Aim. Learn. Achieve.

Wish to share an incident with you all. It occurred yesterday only when I was taking Introduction batch of some CAT preparing Students. When I asked about their dream B-school, I got some interesting responses. Few of them replied, “It would depend on our CAT Score”, one of them said, “IIM Bombay” and few of them, “No Idea”. Such an irony, before starting the journey they even don’t know where they are heading. As they say, “If you don’t know where to go any road would take you there”. Believe me guys Success doesn’t come by chance but by a plan.

You don’t get what you Desire if you don’t Aspire…

Dreams do take shape of reality… But, if you don’t have dreams what will happen to reality…

Simple Suggestions:
1. You can’t hit the target, if you don’t have a target. have AIM before starting
2. You can’t hit the target, if you don’t learn the way to hit it. LEARN the tricks-of-the-trade
3. You can’t hit the target, if you aren’t prepared to try it. ACHIEVE – Don’t just Desire, Deserve

That’s why we have kept Punch line of CHEM

Aim. Learn. Achieve.

Take Charge
Sourabh Sharma

Spreadout to grow in height but to measure it grow in depth.

Spread out, to grow in height, but
to measure it, grow in depth.

It is life and is like a tree. Tree takes deep rooting down and spreading branches sideways to grow. It is that it ventures into Nature to attain growth. Its survival is subsisted by Nature and for this; it has to merge with Nature. So, it branches out covering space around while penetrate deep into earth through its roots to gain strength to grow up. However, the truth is that it doesn’t grow only for its subsistence but always to contribute its fruits, leaves or flowers for the needy otherwise and also it engages itself to provide photosynthesis to release oxygen to other flora and fauna.
Nature wants us to live and to live for others and other species too.

Ascendancy is the truth of life - it is the imperative truth, an unavoidable truth. Unless the tree adopts itself for growth, it meets with a natural death – a premature death might be. Birth is the momentum and life is the acceleration on which you have no control and death is the salvation. Life gets dwarfed if fail to grow or get stagnated to face the inevitable – the death. Nature destroys own liabilities, hence one has to contribute however trivial the share might be to sustain with life and one can not escape it. There is no substitution for participation and one has to absorb and adopt the environment and release and distribute his might too back. Trees and plants absorb fertility and contribute to add fertility to soil and this compensatory factor is the truth of life.

Man can not disassociate himself from taking part in life as he has indulged himself in through birth. He has embarked on a journey and he has to complete it in spite of traverse conditions and complications. The main purpose with the journey is to create goodwill and not animosity. Contradictions are inevitable but reconcile to the situations is where man scores. The trees too faces tsunami, Katrina, tempests and storms but survive and continue contributing with no complaints. Continue to grow, is the call of Nature and one has to comply with the command.

One can not retreat from life as there is no alternative provided to him. He has to cover pits and pitfalls to catch up to the mountain – the fulfillment. However, fulfillment is not a mirage for him but he can not choose to be in the oasis ever as he has to move forward. Fulfillments are not specific and static as ‘time’ interferes with them every time with expanding its range. Man, however, has either no control on time. Hence, life is a conflagration of fulfillments which represents what you have released and not what you have safe-guarded. Therefore, you need to part with things in life to give back to the Nature and never try to hoard things for yourself

Contributions can be trivial or tiny and not necessarily gigantic. The squirrel helped Ram to build the bridge to Lanka carrying grains of sand. Each grain was the full weight for it. Within oneself one has his reach and one might not fail himself in sharing with, his part. A simple sip or a bite turns often tastier than a gulp or devouring. Conversely a simple slip may turn out to be fatal but a big fall inconsequent. Donation of a rupee coin by a daily wage earner might be more valuable than a gold-coin by a rich man as the relevance is the affordability and not the gift.

Spread you wide and deeper you penetrate, give you strength to stand straight and grow and falter you to do so, befall you with no fulfillment and the life turn disdainful.


M.S.Kumaran

Resolutions for 2011

A very happy new year to one and all. Celebrations are already in the air. Hotels and bars, lounges and discotheques are already booked by energetic and cheerful youths. Just a thought of all these has filled my heart with excitement and enthusiasm.

I am feeling the freshness of the new year. All the hopes are falling on my heart like the snowfall of the season. The footstep of the new year is making the sound of Christmas bells. 2011 is the beginning of a new decade. We are moving towards becoming the superpower by the end of the decade. To make this dream true, it is time to wake up and make up our minds. I am committed to make my life better and in turn making the country and the world a better place to live. There are certain resolutions which will help me to make my celebrations a year long or even life long. I am mentioning my top 10 resolutions here.

1. I will keep myself well informed about the current events - It is always required to keep oneself updated on the happening of the world around.

2. I will serve others - I can recall the lines of a famous hindi song here, "Tum besahara ho to kisi ka sahara bano, tumko apne aap hi sahara mil jayega".

3. I will serve mother nature - I see a lot of people posting their photographs standing in front of a luss green mountain, a waterfall, a river, a sea beach or along a tree. They look so beautiful. The reason: Nature is very beautiful. I will try to keep the mother nature beautiful by whatever little way I can do.

4. I will be kind to others.
5. I will read books.
6. I will be cool at head and warm at heart.
7. I will always be optimistic.
8. I will be puctual.
9. I will be organized.

and most importantly

10. I will be honest to my work, my family, my relationships, my country, my words, my commitments, my hopes, my resolutions and above all to myself.

Dessehra- the festival

Shakti in three manifestations - DUSSEHRA

Dussehra is the festival of devout devotees who indulge in purity observed during ‘nine days’ of penance practicing abstinence and renunciation from the materialistic pleasures of life.

Wealth, wisdom and valour are the driving forces of humanity where wealth provides you with status, wisdom the prominence and valour the power. The legend refers to the domain of these powers if resting with one ‘supreme power’, that is the goddess of ‘shakti’ in her three manifestations - Lakshmi, Saraswati and Durga, each representing the respective sphere of action.

‘Navarathri’ is synonym with nine days of darkness but in reality the conceptual relevance is the ‘nine days of purity’ The ‘nine days of darkness ‘symbolizing nine evils of humanity pointing out to :
Lust, Anger, and greed
Ego, jealousy and Sarcasm
Ignorance, Irreverance and Irresponsibility
Which engulf man, influence him, incite him and make him indulge into committing crimes and sins. The festivities on these days presumed to be relieving the performers of the bad effects of these evils on them and purifying them for a fresh start with virtuous deliberations.

‘Dussehra’ is ritual to thousands, realizations to more thousands, repenting on past sins to many more thousands and fulfillment to lakhs – the fulfillment of being divested of the stains of the past perversions. Clarity and purity are the ruling forces of humanity which gives it the vision and mission for a sinless life.

‘Dussehra’ is penance for many. It encourages them to observe abstinence and renunciation from the pleasures of the ‘five prime organs’ (‘panchendriya’) of the body. The performers are drawn to spirituality away from the materialistic burdens and clear the path to help attain peace and solace to the mind. It impounds into them the message:
for the eyes to the right
for the ears to hear the right
for the mouth to say the right
for the hands to do the right and
for the legs to conquer the right
and ultimately the head to judge sensibly.

Let ‘Dussehra’ bring us peace and prosperity to life with enlightment and knowledge.



M.S.KUMARAN

SUN SET

She looks at her world , the tears fill her eys .
She thinks she should be happy , yet still she cries .
Theemptiness fills herand thatthat she can' thide .
She tries to bury the longing down deep inside .
She tries to get along through another long day .
Yet she wonders ,there just hasto be another way .
Is this all  that life was supposed to be .
She knows there is much  more that she truly needs
Yet she  remains silent until the very end .
The broken dreams she just can 't seem to mend
The Sun is setting , it 'sgetting very late .
She prays to GOD ," Please don 't let  the love turn to hate ."

Compiled by P.A. Varghese

success- a myth or mirage

SUCCESS – A MYTH OR MIRAGE
Great thinkers and philosophers of the world believed that one should never look forward to being successful that the ‘success’ one believes at a time is shallow and will crumble to meaningless later. Is this a cry that the unreachable grapes turn bitter?
You may gain fame and richness if you are in a line of work and once you are out of it the same gets faded away. The statues- the symbolic creation for name and fame and thus for success loses its limbs one by one as the time passes and the generation changes and the remnant rumble after sometime as a ‘silent monger’. We have the idioms and phrases that preaches, ‘the survival of the fittest’,’ fight to be the best’ or ‘race to win the fastest’. All these are supposed to be result oriented maneuver - the success; but this success is short-lived, driven away by the next flood-fury or a fatalistic event where the victim slips in success and succumb to it. The ironical maxim is that ‘you try your best’ where success may fetch you or may happen the other way – this is the cynicism of approach. Out of ten one may fetch success; but can you say others were truly unsuccessful? The one climbed the steps of the ladder believes that he has conquered success but is oblivious of the fact that the ladder itself is getting tumbled and may lose its hold on the ground or the slope. A short lived success, therefore, is a’ blind vision’.

Reality often eludes you. The reality that you think that you have excelled and believe that ‘you are the best’ is simply a relative situation as the reality lies somewhere else which neither you nor I is aware of. If taken otherwise some others may think that they will do ‘next time best’ which is a strive for success belittling the ‘best of others ‘!

Success, therefore, is not an achievement forever and that it is a continuous process. If you consider success is the ultimate fulfillment and cease further initiatives on the matter is a negation of success. Every drop of water you fill into the tumbler only removes the vacuum of that tumbler but one should not forget that there are lines of tumblers that are empty. Continuity is of efforts, continuity is of fame, continuity is of life and continuity is of Nature are simply a process and is not eternal.

M.S.kumaran

A twist in the Wordlist Tale!

Bored with wordlist? Great, then you will read my blog. Wait, even if you are not, trust me, you need this! We have already taught you several ways of working with the wordlist with a strong instruction of DO NOT CRAM!

Yet some words remain in your mind. Some tease you as you do remember studying them but forget their meanings. Others would bog you down as they keep confusing you.  How much you hate those words!

How do I know this? Oh that’s simple. It happens with me too all the time. Yet that never really stops me from working with the wordlist. The more I forget words, the more I try to discover newer ways of studying words.

Today, I wish to share with you one such innovative way, if I may call it so, to remember words. During the start of the year, I did a little experiment with one of my RGPV specific batches. Since they kept cribbing over newer problems that they faced while doing the wordlist, I gave them my trump card.

I handed them an assignment that they would eventually remember for the rest of their year. I just picked up the first few pages of our (old) wordlist. I asked them to weave a story across a few characters and scenes using ALL the words from those pages. The scene was of Kaun Banega Karodpati. Characters were Mr Amitabh Bachchan and guest contestant Preity Zinta.

I still remember many funny stories, which this enthusiastic bunch of students submitted to me. They all exercised their creative skills to pen fictitious stories that had all the words from the assigned pages. “Mukti, I had to create situations to fit those words in the story you know!” shared one of the students. Well that’s exactly what my purpose was!

A few boys also ‘inserted’ Anil Kapoor in their tales squeezing excerpts from Slumdog Millionaire; some students wrote systematically as if they were writing a one-act play; others simply replaced Preity Zinta with Shahrukh Khan.  A students used the word ‘appellation’ for Big B; another used ‘adage’ for a question asked by Big B to Preity; ‘apropos’ for the way other contestants behaved. And the rest, as the batch still tells me, is HISTORY!

That day, I too got a lesson. There is no ONE way to remember words. And that’s the best part of it. We have very MANY ways to help us browse through the beautiful world of words. Through this simple exercise, all of us discovered a new way. Those words easily got into our lives since that assignment.  If it worked for us, it would for you too.

So here’s the deal.  Try writing a story using a page of wordlist. The idea is to make you sit and spend some creative time with words.  It would just take half an hour. But I bet, you wouldn’t forget those words ever!

For more such pills on wordlist, watch this space! 

By Mukti Masih