My best friends-Value Teachers

Who do you think is the man’s best friend?

Any guesses?

The best  friend of a child or a man is literature. It is the literature which shapes up the character of individual. We cannot discount this fact as it plays a decisive role in making a complete man.

Two such piece of literature which has shaped up my generation is Amar chitra katha and Reader's Digest.

As school going kid I tried to read many Amar chitra Katha initially by buying the copies from the books store.Gods and Demigods from Indian mythology like Krishna,Ram,Shiva  have played a key role in  making me aware of the spirituality and good things in life.

Similarly freedom fighters like Netaji,Gandhi,Tilak were responsible to bring the awareness of the sacrifices they and innumerable others have made to make my generation live in peace.

Also Rajputs like Rana Pratap and Moghul warriors like Akbar have taught us how to fight for our honor as well co exist peacefully with tribes of different religion.The amount of mythology and history which my generation has learnt from Uncle Pai’s Amar Chitra Katha could not be learnt from the school books.

               
                                   

The moment I stepped out of school, with the newly acquired freedom came the responsibility of being a good homo sapien.In that age when getting your hands on various literature which are naturally titillating ,the evergreen magazine called Reader’s Digest keep you grounded and helped you to become a good human being.This piece of art created by Dewitt Wallace never grew old with the elaborate Cover story,Humor in uniform,Health in your hands and various knowledgeable stories and articles.

The beauty of Amar Chitra Katha and Reader’s Digest is that the content is not time bound.Even today you can read a 10 or 20 year article is fresh and definitely relevant.

That’s reason when money was not free flowing, buying old Amar Chitra Katha or Reader’s Digest was worth.

Both of them are so good that you can gift the subscription to your relatives and friends and you will be remembered till eternity for such a worthy act.

You can sell newspapers and old magazines to old paper marts but selling Amar Chitra Katha and Reader’s Digest is sacrilege.They are so close to you heart, no they are a part of you ,your consciousness,your being human being!

Long Live ACK and RD!!

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Beware of goof ups ..Practice Check and Correct!

In the age of E mail and SMS and MMS the communication has become faster.

Actually for some it is faster than their thoughts!!

Once one of my friend was exchanging text messages with his very close friend. The language between the bum chums were nothing short of “beep beep” types. Suddenly his Boss called him and by mistake he replied back with a sms with the choicest of “beep beep”.In split second he realized his mistake of the goof up and somehow could pacify his Boss!!

Accidental marking of corporate communications to unintended parties had taken toll of the biggies in the field. In order to win a bid a certain corporate implored all their employees to buy the company's product and claim back the money. However the mail landed on the web!!

Once a Finance Minister of old empire was asked by journalist about the impending budget .Pat came the reply that the cigarette he is smoking will get costlier to him. Before the budget could be tabled, the press went berserk with the headlines “duties on tobacco is increasing” .The Minister had to pay for his goof up by putting in his paper.

The moral of the story is hold your tongue or rather your finger or more aptly thought before reverting on any form of communication. 

A simple way to do this is to Practice a method called “Check and Correct”.In this method the task is check what you to send and what are you actually sending before you hit the 'click' button.

This can be used not only in your personal or official communication but also can be very well used by students when they write their exams.This saves lot of goof ups and bad blood between not bum chums or colleagues.

That’s why it is said Thought moves faster than the Thinker!! 

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AIDA model of communication for personal selling!!

Getting the money due to you out of the Government coffers is like desiring for Super Moon.

The same was happening in my home when father being an retired employee tried his best by writing many letters through registered post and scores of phone calls to get the amount due from an armed forces unit of the country.

Even I have called these gentlemen many times but in vain.There patent excuse was that we need to send this document or that photographs.This kept on going since last one year.Even after you send them everything and wait for your due,they will again start the "office office" game.

Many poor souls might have lost many of the chappal soles and still expecting anything will be blasphemy in front of these Government babus.

Finally I called that office at night 10 pm to know the name of the Head honcho of that division.As expected the Jawans were behaving as some terrorist have called them and I can bombard their centre through the phone.After lot of verbal duel I got the name of the Head honcho.

I was clear to call the Head honcho the next morning.Surprisingly I got a call from the Head honcho within minutes and he was screaming and saying ,"is this time to disturb a Government official" ? No logic like "Customer is king" in private sector was cutting ice as the head honcho said "do what ever you can" types.

My intention of getting the Head honcho Aware of my case was the first and most important step to get my job done,which I was farely successful as he himself told me that there were 150 such pending cases.

No sooner the office clock hit 10 am the next morning,I started getting calls from that office and the gentleman wanted me to believe that I made a mistake by calling the Head honcho at the unearthly hour.

He tried to tell me that the Head honcho was a gentleman and an officer which I believed as I was sure that he had shown Interest in my case and has taken Action to get it resolved.

The case got resolved in 24 hours time which was lingering and files pushed by different babus from one table to other for last one year just by applying the simple AIDA Model of Communication which stands for A-Awareness ,I-Interest,D-Desire and A-Action.

In AIDA , 50% effort on Awareness creation and 30% effort of Interest development followed by 10% each of Desire and Action is necessary to get your desired job done.

As said by William Butler Yeats, it must to ''Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people".

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Interaction with Future leaders!!

To stay young you should be with those who are really young in mind and body.Who can be better than the today's youth who are poised to graduate to the big bad world where they will be treated by the corporate vultures?

My endeavor to motivate youth with lots of positivity and knowledge got a shot in the arm when I was invited by Poona Institute of Management Science for their National Seminar as a key speaker on Business Process Innovations through Advanced Information Technology.

The experience was really enthralling with huge crowd and positive vibe in the air.

Looking forward to more interactions with the youth of today from various strata of the society be it from Educational Institutes or the Industries where I can share Positivity,Knowledge and Motivation!!

"We cannot always build the future for our youth,but we can build our youth for the future"-Franklin D.Roosevelt

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Perceptions can be dangerous!!

The train just cruised from Mumbai and the all the berths in 3rd AC were full.Traveling on the side berth gives you the complete view of all that happens inside the compartment and still you can keep yourself aloof from participating in any cacophony.

The inside 6 berths were occupied by one old man and a young girl and 3 middle aged ladies and one man who might be in his thirties sitting with a side bag on his shoulder who was asked about his berth by one the Marwari lady which was duly conformed by the young man.

Intermittent calls from home about safe journey were peppered by personal discussions mostly by the ladies.

Within half a hour or so the train stopped at Kalyan station and this young man with the bag slinging ,suddenly got up and went out of the compartment.

Almost within a second one lady said "these types of persons normally travel from Mumbai CST to Kalyan without reservation ".

Some one said "this is the modus operandi of thief who flick valuables and get down".

The old man cleared his throat and offered with all the intelligence ,"we should be more alert ,he could be terrorist in disguise and might have left a bomb in nice bag".Immediately all eyes were scanning all the bags and everyone ensured their belongings.

The old man also went down on the platform to see the name of the person on the reservation chart pasted on the bogey.

These group which till now was not knowing one another were quite relieved once the young man alighted the train.

In couple of minutes the train started slowly to move from Kalyan station.

Next 2-3 min were lull , suddenly the young man who had been target of everyone appeared with a bottle of packaged drinking water in one hand and other clutching his personal carry bag.

All of a sudden you can see the bewildered expressions on the faces of all the ladies and the old man .While some one was smiling and others tried to look outside the windows at all those sun burnt trees.

May be they felt bad about the comments made for this young man or may be they were still not believing their own eyes.

I was zapped how we people make perception about anyone without knowing an iota about the person.The irony was the young man was not aware of all that happened behind him.He took rest of the people as his own and started mingling once again.

Knowing a person takes many years and judging someone in jiffy can be dangerous!!

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