Mother Tongue Importance

               This is one area where every parent (including myself) need attention. Of late, I see many Indian parents don't encourage kids to talk in their mother tongue. While the parents' urge to master English as an international language when the kid is young is commendable, ignoring mother tongue at the expense of this language is not something that is advisable.

               I always believe that any child can best express his or her emotions in the mother tongue. In other words, kids get a better emotional connect with the parents and with the society that he/she lives in. Never mind, even if you are living in a foreign land. The language of the land will automatically come to the child by timely exposure to the native kids.

               It is here the Mother scores above the rest, as she is the one who should acknowledge the importance of making her kid talk in mother tongue at home. With proper exposure, the kid can easily switch to English outside. Parents should be ready to acknowledge this fact without a mindset block.

                We should always remember that English is a language which has destroyed many other languages just because of its fake attraction. Our very culture depends on our mother tongue that we talk to express ourselves. All said, I am not against making the kid learn English.

LEARN IT, DO NOT BREATHE IT.

Career - Success or Failure

Blogging my experience on request of my very good friend:

Being an Indian, It is very difficult for any kid to have desires. For example, when I was in my school, I aspired to become a cricketer one day. But I was forced to drop that desire, due to the break neck competition in sports field and my family's financial status.

Cut to 2018, where I am working as a freelancer in my client's place. When I started my career in 2005 in this never forgiving IT industry, I always had to come the second best. The break neck competition in the field has not dampened me a bit. I always say with pride, that I always had a good work-life balance by running my own race (or competing with myself). Yes, there were company standards, yes there were client demands, but that doesn't mean I will have to lose my sleep over a job which only occupies 8 hours of my daily life.

Being Different:

I still remember sometime in 2007 (almost 2 years after started working in IT), I asked my team mate as to where should I go to catch the night shuttle at midnight and the entire team burst out laughing, as they knew I will never lose my personal life come whatever may.

While all others were busy jumping from one project to another, to get on-site, I believed in persisting in the same project. Many of my friends and well wishers were not impressed with these decisions including my IT mentors who thought it was going to backfire as I neither wont get promoted not get any on-site assignments.

Attitude:

I see lot of people with 'can do' attitude when it comes to work. The same should be followed for 'outside work' as well. For instance, the 'can do' attitude can be shown to finish the work on time or searching a new opportunity or making your own path.

PS: In 2009, my best friend had asked me what eligibility I have to do a Manager role.

In 2015, when I was without a contract, my co-worker asked me if I need a salary without a job.

My answer to them was plain simple. 'I know what I need, so I will ask you when I need something'. A king always remains a king, remember when Alexander defeated Porus in the war and asked him how he wanted to be treated, Porus boldly said 'treat me like a King'.  The same goes to all of us. Each of us is a King/Queen in our own right.

We don't need others to lift us up in morale. We only need our own hero worship(self worship). And more importantly, we don't need to belittle others to project our achievements or to motivate ourselves.

Coping with Negative Yearly feedback:

This is the most trickiest thing for any employee. A negative feedback or an average feedback would mean the next promotion and a good salary increase is already postponed for an year minimum with all conditions apply. This is where our attitude helps in tackling this tricky thing. Through out my career, at least 1 year in every 2 years I got this type of feedback. While I don't see much decline in my performance, I personally feel it is clearly a stunt by management to keep employees working for 15-16 hours instead of 8 for increasing their revenues.

So in hindsight, promotion in IT industry has kept on evading me for the entire 9 years I worked.

Decision Making:

As an aspiring free bird employee, I needed to take really bold and tough decisions and be prepared to sit at home when there is no work. This could be possible due to the moral and financial support that I received from my entire family members including my in laws. My dad went to the extent of giving his retirement benefit money to me to support my financial needs.

Tasting Success:

As they say 'success is a journey and not a destination'. My journey of so called success started since 2015 Feb, when I started my career as a freelancer, one who decides where to work and how many hours to work etc. Many people call it sheer luck that I am here, while my best friends tell me how happy they were and how much hard work and stress that I had underwent to be myself all these years. Last year, I had lost my contract due to health and budget issues. Some of my colleagues told that I cannot make a come back anymore. But here I am live and kicking and still going strong after all the hiccups that I had faced.

Facing Challenges:

A person can oppose his manager, not the management to be on his own. That is the very success of corporates in keeping people as their slaves. Breaking the shackles needs lot of guts and an ultra positive mindset and attitude which luckily I had.

Road Ahead:

I know the road ahead is not that easy, but I will make sure I listen to only constructive feedback from people around me (no more negativity).

Running our own race and competing with our own self is the key to success in any field.

Even now, I leave it to the readers here to decide whether my career is a success or failure, but to me as I already wrote, I will always be a Lion, roaring positively.

Jai Hind!

NEET

During my post on 12th exam, I mentioned how we should not be running the rat race that all others run. But, for NEET, I don't know what to say. Its a entrance exam for aspiring students who wish to become Doctor.

For strange reasons, already students from TN have been allocated centres in the North. Already due to stress, we have 2 parents who died due to cardiac arrest. Each and every media covers the news. We have one set of people who always oppose the government come up with all stories and as usual the other side, is damn silent.

Of late, politics in India has been becoming vengance filled. When these dirty things end, we would have lost many more precious lives who are in no way related to the actual issue.

Paid Media

With the advent of social media, people are using it both to their advantage and for other's good needs.

But most of the times, the misuse always outnumbers the ethical use.

As a result, media act like they don't know some news. The Sterlite and Methane issues in Tamil Nadu are a grand example to this point.

Change is the only thing never changes, I hope one day everything changes for good.

12th exams and Motivation to students

As the Higher secondary exams get underway in TN, I got a little nostalgic.

From the time, I finished my SSLC (around 2 decades back), I lost interest in the ever competing world of education in India.

I still used to remember how my parents encouraged me to play cricket and see movie before the public exams. It helped me a great deal that I got a decent score in all the subjects without complaining about pressure or health much. 

Now, all fingers in the hand don’t look the same. I have a friend, whose mother always used to crib that he only gets 90% whereas she is expecting him to scale to the 99 mark. I used to giggle along with my maternal grandmother about that over ambitious minded mother. Don’t take anything away from my friend. He is a studious fellow. 

The point here is, the unnecessary pressure faced by the kid. Capacity and capability need to be differentiated in kids. My friend can get 90% easily – that’s his capacity.. whereas he is capable to reach 99 (by capable I mean, putting even more effort) – that means he/she will sacrifice his complete relaxation time plus sleeping time and eating time.

In India, there is caste based reservation = I agree. That doesn’t necessarily mean we have to put pressure on the kids to come out with flying colors. I was gifted to have a good parents and grand-parents who almost had a devil may care attitude when it comes to getting mark range of 90-99. I still ended up second best in that with around 84% marks. I didn’t run the race run by all my other friends. I ended up in a brand new engineering college whereas all my other friends ended up in Top Universities.

When it comes to career, then I said to myself – from now on, I decide where I want to be in the next 5 years and once I completed my engineering, I got placed even before all my studious friends.

Education and career need not always go hand in hand. Parents and immediate relatives should play a huge role in shaping the child’s attitude which decides its destiny rather than the useless first mark which is nothing to be proud of.

As I type this, today, I always say with pride to everyone including my in laws, that I have enjoyed my life to the fullest during my childhood which is a rarity for most of the kids due to the breakneck competition.

I can play cricket with more agility at this age than my cousin who is 14 years younger to me.

Macaulay education system doesn’t necessarily mean that all Indians are ultra-talented. I am still only seeing book worms around me in most of the cases.

The bottom line of this post is to convey best wishes to the 12^th standard students and remember ‘it is just another exam of your life’ and this won’t definitely decide your life.

Remember, People like me don’t just live to exist -  WE ARE VERY MUCH ALIVE AND KICKING, bringing end less energy to our work place.

Jai Hind!!