have his head chopped off. So he decides to get on to the battlefield and do the best job he can, while the King is whipping up enthusiasm in the population by telling them that Vishnu himself is going to do all the fighting.

By this time, Garuda (the real one, not the mechanical one) has tipped off Vishnu about what's going on, and warned him that if the fake Vishnu doesn't win the battle, the people of the kingdom will lose all faith in him. Vishnu doesn't want to see this happen, so on the battlefield he enters the weaver's body and annihilates the Chakravarti' s army. The entire army. Every single soldier. After this, the weaver marries the princess, everyone goes on worshipping Vishnu, and the king becomes the new Chakravarti.

The moral is that you should conduct your affairs in such a way that if you fail, it will lead to someone or something even bigger or more powerful failing too. This lets you get away with anything. The weaver got away with having sex with the princess on false pretences (this is rape under Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code), pretending to be a god (awesomely enough, this too is a criminal offence under Section 508), and annihilating an entire army that was fighting a just war - after all, it was the king who broke the treaty (you could make a case for this being genocide under Article 2 of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide).

American banks and financial institutions were very good at absorbing this lesson, and leveraged themselves up to such an extent that if they failed they would take the global economy down with them. And just as the weaver lived happily ever after with the princess, banks have lived happily ever after with taxpayer-funded bailouts.

But no matter how hard American investment banks try, Indians still remain the masters of this art. If the whole truth surrounding Lalit Modi is revealed, big politicians might be trapped. Modi is, thus, likely to get away lightly -- as is A Raja, who might have given away spectrum at bargain basement rates, but whose sacking would lead to the government collapsing. All this goes to show that no matter what the anguished elderly gentlemen who write letters to the editor feel, Indians are still in touch with our ancient and glorious culture.

HOW SMART IS YOUR RIGHT FOOT?

It is absolutely true that there are some things that the brain cannot handle.

You have to try this and, it only takes 2 seconds. I could not believe this. Received from an orthopaedic surgeon...This will confuse your mind, and I am sure you will keep trying over and over again to see if you can outsmart your foot, but, you can't. It is pre-programmed in your brain!

1. While sitting at your desk in front of your computer, lift your right foot off the floor and make clockwise circles.

2. Now, while doing this, draw the number '6' in the air with your right hand. Your foot will change direction.

Mahatma Gandhi's Talisman

Those who would have gone through first few pages of any NCERT book, must have noticed this-

"I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest person whom you have seen and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to that person. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to Swaraj for the hungry and spiritually starving millions? Then you will find your doubts and yourself melting away."

It has been titled as "Mahatma Gandhi's Talisman" - A charm, something that brings magic if you carry it with you.

Be Willing to Learn

Many of us are reluctant to learn from the people closest to us — our authorities, colleagues, staff and friends. Rather than being open to learning, we close ourselves off out of embarrassment, fear, stubbornness, or pride. It's almost as if we say to ourselves, "I have already learned all that I can [or want to learn] from this person; there is nothing else I can [or need to] learn."

It's sad, because often the people closest to us know us the best. They are sometimes able to see ways in which we are acting in a self-defeating manner and can offer very simple solutions. If we are too proud or stubborn to learn, we lose out on some wonderful, simple ways to improve our lives.

Remain open to the suggestions of your authorities and other devotees. Ask senior devotees and authorities, "What are some of my blind spots?" By this simple process you end up getting some good advice. It's such a simple shortcut for growth, yet almost no one uses it. All it takes is a little courage and humility, and the ability to let go of your ego. This is especially true if you are in the habit of ignoring suggestions, taking them as criticism.

Pick something that you feel the person whom you are asking is qualified to answer. Sometimes the advice we get usually prevents us from having to learn something the hard way.

I'm still laughing!

An elderly man on a Moped (two wheeler), looking about 100 years old, pulls up next to a doctor at a street light.

The old man looks over at the sleek shiny car and asks, ' What kind of car ya got there, sonny?'

The doctor replies, ' A Ferrari GTO. It cost half a million dollars ! '

' That's a lot of money,' says the old man.

' Why does it cost so much?'

' Because this car can do up to 320 miles an hour !' states the doctor proudly.

The Moped driver asks, 'Mind if I take a look inside?'

' No problem,' replies the doctor.

So the old man pokes his head in the window and looks around. Then, sitting back on his Moped, the old man says, ' That's a pretty nice car, all right... but I'll stick with my Moped!'

Just then the light changes, So the doctor decides to show the old man just what his car can do.

He floors it, and within 30 seconds. The speedometer reads 160 mph.Suddenly, he notices a dot in his rear view mirror. It seems to be getting closer! He slows down to see what it could be And suddenly WHOOOOSSSHHH! Something whips by him going much faster! 'What on earth could be going faster than my Ferrari ?' the doctor asks himself.

He presses harder on the accelerator And takes the Ferrari up to 250 mph. Then, up ahead of him, He sees that it's the old man on the Moped! Amazed that the Moped could pass his Ferrari , he gives it more gas and passes the Moped at 275 mph. And he's feeling pretty good until he looks in his mirror and sees the old man gaining on him AGAIN!

Astounded by the speed of this old guy, He floors the gas pedal and takes the Ferrari all the way up to 320 mph. Not ten seconds later, he sees the Moped bearing down on him again! The Ferrari is flat out, and there's nothing he can do!

Suddenly, the Moped plows into the back of his Ferrari, demolishing the rear end. The doctor stops and jumps out and unbelievably the old man is still alive. He runs up to the banged-up old guy and says, 'I'm a doctor.... Is there anything I can do for you?'

The old man whispers, 'Unhook my suspenders from your side view mirror!'.

How Well It Was Done!

Three people were laying bricks. A passerby asked them what they were doing. The first one replied, "Don't you see I am making a living?" The second one said, "Don't you see I am laying bricks and making a wall?" The third one said, "I am building a beautiful monument."

Here were three people doing the same thing who had totally different perspectives on what they were doing. They had three very different attitudes about their work. And would their attitude affect their performance? The answer is clearly yes.

Excellence comes when the performer takes pride in doing his best. Every job is a self-portrait of the person who does it, regardless of what the job is, whether washing cars, sweeping the floor or painting a house. Most people forget how fast you did a job, but they remember how well it was done.

If a man is called to be street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.

Believe it... You can read it.

Please try to read this. u can read it..

" I cdnuolt blveiee taht i cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg the phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid. Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at cmabrigde uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer inwaht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porblem. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and i awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt "

Its Our Human Brain..............

Poem