Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Changing my blog

I am finding it increasingly hard to use my yahoo email id to open this particular blog. I keep getting into an old blogger site which I had opened with my gmail id!

So I decided to go with the flow- and simply use my gmail id- so the new blogsite is:

www.yourstrulymanju2.blogspot.com

It's simple- just add a '2' to the first part. I've named my new blog - Soul-train. So do continue on the journey, along with me!


Oh, and I am taking Guruji along as well...;-)

Monday, July 6, 2009

A day to remember

They say the world is made of good and the bad. But there is also the indefinable.

They say that you reap what you sow. But there are those who can only receive what they never asked for, nor expected.

Imagine that you are a child born to an HIV- infected parent (or parents). Imagine that you have been unfortunate enough to become HIV positive.

Now imagine your life.

When my office (VMware) decided to do a collection drive (mainly clothes, medicines) for HIV+ children, I dutifully obliged by contributing my share of medicines and clothes. I thought that someone would deliver the huge boxes in the Home of DESIRE Society.



I never imagined that shortly thereafter, I would be accompanying my colleagues Urvashi, Geetha, Mruthyunjay and Aditya to visit the children in their Home.

After some meandering along the roads of JPNagar, we finally found the place. A nice house set amidst greenery. Subhash, the Vice President of the Home introduced us to a bunch of lively, enthusiastic and cheerful children. Who can ever imagine...

Urvashi, Subhash (the angel who takes care of the children), me, Aditya and Mruthyunjay with the children. Geetha was quietly weeping in the van by then.

Their eyes reflected such joy and such liveliness that it was ironical for us to even imagine what their tiny bodies are going through. And then Geetha, who has two tiny tots of her own, simply broke down, unable to bear the pain of seeing sick children who were abandoned or orphaned at such a young age.

My spiritual quest took a positive turn that day by merely peering into these children's eyes which showed such love and gratitude. Their bodies spoke a language of pain and anquish. But no disease could ever reach their spirit which shone through their eyes.

We were told that a couple of children were in the hospital in a serious condition. We decided to get more involved with this Home and render whatever help that we can give them. In fact, I plan to do a Nav Chetan Shibir for the children, as soon as possible.

If you would like to help these children here is the address:

DESIRE Society (caring for HIV+ children)
8th Phase, JPNagar
Bangalore 500076, India
Phone: 080 3241 4683
Email: desire_subhash@yahoo.com
www.desiresociety.com

Friday, June 12, 2009

DSN with Anandji, this Guru Poornima


Jai Guru Dev,

Please watch this lovely video on DSN,
http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=oUHveex5UV0

Guruji Says “Do not follow me. In fact, you cannot follow me because I am behind you and I am in you. I am behind you to push you forward. For too long you have been following as a sheep; now its time to be a lion

And the ONLY way to do this is do the DSN (Divya Samajka Nirmaan) - a very intense and comprehensive course designed by Gurudev to make each one of us realize who we truly are.

Through a powerful combination of Padma Sadhana, special meditations, breathing
techniques, group processes, and deep spiritual knowledge, the DSN course empowers participants to break through personal inhibitions and barriers of all kinds.

In just 3 days your face will be brightening up, mind will be lightened of burden and hearts will be filled with love and gratitude.

Exuberance is in his name, a state of constant bliss! Anandji has undying energy; he is full of enthusiasm, killer techniques filled with animated actions.

Please visit http://www.anandji. net/ for more info.

This Guru Poornima, do the DSN and explore the Pinnacle of potential you are gifted with. Blossoming to your fullest potential is the best way of showing our gratitude to our master

Course Date: 9th to 12th July 2009
Course Starts On: 9th July at 4:58 PM
Venue: CPRI Staff Quarter Community Hall,
New BEL Road, Near Ramaiah Hospital
Bangalore - 54

Contact: kandula.manjula@gmail.com (98450 82045)

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Catching up- The Big 'O' game

It's been quite some time since I blogged- mainly because my fingers ache these days from typing out mails!! Then, I recently got hooked onto doing the crossword puzzle. I started making (word)sense in those tiny tantalizing white boxes.

Once in a way, I look up from my word-o-rama to observe the world around me! One one of these occasions, I noticed that the Great Indian election's over, with (king) Cong taking centerstage.

I also noticed that the world's gotten more polemic now.

President O's saying 'NO' to Outsourcing.

I wonder whether his 'No' to the big 'O' has come too late in the day.


Maybe, from his standpoint, it all makes sense. But after calling the world 'flat', it's hard to do 'round' again . Maybe the bigwigs in the White house need to think differently, rather than drop their favorite pastime of shedding some work overseas. If this is done in the name of economy, it doesn't make sense.

After all, doesn't Uncle Sam rely on the vast population of the East to sell its burgeoning product line? The pappus in our families don't mind choking on Coke. The college-going Tinas suddenly owe their glossy manes to imported shampoo.

Why do dosas if Pizza is literally dropped at your doorstep?

Na-ah- we're sold on Oprah and the American Pie. We can speak American with a southern twang and English with a Scottish lilt. But we look puzzled when the friendly neighborhood vegetable vendor asks us a question in aamchi Marathi.

Modern India is facing a socio-cultural identity crisis.

This happened because one fine day the west decided to outsource. And the O- biz grew, and grew and grew. We yanked our kids out of reading sci-fi and showed them the computer section- coz' that was the bandwagon raking in the moolah.

Sons of farmers dropped sickles and took to scripting instead.

From win-win of the pre-recession days, it suddenly became you lose-I win from the western standpoint.

Ab Kya hoga?


The writing on the wall is clear.

Now we need to drop the loss and win the toss instead. No, I'm not talking 20/20 matches here. This is a match of Life. We need to innovate, coz' the world knows that Indians are smart people hailing from a land which invented the 'zero'.

We need to create our I-Brand and we can do this in ever so many ways. By creating new products, we can bring more job opportunities. We can also give a boost to many of our already existing Indian products.


So why buy Loreal when you have an Indian brand available? These days, I use Ayurvedic soap, instead of the usual 'phoren' brand that I had gotten used to. It takes a bit of adjustment, but then, only by promoting Indian goods will we be able to create job opportunities for India.

No hard feelings Mr P, we're just looking out for ourselves, our jobs, and our products.

Monday, April 20, 2009

The other side of 'V'

This week India goes to polls- the big 'V' in the life of the Indian junta is definitely on.

The other 'V' for me is the launch of VSphere the product which we have been working for all these months. Virtualization is the buzzword of the IT world today, saving cost and energy for companies that adopt the technology.



I watched this program on ndt'V' yesterday- on Godmen in Politics. To be or not to be. I generally like the way Barkha Dutt conducts these sessions, although this time I felt that she did not give the speakers (particularly the BJP spokesman) enough time to voice his opinion.

Well there were er, votes for both sides from the audience, in this show. One side felt that the spiritual Masters should confine themselves to spirituality or Yoga or Church matters. The other side felt that hey, they were citizens too, and had a right to express their opinion.

I certainly believe that when the western Goras are calling the shots in lands far away, our desi Gurus and Gods have every right to voice their opinions. It's a free democracy. It's sad that secularism seems to be coming out in second place though.

So I see GREEN (technology) on one side and I see RED on the other. That's coz' there's this well-deserving product launch dinner in our company on one side, and there are sleazy tickets for booze being distributed by unscrupulous political parties on the other side.

It's technology on one side and mostly tyrannical ruling parties on the other. Can't really compare the two.

But hey, I do want one more 'V' this season.

I want the 'V' of Victory- for one, a product launch which beats 'em all other Hyper-Vs.

And the 'V' of Victory to Honest, clean ruling for our country.

Yes, that's a 'V' that's just gotta be...