The Bystanders

Ever noticed that whenever in a Movie, there’s a scene in some Public place, the focus is never on the public but on the Actors?? Then what are the other people doing in that scene? Why are they there? What is their purpose and what is their reason?

bystanders

Lets leave the film industry aside. Have you ever thought what it would be like to have that talent or that Father or that Level of Power in Society or that much Money?? Of course you have, we all have! We all have at some point in Life thought what it would be like to have that much money and social standing. How much easier Life would be if we were that Rich and Famous Person who is always partying or giving interviews about their Fabulous Life and how other people treat them with so much respect and always give them preferential treatment! How much fun would it be if we have already achieved what we wish to achieve and are simply sitting back and reaping the rewards.

Often, during College and even School, I used to imagine how Easy my Life would be if I were that Professional who has already achieved that Position and is just working now. How much I despised the process of going to school and how much I longed to exchange it for the process of getting up early every morning in order to go to Work! It was the satisfaction of having a boring, procedural Life which gave me comfort! It was this comfort which made me hate my Learning years, because those years were important only for growing up, not actually doing anything constructive on the work front.

I had read nearly all major interesting Management stories before Class 10th, including Shiv Khera, Who Moved My Cheese?, I Moved Your Cheese and even Murphy’s Law (Where Something Can Go Wrong, It Will !!!) !!!

All of these made me think about all the kinds of new ideas and methods I could implement once I got to that managerial position! And yet, I was not the least bit interested in going for an MBA!

Ok, enough about the reasons for this post, lets move on. So we’ve understood that all the popular stories are about the people at the centre and that Life will always take you through the boring phases before giving you the reward. So what does this teach us?? That those Bystanders have a Life of their own, a Story of their own in which they are the Heroes and They hold the central plot. In their Lives, We are the Bystanders!

Do not be a Bystander in your Own Life, take up the reins and Pull the Horse of Destiny in the Direction YOU want it to go! There is no better satisfaction that to reap the rewards only after going through the Most Boring Parts, because those parts make you realize how valuable that reward is and makes you Enjoy it! There’s no sense in skipping to the most gripping part without dragging yourself through the long, useless explanation!

You are already THAT Person! Just start being Them and see to it that the aspirations you have now are what you are holding 10 years down the line. Because That’s what makes you That person!

Your Move

I have left Chandigarh. The City where I was born and lived for 8 years. I was born in Chandigarh and at the age of 1, I moved out of it, on a Vanwaas of 13 years, moving from one end of the country to another, visiting, living in and growing up with every corner of the Indian Nation. After these 13 years I was back to where I had started, in Chandigarh. I settles there to complete my education, from Class 10th till the end of my Engineering degree. I spent the last 7 years in Chandigarh, growing up with it, although Chandigarh refused to grow with me, opting instead to be the Old Man watching the Young flourish in it’s care, willing to satisfy my curiosity yet keeping me well protected within it’s wings.

If Open Skies were the limit, Humans would have gone everywhere

If Open Skies were the limit, Humans would have gone everywhere

I lived the past 7 years without much remorse, without much pain and even less regret. I did things every foolish teenager does, speeding through life, gambling away good fortune yet keeping a distance from responsibility. I angered many, enchanted a few and made a lot of friends, out of which only a select few will stay on with me in my life, guiding my path with small, unnoticeable inputs. But most importantly, I lived the past 7 years without a plan, with a care for tomorrow and without ever really thinking which moves will I need to make to ensure one end or another to my reckless ideas which came and went with the Monsoons. I did not plan and I did not foresee. I just moved with the flow. When it came to choosing my stream in Class 11th, I went where convention took me, into the Sciences, that too without Medical. Further, when time came to select My Engineering stream and College, I stuck to Chandigarh although I had gotten Patiala first. I took Electronics because I thought Computer Science to be too easy and not enough of a Challenge. Besides that, when recently someone asked me why I had joined Electronics and what my favorite subject was, I had no answer.

There isnt a road we havent travelled. The Question is, where do you want to go?
There isnt a road we havent travelled. The Question is, where do you want to go?

Now, I am at a point in my Life where the next few months have been charted out by Infosys. Yet, Life has many twists and turns. I can never forget Chandigarh, who’s sights and smells are embedded in my mind, imprinted on my soul and have affected my thinking like nothing else has ever before. Still, I move on, in search of the next adventure. I have not, for myself, planned out the next 7 years of my life, although I have a brief outline in my mind. There is a Tomorrow, blurred and fuzzy, but very Real and perhaps, very interesting. All I say to my Life is that in moving out of Chandigarh, I took a big step, a giant leap of Faith, moving away from my comforts to a new beginning, which will spawn a new end as Destiny will command. All I say to my Life is that I have chosen carefully, what to do in my turn, my only message to it now is,

Life,

it’s,

Your Move.

How To: Add Google SMS Channels To Your Blog

Hey Hey Hey!!!

This is the post all you bloggers have been waiting for! Specially my dear friend Arpit Rastogi.. Hope you find this useful…

Ok, so Last time we discussed how to Make a Google SMS Channel which gives people updates about your Blog… But what good is it if people don’t know how to access your Channel and subscribe to it??

One way is to simply send email invites to everybody in your list but that’s the most un-cool thing you could ever do to yourself (of course, it’s very very effective, but we’re trying to be cool here people! :D).

The better way is to add this function as a Widget to your blog and put it right next to the email invites so that people notice it. Now, since there was no direct way or a pre-made widget to do this thing for me, I mixed and mashed a few widgets and came up with the following code to Make me a widget!

Without any more festivities, here’s the code:

<a href=”http://labs.google.co.in/smschannels/subscribe/NitinsBlog”> <img src=”http://labs.google.co.in/smschannels/inc/SMSChannelsLabsLogo.gif” alt=”” height=”50″ width=”150″> </a> <br> Have GMail? Now get my posts via sms! <b> <br> Just <a href=”http://labs.google.co.in/smschannels/subscribe/NitinsBlog”> Click HERE </a> </b> <br><br>

Now, here’s an explanation of the code, the first href link within the double quotes is the link for your SMS Channel, this is the one which will be embedded within the cute little picture of Google SMS Channels which will be part of the widget… Oh and also, the second href link is your sms channel too!!!

Google SMS Channels

So, all you have to do is this: Change the two href double quoted links from My SMS Channel (NitinsBlog) to the Subscribe link for your SMS Channel and post it in the Widget for your Blog and you’re done…

Oh wait! How to make your own widget?? If you are on WordPress, simply go to the Widgets page in your Admin and add the Text Widget to your Widget list and add the Code there…

If you are on Blogger, go to the Layouts page in your Admin and click on the Add a Gadget link, then, click on the HTML/JAVASCRIPT widget in the Basic Gadgets and add the code there…

One last note, make sure you change the href link and make sure you put the subscribe link for your sms channel in double quotes for it to work properly.. and if yuo don’t change it, you’ll be making sure that people join my blog instead of yours! 😀

And a p.s. No common user uses Google SMS Channels right now so they’re going to have to register themselves to it first and that’s a slightly confusing process. I have already added the whole procedure to my earlier post, here and I seriously suggest that you read it and write your own blog post about how to join the sms channels for the benefit of your readers… Feel free to copy from my post…

Finally, if you want to get a feel about how Google SMS channels treat a new user, register yourself from my blog’s channel using the widget given at the top right side of my blog 😀

Have fun!

15 Till I Die

So yesterday I went to the market to get some Ice… The markets in India, as we all know employ a large number of helpers, sometimes upto three in one shop only. The first thing which I saw when I got there was a little boy, probably twelve years of age (probably younger, I’m very bad with identifying age) standing near the counter lifting and arranging packets of chips. I have, as many have, heard about the new law  by the Indian goverment increasing the minimum age for a person to work to 15, below which it is considered as Child Labour. It was evident at first glance that this boy was much younger. So I asked him two questions–

  1. Do you have Ice Cubes?
  2. What is your age?

To the First question, I got a prompt affirmitive, but for the second one, the little one wavered and then said he was 15 years of age. Well Lied, I thought. Then I thought that I must do what I can about this situation. So i asked the price of the Ice Cubes and was redirected by the boy to the Shopkeeper who had just returned from inside the shop. I accosted the Shopkeeper and without looking even once in my eyes, he said that it was none of my business. He seemed right at that moment and I bought the ice and walked away.

But the thought that I did not do anything about the boy kept hurting me the whole day and I will probably be ashamed of myself everytime I will think about it.

So today, I sat down to think what I could possibly do about the Situation. I came up with very few answers as follows–

  1. Do Nothing, which, trust me, is as bad an idea as punching your father-in-law in the face.
  2. Punch the shopkeeper and then run for it, because if you stick around, the people of the market association will thrash you to glory.
  3. Call the Police and report to them, in which case either the shopkeeper will be fined and then he’ll again employ a young child or he won’t have to worry because the head of the market association has already bribed the police.
  4. This one seems to me the best solution to me and I will follow it every time i see Child Labour around me– Ask the price of a lot of goods, ask the shopkeeper to pack them and then walk off without buying them after commenting casually to the shopkeeper that you don’t support Child labour. This will frustrate him and even if two to three people do this to him, trust me, he get an above age helper.

I don’t suggest that you stick to my plan, although I’m sticking to it already, its your choice.

On the other hand, you could also think about what if that kid was the only one to support his family or that he was aiding his family in finance needed because of the large number of his siblings. If you wish to take this route and support Child Labour, just think about this for a minute– Don’t your Children go to School? So isn’t the right place for a Child a School?