An Update.

Its again close to a year since my last post. Lots of things have happened in the meanwhile and post my trip to swiss life has taken a huge turn around. I am now a proud owner of a 2BHK apartment @ Chennai. I am eagerly looking forward to shifting there once it is ready for occupation. Responsibilities have increased as well. Got promoted @ work and more trips abroad are also lined up. While I feel happy about all the good things that has happened, It also saddens me to say that the increased responsibilities have stressed me out! I am not someone who crumbles under stress but I guess its natural that it happens to everyone @ some point of time. Worst, I haven't taken any measures to cope up with it either. Most of the times, it has just been going through the motions and a lack of willingness to come out of it. Could be due to the fact that the amount of things that I have on my plate is constantly keeping me on my toes and doesn't give me a recovery period. All these things keep playing on my mind and I would be the first one to accept that there are more important things in life that needs attention! First and foremost, the best character I attribute to myself is my positive attitude and cheerfulness! But Damn, I am now searching for them. This has not only affected me, but people close to me as well. I am sure they are annoyed at this and are wondering what has gone wrong with me, but frankly these are the same questions for which I myself need answers! I am often keeping my thoughts to myself these days and find myself in a sombre atmosphere most of the times. Looking back at how impatient I am these days, I just find that this sombre mindset could be one of the reasons. I am looking for a way to reinvent myself, getting back to the positive mindset, enjoying all the little moments, developing a lot of patience and most importantly enjoy life as it comes. I also take a lot of pride in making others happy! I have experienced that it gives you extreme happiness seeing someone happy because of what you did. People tend to look up to you when they are in need and it adds an additional dimension to ur personality. First and foremost what strikes me is the need to shed away the laziness and the next thing is to do things that infuse positive energy! I pray to god to give me the drive and motivation to do so and hope things will start looking better in the coming days. I would also like to take this post as an oppurtunity to apologize to all my near and dear ones for not being able to be the way that I usually am. I am sure it would have annoyed most of you, but I promise that I will be back to my cheerful best soon. Apart from these things, I am enjoying my experience at China currently and had a good time during my Birthday recently. I thank my friends here @ China and also people back home, who made it a memorable day! Looking forward to see you all soon and hopefully I can get things back on track @ the earliest! Till then Ciao!

First day at work.

I woke up at 6.30 AM and got ready to go for work by 7.45 Am. Caught up with my colleague and we travelled in train together. The trains and the train stations at Zurich are awesome. The trains always come on time here and it's one of the speciality in this city. We had to change trains, so I didn't get to observe the route of my travel! The train passed through the country side and it was a pleasant journey. Though I wished I could have clicked some pictures. I Reached office by 9.00 and then got introduced to people and all were nice and jovial. Straight away got into work and the type of work for the day was pretty relaxing, though it turned out to be a very long day at work primarily because of my apartment mate who was working till late in the night, close to 10 pm and I had to wait for him as I am unaware of the roads and way back home. I Went home pretty tired and cooked dinner. Its summer here and the sun is shining till 8.30 PM atleast. In the coming days am looking forward to know the routes from my apartment to the office and some places to shop and trip to the mountains. The office is surrounded by a greenish farm where onions are grown ;-) Looking forward to my days at Zurich and in the coming days hoping to visit a lot of places and take lot of photos :) Will keep u all posted:)

My First day at Switzerland.

For the first time in my life, am traveling out of my home country. The reason being an official trip of 2 months. I was very excited at the prospect of traveling to a foreign nation for more than one reason. Mainly it gives you more money and secondly it’s always wonderful to travel around and know about people and places. I traveled by Lufthansa to Frankfurt from Chennai and then had to take a connecting flight from Frankfurt to Zurich, my final destination. Before boarding the flight, I had a lot of questions in my mind about all the security clearances, check -in, emigration and stuff. People who had traveled before helped me out with vital information, so I was little relaxed. My check in went on smoothly, except for the fact that I was asked to reduce some weight from my hand luggage. After the check in it was time for emigration check. I was leaving all my loved ones behind. The feeling shrunk into me as I waved a good bye to all of them. It is difficult to explain the emotions I went through as I was equally excited and sad! The point that struck me was I am feeling so much of emotions for a 2 month trip, so the state of people going abroad leaving their families and friends behind is tough to think of. As I boarded the flight, everything went smoothly except for few butterflies in my tummy whenever the aircraft experienced some heavy turbulence mid air. I landed in Frankfurt and had enough time for my connecting flight. I just gazed at the shops and the beauty of the airport and off course the girls as I made my way to the gate of my connecting flight. I landed in Zurich took a taxi and reached safely to my apartment. I was shown around the apartment by my colleague and after he left, It was all me. Loneliness once again played its part to perfection making me feel home sick. I spent the rest of the day chatting with friends and family back home through the internet and arranged my room and prepared everything for next day’s work. The tiredness is still there and I am sincerely hoping that my work goes on smoothly and I get a good name from my onsite consultants. I believe that once the work is smooth, the other things will be really enjoyable and stress will be less. I believe that I can use this trip to learn a lot and visit new places and get some good fun out of it all :) That’s it for now :)

Cheers,
Venkat.

The Avil Effect.

This incident happened to me 3 years back. Looking back at my cricketing days is something that i often used to do. It feels good and motivates me to make it big. There is one innings that will always be etched in my memory, for it carried a lot of importance to me and played under challenging conditions. I was in my 2nd year of college and was playing for TNCA 2nd divison. I had played for 4th division the previous season and due to my consistent performances that year I got into a 2nd division side. There is a big difference in the standard of cricket compared to 4th division. The players are of high quality and vastly experienced. The season did not start on a good note. I managed to score only 8 runs in the first match of the season and we also lost the game badly! Going into the 2nd game, there was some pressure on the team to win and get started for the season. From a personal point of view, I had to perform very well in order get to the senior division which will give me a chance to crack at Ranji trophy.

The day before my game, I was returning home from practice and during my travel, I felt a lot of itching all over my body! The moment i reached home, I found that I had been stung by something and that had caused an allergy. My entire body had swollen, and I was suffering with pain and itching!! It was already late when i reached home, as a result of which I couldn't go to a doctor! Took some paati vaithiyam and slept off ;) The next morning when i woke up, there was no improvement in my condition and the pain and itching was still there! I had a match to play, so i took an AVIL (tablet used for allergies) , so that i could play the game. The best part here is, Avil when taken induces drowsiness and sleep!! I realised it only after i reached the ground :P I struggled to go through my warmup routines and was feeling extremely drowsy. we won the toss and elected to bat and i had to open the Innings.

I went out to bat with pressure to perform and I had to fight of my drowsiness too! I was feeling so drowsy that nothing went through my mind ;) I was to face the first ball of the innings... The first 2 balls were short of a length and outside the off. I duly cracked them both to the point boundary. A solid start.. 8 of 2 and the drowsiness was still there!! That kind of a start gave me hope and though i played and missed so many times outside the off stump (Thanks to the Avil effect :P ), I was lucky not to edge one to the slips/keeper ;). I went on to score 89 in that game. This performance gave me the confidence that I can do well in the higher level and my good run continued for the next 5 games as I scored 4 more fifties and got selected to play for the city team. This innings was really significant for me and looking back at it gives me pleasant memories :)

The Sydney Saga

The decision to ban Harbhajan has created a mighty uproar back home and the board and the players are strongly united for a change ;) and backing bhajji to the core. The Board has threatened that they may even withdraw from the tour if the ban is not lifted. I hope this doesn’t happen, because it will have a lot of implications in the future, especially the smooth relationship between the two cricket boards will be spoilt.

Somebody, probably a preschool teacher, needs to explain simply to Ricky Ponting about the damage that has been caused by his team during the Sydney Test. While India burns and fumes over issues ranging from race to umpiring and sportsmanship, Ponting continues to believe his team has done nothing wrong.

It is extraordinary that he doesn't understand the significance of India's threat to boycott the tour or Australia's direct and indirect roles in the lead-up to it. He is as temporarily blind as some of the officials were at the SCG.

All said and done the pressure is now on India to perform. Nothing but a win will make all the cricket fanatics back home happy and a win is the best way to show the arrogant Aussies that they are not invincible. It’s going to be a very tough job, as Perth is going to be the backyard for Aussie quick’s, but we have got the batting firepower, combined with some aggression and a desire to give it back to the Aussies can see us pull of a surprise. All the talking and protesting has been done, Now its time for some action!

Child Labour

Child Labour

Just Imagine a 9 year old boy or girl working in a factory or a Restaurant cleaning tables and plates!!! Could something be worst than this??? Just go back a bit and remember the childhood days that we have all had!! If someone were to ask us about the best part of our lives, undoubtedly our answer will be our childhood days. But on the contrary, just imagine the plight of so many young kids who are deprived of proper education and even a normal living!! Most of them are orphans too!!!:(:(:( Even though there are many laws that prevents child labour and they are enacted strictly at least in big industries, this Evil has not reduced even a single bit in the lower rungs!! people still dare to employ kids as helpers!! The reason is the owner doesn't need 2 pay a lot to a kid but he can extract the same amount of work (in fact more) as he can do from a grown up labour!!! This is Pathetic!! kids are working in restaurants, Shops,Polishing car glasses at signals and most of them are even into Begging!!!! What a pity!! We are talking of India becoming a Fully Developed country by the year 2020. For this to happen all these things must be Eradicated Completely!

I feel strongly that something can be done by joining forces and help this situation improve !!! As individuals we can ensure to a certain extent that this doesn't happen at least in our locality. It's very tough to impose these things in an unfamiliar place, where as you can start doing this in your locality, where you are familiar with. If we find such kids working as labours, we can try convincing their parents, helping them get into a school and if possible spend for his/her education too :) We can help them study, after all we are all blessed to get all comforts in life, and Wat's wrong in giving some back:):):) Everyone are God's children, isn't it ;););) I think this will help improving the situation in a very big way!!! There are some places where we need to use the laws :) and its not a bad idea in using it for the bright future of a young kid:):):)

I know questions must be running in Ur mind whether i am doing such things before talking, but honestly speaking, i am finding it a bit tough 2 communicate with the locals in their language as my native s Chennai and am working in another state,LOL [:P] anyways am making some efforts through my local friends and i hope 2 do something substantial soon. So i just thought i will share my thoughts on this with you friends and who knows many of you might well start giving it a serious thought..at least i hope so:):):) I am sure that each and everyone of us will be having a social awareness and an willingness to do something for the country and society. This was just one such view of mine :):):) I hope it appeals to you all :):):)

So friends Lets make an effort and we can create a huge difference:):):)

Thank you for having the patience to read the entire thing;););)

Cheers,

Venkat.

Whats your answer??

Read the story below,

Years ago, a farmer owned a land along the Atlantic seacoast.

He constantly advertised for hired hands. Most people were reluctant to work on farms along the Atlantic. They dreaded the awful storms that raged across the Atlantic, wreaking havoc on the buildings and crops.

As the farmer interviewed applicants for the job, he received a steady stream of refusals.

Finally, a short, thin man, well past middle age, approached the farmer. "Are you a good farm hand?" the farmer asked him. "Well, I can sleep when the wind blows," answered the little man.

Although puzzled by this answer, the farmer, desperate for help, hired him. The little man worked well around the farm, busy from dawn to dusk, and the farmer felt satisfied with the man's work.

Then one night the wind howled loudly in from offshore. Jumping out of bed, the farmer grabbed a lantern and rushed next door to the hired hand's sleeping quarters. He shook the little man and yelled, "Get up! A storm is coming! Tie things down before they blow away!"

The little man rolled over in bed and said firmly, "No sir. I told you, I can sleep when the wind blows."

Enraged by the response, the farmer was tempted to fire him on the spot. Instead, he hurried outside to prepare for the storm.

To his amazement, he discovered that all of the haystacks had been covered with tarpaulins. The cows were in the barn, the chickens were in the coops, and the doors were barred.

The shutters were tightly secured. Everything was tied down.

Nothing could blow away. The farmer then understood what his hired hand meant, so he returned to his bed to also sleep while the wind blew.

***********************************************************************

When you're prepared, spiritually, mentally, and physically, you have nothing to fear. Can you sleep when the wind blows through your life?

This story's moral is worth giving a thought:):):) As the moral says if we are prepared to take anything and add to that take it in the right sense and if ur ready to accept things and face them boldly, then fear and failure will not even come near you!!!

Cheers,
Venkat.