Temple Visits

Visiting temples was one of the main activity during visit to India. Following are various temples we visited.

- Sanghi Temple: This is a temple on outskirts of Hyderabad with Lord Venkateswara as main deity. This was also a spot of many telugu film scenes. We went there on a day when it rained. The temple is located on a hill is far from noise of the city.
Link to more information about Sanghi temple

- Chilkur Balaji Temple: Also known as Visa Venkateswara Swami, this temple is unique in many ways. This is a very small temple but gets crowded a lot as devotee make perambulations to get their wishes fulfilled. There is no hundi for collecting money in this temple. This temple is also located around 20 kms from city. On visiting this temple, we realized this also was part of telugu movie Anand.

More about Chilkur Temple
- Simhachalam: Visiting this temple was not in our plan. But divine intervention seems to have influenced
mind of my friend to take us to this temple. It was not first time for me, but for my family members it was
first time. Temple was not crowded and we had a nice darshan, performed archana.  I am glad that we could make it despite our very short visit to Visakhapatnam.

More about Simhachalam
- Basara: Temple of Goddess Saraswati located around 200 Kms from Hyderabad. This place is on banks of river Godavari. Visiting this temple is a whole day despite starting early in the day.  This is famous for taking children to initiate them into education.

More about Basara
- Ainavilli: Temple of Lord Ganesha is located around 65 kms from Rajahmundry. Because of narrow roads, it takes couple of hours to reach there by road. You will cross quite a few villages on the way.

More about Ainavilli
- Padmanabha Swamy Temple: I visited this temple in November 2007 and my experience was etched in memory as I spent some time in the temple listening to chanting of Vishnu Sahasranamam that was reverberating in temple complex. I was not sure whether I will go this time but again Lord has his plans. My friend visiting me from Chennai had plans in mind and we made a trip to temple together. This temple gets quite crowded when it is time to look at the Lord. I am glad that I could make another trip this time also.
More about Padmanabha Swamy Temple

- Sai baba temple, Dislsukhanagar: This temple is located on mainroad in Hyderabad and is quite well maintained.  We gained solace by visiting this as we could not visit Shirdi on this trip.

- Vivekanda Rock Memorial: Kanyakumari: I visited this after almost 20 years. I remember visiting when I came on south india tour organized by our school. Having gained a better knowledge of Swami Vivekananda, visiting this now has a different significance. We reached in time to catch last ferry to the rock at 4 PM. This memorial has a meditation hall. Since this rock is not quite far from mainland, I felt it may be worth considering a walkway bridge in addition to ferry service.

Rock Memorial Website

Mentoring

Having a mentor is very useful. You can use a mentor as a coach. A person who has gained enough experience can act as a mentor and provide guidance. I have always looked for opportunities to mentor in my areas of interest. Some of the articles I have written earlier reflect that. I have written a few articles on career when I was a columnist for a website for a few months. I stopped those columns when the website was stopped.

I have provided guidance through e-mail. It was sporadic. I was attracted to SiliconIndia website as it has a mentor network. It struck to me as unique idea. I signed up and now I mentor couple of people who are interacting with me through the network on SiliconIndia. It is a professional network that has features to blog, connect and communicate with other professionals. Uniqueness of Mentor Network is: you can identify your areas of expertise and you can accept mentors based on their interests. You can engage in a dialog and save all your conversations during the process. I liked the virtual mentoring concept. I hope to provide mentoring to a few people through this forum using my experience and ideas.

You can also do it, if you are keen on providing mentoring. You can also find a mentor for yourself.

If you have known me for years and you wish to get my advice in a structured way, we can use this forum on SiliconIndia. Let me know. I get featured as a top mentor sometimes on this network. I think the concept has not gained enough interest but it has huge potential.

Related Links

My Articles on Career
SiliconIndia

Defining Happiness

Defining Happiness is one of the difficult thing to do. We are all seek it but we are not completely aware of it. I have been attempting to do this for quite a hile and found it difficult to find right words for it. You find happiness

• When you have freedom to do what you want to do
• When you are accepted for what you are and what you do without any judgment
• When you are at peace with yourself in any given situation

Happiness eludes us because

• Freedom to do what we want to do is constrained by lot of factors: financial constraints, lack of time etc.
• Acceptance is very difficult part that determines our relationships. Because of variety of experiences, expectations no two individual can accept each other completely without getting into judgment.
• Because of above two, we are not at peace with our environment and ourselves.

As I started thinking more about this, I could trace most factors to the above reasoning (Just like the freedom to express myself through this blog makes me happy). This made me feel my definition of happiness is good summary.

Realize that true happiness lies within you. Waste no time and effort searching for peace and contentment and joy in the world outside. Remember that there is no happiness in having or in getting, but only in giving. Reach out. Share. Smile. Hug. Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself. – Og Mandino

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. – Mahatma Gandhi

What is your definition of happiness?

Related Link (open in new window):

Various definitions of happiness

Update on September 25, 2007

A visitor to my website reminded me of the book extract I posted earlier: How to remain ever happy

Continuing Education

As a follow up to a recent post “Education and Literacy”, I would like to add that every literate person would need to continue his education in following areas. Not having right knowledge, skills in following can lead to a miserable situation.

• Personal Financial Management: Financial security is key to survival. Ability to effectively manage one’s finances to stay out of debt and saving for future.
• Health Education: Health is wealth. It is important to realize being a responsible person in managing one’s own health: staying fit, eating right
• Spiritual Education: Live and Let Live. Ability to live amicably in society and help maintain peace in society. (not to be confused with religion)

While these topics are not really taught in schools or colleges, learning these concepts will be important. If you don’t get enough knowledge in these areas to practice, you will learn them hard way. For example, you may get in debt early in life and then only realize importance of managing your finances. While these learning comes out practical experience, learning from elders, friends or experts (who write books to help others) is advised. Not everyone may recover quickly from lapses in these areas.

Learn best practices in these areas and implement them. Find balance in your life. Live well.

Pass on the wisdom to next generation.

Giving Advice

I am quite liberal in giving advise to others on areas I have worked on. But when the genuine advice given to others fell on deaf ears, I used to be upset about it. When I read a newsletter article by Lora a month back with specific focus on “Advice”, I felt like writing to Lora. Following is exchange I had

Me: I often get very frustrated when the advice I give to others (though appropriate) does not get appreciated or implemented. I think I just need to detach myself after I am done with giving the advice.

Lora: You know, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head…detach from the advice after you give it. The gift is in the giving, after that it’s up to the other person to decide.

Sometimes too, we get in the habit of giving too much advice, then others get tired of it. One thing to try is to stop “automatic” advice giving. Instead, make an offer…”Would you like my thoughts on that?”. Let the other person decide, and vow to not be offended if they decline. Give it a try and let me know how you do!

I know writing advice on blog is still unsolicited, but in giving direct advice, I have become more cautious. If you want specific advice ask me.

I have been following Lora’s articles for a few years now. I will recommend “Strategies for becoming MVP written by Lora” listed on her website.

Related Links: (opens in new window)

Newsletter link

Strategies for becoming MVP

Education and Literacy

Education is one key ingredient in life that makes a difference in life. I always wanted to highlight the difference between education and literacy. Typically these two are confused.

Literacy is ability to read and write. It does not make a person educated. A literate person can be uneducated person. An illiterate person can be educated person too.

Being educated means a person has ability to understand difference between right and wrong, good and bad in a given situation. An educated person attempts to understand any given situation, evaluates options available and takes a right decision in best interests of self and everyone involved.

Illiterate people can be educated based on personal experience. They can learn from their or other’s experience/wisdom and act in best interests in a situation. An educated person can make a bad decision by lack of knowledge or experience in a specific area.

In developing countries when government or non-profit organizations attempt to increase literacy rates, it should not assumed it will automatically make people educated. Instead it should be complemented by efforts to educate people irrespective of literacy rates achieved.

Education is a life long process. One should not give up learning just because they have gained a literary degree. Ability to read and write should be used to learn more and increase self awareness.

Having attempted to differentiate between literacy and education, it is important to mention that so called ‘degree holders’ should not look down upon illiterate people. This will make them educated fools.

Stay Educated by acting in best interests of everyone in all situations. Whenever I see an educated person behave in highly selfish manner, this idea crossed my mind. It can be as simple as someone littering a public place or arrogantly not following instructions when expected to.

What is your opinion on this? Share your views through comments.

Exploring Great Photography

I am not a great photographer but I admire great photography. Whenever I meet people who have a passion for photography I ask them to forward their pictures to me. I find photos inspiring. Beauty of image, clarity can bring peace to mind. These images help you appreciate/admire things in life.

I have always been on look out for good photos. Flickr.com is a great place that enables people to share photos. Using tags, it is easier to track. Flickr.com has features that enable you to stream photos belonging to a person or belonging one or more tags to any website of your choice. I have personally created such photo streams. You would see one generic photo stream on the blog too. I also encouraged one of my ex-colleagues to participate in a statewide competition and he won recognition for the same.

Whenever I see a good photo, I click through it and read more about it (where, when and how it was taken). Then explore more photos with similar tags or by same photographer.

Flickr also allows you to add contacts and track photos uploaded by your contacts.

I have explored photos on National Geographic also (photo of the day) and other websites before Flickr.com. If you think these features are interesting sign up as a member of Flickr.com.

Make Lists

I was checking some blogs and I saw a link to website called Listography. I went to the site and was impressed by it. I got the urge to sign up and create my own lists. This is a simple concept. I do maintain lot of lists like books to read, books read, websites, movies to watch etc. I naturally found the idea of using this site to make lists very exciting.

This site allows you to create private and public lists. Archive them or keep them active. I looked a few lists created by others and started creating my own.

You can click link below or under Me in Cyberspace on right and then explore lists. If you like it, do sign up and create your own lists.

Happy List making!

Lists I made so far

Mystery Stories

I have listened to a few audio tapes last few weeks. This was a recording of radio broadcast of New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Audio tapes were good with a tone of advertising that was popular in 1945 and that made it interesting.

Every book lover would have read Sherlock Holmes stories. I have read most of them and am planning to watch televised series again. This is one of the most interesting mystery series one can read.

I have read other mysteries like Perry Mason, James Hadley Chase and Agatha Christie also. While reading mystery stories you loose track of time. You get absorbed into the story very easily. Contrast to this, while reading non-fiction you need to concentrate a lot and try hard not to get distracted.

Welcome to Make Each Moment Count

Welcome to Make Each Moment Count. I have been writing Life is Like that using blogger and I have been having problems with FTP. I have always wanted to look at different bloggers and explore cool features provided by various blog tools. So I took this opportunity to create multiple blogs. I created one on Yahoo 360, I created one on Microsoft Live Spaces and then now one on WordPress. I will write later on what I found cool in each of the blogger tools. I have still not decided which one should become primary blog. But for now, this is a welcome post and I hope to make each moment and word count.