Employee of the Year

Employee of the year ? No, must be updating Facebook status !!!

Tomato Rice

Recently I purchased electric rice cooker. Even though I like the rice cooked in pressure cooker, thought let me try making few items with rice cooked from electric rice cooker :-).  (Just to feel that I have not wasted money in buying it when I have cooker)

Ingredients

• 2 cups Rice
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• 1 tsp chana dal
• 1 tsp urad dal
• 1 tsp of cumin seeds (Jeera)
• 50 gms  Cashew nuts
• 2 medium Onion (cut into pieces)
• 2 to 3 Green chilies (slit)
• 4 to 5 Tomatoes (cut into pieces)
• 1 tsp Chilly powder OR 2- Red Chilli
• 1/2 tsp Turmeric
• 1 piece Ginger (grated)
• 4 flakes Garlic (grated) OR 1/2 tsp asafetida powder (Hing)
• Salt to taste
• 1 tsp garam masala powder OR 1tsp sambar powder (optional)
• 3 tbsp Oil/butter/ghee
• 2 tsps coriander Leaves – chopped

How to make Tomato Rice: 

• Wash and soak rice for 15 minutes in warm water before cooking the rice. To cook rice where every grain is absolutely separate from each other, just add few drops of oil or ghee while cooking. Keep aside the cooked rice.
• In a frying pan, add red chili, mustard seed, urad dal, chana dal, cumin seeds fry in oil for a minute.
• Add cashew nut and fry till cashew nuts becomes golden brown color.
• Add ginger, garlic (or asafetida powder) fry for a minute and add green chilies and onions.
• Fry till onion turns light brown. Add tomato pieces to it.
• Now add salt, chilly powder (if you have not added red chili), and turmeric to it.
• Add garam masala or sambar powder (Optional).
• After tomatoes are cooked for 3 to 4 minutes, add rice to it and stir.
• Cover the lid and cook for 2-3 minutes.
• Garnish with coriander leaves.

Property Right Value

“It’s a good deal”, “I think you paid more”, are the general expressions people say when they hear about our purchased flat/property value. I guess most of them comment based on comparison of the some property value they know and some comment based on their financial capabilities.

When I was buying the flat, I looked at my financial capacity to repay the loan amount, the areas in which I would like to buy, flat size and floor plan. I never calculate what would be the “true value” of the flat and am I paying more and if so how much.

The following is the article I read in Outlook Money /Rediff that says how to calculate the “Property True Value” to evaluate is it a rent-worthy property. I found it to be lot dependent on your down payment.
If you are lazy and cannot calculate yourself, send me a mail, I will share you an excel sheet that calculates these values. You can play around with different input numbers. :-)

Follow these steps to correctly evaluate a rent-worthy property. Assume the asked price is Rs 35 lakh and the down payment is Rs 8.75 lakh (or 25 per cent of the property's value).

Step 1: Expected net operating income (NOI)

This is rental income minus operating expenses such as repairs. This cost excludes EMI

Rental Income - Operating Expenses = NOI

Rs 2.4 lakh-Rs 15,000= Rs 2.25 lakh 

Step 2: Annual debt service amount

Lenders want the expected NOI to cover your annual debt obligation. So, they lend in a way that the repayment is covered by the NOI. If the bank wants a debt coverage ratio of 1.15 times, the annual debt service amount will be Rs 1,95,652.17.

NOI / Debt Coverage Ratio = Annual Debt Service

Rs 2.25 lakh / 1.15 = Rs 1,95,652.17

 

Step 3: Debt service ratio

This is the annual debt obligation as a percentage of the total loan.

(Annual Debt Obligation / Home Loan Amt)* 100 = Debt Service Ratio
(Rs 1,95,652.17 / Rs 26.25 lakh) * 100 = 7.45%

 

Step 4: Rate of return on your down payment

This depends on NOI yield and down payment portion

NOI Yield * Down Payment Contribution = Return on Down Payment

[(Rs 2.25 lakh / Rs 35 lakh) * 100 = 6.43%] *

[(Rs 8.75 lakh / Rs 35 lakh) * 100 = 25%]

6.43% * 25% = 1.61% 

Step 5: Market capitalisation rate

This is the sum of the debt service ratio and the return on your down payment

Debt Service Ratio + Return on Down Payment = Market Capitalisation Rate
7.45% + 1.61% = 9.06%

 

Step 6: Property's right value

This is the true value of the property (V). This calculation shows the property is worth Rs 24.84 lakh, which is lower than the asked price of Rs 35 lakh.

NOI / Market Capitalisation Rate = V

Rs 2.25 lakh / 9.06% = Rs 24.83 lakh

Confusion

Bug vs Feature

Liar Paradox

Everything I tell is a lie.

Someone asked me why most of your pencil sketches are of women. I replied, "I don't know enough about women to say they are beautiful, cool, caring, friendly, fun-loving, independent, kind compassionate, nice, rational, sane, strong, sensitive and understanding gentle human beings".

Rules of Management

There are two things one has to follow to be successful

1. Do not reveal everything you know to others.

Let it Go

Once upon a time there lived a holy saint with his disciples. Saint was a true celibate and Sanyasi. He travels with his disciples to all the places, teaches and propagates his philosophy through discourses.

On his philosophical tour to a village saint had to cross around 100 to 200 feet stream of water. Being a rain season the water force was high and it was little difficult to cross. As soon as he approached the stream with his disciples he saw a very beautiful woman finding it difficult to cross the stream. Saint asked the women, if he can help her cross the stream and the woman agreed. Saint lifted the woman in his both hands, with one of his hand around the legs and other around her back and crossed the stream. After reaching the other end of the stream saint slowly dropped and helped her to stand. Woman thanked the saint and left.

Astonished by what the saint has done, disciples were thinking about the woman and what the saint has done. “Guruji lives a celibate life and follow a true brahmacharya, then why did he lifted the beautiful woman and carried her?”, was the thought going on in the disciples mind and they discussed among themselves, but no one has dared to ask the saint why he has done that. The woman and the action of the Saint had not gone out of their minds for month, even though they left the village and they were travelling along with the Saint. Disciples several times discussed among them about the woman and the incident.

After a month or two when disciples are doing seva to guruji one of the disciple asked, “Guruji, around a month back when we visited a village, you have lifted the woman and helped her cross the stream, we follow brahmacharya, is doing this a right thing?”

Saint replied, “I have lifted the woman and dropped her at the other end of the water stream, and you are still carrying her till now (in the mind)”.

How many of us keep “certain” things either about us or about others and does not let it go?

Bright Stars

I was told that today (9th Nov 2011) Moon will be close to the solar system's largest planet Jupiter and visible to naked eye, so why not capture Moon and Jupiter at the moment of closest approach :-)

Is Diwali Aap Kisse Khush Karenege ?

To Dosto Zindagi ki es daud me daud ke karna kya hai ?

Is Diwali Aap Kisse Khush Karenege ? Look at this awesome ad from Cadbury and also below are few pictures taken by me. :-)

Happy Diwali.

I am the King

How do kids learn their mother tongue? No one teaches them what the meaning of each word, grammar or how to form a sentence; still they would be able to learn the language and start speaking. It seems kids while growing first observe, then listen and then learn new things. Sometimes the cute / innocent / intelligent / smart answers or replies you get from kids make you wonder did anyone taught them to answer or reply in that way. Like all kids, my nephew who is five and half is no different.

On the last day of his kinder garden school, he said, “Today is my last day to go to this school, after that I will have lot of holidays and then I will go to first class in the new school”

“Great! Till you complete first class, you will be King”.

“I will be King? What does that mean”, he asked. My nephew asks so many questions, some one kept his nick name as “Question Mark” :-)

I replied to him, “Till you complete first class, you will be treated as King that means, what ever you do no one will say anything, you get what ever you ask for, and no one will say anything to you. After that you will be treated as servant by your mom and dad till you complete 16th class, that means you should listen to what ever your mom and dad says, you MAY NOT get what ever you ask for and you should go to school regularly do all the homework and study well. After that your parents treat you as friend till they get old, and when they became old like grand parents you should treat your mom and dad as kids, and take care of them”.

My funda of treating as king, servant, friend, kid probably he may not have understood and he just left.

After a month or so when I called my sister, my nephew answered the phone.

“Who is speaking”, I asked.

“This is King speaking”, he replied

Father of C

#include <stdio.h>
main()
{
    printf("Hello World");
} 

Many of us would have started with this program to enter into the world of computer programming language.

Dennis Ritchie, creator of the C programming language and co-creator of the Unix operating system, is reported to have died. "The C Programming Language" book written along with Kernighan is an amazing reference to C programming language.

"UNIX is basically a simple operating system, but you have to be a genius to understand the simplicity." - Dennis Ritchie.

Dennis Ritchie's death leaves a "void" in the "main" of the computing industry, undoubtedly one of the greatest computer engineer and Genius.

/* Thank you Dennis Ritchie, RIP */

Body Mess Indicator

I never saw her before as much preoccupied as she was on that day. I know curd rice is one of her favorite food but ordering that for dinner in a Chinese restaurant? visibly embarrassed waiter left 12 pages menu card on the table which does not contain curd rice item, when I asked him to give us some more time to order.

“What’s the matter, all izz well?”
“I told you that my parents are looking for a groom for me and yesterday I met a guy”
“Aha! So, your mind is occupied with him, dreaming a romantic song with him and you are ordering curd rice in Chinese restaurant”, I said pulling her leg.
“Shut up! I am not going to tell you anything!”
“Sorry, Sorry! Go ahead, so, you did not like him?”
“No, Not like that, he is good, he looks different from the photograph they have given us, must be the old one. The way he looks now, I don’t know what to say, going forward this guy is going to become fat. Yeh banda aagey jaake mota ho jaya ga, and I cannot imagine myself next to such fat guy”, replied my figure conscious friend looking at herself.
“I think, you should ask your parents to find out what is the guy’s BMI along with photo and other details”
“So funny, @#$#$%%”

Body Mass Index or BMI or Body Mess Indicator (as I call) is one of the parameter that can be used to evaluate your fitness. There are several parameters that are considered to evaluate the physical fitness of a person. Some of them I have mentioned below. The first two you can calculate yourself.

Body Mass Index or BMI – A parameter that measures a person’s “fatness” or “thinness”, it is calculated as BMI = [weight (kgs)] / [height (meters)]^2. In India, Normal BMI is less than 23, Overweight is above 23 and Obese is above 25, less than 18.5 is underweight.

Waist – Hip Ratio - is the ratio of the circumference of the waist to that of the hips. Ratio more than 0.95 for men & more than 0.85 in Women denotes risk. Studies have shown that people with more fat accumulation around their waist are at a higher risk of developing coronary vascular disease as compared to those with fat accumulation elsewhere in the body.

Cardio Respiratory Endurance – It is the ability of your heart, lungs and blood vessels to supply sufficient oxygen to the muscles and their capacity to utilize the oxygen to generate energy.

Muscular Strength – Capacity of the muscle to generate force.

Muscular Endurance – Capacity of the muscle to perform work over an extended period of time.

Flexibility – Range of motion around the joints.

A friend of mine has called me for a dinner, even though we were in touch by mail and phone, the last I saw him in person was around 8 years back. He moved to US long back. Even tough he was visiting India once in a year, we could not meet. He has put on lot weight and as soon as I saw him, it reminded me of what my friend said, “Yeh banda aagey jaake mota ho jaya ga”. 

Just to tease him, I said “Oh Man! You have put on lot weight, reduce your weight other wise your wife will go away with some one else”.
“Me! Overweight? You must be joking”.
“No, I am serious, if not obese, at least you must be grade 2 overweight”, I said trying to make a rough calculation of his BMI looking at this height and guessing how much his weight would be.
“Shall I say you something, if your wife does not say you are over weight, then you are not, if she says you are over weight then better consider reducing your weight”, he winked at me.

I guess each one have their own definition of BMI.

Priceless :-)

My pencil sketches...

Research and Conclusions

How our mind reads?

Airdoccng to a rsrechecah at Cadmrbige Ustvieriny, it deson't matetr in waht oedrr the lterets in a wrod are, the olny iemorptnt tinhg is that the fsrit and last letter msut be at the rgiht palce. The rest can be a ttoal mses and you can siltl read it wtuhoit ploberm. Tihs is bseauce the hmuan mnid does not read evrey letetr by itlsef, but the word as a wlhoe.

Are you able to read the above sentence?

Now read the sentence below in the triangle.

Are you sure you have read the sentence correctly?

Read it once again word by word. There are two ‘the’ in the sentence, if you have missed that when you have read it for the first time, your mind does not read every word by word, but the sentence as a whole  :-)

Santa and Banta were also approached by some organization and funded the study on cockroach.

Santa, Banta started their research work.

Banta placed the cockroach on the table and cut one of its legs. And he said to him, "WALK!”.
The cockroach moves forward.
Then Santa cut its second leg and shouted, "WALK!".
The cockroach manages to move forward.
Banta then cut its third leg and commanded, "WALK!" The cockroach manages to wriggle forward on one leg.
Finally Santa cut its fourth leg and shouted, "WALK!”.
The poor cockroach could not move and lay helplessly on the table.
Santa, Banta repeated the same experiment with over a hundred cockroaches. And they found all results matched.
Santa, Banta were jubilant, "Now! Our research study is over!"

They proceeds to write down the conclusion of the study: "When all four legs of a cockroach are cut it becomes deaf!"

Handover - Takeover

Top Indian IT companies are popularly known as SWTICH (Satyam, Wipro, TCS, Infosys, CTS, and HCL). With Satyam debacle, now the name sounds little odd as it has changed into WITCH.

Out of the WITCH companies, Dallal Street was very happy with the performance of TCS and CTS over few quarter/yearly results. There is a mounting pressure on Infosys and Wipro to gear up else CTS is going to overtake them soon. Interestingly, over a year or so we have seen lot of changes in the management and re-organization in both these companies. When I was reading some of the articles on these changes, it reminded me of a management story.

With the changing market scenarios, stiff competition, and declining top and bottom line of the organization, the board has decided to replace the existing CEO to get a fresh perspective and thought leadership. A couple of weeks were given for handover and takeover. On the last day of the handover process, incumbent CEO handover the new CEO three sealed envelopes marked as 1, 2, 3 and asked him to open the envelopes in that order when he encounter a crisis to find a solution.

At the end of the first financial year, there is no improvement in the top or bottom line. In the panic situation CEO before the board meeting opens the first envelope. The letter inside the envelope says “Blame the Predecessor”. He goes to the board meeting and blames the predecessor for the complete mess and he is working on bringing it on track and gets away with this explanation.

About six months later, there is no change in the situation. The CEO opens the second envelope and the letter inside say “Restructure". CEO completely re-organize the business units, people and informs the board that he is getting right people in right place and aligning things that would help the organization to focus more on the customer needs.

At the end of the year, still there is no change in the situation. CEO opens the third envelope before the board meeting and the letter inside says “Prepare three envelopes".

Circketing Moments

Rare cricketing moments that I found on the web.

You can see all the 11 of the bowling team.

Last but not the least rare moment

Hum Tum

Money More Returns of the Day - PPF

When I visited my friend’s place, a cousin of my friend was at his place and he was inviting him for a treat over the weekend. He was giving the treat for the job offer he received from a Pharma company during the campus placements. It was really pleasant to hear someone NOT getting into IT band wagon. I was curious to know how much non-IT companies offer. Even though people say, “Do not ask the salary of man and age of a woman”, I asked him how much they offered. It was a very decent offer and is comparable to what IT companies offer for an engineering graduate just out a college.

Now that he is soon going to become financially independent, I asked him, “It is a very good offer, what will you do with the salary, do you have any plans?”. He said every thing about what all he want to buy and list of places he want to visit and to my disappointment he did NOT say, “I will start investment for future”.

It is very important to start saving/investment at early age, else one has to invest lot more amount at later stage to get the same returns (Experience speaks :-) ). I would say investment is also an art. At the end of the day, it is the proper investments (at right time) that give you the high returns.

There are several investment plans people advice from high risk to low risk depending on the income, age of the person, their financial goals and future commitments. For all the young people who are getting into job at a minimum I would suggest them to invest in Public Provident Fund (PPF) from the first month itself.

As per the new revised Direct Tax Code (DTC), the new tax code proposed to be replacing the Income Tax Act, 1961, PPF will continue to be under exempt-exempt-exempt (EEE) regime.

PPF account is exempted under all three stages.

Stage 1 Exempt - When you make deposit in your PPF account you get tax deduction under section 80C.
Stage 2 Exempt - The accumulation of interest in your PPF account is also tax exempted.
Stage 3 Exempt – The time of maturity when you withdraw your money, this amount is tax exempted.

Tips of investing in PPF

1. Instead of whole lump sum amount deposited once per year, try deposit every month.
2. Make sure that you invest by the 5th of every month. Interest is calculated on the lowest balance between the close of the fifth day and end of the month. If you invest Rs 5000 before 5th of every month, with 8% interest rate at the end of 15years you get Rs 17,41,725.72.
3. Ensure that you continue to make a minimum deposit of Rs. 500 every year.

At the age of 60 or when you retire it is how much you saved will matter more than how much you earned and a proper plan at young age will make 60th birthday as Money (Many) more returns of the day.

ABCD of Management - NOT taught at Harvard

Chanakya also known as kutilya or vishnugupta in his book Arthashastra describes the ways of dealing with an enemy or an opponent: sama (appease), dana (rewarding), bheda (sowing differences in enemy camp) and danda (use of force). This is the natural or recommended order of dealing with the opponent.

In order to manage and get the work done from your team, these old techniques with slight modification of definition (as team is not your enemy or opponent) can be applied to get the desired results.

Sama – Ask the team member to complete the assigned task or remind him about his responsibilities.

Dana – Show him the carrot – Use your rewarding power. Address his top perceived needs that motivates him to work.

Bheda – Highlight the difference – Generate competitive spirit by highlighting what the peers have achieved.

Danda – Use of Corrosive power or Legitimate power you have – You better do it, else I am going to screw up your appraisal.

I am sure, if not in a sequence these management techniques many of us experienced or applied in dealing with the team to get the work done.

There is also another technique and I call it as, “ABCD of Management” and we find some of the so called 'leaders' effectively using it when team members approach them with problems.

‘A’void  - Avoid the team member  – If a person comes to you with a problem, say that you are too busy and ask them to schedule a meeting and block the calendar. Once scheduled, counter and re-schedule after 2 weeks. If required, re-schedule couple of more times. By that time either the problem is solved or the person may not come to you again with a problem.

‘B’lame – Blame the team member – If a person comes to you with a problem or got into a problem resulting in schedule slippage, blame them that they are useless and fit for nothing. Choose a subject in which you are the master and the person may not know anything about it (even though it is not required or relevant to their job) and then intimidate them with questions on that subject. Tell them the past stories of your problem solving capability.

 

‘C’onfuse – Confuse the team member – Talk about everything in the world except the problem. Try to relate un-related things and confuse them so that they do not come again.

‘D’elegate – Delegate the problem – Behave as if the person has insulted you by getting too silly and stupid problem and you are too busy and do not want to waste your time. “What! Is this a problem, go to that person, he will help you to solve this”.

If you are using these 'ABCD' techniques, its time for you to move.

"The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership" - General Colin Powell

Favicon

Do you see a different icon (favicon) in the address bar of your browser ? :-)

Blog design template gives an option of changing the favicon from the default blogger icon. Seeing this option, I thought let me design one for my blog. Immediately three things came to my mind, should I use first letter of my name or should I create a symbol similar to my signature that I use in all by drawings or should I create a complete new symbol. Given the size of the icon (16*16 pixels) to be created, first choice would be much easier. So, I zeroed on the first choice and created a simple icon with letter ‘K’.

It seems, letter ‘K’ is silent in around 43 English words. Letter ‘K’ occurs as the first letter in the word but not actually pronounced.  Just to say, this letter ‘K’ is not silent and to add little bit toppings to the simple icon, I created another icon ‘!K’ (exclamation mark followed by letter K).

I was not able to make a final choice on which one should I go with. So, I mailed these two icons to my friend and asked him “Which one of the two looks better”. He replied back saying “(!K) looks similar to yahoo icon (Y!)”. Even though he did not answer my question, his comment made my choice easier and faster.

There is a hell lot of difference in the two statements, “You sing like S. P. Balasubrahmanyam” and “S. P. Balasubrahmanyam sings like you" :-)

Citizens Ombudsman

Yesterday, Pranab Mukherjee in his reply to the debate on the three demands of Anna Hazare in the parliament requested speaker to convey, "in principle agreement" of the three demands and the sense of the house along with the entire debate proceedings to the sanding committee for their consideration in the preparation of the Lokpal bill. Even though there is no binding on the standing committee to include all the three demands in the draft Lokpal bill to be submitted back to the cabinet / parliament, non-inclusions will only lead to a serious political implications.

Inclusion of PM, Judiciary may or may not effect common man on a day to day basis but the three demands Anna has made will have an effect. These 3 demands are inclusion of lower bureaucracy, citizen’s charter, appointment of lokayuktas – inclusion of public servants of state.

Citizen’s charter is more like a service level agreements (SLA) by the government office to the citizens / customers to whom they provide service with certain penalties. Section 25 of Jan Lokpal bill talks about the Citizen’s Charter.

Section 25 (2) says, “Every citizens' charter shall enumerate the public authority's commitments to the citizens which are capable of being met within a specific time limit and shall designate the officer whose duty would be to fulfill the commitment of the public authority”. This is similar to SLA.

Section 25(5) says, “Each public authority shall designate an official called Public Grievance Redressal Officer in each station where the public authority has an office, to whom a complaint could be made for any violation of the citizens' charter”. This section talks about the mechanism to address the slippages of the SLA (Grievances).

Section 25(9) says,“The Lokpal after hearing the Grievance Redressal Officer would impose suitable penalty not exceeding Rs. 500/- for each day's delay but not exceeding Rs. 50,000/- to be recovered from the salaries of the Grievance Redressal Officer”. This section talks about the penalty to Grievance Redressal officer for not getting the grievance redressed within the specific period of 30 days a complaint.

We see and hear about people paying bribe for two kinds of things:

1. You pay bribe to make the officer to do the work they are supposed to do - You have all the required documents or submitted the required documents to get the service from government office, still your work is delayed or not done as the officer asks or expects money from you to provide the service (on time).
2. You pay bribe to do the work which they are not supposed or intended to do – You do not have all the documents or do not have required things as per the rules. People pay bribe to the officer to ignore or by pass things to get the service done.

In my opinion Citizen’s Charter would minimize the first kind of bribes if not the later and hopefully we see and sense in all the government offices what Gandhiji said about customer, “A customer is the most important visitor on our premises, he is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so”.

Humble Pencil

A few years back, I received a forwarded mail with subject as “Awesome”. It appeared like the mail has gone all around the world with lots of forwards before it has reached my mailbox. I had to scroll down the mail quite a bit before I actually see the content of the mail. As the subject of the mail says, it was truly “awesome” and an amazing piece of pencil shading art.

There were several occasions earlier, after seeing any nice drawing I felt, ‘May be I should make an attempt to draw something’, but never made an attempt. This content of the mail made me to pick up the pencil and start learning how to draw. After drawing couple of things, I thought let me try drawing this “awesome” piece of art.

Made an attempt and the result is ...

This framed pencil art is no longer with me , it was given as a return gift to one of my friend who has given me pencil sketching box containing pencils grade ranging from F to 9B.

At the end of the mail it says, “Five important lessons you learn from pencil”

1. It tells you that everything you do will always leave a Mark.
2. You can always correct the mistake you make.
3. The important thing in life is what you are from inside and not from out side.
4. In life you will undergo painful sharpenings which will make you better in whatever you do.
5. Finally, to be the best you can be, you must allow yourself to be held and guided by the hand that holds you.

Shubh Arambh

Last week, I called my friend who writes blog and asked her, “I want to start writing, which blog site is better to create my profile? “, she immediately answered “Wow! Shubh Arambh, Kuch meetha ho jaye”.

There is an Indian concept of having something sweet before every auspicious work we do, with a hope that it leads to a favorable outcome. There is a belief and also importance given for starting the work on an auspicious day and have something sweet. Is it not that we all want “Shubh Anth”(Anth-End can be logical end) irrespective of when and how it started?

Even some of the popular festivals we celebrate like Diwali , Dussehra are the celebrations or remembrance of some “Shubh Anth”.

putrotsahamu tamdriki

putrudu janiyimcinapudu kalugadu, janul a

putruni kanugoni pogadaga

putrotsahambu “nadu” pomdura sumati !

One of the famous telugu sumati shatakam poem (100 moral poems written by Bhadra Bhupala) which translates to “Father does not get the happiness when son is born, he gets the true happiness only when his son has grown up and people recognize and praise his achievements”.

I replied back to my friend “Well, What I ever write on the blog is not going to end up as a ‘Shakespeare’ work, so there is no need of ‘meetha ho jaye’. If I am able to articulate properly and write regularly then the ‘Arambh’ would make some sense“.

To get a second opinion on the blog sites, I called another friend and asked him, “Tell me a good blog site to create a profile and start writing?”

“Shubh Arambh, Kuch kadava ho jaye”

Men will be men!