Ssshhhh......

Silence.

Silence fills.

Silence kills.

Silence is credence.

Silence is denial.

Silence of the tongue that says nothing.

Silence of the eyes that say everything.

Silence is the unspoken conversation between hearts.

Silence is the goading uncomfort.

Silence when you're alone.

Silence when you're not alone.

Silence in serenity.

Silence in shock.

Silence in anger.

Silence in dilemma.

Silence when you know what's going on.

Silence when you don't wanna know what's going on.

Silence when your friend disturbs you.

Silence when your friend gives you time.

Silence is many things, it is what we make of it. Maybe, God created friends and silence together. Both are golden, both are cherished. It becomes the best combination when your friend knows exactly what your silence means without you saying a word.

Cherish friends.

Cherish silence.

\* unleash your thoughts */

Attempts & Fear

And there I was, sitting in my home, watching bleach when a high-pitched drumming sound and a familiar smell distracted me. It was rain. I smiled. I don't know why, but whenever I see the rain, I smile. Maybe, its because rain is a sign that change is coming. That warm sunny days and gloomy rainy days come from the same vast blue sky.

Along with rain, came his two buddies. Lightning and Thunder.

In typical fashion. The perfect split-second gap between the two.

And, so I began thinking of something else. Something, apparently unrelated, but still related in my empty head.

If you ask someone, which one they fear, their answer is 90% thunder. "Oh, the horrible and deafening sound!", they'd tell you. But then, science tells you that lighning is the one which you should fear. For those who've forgotten the basic "funda" behind it, lightning is the electricity which is discharged when clouds meet. Thunder is merely the dissipation of the extra energy of lightning. And so, if something were to kill you, it'd be lightning.

Now, why the blah blah?

That what I thought was of fear. We fear not, what is to be feared but on the other things. This attached picture probably describes it the best. And, the final sentence, is the one which I love most.



Why are we so hesitant to try again? What is so wrong in it? So what if we didn't win first time? If you didn't try again, its utterly meaningless. Are you afraid someone will laugh at you again? Nothing is more stupid than that. Success is sweet when its obtained first-time; when our efforts pay off immediately. But the, its even sweeter when its gotten after failure. That is when you smirk at failure and say, "I always believed you weren't permanent!". Even in trivial video games, don't we hit the "Retry" button just to see the hero win it? Cynicists may argue that, video games are designed for the hero to win always. I agree, but then, that's a sore loser's quote.

YOU ARE THE DESIGNER OF YOUR LIFE. Do not blame others.

What you are, and what you do, are results of your own attempts and tries. When you're on the edge of giving up, go for it just one more time. It doesn't hurt that much to try once more !

Don't ever give up. If you believe in luck, continue. Its a wonderful thing. But then, do not slack on your effort because luck has the peculiar habit of not being there when you "depend" on it. Its either you or rejection. What you choose, will decide what is permanent. Success stories are not fairy tales. You may become "that person" in a story very soon in the future.

AGAIN, DON'T EVER GIVE UP !

\*unleash your thoughts */

Inspiration

"All is well that ends well"

Yeah, correct.

"All is well that ends well."

As long as the end is right, all is well. As simple as it may seem, it has become my fundamental philosophy.

But what if it doesn't end well? Does it mean 'all' is not well?

Apparently it doesn't.

If you don't believe me, think about it. You'll find it interesting to have thought about it even if you didn't reach a satisfactory conclusion :-P

Returning to the original discussion, this particular quote has many implications on success and failure. When the end is well, all seems to be well. In success, the journey seems sweet thought it may be covered with sweat. But then, what if the result is failure?

There is disappointment but then that is not all. There is maturity and there's understanding. I find it more valuable than victory by itself. To put it even more simply,

The winner understands only success.

The loser understands both success and failure. And what all is learnt is implemented to achieve the success which eluded previously. After all, continual failure is a blatant sin. Its really the mindset of the loser, that decides the outcome in a possible next encounter.

During tough times, it is a welcome quote.

"All is well that ends well ."

I can't find a more suitable person to cite as an example to this than Steve Jobs.

Imagine yourself in this position. You dropped out from college, still attend calligraphy classes(out of all classes), sleep on the floor in friends' rooms, collect coke bottles for 5 cents. 7 mile walk = one good meal a week.

Very depressing.

But then, we know whose Apple changed the world :)

One particular quote from the Stanford address stays very close to me.

"You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life."

If you haven't listened to it already, please do atleast now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NA

Hope is all it takes. I heard this lecture during a period when I was need of motivational inspiration in some form and this speech was perfect. If you're in my shoes now, you'll love it too. Nevertheless, whatever situation you may be in, you'll love it. Because that's the man who was brought back into his own company and made CEO cuz they knew they wouldn't survive a bit without him. No one would object even if he called himself "iGod Tech". Have hope. The dots will connect.



RIP : 'iGod' Steve Jobs. :'(

\* unleash your thoughts */

Love n Hate

He was sitting in his armchair, his sunken eyes pondering what word would fill that column of the crossword.. Sudoku, Kakuro were new additions in the newspapers but his all-time favourite was the good old crossword. After all, in the past 25 years, he had never once left any unsolved. Ramakrishnan was 85, and had retired from office 27 years ago. Still, he never felt boredom. His head scarcely had any hair left, but his brain seldom didn't know something. He lived with his younger son who had a boy. Suresh was into his teens and was a good, obedient boy. As with all grandpas, Ramakrishnan loved his grandson very much. The feeling was mutual from the young man and he loved to converse with his "grandpapedia" as he lovingly addressed the octogenarian.

One fine evening, grandpa had something in mind. He went to his desk, and pulled out a sheet of paper, and started writing.

"Dear grandson,

There is love and there is hate. At the age of two, hate is towards the hand the pulls the thumb out of our mouth. At the age of five, hate is toward the voice of mom, who says "Don't play in the mud!!". At the age of ten, hate is towards the teacher, who scolds "Why haven't you done your homework?" At fifteen, its dad's voice, who shouts "Switch off the bloody video game!". At 20, its the college professor, who is unreasonable. At 25, its the cranky boss. At 35, its towards the son's bad friends. At 45, its at the son's stress-vents at home. There is hate at all points of life, but what is important is love and not hate. In the end, it doesn't matter how much we've hated people; what matters is how much you've loved people! Care for your family and for your friends. And, choose those friends very carefully! Care for those who care for you! These days, if you hold out a helping hand to the wrong person, he'll spit on it! Such is world. Be careful. Have pride in who you are. Live with honour. Fill your life with love and care.

Love you a lot dear little grandson!"

Back from school, Suresh found the letter on the desk. As he completed reading it, he went to his grandpa's room. The hand hung from the support. The head was looking up. Ramakrishnan's face looked so peaceful. After all, he'd lived a life without any regrets till date.

Tears welled in Suresh's eyes as he went near his grandpa, hugged him and whispered "I promise!". Ramakrishnan's head slowly turned n said "What? Its coffee time already?"

As Suresh stared at his grandpa n his practical joke, grandpa chuckled n said "Gotcha! Thought I was gone for good, didn't you? :P"

\* unleash your thoughts */

Handwriting

I stepped in, as usual and looked into my watch. The time was 6:05 a.m. Perfect! :) Time to begin today's job. I observed as the many curious eyes peered at me,as usual. Motioning them to sit down after the "Good morning!" chorus, I turned around, to erase the board. Began at the top left corner, as usual. Everything went as usual that day, except for one thing. My thoughts drifted unconsciously as I found myself staring at a handwriting, which I hadn't seen in quite a while. I was looking at the abbreviation 'PMI' which stood for 'Process of Mathematical Induction'. Memories of homeworks, Probability, Integral Calculus everything seemed to rush into my head then. He'd call me "Ramasamy".. That was the name of the guy in the attendance roll just before me(and he was always absent), and a simple error on a fine day, rechristened me. :-P His way of teaching was enjoyable and checking your watch wasn't something that you'd be doing there. I still remember the problem in which P(A) n P(B) represented the probability of the wife and husband getting a particular job and, the probability of the wife not getting the job was P'(A)[read 'P bar of A'] and the husband's being P'(B), he said "Vela kedakkalana? Vera enna? Bar'ukku poga vendiyadhu thaan(sogathula)!" implying the usage of the complement. I was in 11th and he took maths for me. He was "Prabhu sir". I found that I'd erased the board and was brought back to reality. Funny, how much your thoughts can drift while erasing a board :-) I had two more of the best teachers - Arul sir n Thyagu sir. But Prabhu sir is special, cuz he was the first teacher that I looked upto n thought "Pha! Sir na ivuru thaan!" I may meet many great professors in the future but you'll always be special cuz you were the first.

Dedicated to Prabhu sir - my 11th std Arul Institute Maths professor.

\*unleash your thoughts*/

Good morning, wake up!

http://epaper.timesofindia.com/

Dated : 13/08/2011

Page : 11

If you ask anyone who your roll model is, their answer is most likely to depend on their age, the most diversified ones being those of kids. Kids are fascinated very easily and their role-models range from a man-in-tights to his very own 'Papa' :-D Elders, on the other hand, are usually staunch followers of a particular person who inspired them over the course of their hair-line recession.

The category of age that falls in between, the earlier part of it, namely the youth are those with the unstable mind. They, still being children , do tend to be strongly influenced by whatever be 'the phenomenon' that rules the media at that particular point of time. This is particularly sad, and the link mentioned stamped 'OK' the stereotype.

With the debate around all the matters of corruption being influential on the youth(as it should rightly be), it is heartening to see that the youth see 'Corruption' as the biggest threat to society. Yet, a relative 3 out of 10 would pay up quietly to get the job done(the real culprits are among the remaining 7).

My friend once said, "We were fans when we used to talk incessantly about yesterday's movie/sporting event, we became fanatics when the punch dialogue/scoreline became our status update and the guy our DP!". Bull's eye.!

Behold the statistic! It says that the majority of the youth think that "India's greating achievement in the past 5 years was the winning of Cricket World Cup!".I would like to remind them that the Chandrayan wasn't launched more than 5 years back. LOL at the fact that it wasn't even there in the options! Well, that's just one example. I do agree that in a country, so filled with corruption that the newspapers could dedicate a page to it daily, 'other achievements' do happen other than winning the world cup. There's nothing that I wish to say in particular and the link may get archived very soon. Maybe I should say "Jaago re!" :-P And, also learn the difference between 'rolemodel' and 'youth icon'. I think they were very confused when they replied with 'Sachin Tendulkar'  when asked "Who do you think is close to being your rolemodel?"

P.S.: I sat up during the night to see the match that day and I missed the launch.

\* unleash your thoughts */

Duty

Lab, lab, lab! Practicals is fun, yeah, surely better than theory. Endeavour, experience and exploit. The key to research. Fascination by results is the key to innovation, and it is that factor that drives practical work. But uff! Lab isn't interesting anymore. Not when your capabilities are tested by the notebook you wield. A college student is a warrior whose weapons are his math textbook(read club) and his observation notebook. Miss the latter and you're the primary subject of the teacher's anger. A perfect observation is an engineer's dream.

Once he begins his herculean effort to comprehend the science of engineering, his list of national duties get incremented by one. Oh yeah, I would recommend the Drafting Committee. How does this sound?

Section 24 of the Article 423 requires that "all engineering students maintain, update and validate the existence of their corresponding observation notebooks every week. Failure to do so, may result in inexplicable circumstances ranging from a petty warning to a full-fledged vent of the staff's anger on her housemaid who didn't come to sweep the house on that particular day".

As theory is tested by thoery, practical work may only be tested fair by a practical continuous assessment. But, oh goodness, 75% of my continuous assessment comes from my observation which "I solemnly swear to be a testimonial of my copying abilities and undetectable plagiarism".

All set and done, I have my Database Management Systems lab tomorrow and I must dutifully complete my observation. For I am an engineer.

\*unleash your thoughts*/