Saturday 30 August 2014

Teeny Weeny : Waiting


" I am late .... ".


As she hurried towards her usual bench,  she grimaced at the small rip near the hem of  her red dress.

His favourite dress.  It needed mending.

He had promised her that he will be there at 8.30 am.

Twenty years back.



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Teeny-Weenies will spice up the monotony of the leadership posts . Hope you like them.   
 Looking forward to your comments.

Thursday 28 August 2014

Teeny Weeny : Anonymous

"I will never see you again .... " He had promised . 

His anonymous facebook profile was not bound by the vow .....







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Teeny-Weenies will spice up the monotony of the leadership posts . Hope you like them.   
 Looking forward to your comments.



Incredible story of the Mountain Man

Do you think ONE man is enough to cut a mountain ? 

Is it possible for one person to bring down a 360 feet long, 25 feet high mountain and create a 16 feet wide pass in place of an almost an impassable gap ?

No ...... ? 

Think again . 

Dasrath Majhi , from Gaya district , state Bihar in India, did just that. 


Dasrath eked out a living as a farm hand, toiling in the fields of local landlords on bare subsistence wages.  One day, in the early '60s, his wife Phaguni Devi fell ill and Dasrath set off with her to the nearest hospital.  

Phalguni Devi died on the way.

If only there was no hill blocking the road to the town, Dasrath would have made it to the hospital in time, and perhaps his wife's life would have been saved.


The villagers had to take a circuitous route and travel 19 km to Wazirganj, the nearest district town. This was because the massive 360 feet long, 25 feet high and 30 feet wide sheer rock came in the way of the shortest possible route between the village and the town.

The situation would have brought about a feeling of resignation or fatalism in the average man—as if God had himself put this giant obstacle in the path of his ailing wife.   


Dasrath's response was different and radical, unthinkable and stunningly simple. 

He decided to alter geography with chisel and hammer.

To cut a road through the huge mass of rock.  

Alone.

The next morning, armed with a hammer and chisel, he started off on a task that was to become an obsession. The villagers called him a madman. 

But that did not deter him. 


After 22 years of back-breaking, single-handed toil, Dasrath finished in the mid-'80s. The mountain had yielded to man.  Now, Wazirganj was just about six kilometres away. The people of Gelaur village  could reach it in under an hour.

In Manjhi’s own words, “What I did is there for everyone to see. When God is with you, nothing can stop you,” 

I will keep working for the development of the villages here so long I am alive. I am neither afraid of any punishment from any government department for my work nor am I interested in any honour from the government

Dasrath Majhi died on 17th August, 2007, at the age of 73. 

But he will be remembered forever as the "Mountain Man". 

A man who loved his wife . A man who thought about others.

A leader, who walked alone and moved the mountain. 



Sunday 17 August 2014

Love Thy Critics !

I love this couplet by Kabir - a great mystic poet  and saint of India (1398 )

"Nindak niyare rakhiye, Angan kuti chawai,
Bin pani sabun bina, nirmal kare subhaiy"

[Translation: Keep your critic close to you. Give him a cottage in the courtyard of your house, because he cleanses your nature without soap and water]

Simple . Yet profound. 

Yesterday I saw a play where the protagonist  the King - welcomed his most powerful critic and asked him to look into his eyes and criticize him.  It was one of the most intriguing part of the play.  

As leaders, we should know that the people who criticize us are our greatest teachers. The situation or people who shred us apart with their fault finding , reveal our limiting beliefs, assumptions and fears.  Just like a good tester breaks the system to find flaws so that the software becomes robust and stable, the same way, these people pinpoint where we are going wrong.  They tell us what is holding us back from becoming the greatest. And ... all for free !

As Kabir said, we should nurture the people who disparage us so that we know what are the areas we need to work on, how we should overcome our fears and how we can climb up the growth chart ! Adverse situation and people cleanses us to become purer, greater and better. They help us shine !

The instant negative reaction to criticism is natural.  It needs a lot of maturity and practice to control this instinctive response.  We have to look deep inside to see why we are reacting. Whenever I am in such a situation,  the first thing I do is take 5-10 deep breaths , focusing on the  air going in and out of my nose. This helps me to stabilize and control my first instinctive and involuntary retort.  Once we practice doing this, it becomes easier to objectively look at pour fears and weaknesses and take steps to shed them ! 

Not all negative criticism are true.  We have to be mature and intelligent enough to take out the grain within the criticism and blow the chaff away !

So, the next time anyone rubs you off,  go and hug them ! Thank them for their valuable gift .  

And as a return gift, become mature. 
And Strong . 
And Powerful !

Read a related post : I Don't Agree



Monday 4 August 2014

The Other Side


There was a young woman who took great pride in the growth and care of the flowers in her flower garden. She had been raised by her grandmother who taught her to love and care for flowers as she herself had done. So, like her grandmother, her flower garden was second to none.

One day while looking through a flower catalogue she often ordered from, a picture of a plant immediately caught her eye.

She had never seen blooms on a flower like that before.I have to have it,”  she said to herself, and she immediately ordered it.

When it arrived, she already had a place prepared to plant it. She planted it at the base of a stone wall at the back of her yard. It grew vigorously, with beautiful green leaves all over it, but there were no blooms. Day after day she continued to cultivate it, water it, feed it, and she even talked to it attempting to coax it to bloom. But, it was to no avail.

One morning weeks later, as she stood before the vine, she contemplated how disappointed she was that her plant had not bloomed. She was giving considerable thought to cutting it down and planting something else in its place.

It was at this point that her invalid neighbor, whose lot joined hers, called over to her. “Thank you so much! You can’t imagine how much I have enjoyed the blooms of that vine you planted.” 

The young woman walked through the gate into her neighbor’s yard, and sure enough, she saw that on the other side of the wall the vine was filled with blooms.

There were indeed the most beautiful blooms she had ever seen. The vine had crept through the crevices and it had not flowered on her side of the fence, it had flowered luxuriantly on the other side.

Just because sometimes you cannot see the good result of your labour, it  does not mean that it bore no fruit.

So dear friends, always look on the other side before you feel despondent about your lost labour.

Good work never ever goes waste !