Life is a "Roller Coaster" ride - This too shall pass ...

Life is a roller coaster ride, with ups and downs. One never stayed always on "top" and at the same time never been at the "bottom" all the time. One has to go through both the "Ups" and "downs" and yet remain in balance to be successful in life.

The best phrase to remember, which I came across some years back is "This too shall pass". There is an interesting story also to this phrase.

Once a King was very happy about the way his life is progressing and thought that nothing can change his status. Hence, he wanted to announce a contest to anyone who can make him "unhappy" and at the same time make him "happy". It is not easy as with a single act or sentence, one should make him both happy and sad!!!

Several people tried but none could succeed. But finally, one person came and given a phrase in a piece of paper and asked the King to read when he is happy and also when he is sad. The phrase was "This Too Shall Pass". The phrase was so impactful that the King who was happy till then, became unhappy. After he got into the sad mood, he read the phrase again and he became happy.

The phrase is universally applicable to everyone who is either happy or sad to make them understand that every stage in life shall pass and we have to face different situations every day. There is no need to be either totally unhappy or very happy as they are momentary and shall pass.

One has to remain balanced and approach life with equanimity to face every situation. If we keep in mind what the great discourse "Bhagvat Gita" said, "You have control over only your actions and not the fruits of the actions", life is more peaceful and meaningful. One has try to the best of his ability and then leave it to almighty to take over and give us the fruits for our efforts. Whatever is given, if accepted with gratitude, life is easy to live.

Life is a roller coaster ride and what goes up will come down and what comes down will come up. Who knows better than me, who has faced more failures than successes in life? What people see outside is only my current position and successes but the failures and challenges I go through in life is unknown to many and I have no intention to share the same. What I wish to state clearly is the failures did not deter me from trying again and again and is making me more resolved to fight it out. After all, what goes down must come up ... Two big failures in March (both my films Aval Peyar Tamilarasi (Tamil) and Hide & Seek(Hindi) bombed badly at box office despite sincere efforts for over a year) left me with lot of sadness for not delivering what the organization has expected me to do. It took couple of days to overcome and face the reality. But once I realized within myself that nothing I can do beyond this, I faced the situation bravely and managing to come out out it within the organization with lesser impact on my career.

The phrase, which is making me to face this situation is "This too shall Pass".

Be the Change You wish to See in Others

Mahatma Gandhi's famous quote "You must be the change you wish to see in the world" adores the walls of Mumbai airport when you arrive. I just made a small change from "World" to "Others".

We all need a working place and home where we don't have to keep explaining ourselves for each act of us. Nothing is more tiring than having to constantly explain ourselves as it will drain us emotionally more than physically in such a non-trusting environment. We need a workplace and home where we can enjoy our freedom of trust and don't have to explain everything about our acts.

Each one of us have our strengths and weakenesses. What we desire is our strengths are seen with a magnifying glass and appreciated and the weaknesses are seen with normal glass and not exaggerated. It is the normal human tendency to seek appreciation in public and criticism in private. We all expect that.

Our biggest desire from others at the workplace and at home is, our today is not viewed with the mistakes we made yesterday. We want to start afresh everyday and be treated newly without the mask of our mistakes of yesterday. We do not want someone to maintain the database of our mistakes and keep pointing at us by referring to it despite our sincere effort to improve ourselves. We want our yesterdays to be forgotten and only our today (& the work/contribution) is valued and respected.

We need a workplace and home where we can be ourselves every day for whatever we are worth and yet respected and given our due. We do not wish to fake at these two places where we spend all our life, by putting up false acts just to impress others or to get a good name.

We need a workplace and home where we can be open and transparent with everyone without worrying about how our openness will be misused and misintrepreted against us as nothing is more constraining than constantly worrying about who is going to misuse our point of views and opinions against us.

If any of us have such a home or workplace, then we must be thankful to God as there cannot be a greater gift from life than these.

If any of us do not have one, then, we should do something about it. There is a powerful saying "Do unto others what you want others do unto you?". Can we be the one to provide such an atmosphere to others at our workplace and at home? Can we be the change, we wish to see in others? Let us make ourself worthy of being other's greatest gift in their life ...

We all have expectations from others whether at workplace or at home. But others too have expectations from us ... Can we be the harbinger of change for others to emulate us for the great qualities one needs to have?

Life will be more happier and great if we change first and then expect others to change, to make it a happy world.

3 IDIOTS review by Taran Adarsh ...

On the whole, 3 IDIOTS easily ranks amongst Aamir, Rajkumar Hirani and Vidhu Vinod Chopra's finest films. Do yourself and your family a favour: Watch 3 IDIOTS. It's emotional, it's entertaining, it's enlightening. The film has tremendous youth appeal and feel-good factor to work in a big way.

****1/2 (FOUR & HALF STARS) ... WOW!!

All those who read my 6 "E"s for script selection theory can understand the "E"s highlighted by Taran Adarsh as winning points for 3 Idiots.

A must watch and looking forward to watch it soon!

Perfection must be the Goal. Excellence can be tolerated

There is a powerful saying that "Perfection is the Goal, while Excellence will be tolerated". How many of us believe in this and operate in our life with this motto?

Today one of my business associate came to pick me up at Dubai to take me to some shopping complex. He parked his car in the parking bay and came to meet me. We both came out and then the fun started. He did not remember where he parked the car as the complex had three tier parking in each floor. I was astonished when he vaguely remembered where he parked the car and did not even note down the parking bay details, leave alone the floor where he parked. We both were walking around for 30 minutes to locate the car before he could remember it was parked near some under construction floor and then we located the car. I was damn tired and was cursing him openly on how he can do this, making me run around for 30 minutes. It was the most horrible act of how one can be imperfect on all accounts.

I have seen a film yesterday in the film festival, which has come from India (do not wish to name the film). It was a horrible quality beta tape, which was played with pixelated images, playing on such a wide screen in an International Film Festival theatre!!! The audio and video quality was so poor that no one could read the titles/credits also. Why people take it so easily and do what is expected of them so irresponsibly, lowering the image of our country and the industry?

Both these incidents made me to think how people take life so casually and compromise on minimum deliverable, which causes pain to others in every sphere of our life. If only each human being is little more perfect and responsible, the world will be a lot better is what I believe in strongly.

Why such a casual approach towards life? Why people take others for granted and do not attend to such small details? It is said, "God is in Details" in whichever work we do and why people do not attend to details. All that it was required was simple noting down in a piece of paper the floor and the bay number where the car was parked in the first incident. In the second case, all that it required was to get a proper quality tape to be played, which is the minimum deliverable for a film festival ...

Why people do not have a fall back option in the case of failure? When can we expect people to strive towards perfection so that at least they do things excellently, which will then become the benchmark for others? If they aim for the moon at least, they can land up on the roof top .. when will they do this?

I might sound to be too demanding with high expectations ... Of course I am. First with myself and then with others also. It is tough and painful at times when I notice such lower standards of work, causing me anxiety. But, there is no other choice as if I start accepting lower standards from others, over a period of time, my performance will also be of lower standard. Hence, I have to demand perfection from everyone (including myself in whatever work we do) so that we at least achieve excellence in our work to become a benchmark for others on deliverable ...

Life is a Tradeoff between the Choices

We must remember that life is a tradeoff between or among the choices we have. Tradeoff means, we need to lose something to gain something. Nothing comes free without attached challenges or issues.

We cannot achieve perfect health without willing to put in hard work for it in terms of daily exercises and right eating habits, living with less stress etc. Perfect health does not come with leisurely life and without effort.

In the same manner, Wealth cannot be achieved without the willingness to put in the hard work and sacrifices on several other worldly pleasures one can enjoy.

We cannot expect to achieve big career successes like others unless we are willing to put in the extra hours, which may come at the cost of family and personal life.

We cannot become a politician or a public figure unless we are willing to trade off our privacy, family life, peace and happiness etc.

We cannot achieve fame and wealth unless we are willing to pay the price of more hard work than others, superb networking, better relationship with everyone compared to others, more knowledge and wisdom and better creativity etc.

Each of our decisions comes with a price. Nothing comes easily and no one achieves the top without willing to trade off the choices. We can always live the life happily by working from 9 to 6 in a Government job and be contented with our progress and achievements. It is a choice we make. However, once we decide to lead such a life, we are also trading off the possible wealth and fame and accepting the lack of it as a price for it.

The conflict comes in our life, only when we are unable to accept this fact and always look for easy way out i.e. we wish to have perfect health without putting in the necessary hard work. We wish to have regular increase in salaries and career along with work-life balance, without putting in additional efforts to stand out among others. We wish to have fame, without compromising on personal life. Our best expectation from life is “Having the Cake and Eating it too”, which does not happen to any. When we are prepared for the trade offs and accept such tradeoffs and prepare others in our life also for such tradeoffs, life becomes a lot easier and stress free.

How Much We Value the Time in our Hand?

I live my life as if there is no tomorrow and try to do as many things as possible in one day. Many get astonished with my ability to multi-task and many complain about this frenzied activities and handling too many things as if stretching too far one's life. In fact, for many, who do not understand my ability to do multi-tasking and process the jobs in hand faster, my acts in a day seem to be "hasty" and I am constantly reminded that I am doing in haste, though I have considered various pros and cons before going ahead and doing what I have decided to do. The only difference is many a people, take longer time to complete their tasks in hand, which restricts their ability to handle too many things, while I finish the tasks in shorter time and hence have enough free time to think and do multi-tasks.

For me "Today" is a "Present" from God and must be utilized effectively to its fullest extent by doing everything possible during the day. There is a popular saying, "Yesterday is History", "Tomorrow is a Mystery" and "Today is a gift". That's why it's called the "Present"! I do not wish to have any regrets at the end of the day for not completing my tasks and wish to sleep happily having done my best in the present. I keep saying to my team that, when I go to sleep, I will have no mails or calls or jobs pending to be responded or acted upon, so even if I do not wake up next day, none of you would be left stranded for a reply.

However, the biggest challenge is to bring in the same understanding and work culture among everyone in the team, who believe that life has to be taken one step at a time and there is no need to show any urgency. They fail to realize that wasting a day of their life in postponing or delaying is actually an abuse of the "present" or gift from the God.

If each one believes today is a "Present" from God and go all out to make use of it effectively, the world will be a far better place with more productivity and progress. Just imagine, if you are told that you have only one more day to live by God, what will you do? How many things will you try to do in that day so that you leave the world with peace and happiness of having done your best? Will you do leisurely only a few things in such a scenario? You will go all out and stretch every bit of the minute to achieve as many things, make as many people happy in the time left. The same spirit is needed when we handle the "Present"/today.

Imagine there is a bank that credits your account each morning with Rs.86,400. It carries over no balance from day to day. Every evening deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to use during the day. What would you do? Draw out every rupee? of course!!!!

Each of us has such a bank. Its name is TIME. Every morning, it credits you with
86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off, as lost, whatever of this you have failed to invest to good purpose. It carries over no balance. It allows no overdraft.
Each day it opens a new account for you. Each night it burns the remains of the day. If you fail to use the day's deposits, the loss is yours. There is no going back. There is no drawing against the "tomorrow". You must live in the present on today's
deposits. Invest it so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness, and success! The clock is running. Make the most of today.

To realize the value of ONE YEAR,
ask a student who failed a grade.
To realize the value of ONE MONTH,
ask a mother who gave birth to a premature baby.
To realize the value of ONE WEEK,
ask the editor of a weekly newspaper.
To realize the value of ONE HOUR,
ask the lovers who are waiting to meet.
To realize the value of ONE MINUTE,
ask a person who missed the train.
To realize the value of ONE SECOND,
ask a person who just avoided an accident.
To realize the value of ONE MILLISECOND,
ask the person who won a silver medal in the Olympics.

Remember that time waits for no one. The time in our hand is precious and let us not abuse it in wasteful things ...

Are We Adding Value to Others and to Us?

There is an opportunity to add value to others and to us, in every interaction we have and make such interactions memorable for both. Unfortunately, what I observe is most people take such interactions very lightly and miss it.

Let me give an example. For the FICCI-MEBC conclave at Chennai (on 18th & 19th Nov), I was invited by the CII team to be a part of the session on Radio Sector!! I have never studied that sector and was not sure how I can add value there. The final topic came to me was "How Radio Grows Cinema". Being a producer and marketer of films, I became confident and commenced preparing by going through various case studies on this topic. I also studied the Radio sector and its reach and growth in the last 10 years and put together a presentation for the audience.

On 19th, when I met the other panelists from the Radio industry, I was taken aback, when none of them came with any preparation. They were cool and were surprised when I stated that I wish to make a presentation on the topic. In fact, all of them said, I can commence the session and then they will join. However, I requested them to speak first, which they did, but to my surprise, their talk had little relevance to the topic and added limited value to the audience. I came in at the end and made my presentation and given various case studies and recommendations on how Radio can grow cinema further. Many have appreciated the presentation and sent messages to me. I felt happy that I added some value to the audience through this session.

This is one such example. I have witnessed several such incidents in my life where the person who is supposed to make a speech stating that he did not had time and hence is not fully prepared or he was invited at the last minute and hence could not prepare, to various other excuses. Excuses, Excuses and Excuses is what I listened to for lack of preparation from several people.

However, I did see a few people in life, who always come prepared for any meeting and add value to the audience. They are a delight to listened to and my inspiration. I follow their way of life religiously. I certainly want every meeting or a presentation of mine, whether it is to students, friends, associates, clients, prospects or to an audience, I add value to the people present, by doing my best. I always aim that, at the end of my session or meeting, they must feel that the time spent with me was worth. I should have added at least a little to their knowledge or they should have added a little to mine. Without that, such sessions are not worth.

I hate wasting time in chatting without any purpose and spending time with anyone, which does not value to any. If the time spent is purposeful and useful, it is certainly worth spending.

Am I being too demanding or tough on myself with this objective? Am I becoming too systematic or boring this way? May be I am. But I love this way as when we have limited time in life, it is better to spend it purposefully by adding value to others and to us...