He’s a winner!

My facebook status announced him a winner a day before the finals of Australian open 2012. It was a tensed moment to see my super hero of tennis fighting out in semifinals with the favorite of the season – Roger Federer. That’s who Nadal is. The one thing that differentiates him among the rest is, his strong mental ability to just not give up. Nadal did beat Roger Federer and made it to finals with Djokovic.
 
I don’t remember when I started following Nadal's game. It must be one of those matches in which he lost to Federer. In 2005 it was Federer the winner and there was nobody to challenge him. From somewhere Nadal appears and gives him a tough fight which was soothing eyes. True sports should always be about fighting or the clash of titans than one sided match. Nadal started giving those moments to Federer but they did it with class. Then the era of Nadal started for me. He started dominating in clay while Federer in grass. It used to be a treat to watch them in particular because Nadal was so strong both physically and mentally.

The time was set right for the final match of Australian open. By the time I started watching, Nadal had won the first set in a tie breaker. I often fail to understand, why he should take the set to such a tensed moment. Nadal performs best when under pressure is well known but why should it be so, always. The 2nd and 3rd set was conquered by Djokovic. Djokovic was doing what Nadal did to Federer. It looked all right for a common person like me that both were playing technically correct and right match. It was as if one minor mistake of each other was the only way they could score a point. Djokovic winning 2nd and 3rd set wasn’t a treat for my eyes. Nadal, being Nadal bounced back in the 4th set both mentally and physically. By then, they had clocked close to 2.5 hours and the 4th set was a treat to watch. Each and every point Nadal scored spoke about his determination, confidence and persistence to just prove himself he is made to be there.

Not sure how Nadal must have felt beating Federer in semifinals to reach finals with Djokovic but that proves to say he is a fighter. Tennis is a lot more a mental game than a physical game when it is Nadal. The 4th set did go to tie breaker and Nadal proved himself right by winning that set under a lot of pressure. That’s when I thought Djokovic was giving up. In between it started raining and both the players got few moments of rest – the most needed. They both bounced back to fight it out. Nadal almost took the match to his side in the 5th set. Each and every point counted. A wrong serve meant a lot to Nadal. For the first time Nadal’s first serve did not support him as much. Undeterred by who was playing the other side, Nadal kept his cool and played his best. All through, he was playing just for that one goal, his one vision and another win just there. That dream eluded him as the 5th set progressed. I did not see it coming either. Knowing Nadal, it was now about some magic and Nadal lifting the cup. The destiny had different plans. After an epic 5 hours 53 minutes that spanned 2 days (Sunday night and Monday morning), Nadal lost to Djokovic leaving many disappointed but stood tall for the tough fight he gave the other player. I can’t stop thinking what a warrior he is to fight it out even till the nth second. He is a winner, in a different sense.

Believe the belief and doubt the doubt

There is magic in the power of belief. Even more magical if one starts believing in oneself. I had read about how Honda Company had started and the founder Soichiro Honda had seen failures in many forms. The power of believing that he was destined to build an empire which revolutionized automobile industry remains history.

Belief reminds me of the song “I believe I can fly, I believe I can touch the sky” by R Kelly. It is weird how I fell in love with this song. Back then in 2004 or 2005, Standard Chartered Bank had this song while customers were put on hold. The first time I heard, the song did take me to a different world. The next time, it mesmerized me. The next, I called Standard Chartered just to listen to this song. It had got into me.

Belief also reminds me of this poem I learnt while in school. There is this train whose task is to climb uphill. It seemed very hard our little train. The train is really not sure if it can make it but is not left with any choice but to chug its way to the top. So it says “I think I can, I think I can”. It keeps saying this and makes it to the top. When on top it is all happy and beaming with pride. On its way down it says “I thought I could, I could”.

What an excellent power the belief has. Like Henry Ford says, “Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right.” It’s time to believe in the power of belief in self and chase the fear of doubt which others want you to believe.

Airtel Vs me

I'm a loyal customer of Airtel from 2003. From then till now I have changed 3 companies but did not change the number nor the service provider despite so many odds. They continue to test my patience and sadly they win despite not faring well on the service part.

The latest debacle goes as following. I don't know what happened to them, one fine day they go ahead and change their logo. Later I was told because of their 3G tag. As far as my little knowledge of 3G goes, it is supposed to increase speed but I was caught by surprise. I promptly go online to check them out and the website is not working. Yeah, happens right when you are migrating from one platform to other. So, I generously forgave them and logged in after 2 weeks. Still the same. Anyway, it did not matter to me if their website is up or down. All that I wanted is to pay my mobile bill. That is all. With a lot of struggle I happened to land on their payments page and I enter all the details. The web page goes time out and due to payment gateway, my payment is not accepted. I first discovered mcheck on airtel and was wowed by their service when they were old fashioned. Anyway, I could not pay the mobile bill for 3 months. Airtel too promptly disconnected my outgoing calls. How convenient for me. Oh yeah...They did send me a gentle reminder before doing so and I too promptly went online to pay the bill and the payment site is not working. When the phone stopped working so does my other services on the phone like emails, browsing and sms too stopped functioning.

Airtel refuses to go tech and want me to follow their traditional mode of payments which is going to their customer care office (physically) and make the payment. Well, no choice right. Went ahead and dragged my self to do that (despite the hectic schedule :) ) and made the payment. Within 30 minutes my phone started working sans the emails and browsing.

Again I had to call their customer care number and after 3-4 minutes I get to talk to their Customer (don't) Care Executive. After listening to my story, he gave me another number to call to fix the problem. I promptly call that number and that number is not working. My patience is still patiently with me. I go ahead and call the Customer (don't) Care Executive 2 and this time he game me another number. By now, I had become a little smarter and I told the Executive no. 2 to stay online and call the number 2. No surprises. That number too is not working. I go back to Customer (don't) care executive no. 2 and tell him the same. He then puts me on hold and he personally calls that number and comes back to me affirming the fact that it is not working. Anyway, I gave a brilliant idea to them. Because their numbers are not working, I asked them to call me. My Customer (don't) Care Executive tells me they don't have an outgoing facility. I reminded them that they are working for "airtel" and how is that possible. I was slapped with that ready made reply that it is their process. *%&%&%&$#%&#&%# I hung up the phone. Emails not working. Airtel is happy and I am unhappy.

how external influence can influence one internally!!

It is not easy to change jobs and shift house. Doing both at the same time is like you digging your own grave and jumping into it.
I was so wrong. Getting interviewed, researching about company and making that tough decision of whether to join a new place or not was easy. The things that followed were really difficult. Let me explain:
(My tone may be a little frustrated one..but I’m going through something beyond that)
Bank Account: When I joined Oracle, I got HDFC account. By then I was very comfortable with ICICI and was forced to move to HDFC (life does not give too many choices is so true in my case). I’m ok with HDFC except the fact, their customer care really don’t care. For anything like change of address, I am supposed to be going to their bank and giving a letter in person. While they enroll me, they come to my office. While I want some service after that I have to go to their office. Don’t they even understand/realize how busy we are and they should come up with simple process for something as simple as change of address. However, when I joined my new company they asked me if I want to keep my old account and I curse myself for saying that.
As long as my money was coming to my account and I was able to withdraw it, I or the bank did not have any problems. One fine day, I ran out of cheque leaves. Till I was in Oracle, I had a personal banker who would call me occasionally and ask how their bank is treating me etc. Now that I stepped out, he is not there in the vicinity. Couple of my calls had only promises but did not get fulfilled. However, the bank is very clear that I need them and not the other way round because it is my salary that gets credited in their bank. I am at their mercy. I plan to go to bank tomorrow and resolve this issue before other issues around these crops up. I really can’t handle this.

More to come….
PS: I’m tired by reliving the memory 

I want to live like an animal....

I first saw this video some 15 years ago and instantly fell in love with all - the music, the singer, the actors, the junior artists etc. There is magic in music. The magic to make me feel nice when I'm not feeling so nice about everything, the magic to bring smile when its so difficult to do so, the magic to pep me up when all that is on my mind is to run away. :) This surely sounds like a confession because I don't easily admit I give up. Anyway, the song that I'm referring to is from Savage Garden - the Australian band that has my most favourite Darren Hayes in it. Like I said, I love everything about this song and this is one among the 100 favourite song list that I'm planning to compile. Let me save this for eternity. I dont want to forget that I loved this song at one point in time in my life.


Back then, I wanted to run to the jungle and live like an animal. But not now. I'm not missing much ;) They are all here around me. :)

I want to...

I dont know about others, but I want to do so many things. Sometime back my status was "1001 things on my plate all screaming I'm priority 1". I like it that way.

As of now, there are two things on my mind:

1. Work, work and more work around recruiting/sourcing/make some hires.
2. Play little TT, walk for an hour with some music around me (that's a wish), read something that will make me say "wow" :)
Actually there is a 3rd one too on my mind. Let me do the two and address them later. :)

BTW, I'll be going to TM and NHRD.

Discovering myself through my blog?

I happened to bump into this link through some other blog. :) Life is like that. If everybody likes reading something nice about themselves I'm not an exception here. I'm not sure if all that's mentioned here is true about me except one - "tend to take the worries of the world on their shoulders". Now I know why my left shoulder is hurting. I can talk about it later though.

And here's my analysis. (I liked the illustration)
ISFP - The Artists
The gentle and compassionate type. They are especially attuned their inner values and what other people need. They are not friends of many words and tend to take the worries of the world on their shoulders. They tend to follow the path of least resistance and have to look out not to be taken advantage of.

They often prefer working quietly, behind the scene as a part of a team. They tend to value their friends and family above what they do for a living.

Here's the link to know more about you through your blog.
http://www.typealyzer.com

I'm wondering how on earth somebody comes up with an idea like this and even materialises it. I'm awed!!!