End of chavanni....alias chaarane....alias 25 paise.

Effective 1st july... 25 paise coins officially went out of circulation.
of course they were out unofficially long ago with even beggers refusing to accept them.

To me it marks end of an era. of course this is not the first set of coins to go out... 5,10and 20 paise coin also went out of circulation since my birth... but they did not matter that much since they had already lost  their value by the time i got some currency in my tiny hands...

Most revered memory for 25 paise so far is the parle kisme chocolate... in red wrapper. other things include small packet of papermints... and sugar candies...5 for 25 paise :-)

For years I have been hearing from my father and many others from the grandpa generation about how a lot lot many things could be purchased in a single rupee... and entire household would run on mere 100 rupees and so on... now I also have something to say about 25 paise to my daughter :-)

One interesting thing is that still fractions of a rupee are recognised  with names of their colonial era equivalents. chavanni in hindi or charane in marathi both refer to "4 aana".
Back from the days when a rupee was made up of "16 aana". Its still common to say "16 aana sach"  meaning complete truth. or a movie " aamdani atthani kharcha rupiah" referring again to "8 aana".
or the referance to "chavanni kam hain" when indicating that someone is stupid.

Even when out of official circulation.... chavanni will definately remain part of our collective wisdom and memories in man ways.

From Patni to iGate-Patni

Somehow my fate seem to be tied up with take overs....
This is third time I find myself associated with an organisation where some merger/acquisition process is going on...

First time it was at ABN AMRO take over by RBS... I was onsite at ABN that time.

second time it was the Lehman brother's take over by Barkley's and Nomura for respective regions .... i was part of Lehman brothers at that time...

And this is third time now that I have become a part of Patni which has just been taken over by iGate.

This time it looked to be a lot more smooth transition. No major impact for employes apart from few policies and email address. No stress or anxiety especially.

Lehman brothers transition was full of stress and uncertanity. To an extent where everyone was asked to be ready with plan B just in case.
ABN was also smooth as such but I had observed a lot of uneasiness and anxiety among the employees regarding their future.

This Patni takeover also gives me a feeling of life coming to full cycle. Look at it this way,
N.R.Narayana Murthy was employee of Patni. He moves on from patni to start Infosys.
Phaneesh Murthy was employee of Infosys who moved on and later joined iGate as CEO.
Under his leadership iGate took over Patni where NRN had started off....
the cycle completes :-)

Something a little out of context but still....
I just read an interview of Mr. Phaneesh Murthy where he stressed on strategy of having small but cohesive teams.

This reminds me of the battle strategy used by Napoleon Bonaparte where he used to win battles by achieving local superiority (e.g. battle of Austerlitz ).
He would use small teams to hold the enemy forces and then send a strong and swift Calvary or other army unit to join those local forces and defeat the enemy forces by achieving local superiority...
then those units would move on and repeat same at next location...this way they could beat enemy forces significantly larger in size....
Being the latest entrant in the billion dollar club.... can we do the same and win over biggies already in there? Just a random thought...

Unsung heros...

Since past few days there are constant news about the nuclear disaster at Fukushima power plant. They generally talk about a 50 member team that had stayed back and is trying to avert the complete meltdown of the refractors

I was overwhelmed by the story. It is something similar to the duty of a soldier... you know that you may not come out alive but still you go into the war... they too know that they may not come out alive and even if they do, they would be suffering for rest of their life.....

now, It is hardly any days.... world cup has taken over the news headlines.... all those heroes are already a history

It remind me of two movie dialogues.... one from Troy..... "history remember kings.... not soldiers....." very true in this case.... same like 26/11 heroes in Mumbai....

Another one is from movie Saving Private Ryan where Tom Hanks says something like 'for every soldier died in war there are at 10 or 100 countrymen saved....' this one also so much true....

What makes people think on these lines?
They will to fight till the very end... sometimes called esprit de corps...  may be from the cultural background...may be the same dedication has made Japan progress so much.
This again I feel would go cutting across geographies and civilisations....

Even Mahabharata says that if sacrifice of a member for family..... of a family for a village or of a village is required in interest of the state then it should be done....

but does that mean that just after they are needed.... they should be forgotten?
forget the rewards, they or their families may times are seen struggling even for basic necessities....

why would then a practical man risk his own life for sake of people whom he may not even know and who may not not even recognise his efforts....
but still it happens.... still we see so many social activists who take up the causes of society and fight for them....it has happened throughout the history and will continue to happen...

because no king can win even a battle single handed without his soldiers. ultimately it is because of these silent soldiers that the wars are ultimately won and societies flourish... and advance...

call to soul

My grandmother expired on 7th november. A lot of rituals took place as per hindu religious tradition.

I was observing those closely and trying to understand and make sense of whatever the prist was doing.

One particular ritual got my attention,
The prist requested the soul of my grandmother to come and rest inside a small knot made of 'darbha'; a special grass used in such rituals (i m yet to find y it is so special) .

He then offered her some darbha to sit upon, then she was given a bath , was offered gifts, was offered sacred meal (i don't know exact english word for 'Naivedyaa' ) and so on. Of course the gifts were later donated to the prist.

when I realised all this sequence, I was little shocked. this whole process had uncanny resemblance with the process of planchet.

In both the processes a soul is requested upon to come.

In planchet we request them to answer few questions whereas here the soul was honoured.
Planchet is considered something dark whereas these were religious rituals.

The core theme I think is same. That is acceptance or belief that there is something called a soul, that continue to exist even after this earthly body is burned to ashes. And that it can still have it's own existence in a form unk own to us. It still has an ability to communicate and hence perhaps it's own personality.

All said and done about the scientific attitude and all, still I don't think those who have experienced the presence of a soul through planchet will ever forget that experience.

Just like me.

My curious angel...

Sometimes I just let my 7 months old daughter freely stroll around the room letting her handle any thing along the way ,the way she want... Hold...climb...push... I just ensure safety and observe whatever she does.
It is always amazing to see the curiosity...excitement...enthusiasm with which children at this age approach absolutely everything... Every activity.
The spark in the eyes and smile on the face. May it be simple rattle or watching the image in mirror.
Any activity we do is observed carefully and of course an attempt is made in that direction. The way we eat in plate... The way the remote or mobile buttons are used... Or the way a laptop is used... Nothing is out of reach. She would see me using laptop and immediately she would want to try banging on keyboard.
I simply open a text pad so that she can see the cause-effect between keyboard and screen.

A lot many such activities. I know the experience is common but it is yet so unique to everyone. as we grow up we loose this excitement to explore,learn .

May be we start thinking we know all. Or just because we no longer have the liberty to explore the things 'the way we want'. There is always some restriction, some rule, some law,some tradition that dictate 'the way' things should be done.

In later life the same ability to explore things without any prejudices become rarity and
I think those manage to retain a little of this ability, manage to have some thing called 'out of the box thinking'.

I wish I could borrow some from my little angel... But for the time being I an trying to learn this fresh approach to life without any prejudice.