To become a PM ..

.. What it really takes ?

It is a long time, since I got and answered the question -- "What is your ambition ?"

It was, when I sat for an entrance examination (for admission to sixth standard) in a matricualtion school in my district. I answered, "To become an Engineer!". Guess I am an Engineer as my degree certificate says.

But, deep within I feel I have a different destination. Let me write it out --"I want to become the Prime Minister of India and guide India for 20 - 30 years". How to make it happen ? I am thinking ...

How to gain loyalty ? - A real story

Scientists at the Rocket launching station in Thumba, were in the habit of working for nearly 12 to 18 hours a day. There were about Seventy such scientists working on a project. All the scientists were really frustrated due to the pressure of work and the demands of their boss but everyone was loyal to him and did not think of quitting the job.

One day, one scientist came to his boss and told him - Sir, I have promised to my children that I will take them to the exhibition going on in our township. So I want to leave the office at 5 30 pm.

His boss replied - O.K, You are permitted to leave the office early today.

The Scientist started working. He continued his work after lunch. As usual he got involved to such an extent that he looked at his watch when he felt he was close to completion.The time was 8.30 p.m.

Suddenly he remembered of the promise he had given to his children. He looked for his boss,,He was not there. Having told him in the morning itself, he closed everything and left for home. Deep within himself, he was feeling guilty for having disappointed his children. He reached home.

Children were not there.His wife alone was sitting in the hall and reading magazines. The situation was explosive, any talk would boomerang on him. His wife asked him - Would you like to have coffee or shall I straight away serve dinner if you are hungry. The man replied - If you would like to have coffee, i too will have but what about Children? Wife replied- You do not know - Your manager came at 5.15 p.m and has taken the children to the exhibition.

What had really happened was The boss who granted him permission was observing him working seriously at 5.00 p.m. He thought to himself, this person will not leave the work, but if he has promised his children they should enjoy the visit to exhibition. So he took the lead in taking them to exhibition.

The boss does not have to do it everytime. But once it is done, loyalty is established.

That is why all the scientists at Thumba continued to work under their boss eventhough the stress was tremendous.

By the way , can you hazard a guess as to who the boss was ?

He was Mr. A P J Abdul Kalam.

You need Developers, not Programmers!

By EricSink..

Every developer is first and foremost a programmer. The bulk of their time should be spent writing code and fixing bugs. But every developer also needs to be involved in other areas such as the following:

• Spec documents
• Configuration management
• Code reviews
• Testing
• Automated tests
• Documentation
• Solving tough customer problems

More at Source Artcile

Career Calculus

... By EricSink :

In basic calculus we learned that the first derivative of a function is the "rate of change" of the value of that function with respect to another variable. In the case of your career, the other variable is time. The basic equation for a developer career looks like this:

C = G + LT

C is Cluefulness. It is defined as an overall measure of your capabilities, expertise, wisdom and knowledge in the field of software development. It is the measure of how valuable you are to an employer. It is the measure of how successful your career is. When you graph your career, C is on the vertical axis.

G is Gifting. It is defined as the amount of natural cluefulness you were given "at the factory". For each individual, G is a constant, but it definitely varies from person to person.

L is Learning. It is defined as the rate at which you gain (or lose) cluefulness over time.

T is Time. It is on the horizontal axis of your career graph.

As you can see above, your career success is determined by three variables, only one of which you can control:

• You obviously can't control T. Time marches forward mercilessly at the same rate for everyone.
  
  
• You also can't control G. The truth is that some people are just naturally smarter than you are, and that's the way it is. But G is not the sole determiner of your success. I have known some truly gifted programmers with lame careers, and I have also known some less-gifted folks who have become extremely successful.
  
  
• You can make choices which affect the value of L. In fact, you do make choices which affect the value of L, every day, whether you know it or not.

Focus on the First Derivative : Full Article

Are Programmers Engineers?

By EricSink..

In yet another attempt to drive their ad impressions, Slashdot asks an old but still controversial question: Are Programmers Engineers?

Certainly not.

I used to think otherwise. I graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where the Computer Science department is part of the College of Engineering. For a couple of years I took the same classes as the engineers. I still have the T-square to prove it.

Because CS gets lumped in with engineering at many schools, graduating programmers often think of themselves as engineers. But the distinctions start appearing very quickly.

Engineers are required. Programmers are optional.

To be an engineer, you have to be licensed. You have to pass the Professional Engineer exam. Engineering is one of those fields where you have to have a license to know the right answer. Law is like this too. I'm quite certain I know more about copyright law than most small town attorneys. Nevertheless, they are allowed to render their opinion on the subject whereas I am not. Engineering is similar. Some things can only be legally done by a licensed engineer.

Anybody is allowed to write code.

Engineers work for a living. Programmers do what they love to do.

Engineers are generally marked by a higher degree of professionalism than programmers. Some people think this is because of the certification, but I think it comes simply from the origins of career choice. Many programmers started coding as a hobby and gradually made it their profession. I did. I was writing code years before I could drive a car. Sometimes we make stupid choices because the distinction between hobby and profession gets blurry.

Engineers generally don't do that. Teenagers don't design bridges in their spare time and then decide to pursue civil engineering as a career. Engineers always think of their job as their profession, because that's all it has ever been.

Engineering is well-understood. Programmers have no idea what they're doing.

In general, engineers can predict their workflow. They don't get into very many arguments about widely divergent ways of managing a project. Ask them to estimate a project and they'll probably get it darn close.

So far, there are no universally accepted methods for management of software projects. We all do it differently. Some of us get amazing results with virtually no process at all. Some of us have formal methodologies and still can't finish anything on time.

Engineering is real. Programming is abstract.

Engineers work with physical things like electricity, mechanics and heat. When engineers design and build something, it is usually a tangible item which must be manufactured. You can touch it, maybe even hold it in your hand. In some cases it will retain its value for centuries.

Programming is the manipulation of complex abstractions. We invent abstractions and give them names. We manipulate them and use them to build things. When our finally product is built, it requires no manufacturing. It is merely a string of bytes. Theoretically, a monkey sitting at the keyboard might accidentally of typed the same string. The product we build cannot be touched or held. It will be worthless in just a few years.

Am I saying that engineers are more valuable than programmers? Certainly not. Could I design a bridge, a TV, or a concrete canoe? Nope, but I defy any engineer to design and ship a good version control system. Programmers solve really hard problems too.

Our universities call us engineers because there is no college where we fit. I don't blame them for that, but I have no desire to borrow the word engineer as an attempt to make myself sound more credible.

Why not just admit that software development is unique? No other field is like ours. Engineering looks really dull to me. I love being a programmer.

Source Article

5 common investment mistakes ...

Retail investors tend to be burdened with information on how they should go about investing their monies. Distributors, agents and fund houses all play their part in “educating” investors on this front. Our experience with investors suggests that apart from the aforesaid, there is also a need for investors to be aware of a few common and frequently committed mistakes. We present a checklist of 5 common investment mistakes that investors need to steer clear of.

1. Not setting an investment objective
A large number of investors are habituated to carrying out their investment activity in a haphazard and sporadic manner. Very often they fail to set an investment objective which is a basic tenet of financial planning. Investors should adopt a more systematic approach to investing by creating distinct portfolios for all their needs i.e. short-term (planning for a vacation), medium-term (buying a car) and long-term (planning for retirement) needs respectively. Setting of investment objectives also incorporates a degree of discipline which is a vital ingredient for the success of any the investment activity.

2. Not doing your homework
Investing like any other serious activity needs a fair degree of preparation at the investors’ end. Investors need to gather information and acquaint themselves with all the options available to them. Investing in a given asset class (for example fixed deposits) simply because you have conventionally done so is inappropriate. Investors have a plethora of options ranging from mutual funds, fixed deposits, and bonds to small savings schemes to choose from. After getting the facts in place, investors should select instruments that are best equipped to fulfill their investment objectives.

3. Succumbing to the “noise”
Every time the equity markets hit a purple patch, investors come face-to-face with a lot of “noise”. Fund houses go on an IPO (Initial Public Offering) launch spree and distributors do their bit by convincing investors that the recently lunched scheme is the place to be. For example recent times have seen a surge in interest in funds of the flexi cap and mid cap variety. Investors tend to succumb to the noise and get invested simply because everyone else is doing so. The trouble is that investors could discard their pre-determined asset allocation and make investments contrary to their risk appetite.

Investors must exercise a lot of discretion and resist falling prey to the herd mentality, especially at a time when everyone around them is busy painting a rosy picture of the investment scenario.

4. Getting attached to investments
Investors must remember at all times that investments are a means to achieve ends (financial goals) and not goals by themselves. If investments have failed to perform their requisite task, then investors should be flexible enough to act on the same. Investors should never get attached to their investments and stubbornly cling on to them. Assess at regular intervals how well your investments have performed and initiate the necessary corrective measures.

5. Timing the markets
A large number of investors like to believe that they can time the markets; nothing could be farther from the truth. If this notion was correct, we would have experienced a surfeit of fund managers and investment gurus. Instead of trying to outsmart the markets and failing in the process, adopt a more scientific approach. Use the SIP (Systematic Investment Plan) route and invest regularly to benefit from the markets. Don’t try to beat the markets, join them instead!

Source Artcile

Friendship -- Few Quotes !

1. True Friendship comes, when silence between two people is comfortable --Dave Tyson Gentry

2. Friendship is a horizon - which expands whenever we approach it -- E.R. Hozlip

3. The secret to friendship is being a good listener.

4. A simple friend thinks that the friendship is over, when you have an arguement.
A real friend knows that it is not a friendship until after you have had a fight.

5. Friendship is the union of spirits, a marriage of hearts, and the bond thereof virtue -- William Penn's fruits of solitude.

6. That friendship will not continue to the end, which is begun for the end. -- Francis Quareles.

7. I cannot concentrate all my friendship on any single one of my friends because no one is complete enough in himself -- Anais Nin

8. Friendship improves happiness, and abates misery , by the doubling of our joy, and dividing of our grief. -- Marcus Tullius Cicero

9. The friendship between me and you, I will not compare to a chain; for that rains might rust, or the falling tree may break. -- William Penn Treaty with the Indians.

10. Friendship often ends in love; but love in friendship - never -- Charles Caleb Colton.

11. True friendship is never serene -- Marquise de Sevigne

12. Friendship is a single soul living in two bodies -- Aristotle..

Defining Success - Subroto Bagchi

Address by Subroto Bagchi, Chief Operating Officer, MindTree Consulting to the Class of 2006 at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore on defining success. July 2nd 2004

I was the last child of a small-time government servant, in a family of five brothers. My earliest memory of my father is as that of a District Employment Officer in Koraput, Orissa. It was and remains as back of beyond as you can imagine. There was no electricity; no primary school nearby and water did not flow out of a tap. As a result, I did not go to school until the age of eight; I was home-schooled. My father used to get transferred every year. The family belongings fit into the back of a jeep - so the family moved from place to place and, without any trouble, my Mother would set up an establishment and get us going. Raised by a widow who had come as a refugee from the then East Bengal, she was a matriculate when she married my Father. My parents set the foundation of my life and the value system which makes me what I am today and largely defines what success means to me today.

As District Employment Officer, my father was given a jeep by the government. There was no garage in the Office, so the jeep was parked in our house. My father refused to use it to commute to the office. He told us that the jeep is an expensive resource given by the government - he reiterated to us that it was not 'his jeep' but the government's jeep. Insisting that he would use it only to tour the interiors, he would walk to his office on normal days. He also made sure that we never sat in the government jeep - we could sit in it only when it was stationary. That was our early childhood lesson in governance - a lesson that corporate managers learn the hard way, some never do.

The driver of the jeep was treated with respect due to any other member of my Father's office. As small children, we were taught not to call him by his name. We had to use the suffix 'dada' whenever we were to refer to him in public or private. When I grew up to own a car and a driver by the name of Raju was appointed - I repeated the lesson to my two small daughters. They have, as a result, grown up to call Raju, 'Raju Uncle' - very different from many of their friends who refer to their family drivers as 'my driver'. When I hear that term from a school- or college-going person, I cringe. To me, the lesson was significant - you treat small people with more respect than how you treat big people. It is more important to respect your subordinates than your superiors.

Our day used to start with the family huddling around my Mother's chulha - an earthen fire place she would build at each place of posting where she would cook for the family. There was no gas, nor electrical stoves. The morning routine started with tea. As the brew was served, Father would ask us to read aloud the editorial page of The Statesman's 'muffosil' edition - delivered one day late. We did not understand much of what we were reading. But the ritual was meant for us to know that the world was larger than Koraput district and the English I speak today, despite having studied in an Oriya medium school, has to do with that routine. After reading the newspaper aloud, we were told to fold it neatly. Father taught us a simple lesson. He used to say, "You should leave your newspaper and your toilet, the way you expect to find it". That lesson was about showing consideration to others. Business begins and ends with that simple precept.

Being small children, we were always enamored with advertisements in the newspaper for transistor radios - we did not have one. We saw other people having radios in their homes and each time there was an advertisement of Philips, Murphy or Bush radios, we would ask Father when we could get one. Each time, my Father would reply that we did not need one because he already had five radios - alluding to his five sons. We also did not have a house of our own and would occasionally ask Father as to when, like others, we would live in our own house. He would give a similar reply, "We do not need a house of our own. I already own five houses". His replies did not gladden our hearts in that instant. Nonetheless, we learnt that it is important not to measure personal success and sense of well being through material possessions.

Government houses seldom came with fences. Mother and I collected twigs and built a small fence. After lunch, my Mother would never sleep. She would take her kitchen utensils and with those she and I would dig the rocky, white ant infested surrounding. We planted flowering bushes. The white ants destroyed them. My mother brought ash from her chulha and mixed it in the earth and we planted the seedlings all over again. This time, they bloomed. At that time, my father's transfer order came. A few neighbors told my mother why she was taking so much pain to beautify a government house, why she was planting seeds that would only benefit the next occupant. My mother replied that it did not matter to her that she would not see the flowers in full bloom. She said, "I have to create a bloom in a desert and whenever I am given a new place, I must leave it more beautiful than what I had inherited". That was my first lesson in success. It is not about what you create for yourself, it is what you leave behind that defines success.

My mother began developing a cataract in her eyes when I was very small. At that time, the eldest among my brothers got a teaching job at the University in Bhubaneswar and had to prepare for the civil services examination. So, it was decided that my Mother would move to cook for him and, as her appendage, I had to move too. For the first time in my life, I saw electricity in homes and water coming out of a tap. It was around 1965 and the country was going to war with Pakistan. My mother was having problems reading and in any case, being Bengali, she did not know the Oriya script. So, in addition to my daily chores, my job was to read her the local newspaper - end to end. That created in me a sense of connectedness with a larger world. I began taking interest in many different things. While reading out news about the war, I felt that I was fighting the war myself. She and I discussed the daily news and built a bond with the larger universe. In it, we became part of a larger reality. Till date, I measure my success in terms of that sense of larger connectedness.

Meanwhile, the war raged and India was fighting on both fronts. Lal Bahadur Shastri, the then Prime Minster, coined the term "Jai Jawan, Jai Kishan" and galvanized the nation in to patriotic fervor. Other than reading out the newspaper to my mother, I had no clue about how I could be part of the action. So, after reading her the newspaper, every day I would land up near the University's water tank, which served the community. I would spend hours under it, imagining that there could be spies who would come to poison the water and I had to watch for them. I would daydream about catching one and how the next day, I would be featured in the newspaper. Unfortunately for me, the spies at war ignored the sleepy town of Bhubaneswar and I never got a chance to catch one in action. Yet, that act unlocked my imagination. Imagination is everything. If we can imagine a future, we can create it, if we can create that future, others will live in it. That is the essence of success.

Over the next few years, my mother's eyesight dimmed but in me she created a larger vision, a vision with which I continue to see the world and, I sense, through my eyes, she was seeing too. As the next few years unfolded, her vision deteriorated and she was operated for cataract. I remember, when she returned after her operation and she saw my face clearly for the first time, she was astonished. She said, "Oh my God, I did not know you were so fair". I remain mighty pleased with that adulation even till date. Within weeks of getting her sight back, she developed a corneal ulcer and, overnight, became blind in both eyes. That was 1969. She died in 2002. In all those 32 years of living with blindness, she never complained about her fate even once. Curious to know what she saw with blind eyes, I asked her once if she sees darkness. She replied, "No, I do not see darkness. I only see light even with my eyes closed". Until she was eighty years of age, she did her morning yoga everyday, swept her own room and washed her own clothes. To me, success is about the sense of independence; it is about not seeing the world but seeing the light.

Over the many intervening years, I grew up, studied, joined the industry and began to carve my life's own journey. I began my life as a clerk in a government office, went on to become a Management Trainee with the DCM group and eventually found my life's calling with the IT industry when fourth generation computers came to India in 1981. Life took me places - I worked with outstanding people, challenging assignments and traveled all over the world. In 1992, while I was posted in the US, I learnt that my father, living a retired life with my eldest brother, had suffered a third degree burn injury and was admitted in the Safderjung Hospital in Delhi. I flew back to attend to him - he remained for a few days in critical stage, bandaged from neck to toe. The Safderjung Hospital is a cockroach infested, dirty, inhuman place. The overworked, under-resourced sisters in the burn ward are both victims and perpetrators of dehumanized life at its worst. One morning, while attending to my Father, I realized that the blood bottle was empty and fearing that air would go into his vein, I asked the attending nurse to change it. She bluntly told me to do it myself. In that horrible theater of death, I was in pain and frustration and anger. Finally when she relented and came, my Father opened his eyes and murmured to her, "Why have you not gone home yet?" Here was a man on his deathbed but more concerned about the overworked nurse than his own state. I was stunned at his stoic self. There I learnt that there is no limit to how concerned you can be for another human being and what is the limit of inclusion you can create. My father died the next day.

He was a man whose success was defined by his principles, his frugality, his universalism and his sense of inclusion. Above all, he taught me that success is your ability to rise above your discomfort, whatever may be your current state. You can, if you want, raise your consciousness above your immediate surroundings. Success is not about building material comforts - the transistor that he never could buy or the house that he never owned. His success was about the legacy he left, the memetic continuity of his ideals that grew beyond the smallness of a ill-paid, unrecognized government servant's world.

My father was a fervent believer in the British Raj. He sincerely doubted the capability of the post-independence Indian political parties to govern the country. To him, the lowering of the Union Jack was a sad event. My Mother was the exact opposite. When Subhash Bose quit the Indian National Congress and came to Dacca, my mother, then a schoolgirl, garlanded him. She learnt to spin khadi and joined an underground movement that trained her in using daggers and swords. Consequently, our household saw diversity in the political outlook of the two. On major issues concerning the world, the Old Man and the Old Lady had differing opinions. In them, we learnt the power of disagreements, of dialogue and the essence of living with diversity in thinking. Success is not about the ability to create a definitive dogmatic end state; it is about the unfolding of thought processes, of dialogue and continuum.

Two years back, at the age of eighty-two, Mother had a paralytic stroke and was lying in a government hospital in Bhubaneswar. I flew down from the US where I was serving my second stint, to see her. I spent two weeks with her in the hospital as she remained in a paralytic state. She was neither getting better nor moving on. Eventually I had to return to work. While leaving her behind, I kissed her face. In that paralytic state and a garbled voice, she said, "Why are you kissing me, go kiss the world." Her river was nearing its journey, at the confluence of life and death, this woman who came to India as a refugee, raised by a widowed Mother, no more educated than high school, married to an anonymous government servant whose last salary was Rupees Three Hundred, robbed of her eyesight by fate and crowned by adversity - was telling me to go and kiss the world!

Success to me is about Vision. It is the ability to rise above the immediacy of pain. It is about imagination. It is about sensitivity to small people. It is about building inclusion. It is about connectedness to a larger world existence. It is about personal tenacity. It is about giving back more to life than you take out of it. It is about creating extra-ordinary success with ordinary lives.

Thank you very much; I wish you good luck and Godspeed. Go, kiss the world.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. - Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs @ Stanford Univ
This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.

Steve Jobs' address to Stanford grads

Stanford Report, June 14, 2005

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later
found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on
the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5 cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on.

Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was be autifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this.

I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great.

It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal
computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, 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.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky - I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation - the Macintosh - a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the
future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out.

And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began
to dawn on me - I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it.Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did.

You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it.
Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months.

My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family.

It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now. This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking.

Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras.

It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions. Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the
words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish."

It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

Time Management -- 'That on which you invest time grows'

The greatest complaint in today's world is 'There's just no time to do what I want'. Most of us these days are so busy that we don't know whether we are coming or going. But, are we really using our time efficiently? Find out how you can get more out of life.

With hands steadily holding the handle bar and the feet firmly rested on the pedals, courtesy gravity, the cycle was gliding down the mountain path. There was no effort from the cyclist, whose body was drenched in sweat. Sweat was continuously trickling down like rain drops from his hair, which stopped slightly below his shoulders. Just a few years ago, this cyclist couldn't have imagined running a block, but now he was testing his endurance with mountain-biking. When he had started a year ago, he could hardly pedal up the three of the total 23 bends that led up to the mountain top, but now he was comfortable with the whole terrain. Avyakta had taken it on himself to feel younger with the growing years. As he was about to exit from the mountain path and take the highway that led to his house, he reached for his bottle of water. He poured some over his head and face, drank a little and poured the rest over his head.

A white luxury sedan, which had just crossed Avyakta, came to a screeching halt. The car door opened in a flash and calling Avyakta's name, a fatso came running out of the car. Avyakta was baffled for a moment; he then responded screaming, “Hey, Rabin!” Rabin ran into Avyakta and gave him a tight hug. Avyakta, though initially a little hesitant about being wet, reciprocated by throwing his arms around Rabin. Rabin and Avyakta had started their career together, about two decades ago. After a couple of years, Rabin had left for the United States in search of opportunities, while Avyakta continued to grow in his motherland. Rabin was very famous for his athletic abilities in college, but he hardly looked that person any more. During his younger days, Avyakta never had a liking for sports, but looked very fit and toned now.

Avyakta dropped his cycle to the ground and walked along with Rabin towards the car. Rabin leaned on his car and said, “I have come to India on a business visit. It all happened at the eleventh hour. Intending to surprise you, I barged into your house early this morning. I met your wife and she shocked me by saying that you had gone mountainbiking. She offered me coffee, but the shock of my old friend being up to such antics like mountain-biking was too much for me to digest… I told her that I would be back and came in search of you. Hey, old man… what's all this drama at forty-five?” Avyakta smiled back at Rabin and asked, “Tell me the truth… I don't look forty-five, do I? If anyone has to be called an old man, it is you Rabin…what's all this? You were the one who inspired all of us with your athletic abilities, what's happened to you now? Why are you bulging in all directions? Don't you do anything about your fitness? Too busy making money, huh?” With Avyakta's help, Rabin loaded the cycle in the spacious boot of the sedan and then both of them got into the car. Avyakta pulled out a rubber band from his pocket and tied up his long hair in a ponytail. Rabin extended a box of tissues and Avyakta used a few to pat his face dry. As Rabin began to drive he confessed, “You are right Avyakta… my health is becoming a huge matter of concern to me. I have a lot of complications and I don't like the body I live in any more.”

Then the typical human predicament… the desperate need to justify oneself, took over, and Rabin added, “But where is the time to exercise? Avyakta, for all the things you are doing in life, I wonder how you find time for everything. So much work pressure; the business is so competitive; unavoidable social obligations; it must be so late by the time you retire for the day that you probably just catch some sleep and then you again go through the grind of another day. I really envy guys like you who have picked up some trick to find time for everything that you choose to do.”

Avyakta, by decision, remained mum. A prolonged silence followed. Rabin glanced at Avyakta more than once, feeling a little uneasy with Avyakta's taciturn behaviour. Rabin punched Avyakta on his biceps and with a quarter smile managed, “You must be thinking that I am so stupid - I am doing so much professionally, but I am not managing to find time for my health. You must think that I am absolutely crazy!” Avyakta smiled back at Rabin and nodded in acknowledgement, only to be punched again by Rabin… this time a little harder. Avyakta said, “Not just you Rabin, but for all of us… the starting point of a 'Time Revolution' in our life is to accept and acknowledge that all of us are awfully inefficient in the way we use our time… including those who teach 'Time Management'… and I know that your United States is full of them… we are very inefficient with the way we use our time. Few of us will readily admit that large parts of our day actually get wasted. A tragic amount of time gets wasted everywhere. The starting point to revolutionise the way we use our time is to be honest with ourselves and confess that we are inefficient in the way we use our time.” By then, they had reached Avyakta's house. As they entered the house, Avyakta requested his wife for two glasses of fresh fruit juice and led Rabin to the terrace garden that extended from his dining hall. Rabin sat on the garden bench, while Avyakta squatted on the lawn. Avyakta's wife placed the tray with two glasses of juice on the garden stool and left the place, respecting the privacy of the two friends who were meeting after a very long time.

Both of them helped themselves to a glass and Avyakta continued. “Rabin, it is a timeless wisdom… 'That on which you invest time grows'. If your business has been doing well, it is because you have been investing time on it. In business, if your North American market is doing well, it is because you have been investing time on it. If your social circle is expanding, it is because you have been investing time on it. If your family life is deteriorating, it is because you have not been investing time on your family. If your relationship with a friend is not what it used to be, it is because you have not been investing time on that relationship. If your health has been deteriorating, it is because you have not been investing time on it. The opposite is also true… 'That which is starved of time, shrinks'.” Rabin also moved to the lawn and Avyakta continued. “You are asking me how I have time for everything. I want a happy family… so I must invest time on my family. I enjoy parenting… so I must invest time on parenting. I have started enjoying this game of money making… so I must invest time on organisation building. I have always been spiritually aligned… so I must invest time on my spiritual growth. I have now developed this new passion for fitness… so I am investing time on my body. Of course, I love my friends… and as you can see, I am right now investing time on you.”

Rabin, who had been wanting to get a word in all this while, finally managed to interrupt the flow of Avyakta's communication, said , “ That I can understand, but from where do you find so much time reserve? There are just 24 hours, but 48 things that need our time.”

Avyakta said, “Rabin, like you, I was also victim to this madness of believing that there wasn't enough time. I also kept blabbering as insanely that I know these things are important in life, but I don't have the time for it… till I asked myself, “Can I afford not to have time for what is important in life? What then will the consequences be?” This question made me ponder and I realised that my time was being stolen by the 'trivial many', which had little or no consequence on the overall effectiveness of my life. I decided to channel that time on the 'vital few', which would have a direct effect on the overall purpose of my life.”

Rabin was now completely attuned to Avyakta. Avyakta added, “Before you can invest the money, you first need to have the money. Before you can invest time on what is important to you, you must first have the time. To find time, I realised that I have to first identify those time stealers and stop giving them any more of my time. Rabin, there is this age old metaphor; I am sure you've heard it before: If I fill a bucket with rocks first, then follow it up with pebbles so that they can go into the gaps between the rocks, then fill it up with sand and finally pour water… I will be able to put more stuff into the bucket. On the contrary, if I fill the bucket with water first, then there will be no space for anything else to get in. Life, for most of us, is like that… the 'trivial many' that I was referring to is like the water and the sand, which first fills up our routines, leaving little or no time for the 'vital few', which are like the pebbles and the rocks. The main secret to finding time is to identify the time stealers and get rid of them.”

With a glow of achievement in his eyes, Avyakta said, “Rabin, you know what I did… contrary to what conventional 'Time Management Gurus' teach us, I sat down and compiled a 'Not To Do List'… a 'nono' to ritualistic television watching… watching TV was becoming compulsive… I turned it into a choice… a 'no-no' to at the door, then the gate, and finally near the car gossip… a 'no-no' to reading every piece of crap in the newspaper, from obituaries to tender notices, just because it is printed… a 'no-no' to becoming a member of every association and then attending those weekly meetings just because I have a social obligation to do so… now I ask myself, why do I have to join this association and what will be its implication on my life five years from now… Before I give anything my time, I ask whether it is worth my time … a 'no-no' to every other invitation… I am not afraid of saying 'no' to some invitations… a 'no-no' to I should do everything by myself… what can be done by others, even to 90% efficiency, is now delegated… a 'no-no' to visiting the same set of people day after day, week after week, month after month, and arguing about the same things, just because we enjoy each other's idiosyncrasies… a 'nono' to late night parties which invariably affect my efficiency the next morning… I am no more guilty of not being a night bird… after all, I wasn't born to be nocturnal… there's so much more. I can just keep adding to the list. I compiled a 'Not To Do List', enlisted all the redundant roles of my life that were robbing me of my precious resource - time, and vouched not to give those any of my time any more.”

“Rabin, trust me,” Avyakta said, “that changed it all. I freed so much of my time by withdrawing from the 'trivial many' that I now have time for every important aspect of my life and I still have more time at my disposal to add more important things to my life. Today, I can tell you that I am doing a lot lesser in life, but yet producing a lot more. Of course, I still set time aside each day to review the way I use my time, and I keep finding scope for improvement all the time.” Avyakta said, “Rabin, in essence, I have understood that time management isn't clock management. It is the ability to say 'yes' to what is important, and more importantly, the discipline to say 'no' to 'you don't have to do' aspects of life. I know where I want to be tomorrow and I know I can get there only if I invest my time today in the direction of my tomorrow. Rabin, you might as well invest time on your health today than spend time on your diseases tomorrow… you might as well invest time with a spiritual teacher today than spend time with a psychiatrist tomorrow… you might as well invest time with the family today than spend time in a old age home tomorrow… Rabin, money is beautiful only when it helps you to enjoy everything around you. To enjoy everything around you, you first need time and only then, perhaps, your money. Let us not cheat ourselves any more by screaming busy-busy-busy… Should we add that to our 'Not To Do List' - the mindless screaming of busy-busy-busy? There is a lot more time than we can use, if we begin to use it wisely.”

Rabin got up to leave… of course, without expecting Avyakta to escort him to the door, then the gate, and then the car… His parting words, “I will see you next time with a body that feels younger… thank you for your time, pal… it was timely.” Avyakta bid farewell and said, “Rabin, you are, and will always be, one among my 'vital few'. I cherish my relationship with you… don't we know… 'That on which you invest time grows'... There for you any time.”

Does Evil Exist ? - Einstein

The professor of a university challenged his students with this question. "Did God create everything that exists?" A student answered bravely, "Yes, he did".

The professor then asked, "If God created everything, then he created evil. Since evil exists (as noticed by our own actions), so God is evil.
The student couldn't respond to that statement causing the professor to conclude that he had "proved" that "belief in God" was a fairy tale,
and therefore worthless.

Another student raised his hand and asked the professor, "May I pose a question? " "Of course" answered the professor.

The young student stood up and asked : "Professor does Cold exists?"

The professor answered, "What kind of question is that?...Of course the cold exists... haven't you ever been cold?"

The young student answered, "In fact sir, Cold does not exist.
According to the laws of Physics, what we consider cold, in fact is the absence of heat. Anything is able to be studied as long as it transmits energy (heat). Absolute Zero is the total absence of heat, but cold does not
exist. What we have done is create a term to describe how we feel if
we don't have body heat or we are not hot."

"And, does Dark exist?", he continued. The professor answered "Of course". This time the student responded, "Again you're wrong,Sir. Darkness does not exist either. Darkness is in fact simply the absence
of light. Light can be studied, darkness can not. Darkness cannot be broken down. A simple ray of light tears the darkness and illuminates
the surface where the light beam finishes. Dark is a term that we humans have created to describe what happens when there's lack of light."

Finally, the student asked the professor, "Sir, does evil exist?" The professor replied, "Of course it exists, as I mentioned at the beginning, we see violations, crimes and violence anywhere in the
world, and those things are evil."

The student responded, "Sir, Evil does not exist. Just as in the previous cases, Evil is a term which man has created to describe the result of the absence of God's presence in the hearts of man.

After this, the professor bowed down his head, and didn't answer back.

The young man's name was ALBERT EINSTEIN.

Developed India !

President's Office - The President of India

DR A P J Abdul Kalaam's Speech in Hyderabad

==============================================================

"I have three visions for India. In 3000 Years of our history, people from all over the world have come and invaded us, captured our lands, conqueredour minds. From Alexander onwards. The Greeks, the Turks, the Moguls, the Portuguese, the British, the French, the Dutch, all of them came and looted us, took over what was ours. Yet we have not done this to any other nation.

We have not conquered anyone. We have not grabbed their land, their culture, and their history and tried to enforce our way of life on them. Why? Because we respect the freedom of others. That is why my first vision is that of FREEDOM. I believe that India got its first vision of this in 1857, when we started the war of independence. It is this freedom that we must protect and nurture and build on. If we are not free, no one will respect us. My second vision for India is DEVELOPMENT. For fifty years we have been a developing nation.

It is time we see ourselves as a developed nation. We are among top 5 nations of the world in terms of GDP. We have 10 percent growth rate in most Areas. Our poverty levels are falling. Our achievements are being globally recognized today. Yet we lack the self-confidence to see ourselves as a developed nation, self- reliant and self-assured. Isn't this incorrect?

I have a third vision. India must stand up to the world. Because I believe that, unless India stands up to the world, no one will respect us. Only STRENGTH respects strength. We must be strong not only as a military power but also as an economic power. Both must go hand-in-hand. My good fortune was to have worked with three great minds. Dr. Vikram Sarabhai of the Dept of space, Professor Satish Dhawan who succeeded him and Dr Brahm Prakash, father of nuclear material. I was lucky to have worked with all three of them closely and consider this the great opportunity of my life.

I see four milestones in my career: Twenty years I spent in ISRO. I was given the opportunity to be the project director for India's first Satellite launch vehicle, SLV3. The one that launched Rohini. These years played a very important role in my life of Scientist. After my ISRO years, I joined DRDO and got a chance to be the part of India's guided missile program. It was my second bliss when Agni met its mission requirements in 1994. The Dept of Atomic Energy and DRDO had this tremendous partnership in the recent nuclear tests, on May 11 and 13. This was the third bliss. The joy of participating with my team in these nuclear tests and proving to the world that India can make it, that we are no longer a developing nation but one of them. It made me feel very proud as an Indian.

The fact that we have now developed for Agni a re-entry structure, for which we have developed this new material. A very light material called carbon-carbon.

One day an orthopedic surgeon from Nizam Institute of Medical Sciences visited my laboratory. He lifted the material and found it so light that he took me to his hospital and showed me his patients. There were these little girls and boys with heavy metallic calipers weighing over three Kg. each, dragging their feet around. He said to me: Please remove the pain of my patients. In three weeks, we made these Floor reaction Orthosis 300-gram calipers and took them to the orthopedic center. The children didn't believe their eyes. >From dragging around a three kg. load on their legs, they could now move around. Their parents had tears in their eyes. That was

My fourth bliss! Why is the media here so negative?
Why are we in India so embarrassed to recognize our own strengths, our achievements? We are such a great nation. We have so many amazing success stories but we refuse to acknowledge them.
Why?
We are the first in milk production.
We are number one in Remote sensing satellites.
We are the second largest producer of wheat.
We are the second largest producer of rice.
Look at Dr Sudarshan, he has transferred the tribal village into a self-sustaining, self-driving unit.
There are millions of such achievements but our media is only obsessed in the bad news and failures and disasters.
I was in Tel Aviv once and I was reading the Israeli newspaper. It was the day after a lot of attacks and bombardments and deaths had taken place. The Hamas had struck. But the front page of the newspaper had the picture of a Jewish gentleman who in five years had transformed his desert into an orchid and a granary. It was this inspiring picture that everyone woke up to. The gory details of killings, bombardments, deaths, were inside in the newspaper, buried among other news.

In India we only read about death, sickness, terrorism, crime.
Why are we so NEGATIVE?

Another question: Why are we, as a nation so obsessed with foreign things?
We want foreign TVs, we want foreign shirts. We want foreign technology. Why this obsession with everything imported. Do we not realize that self-respect comes with self-reliance?

I was in Hyderabad giving this lecture, when a 14 year old girl asked me for my autograph. I asked her what her goal in life is. She replied: I want to live in a developed India. For her, you and I will have to build this developed India. You must proclaim. India is not an under-developed nation; it is a highly developed nation.

Do you have 10 minutes? Allow me to come back with a vengeance. Got 10 minutes for your country? If yes, then read; otherwise, choice is yours.

YOU say that our government is inefficient.
YOU say that our laws are too old.
YOU say that the municipality does not pick up the garbage.
YOU say that the phones don't work, the railways are a joke, the airline is the worst in the world, mails never reach their Destination.
YOU say that our country has been fed to the dogs and is the absolute pits.
YOU say, say and say. What do YOU do about it?

Take a person on his way to Singapore. Give him a name-YOURS. Give him a face - YOURS. YOU walk out of the airport and you are at your International best. In Singapore you don't throw cigarette butts on the roads or eat in the stores.
YOU are as proud of their Underground links as they are.
YOU pay $5 (approx Rs 60) to drive through Orchard Road (equivalent of Mahim Causeway or Pedder Road) between 5 PM and 8 PM.
YOU come back to the parking lot to punch your parking ticket if you have over stayed in a restaurant or a shopping mall irrespective of your status identity.
In Singapore you don't say anything, DO YOU?
YOU wouldn't dare to eat in public during Ramadan, in Dubai.
YOU would not dare to go out without your head covered in Jeddah.
YOU would not dare to buy an employee of the telephone exchange in London at 10 pounds (Rs 650) a month to, "see to it that my STD and ISD calls are billed to someone else."
YOU would not dare to speed beyond 55 mph (88 km/h) in Washington and then tell the traffic cop, "Jaanta hai main kaun hoon (Do you know who I am?).
I am so and so's son. Take your two bucks and get lost."
YOU wouldn't chuck an empty coconut shell anywhere other than the garbage pail on the beaches in Australia and New Zealand.
Why don't YOU spit Paan on the streets of Tokyo?
Why don't YOU use examination jockeys or buy fake certificates in Boston???
We are still talking of the same YOU.YOU who can respect and conform to a foreign system in other countries but cannot in your own. You who will throw papers and cigarettes on the road the moment you touch Indian ground.

If you can be an involved and appreciative citizen in an alien country, why cannot you be the same here in India?

Once in an interview, the famous Ex-municipal commissioner of Bombay, Mr Tinaikar, had a point to make. "Rich people's dogs are walked on the streets to leave their affluent droppings all over the place," he said. "And then the same people turn around to criticize and blame the authorities for inefficiency and dirty pavements. What do they expect the officers to do? Go down with a broom every time their dog feels the pressure in his bowels?

In America every dog owner has to clean up after his pet has done the job. Same in Japan. Will the Indian citizen do that here?" He's right. We go to the polls to choose a government and after that forfeit all responsibility. We sit back wanting to be pampered and expect the government to do everything for us whilst our contribution is totally negative.
We expect the government to clean up but we are not going to stop chucking garbage all over the place nor are we going to stop to pick a up a stray piece of paper and throw it in the bin. We expect the railways to provide clean bathrooms but we are not going to learn the proper use of bathrooms. We want Indian Airlines and Air India to provide the best of food and toiletries but we are not going to stop pilfering at the least opportunity. This applies even to the staff who is known not to pass on the service to the public. When it comes to burning social issues like those related to women, dowry, girl child! and others, we make loud drawing room protestations and continue to do the reverse at home.

Our excuse? "It's the whole system which has to change, how will it matter if I alone forego my sons' rights to a dowry." So who's going to change the system?
What does a system consist of? Very conveniently for us it consists of our neighbours, other households, other cities, other communities and the government.
But, definitely not me and YOU. When it comes to us actually making a positive
contribution to the system we lock ourselves along with our families into a safe cocoon and look into the distance at countries far away and wait for a Mr Clean to come along & work miracles for us with a majestic sweep of his hand or we leave the country and run away. Like lazy cowards hounded by our fears we run to America to bask in their glory and praise their system.

When New York becomes insecure we run to England. When England experiences unemployment, we take the next flight out to the Gulf. When the Gulf is war struck, we demand to be rescued and brought home by the Indian government. Everybody is out to abuse and rape the country. Nobody thinks of feeding the system. Our conscience is mortgaged to money.

Dear Indians, The article is highly thought inductive, calls for a great deal of introspection and pricks one's conscience too.... I am echoing J F Kennedy's words to his fellow Americans to relate to Indians????

"ASK WHAT WE CAN DO FOR INDIA AND DO WHAT HAS TO BE DONE TO MAKE INDIA WHAT AMERICA AND OTHER WESTERN COUNTRIES ARE TODAY"

Let’s do what India needs from us.

Forward this mail to each Indian for a change instead of sending Jokes or junk mails.

Thank you,
Dr Abdul Kalaam
(PRESIDENT OF INDIA)