My stock for the next few days/weeks?

Edelweiss, Bless my homeland forever

Edelweiss, edelweiss,
every morning you greet me.
Small and white,
clean and bright,
you look happy to meet me.
Blossom of snow, may you bloom and grow,
bloom and grow forever.
Edelweiss, edelweiss,
bless my homeland forever.

-- A sweet little song from Sound of Music, loved it when towards the end of the movie, the entire Von Trapp family sing this song, with all the love for their homeland, and the sorrow of having to leave it pouring out from every word of this song..

It has been a long day!

I am in Brussels since yesterday and man - did I have a long day or what? - with the sun refusing to set till almost 10:15 in the night. Couldn't believe there was good enough light till about 10.

Looks like I am in for some real "long days" in the coming few weeks :-)

My 10 commandments

1. Don't hang onto the past. Past soon becomes a baggage too heavy to carry.

2. Every day is a new day. Start with a clean slate, write / scribble / draw on it. At night see what you have on the slate, memorize it and simply erase it.

3. Try to the best of your abilities, be it in professional or personal life. After you are convinced you have tried everything from your side, stop. If you succeed - luck was on your side. If you fail - life is unfair anyway.

4. At any point in time, if I look back, I don't want to ever give myself a chance of saying "Arati - see, you failed because you did not try enough". Yes, I will fail, but I don't want to be the reason for that failure.

5. Don't expect your best friend to always understand you and be by your side. Understand and accept that people change, their priorities and preferences change.

6. Work on today and dream for future. Dreams always do not come true, but they give you the hope and energy for the next day.

7. Remember the carrot and the rabbit story - you are a rabbit, and it is your responsibility to show yourself a carrot now and then. Don't expect anybody else to do that for you. You may not get the carrot, but it is going to make the journey bearable.

8. Don't analyze the whats, whys and hows in your life too much. As the software engineers say - Don't get into an analysis paralysis situation. Post-mortems are done on dead people, and let it just remain that way.

9. Learn to say no, when you want to say no - and say it.

10. Above all, accept yourself, as you are. If you don't, nobody else will.

Sakhe ga saye

A very sweet and hopeful Marathi poem, heard it a few years back and loved it. It has remained with me since then.

"sakhe ga saye, gauya ata
anandachi gani ga...

atalya aata, piyuna taku
dolyatale pani ga...

panyavar tya eka navyacha,
phutel ankura ga...

visavayala eka navyane
milel maher ga...

tula ni mala daveel disha
ek swatahcha tara ga...

shodhun tyala, jinkuna gheu
khel ha sara ga.."

Update: And here is the song (in my voice :-P) http://arati.rahalkar.googlepages.com/sakhe.wav

Lizard fight!

Time - 11:30 pm, Location - My room, Saturday night, I am reading interesting stuff on the Net, reading blogs, some nice topic cooking up in my head, thinking about what to write next in my blog, songs going on in the background - in short, a nice, relaxing Saturday night in progress.

I take a small break and look around the room and I see a brown, big, fat lizard on one of the walls - looking at me - as if ready to jump from there directly on my laptop. Though I have studied biology till 12th and I know the mechanics behind how the lizards manage to crawl and remain stuck to the walls - I always have this fear in my mind that it will somehow lose the grasp and fall from the ceiling right on me!

I hate the sight of the lizards, forget living with one in my room. The small break I took obviously gets extended - with my eyes not leaving her, and following her wherever she goes. The lizard moves all around the place, not understanding that I have opened up the windows for her to leave! Finally, I use my safe, yet, dependable weapon - a real long stick to shoo it off in the right direction and after a fight of almost 15 mins - the lizard gets out of my room.

Phew - so much for a relaxing Saturday night! And just because that stupid lizard wasted my precious 15 minutes, I decided to waste another 15 writing this blog..

Meeting Bheemabai

I met our oldest maid servant today, very unexpectedly. She was with us from my birth till I was in 4th or 5th Std. I think. As far back as I can remember, she was my favourite then - I remember running behind her all the time.. Bheemabai to me, is a woman, who loved me a lot, who pampered me a lot, and someone whom I accompanied and helped when it came to washing utensils!

When I met her today in her small one room house, all those memories came flooding back..I wanted to talk to her, but all I could manage was a smile for some time.. I almost choked and I had to actually fight back tears... Perhaps it was because of seeing her as an old lady in an unimaginably small house or plainly out of the realization that so many years have passed since the last time I saw her. And even after all these years, the most amazing part was that the love I felt towards her when I met her today, was not one-sided - when she affectionately stroked my head and patted my back, it was like meeting my Bheemabai again - the way I remember her and the way I always want to remember her. When my mother asked her to drop by some time, she said.. "Yes, I will come for Arati's wedding!"

There are some relationships in our lives that just get formed, we hardly have a role to play in their formation. Small or large, they become a part of our lives and remain with us, in a small corner of our hearts. We don't nurture these relationships, we don't take any extra effort to make them special, to make sure these people do not forget us. But yet, they remain, intact, strong and safe, like bonds that never break. For some reason, they make me believe in the goodness of life and in the goodness of people.

Delegation

Read an article that talked about the following 7 levels of delegation:

1. "Wait and be told, or do exactly what I say" - this is the no-delegation-at-all approach.

2. "Look into this and tell me what you come up with" - this is asking for investigation and analysis but no recommendation

3. "Give me your recommendation, and other options with the pro's and con's of each. I'll let you know if you can go ahead." - Asks for analysis and recommendation, but you're going to check the thinking before deciding.

4. "Decide and let me know your decision. But wait for my go ahead." - you are signaling that your subordinate is trusted to judge the various options, but (s)he needs approval before taking action.

5. "Decide and let me know your decision. Go ahead unless I say stop." - At this level the other person is starting to control the action. This is a good timesaving increase in autonomy.

6. "Decide and take action, but let me know what you did." - Here we are saving more time. This approach allows for a quick reaction on your part if the decision made was a bad one.

7. "Decide and take action. You don't need to check with me." - At this level you are giving your subordinate the most freedom possible. It demonstrates a high level of confidence in them. Ensure you have good controls in place to flag any mistakes before they can become a major hassle.

I have always found delegation to be a tough thing to do, I think it is more of an art, that some people have inherently and some people need to learn over a period of time. Wondering which level I fall in. I seem to be prefering a combination of 2 and 3 - but then again - I am still learning the art!