Thank you ALL!!

On this holy Day of Guru Purnima, I take the opportunity to thank each and every Guru of mine who added inseparable value to my life. Its my privilege to have met you in my life and I am always indebted to the contribution you made to me. The list of people starts with my aunt who enrolled me into the world of education and goes on to my thesis guide in Masters. I am nothing without your contributions. I cherish every moment spent with you and stick to the same ethics and morals which you stood for. I bow my head and swear that I will do my best so as to contribute towards the society.

sarvejana sukhinobhavantu

-Karthik

All in the name of LIFE

What Karthik used to do earlier à

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Things have changed now. Let us check out how he is doing these days

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All the contents of this post are contributed by Annayya aka Vivek Dangeti. All Rights and patents for the same are reserved with him alone.

ANNAYYA ROCKS...

sarvejana sukhinobhavantu

-Karthik

Value

A well-known speaker started off his seminar by holding up a Rupee 500 note. In the room of 200, he asked, "Who would like this Rupee 500 note?" Hands started going up. He said, "I am going to give this note to one of you but first let me do this." He proceeded to crumple the note up. He then asked, "Who still wants it?" Still the hands were up in the air. "Well," he replied, "What if I do this?" And he dropped it on the ground and started to grind it into the floor with his shoe. He picked it up, now all crumpled and dirty. "Now who still wants it?" Still the hands went into the air. "My friends, you have all learned a very valuable lesson. No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth Rupee 500/-. Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way. We feel as though we are worthless. But no matter what has happened or what will happen, you will never lose your value. You are special. Don't ever forget it!

Never let yesterday's disappointments overshadow tomorrow's dreams.

Many times we face set backs, but that never reduces our value. when I read the above story I remembered the advice of Geoff Boycott to Sachin. when Sachin was facing problems in his batting Boycott, in his typical Yorkshire english told "Cheer up, form is temperory but Class is permanent".

As long as we believe in our capability there is nothing that can stop us. There might be an ocean of problems but none of them have the courage to stand before a tiny smile. Off late that what I learnt for myself. Come what may, just carry a gud big smile. As my sister rightly said nothing in this world is worth my smile :)

Sarvejana Sukhinobhavantu

-Karthik

Spirituality

Off late I am listening a lot related to spirituality. Like spiritual gurus, spiritual healing etc etc. But I am just wondering what does people mean by spirituality at a community level. I heard many people saying we connect to God through our guru or we realised God through Guruji. Some how I am apprenhensive of "feeling God" by paying some money. Having said that I mean no insult or disrespect to any of the Gurus or Mullas or Fathers. I am only saying that how different is it from other forms of business? but then why are the Gurus exempted from govt taxes? no one knows! not even God. Thats why I always say religion is the biggest business in this country. There is a period of boom and recession for s/w but there is no recession for spiritual business. I am no atheist and believes in God as any one else. Being an orthodox hindu (thats what people call me) I have no hesitation in saying that no way in the literature you find "feeling God " for some money. People say what ever amount we pay goes for the social service, it might be true but EOD money collection makes it equivalent to any other business. Recently I have heard of a meditation center asking a women to contribute INR 10000 for the sake of their campaigning vehicle. Does meditation needs campaigning? well, I have no answer if people compare it preaching of Christian Missionaries or Islamic organisations. But as a whole these kind of things only constitute to the degradation of the word called "RELIGION". Already Hinduism is near its grave by virtue of several reasons. This kind of attitude will spread across all the religions one after the other and engulf them. It is this kind of systems which provoked Osho to claim "Give me 3hrs and will prove Christianity is a fake".

And there are other kind of people who think that some one taught "spirituality" to them. It sounds to me as first quality rubbish. you learn certain things from others and name them "spirituality" if spirituality is so powerful why did people fought on the name of Gods for centuries? In this regard I'm not in favor of any religion. some say spirituality is very important in life. For me morality is much superior to spirituality. Personally I feel religion teaches you a lot of things like compassion, humility, morals etc. So religion/spirituality should be a way of living a moral and honest life but not living a corrupt life in the name of religion.

For me spirituality means no "feeling God". It is "HUMILITY, HUMANITY and HONESTY". I personally feel that one doesnt deserve to claim spiritual if they lack those three qualities.
I again say "Spirituality=Humility, Humanity and Honesty". My sincere request to people is please dont let our culture/heritage down on the name of psuedo spirituality.

Sarvejana Sukhinobhavantu

-Karthik

IPL the season 2

Cricket's latest baby, INDIAN PREMIER LEAGUE is a sensation beyond the format of a game, A phenomena beyond geographic borders. Yes, Indian Premier League has proved to be most popular championship in the cricket arena conveniently surpassing the World Cup organized by the game's apex body. This may be because of the money involved, or due to controversies associated with it, or because of T20 format or may be due to the factor of bollywood. Accepting the changes brought by IPL and appreciating the maza of IPL this is my observation of the second phase of the cricket's richest tournament of present day.

Firstly, finds and failures:

If Gautam Gambhir is the sensation of IPL-1, it is the turn of 22 year old Pragyan Ojha in 2009 . The Hyderabadi has matured into a confident bowler not caring the batsmen's credits. His deliveries has a loop seeing which Bishan Singh Bedi would be proud of. His courage to toss the ball up and invite the batsmen for a shot turns him into worthy prospect.The wicket of Wander Merve in the final was a treat to watch. More importantly his orthodox bowling action will not give any chance to the Australian umpires who are always eager to find a suspectable bowling action from a subcontinent player.

Manish Pandey, the teenager from Uttaranchal has the class of Dilip Vengsarkar and the adrenalin of King Richards. His square drives during the semi final epitomizing his timing cloned a right handed Saurav Ganguly. Though it is too early to compare him with the likes of a Rahul Dravid or a VVS Laxman, it will be stupidity at its best if one ignores him.

Ross Taylor, the Kiwi middle order batsmen has nothing to prove as his batting skills are very much evident in the longer formats of the game. But this IPL has only shown what kind of destroyer he can be if given the licence to kill. The cameo against the ill fated Knight Riders has manifested the hard hitting skills of the NewZealand Central Districts player.

ANIL KUMBLE, whats new about him? Yes, nothing new about him but many things should be observed regarding BCCI which ignored some master leadership skills for almost a decade. Many things can be realised if the "GOD FATHER" funda of Indian Cricket is understood. I mean no insult to Ganguly and admire him as the advocate of trading fire to fire but seeing this IPL any sensible Indian cricket follower would have thought " this man should have been the captain of my national side for a much longer time"

Kevin Pietersen along with his English team mate Freddie Flintoff stands as the biggest failure of this year IPL. With a forgettable average and a discouraging strike rate KP is certainly the front runner for the worst of IPL contest. Dr. Mallya's hot favorite is no way near his prime performance and this not only affected RCB batting but kept some one of Anil Kumble's stature away from much deserved captaincy.

Flintoff, the big purchase of CSK looked like a tyro unsure about his place in the playing XI. The Ashes'05 conqueror has sustained an injury by the middle of the tournament but his performance prior to that would have disappointed all the English fans aspiring an Ashes regain. The way Abhishek Nayar dispatched Freddie's 90MPH deliveries in to the press box would have left Andrew Strauss sleepless.

Viru and Gauti combo is next only to the English pair. Both of them suffered miserably to adapt to the bounce of the safari grounds. Seeing their play in the IPL no Indian fan would be happy about the preparations for the T20 WC which is due to start within a fortnight.

Here comes Controversies:

Akin to IPL-1, IPL-2 also have enough controversies to add the much needed spice for the newer version of the game. the fakeiplplayer blog started the whole thing with funky names to the characters around and interesting stories about the Mandira Bedis and the Shilpa Shettys.

May be a coincidence, the popularity of the fakeiplplayer blog matched only with the notority of the Knight Riders. They never looked like Knights and they are not ready for a ride even! The only good thing did by the disastrous performance of the KKR sorry KR is the running away of over acting, ill spirited SRK aka the frachise owner.

The multiple captain theory of John Buchanan ultimately led to the news that the team is split based on racial bias. The demand of John Buchanan for more foreign players added insult to the injury. His latest discovery that the loss was due to the absence of Pakistani players did no good to his identity as a cricketing brain.

There are other topics of controversies like the Sachin dropping himself and Sanath down the batting order in a must win game against the Rajasthan Royals but none matched with that of the King Khan's franchise.

With unconditional affection and equal admiration, I dedicate this article to Sachin, the GOD wishing him all the best for the next edition of IPL. People say Sachin failed many times and calling him GOD is a mark of insanity. But I challenge, even GOD failed many times so as the mastreo!

sarvejana sukhinobhavantu

-Karthik

Me and HYD

INDIAN PREMIER LEAGUE-2009 just got finished and the DECCAN CHARGERS emerged winners outplaying the Royal Challengers Bangalore. Despite being the supporter of the RCB team I could not resist but appreciate the way Gilli's team has played. People around me are scolding me for not supporting Hyd team but somehow I never connect myself with Hyd in a positive way. HYD means pain thats what stored in my mind!! may be because of the journey time from here or because of some nasty things in the past. what ever the reason is, I'm never a hyderabadi and i will never be one. At one point in my life I'm always eager to go there but there used to be many a hurdle but now I dont want to go and people are asking me to come time and again.
thats life!! so unexpected, so spontaneous and so very interesting!!

Next month I'm due in hyd for some work and i'm trying my best to escape from that. I have to travel for more than 30 hours and i will be with people over there for less than 30 hours this is a real pain. people say there are companies in hyderabad which pay real big money but i'm sorry its hyderaBAD and its all very BAD :)

sarvejana sukhinobavantu

-Karthik

Velupillai:Martyr or Maniac?

In 1973 four people killed the Jaffna mayor, the police killed three of them and the fourth is "PRABHAKARAN". I never heard his name without the prefix "VELUPILLAI". when I first heard of him in my school days I thought he is another one like Veerappan!! but later in my 7th-8th classes I made a detailed study about his history and other things happened in the Emarald's Isle(courtesy: India Today special edition, sometime in 1996-1997). I used rate him as one of the greatest warriors world has ever seen, becasue he took the audacious step of taking responsibility for his race at the age of '17'. By doing so, he became Robinhood for the Tamil diaspora across the world. If LTTE became so huge an organization, went on maintaining its own navy and airforce its not because of the capability of Prabhakaran alone but strength of Tamil Diaspora across the world. As I observe Tamil diaspora is stronger than most other races (I would say only Islamic diaspora is stronger than this). Coming to Prabhakaran, in the early stages of the violent struggle he appointed very young people as commanders or leaders of his ranks and it worked very well be it due to the adrenalin they carried or due to the support of the Indian governement. But with time passing on, his "BLACK TIGERS" became notorious for their murders and attacks on innocent people. Despite all the attacks he remained as the sole representative of the Tamilians in SriLanka. When dealing with an issue as sensitive as racial conflict, even one sigle blunder can change the tables and thats what happened in the case of LTTE.

Like many other so called great leaders Prabhakaran also kept his personal or organisational vandetta before the interests of tamilian community and that made him to order for their biggest blunder:Rajiv's Assassination. Rajiv Gandhi's assassination remains as their worst mistake without which they would have had a shelter zone on the other side of Indian Ocean.By doing so LTTE moved away from the sentiments of their Tamilian brothers in India. The hostile stance taken by India proved very costly for the LTTE.

Despite of all the killings LTTE made, I could not help but appreciate the way Prabhakaran motivated his members and thats really great motivational skills. But he forgot the fact that interests of the people should be interests of the leader and so remained on the loosing side. Even peopl like Gandhi committed the same mistake and that costed India dearly in the freedom struggle. This is the reason why I dont consider Gandhi as a great leader but nonetheless I carry huge respect to Gandhi as an individual. Prabhakaran's ideology about the carrying cyanide is a real trend setter in the modern guerella warfare.

personally, I neither support Prabhakaran nor hate him. This is just my observation.

sarvejana sukhinobhavantu

-Karthik