003 No one can be taken for granted....

Dear Reader!

Our life itself being the best teacher, the day-to-day happenings are aplenty for all of us as learning points!

As one brought up under our late Father's controlled and disciplined domestic atmosphere, I have never taken anyone for granted. However, the very many experiences I have encountered and still continue to experience volunteer themselves as the topic for the day!

Thanks to Alexander Graham Bell, remote communication across the globe is so amazing now, mobile phones of different varieties have become the 'hot buys' everywhere.At the same time, pitiably, people who yearn to possess the latest model of the most sought after brands fail to understand their timely uses.

A busy home office atmosphere on a Monday;hardly 10 minutes left for me to finalize the draft of the business quote sent by my associate to me and the final quote should be on the table of our client in the following 30 minutes, otherwise we would miss the most lucrative business opportunity. I just didn't have time even to take the cup of tea cooling off fast in my A/C room.

A knock on my office room door, obviously by my perturbed wife. Jutting her head into the room she uttered mildly with lot of reservation, " Mr.N to see you! Don't get worked up. He has come to see you all the way.Come for a moment,please"

Grinding my teeth, I moved out of my room and went to the hall where Mr. N was sitting.

'Hello Mr. N! You wanted to surprise us? (meaning, "how the hell you chose to call on us without any prior intimation?")

"No VKN, I just came to meet the prospective buyer of old flat here. When I was about to return home, you came to my mind ("my bad luck", my inner voice lamented!) and I have just come to spend some time ("Oh! My God! I am finished! 'Sometime' in his language means an hour at least" again my voice warned of the danger looming large)

After spending few seconds on how to get rid of him, I reacted belatedly, "Had you called me in advance, I would have suggested a more suitable time so that I could spend more time with you comfortably."

My message couldn't have been clearer.Any sensible person would have noticed my discomfort in being with him but that was not to be in his case.

Just for courtesy's sake I made some formal enquiry about his family, office etc with my mind wholly on the job I was half way through.

The visitor slowly started his conversation with his focus on the ruling Government ("as if the ruling party could be changed overnight by means of our discussion!" I held my hands together tightly clasped to contain my irritation)

"Mr. N. You should remember one thing, you and I can just do nothing about it, talking about politics is a sheer waste of time.We should try to see what best we can do to the society individually" I expressed my irritation to him euphemistically.

Feeling that that message would be too inadequate to displace him from where he was seated, I continued, " Mr.N. With all your decades of experience in the service industry, in your present retired life, why don't you think of doing some free service in some hospital in your area. I am sure, at the end of the day, you will have lot more satisfaction that you have done something useful." (What I meant was that such a service would be a better option than wasting everyone's time around)

I have seen one thing from my personal experience; when you go on an offensive approach, especially pointing out another person's failures and lapses, it really unnerves the person to such an extent that he/she becomes totally disinclined to converse further and wriggles out of the embarrassing situation by fleeing from the scene.

Thank God! It worked in this instant case. He stood up in a move to take leave and that was exactly what I was wanting to happen. However, in order not to leave any bitterness in his mind about his visit,patting him on his shoulder, i just made a theatrical statement, " I wish I had spent more time with you but please, next time you think of visiting me, enable me to be in preparedness by calling me in advance. I hope you have my mobile number with you already. I am sorry, I have to rush an important mail."

Thank God! I still had some time left to complete and send my urgent mail!

Though it appears to be a business-like personal relationships in the Western World, I quite appreciate the basic customs and etiquette that stress on the basic requirement of fixing up an appointment even for personal visits - after all, every person is entitled to his/her time and no one can claim any rightful share of it.

As for me, without ascertaining the availability and convenience of the person to be visited, I never make any 'surprise visits'.

Another point about which I am equally careful is in the matter of phoning someone: in all my relationships, I study the individuals so much that I get to know their usual day-to-day habits and routines and never embarrass them at inconvenient hours. When I want to call Mr.X,I make sure that he may not be getting ready for his evening walk or may not be hurrying up with his dinner for his favorite TV show.

I know for sure that if i fail to do that, the reaction of the person called would be wilder than mine with Mr.N, the casual visitor!!

My rules are very much the same whether I meet a person while on the road or whether I see one of my contacts in online chat communication channels.

After all, years of experience in watching human behavior would quite reveal to anyone when he/she meets another person on the road whether that person is in a relaxed mood or hurrying up with his agenda. It is just common sense. I always let the other person show interest in a chat with me, I never volunteer even when I find the person totally relaxed.

Here again, I am enforcing this self imposed rule all the more vigorously because of a most annoying situation which I faced few years ago.

This happened one sunny afternoon when I was hurrying up to my bank for an urgent cash withdrawal (I never use ATMs!). On the way I happened to see an occasional contact and true to my nature I took notice of him (that was the serious mistake I committed on that day which I would regret for ever!) thinking that he would just wish me and let me go ahead.

Unfortunately not!

He caught hold of me (figuratively, of course) and started straightaway rambling about his U S trip. Trust me, the harangue (centering around the unorganized living conditions and living style in India as compared to the U S) went on for nearly 45 minutes despite my showing him my lack of interest on the subject using all kinds of body language known to me.

Disgusting it was, I lost not only my time but missed the banking hours also.

That was my last meeting with that gentleman (!!). Couple of times I saw him later from a distance.Needless to mention I successfully avoided seeing him face to face on all those occasions!!

In the same way, whenever I see the presence of my contact/s in the chat media, I never have the urge to engage myself in chat with the person/s. I always believe that the other person should be as busy as I am. If at all any necessity arises to chat, the standard phraseology with which I invite him is: "How busy are you? Can you spend few minutes on chat? "(few minutes really mean few minutes, may get extended at the other person's will, not mine anyway)

My philosophy is that when one respects the other person's time, he/she is bound to reciprocate such an attitude. I also believe that a man(woman included!) learns more from life than from books.

And this is the learning point I have which I wanted to share, not certainly my experiences!


Bye for now,

V K Naageswaran (vknwaran@bsnl.in)

002 Changing Communication Styles!

Dear Reader!

I think, at the outset, I should make one point very clear: the purpose of my blog is to share my sharable thoughts as and when they arise but at my convenience without any commitment regarding the periodicity of my posts.

When I say thoughts, thoughts centering around myriad subjects on earth. I intend this to be an add-on to my first post of 17.07.2010. Elucidation of my reference to my spiritual inclinations has become necessary as at least one reader, the first reader, raised a pertinent question whether all that I would be posting in the days to come would center around spirituality!

Let me make it clear that, in fact, I would be covering less of spirituality as it is unique to each individual and I don't believe in religious dogmas. What I had stated was because of my spiritual inclinations I tend to be philosophical about the world and human life in this world lately and so some trace of such a perception is more likely.

It was also suggested by my first reader that my sentences are long-winding and so could be short. I quite agree with this observation. Before committing myself to such a style, I should admit that I have been used to a particular style of writing for the past many decades, influenced possibly by the writings of the earliest of the writers I was more familiar with during my college days.

As is the case with every other aspect of human life, language too has undergone a dramatic changes over the years. Unlike English of the mid 20th century, which used to be more bombastic necessitating frequent reference to the dictionary, the present day English is more simple. The fine distinction between the written language and the spoken language is evident only in the editorial of leading news papers!

My own reasoning for this change is the dwindling reading habits of the younger generation who spend much of their time on visuals. Naturally, their spoken communication is much better than their written communication.

As one coaching professional course students at college level for their on-campus placement interviews, I have assessed their handicap very well. With all the computer tools like Thesaurus at their command, they do not have patience to get to know the meanings of unknown words, much less to retain them in their memory. Unavoidably (!) they build up their technical vocabulary and so it is not uncommon to find youngsters handling their technical language very well and at the same time fumbling in general communication! The only prescription given by me to the college students is reading of a standard English newspaper. The only investments expected of them is patience and perseverance. Text book based teaching and learning, the hallmarks of our Indian education system are unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. In such a context, I seriously think quite often that newspaper reading and testing the students' skill on such a reading could be made mandatory at the high school level itself. The inadequacy in our basic level education system is so very pronounced, I have to teach the students basic grammar at college level, a sad commentary indeed!

Taking all the above factors into account, consciously, I will be very simple in my communication using simplest of the synonyms, antonyms, adjectives and adverbs. The purpose of any communication is to make the reader or listener understand it and so, before proceeding further, I would like to assure the readers that my communication could be read and understood even by the school going children- seriously, as I may be posting matters of their interest also at times.

Bye for now!

V K Naageswaran (vknwaran@bsnl.in)

001 The Launch.....

Dear Reader!

Until probably 6 in the evening of the July 17, 2010 I had not thought of creating my own personal blog! All of a sudden when I was scanning the web pages for another requirement of mine i just chanced to get at a blog which instantaneously triggered my idea to have a blog of my own, of course, for free!!

When I searched the world of internet, the free blog of google stood out prominently and my decision to choose that was again instantaneous!!

Again, when I was required to give a suitable blog title for personal identity, the title ' My Unstoppable Train of Thoughts' instantaneously surfaced in my mind and there was no looking back since then and here I am writing my first post!

Whoever happens to access and read my blog, I have to state in advance with utmost humility that the thoughts that get crystallized in these pages may have already passed through the reader's mind some time or the other! The only difference is I have thought it fit to share my thoughts with the readers just to give vent to my feelings which otherwise swell in my mind so much, one day they might burst without even a forewarning and the unfortunate victim would be my wife as my 90 year old mother has another home to go to, my sister's!

Though I am just as ordinary as millions of others living their lives in this mother earth, with almost 6 decades of this worldly experience, most of the times I am thinking of this ever changing world and the thoughts emanating from my perceptive knowledge of this world are the main frameworks for the series of posts that this blog is going to have. Not being in tune with this ever changing world, most of my thoughts might appear to be weird and at times even revolutionary but if they really do as I want them to this blog would have truly served its purpose!

With all my spiritual inclinations of the past 20 odd years, I have developed a kind of philosophical bent of mind which is, perhaps, the reason why I feel I am fit enough to share my thoughts with the world. It is my humble view that spiritual inclinations alone facilitate the external gazing of the otherwise hidden internal phenomena of an individual and in this respect the gains that I have had have been enormous!

So, in the first instance, my spiritual inclinations impel me to seek the blessings of the Almighty for the safe running of my train of thoughts on the one side - as train travel has become the riskiest in the present time for reasons known to everyone - and on the other side, I feel confident philosophically that, after all, the train of thoughts will have to chug along as long as it is destined to!!

So, here I am starting off with my unstoppable train of thoughts to an unknown destination which the end of my worldly life alone can determine accurately!

The choice is entirely yours - you may be a short-time companion traveling for a short time in my train or you may be my life-time companion even continuing your journey much beyond it in your own train of thoughts!

Even as I am about to end my first post, I strongly feel that collocation of this kind 'train of thoughts' is archaic in today's context in which travel by aircraft has virtually eclipsed the travel by train in the west though it is bound to take a long time to become a reality in India. As it is it shall be, so let it be...

Bye for now!

V K Naageswaran (vknwaran@bsnl.in)