Just a point

These last few years have been very demanding and a learning time for me. Last night I was pondering what did I learn in the last 10 years and I thought of doing a count down :

My top ten lessons of the decade:

10. Business is bumpy. No matter how careful you are , whatever strategy you may have and allied back up plans , it is likely that you would be hit by a hurricane or tornado. You just cannot plan for everything. Learnt to raft.

9. "Business friends " is an oxymoron. It is unwise to mix business with friendship. Fundamentally , business hinges on self interest and friendship on self less ness. Merging both is dangerous game and can only result in pain. Learnt now to keep both separate.

8. Offering help indiscriminately will do more harm than good. Nothing wrong with being called a good guy by everybody. But it would keep rising the expectations to a level which would be impossible to sustain. Learnt to prioritize help to the most deserving. ( my judgement)

7. Chaos theory is alive and kicking in life. Cause and effect study in problems will help us analyse the primary and secondary causes and form our responses but tertiary causes are absolutely unstable. Nowadays I try and catch the levers that have the greatest of influences.

6. Office Colleagues are not family. This is no way intended to be derogatory or disrespectful but as a matter of fact. We cannot take them for granted as we do with our family members ( even that can be terrible at times ). Their priorities could be very different one from our assumption of their priorities.

5.Work hard , Play hard breaks a tough boy. I no longer believe success comes out of that quality. Oftentimes it is best to soft peddle.

4. School sucks when studying , but we long for it once it is over. Life sucks more. But we do not realise that in school. I had believed somehow, life would be very pleasant once the schooling is over. But looking back during our reunion I now know better.

3.Nothing wrong in failing but staying failed is wrong. Fear of pain caused by failure inhibits us from experimenting. It may also prove very costly. However, failures are part of a journey and that journey is as important as the destination.

2. If you miss your kid’s growing years, that’s it. Suddenly we may find that our kids are no longer kids. You would be forced to treat them as adults in a dramatic transformation.

1. There is a lesson to be learnt every day…….

Truly "Aayirathil Oruvan"

I happened to watch this film last week in a theatre. I had stopped watching flims in the theatre for some time now, but this happened. And I am happy it did.

We keep studying history and identify points in time which creates a change in the course, but is hardly recognized at that point in time. In its presence, it fails to manifest its truer potential but like vintage wine ages priceless.

Aayrathil Oruvan is one such endavour. There has been no Tamil film in this genre. That is a fact. A lot of thinking and sensitivity has gone into making of this movie. That is a fact. A lot of people have completely wagered their career in the last two years during the production. That is a fact.
An attempt has been made to remember our history, in whatever little manner was possibe. That is a fact. And this is a work of an obsessed man who wanted to give some thing more. And that is an undeniable fact.

Selvaraghavan excels as film maker in at least one count. He has produced a film for the Tamil audience with a limited market. It is easy to compare this film with the Stephen spielberg or James Camaron and rubbish Selva. But what Selva has achieved is to raise the bar to bring comparisons with them. That is stunning .........

Another coup, if I may say, is the ending... The media has been saying that open ending will not work in Tamil Cinema. It does, here.

Add that to the haunting music, breath taking visuals , the film really trascends the watchers to another level.

One of a kind Tamil movie in a long long time .........................

Surprising Sunrise

Now a days it is not uncommen for me to get up around 3 o 'clock and rush out to Air port to catch early morning flights. As much as I loathe the idea of sacrificing my regulated sleep, not to mention the mess these travels do to my running and workout schedules, it has become imperative to suffer these trips in silence. Te only saving grace if any, on these travels are my resolve to be back home for dinner and bed.

However, my visit to Hyderabad was a pleasent and different experience to day. Most of the times the early morning flights are always on time. Of course , if you are a Delhi bound passenger then it is a different matter during this season. My flight landed exactly at 7.35 am and I walked through the aero brigde. It is these 30 seconds that was one of the most awesome experience I had.

The bridge has glass panels and one walks through a clear and unhindered sight of open space. Imagine that with an sunrise, it is an experience we normally associate with cliff top. It was so moving, I decided to just to record it down immediately.

So guys, if you ever land in Hyderabad early in the morning and walk through the aero bridge, pause a moment to enjoy the sunshine................

Class of 81 - Reunion

"How time flies" is a cliche'. But I could not find a more appropriate sentence to describe my feelings when I met my old school mates at Cosmopolitan club last saturday, 12 December 09.
Apart from me, Raghu, Hari, Venkat Ramani and Nachiappan was there.

It is really interesting how this whole thing started out. I met Hari last month ( without realising that he is my class mate in school), through a common friend . Hari has started a venture and I met him to help him make an contractual obligation to one of his prospective customers. As we got to talking , it was Hari who recognized me , albiet , hazily. We immediately started talking our school days and revelled at the memories. It was at that moment we decided that we should track every one and meet .

One call to Raghu and we had our pivotal man. He agreed to dig his address book and take out all the available names. And he did. In no time we could round up 9 guys and had information on another 2. Out of 22 we have tracked half of them in 2 days.

Thanks to Raghu and Hari , now we are in the process of reaching out all our old friends. May be one day in not in the distant future, we will have a complete reunion of Class of 81.

After the finish at Singapore Marathon

After the run at Mayajaal

@15 km Mark- photo by Shahid& Senthil