To die or not to die…

Life is not all that short these days considering the cost we incur even after our death. Oh, I mean ‘even after the death of our relatives and friends”. Yes, you guessed it right; I am referring to the current funeral costs which would make one really wish the local Government bears the funeral costs of at least poor people who mostly die because at the outset, they could not afford the medical cost.

Everything related to funeral that include undertaker’s bill, cost of cemeteries and other governmental fees are almost beyond the means of most families

I witnessed heart breaking scenes last week when the father of one of my students died and he was not doing well by any means. In fact I was approached for some financial help to meet the funeral costs.

I quickly emptied my purse and rushed out of the house.

The dogs that sing!

I wonder why people pet dogs if they don't know how to properly take care of them. For example, my neighbor who has a couple of ferocious dogs rarely notice the discomfort of them.

They bark for hours creating utter nuisance to us. We are not able to talk over the phone, watch TV or even pray! There is no peace of mind for us. It looks as though the dog barking sound is like melody to them.

When I raised the issue with the lady of the house, she looked disappointed that we don't also enjoy their dogs barking. What a way to react! Aren't they so unsocial?

Image source: http://www.cookstown.gov.uk/media/dogbarking.jpg

Simply, on the face of it..

I had the misfortune of severing the long relationship with my beautician simply because she failed to deliver just once. Rather, I should say her face cream failed to hide the lines on my face. We worked together once in an advertising agency.

I ended up as an academician and she as a beautician.

I suddenly got an opportunity to go to Cairo in 25 days notice. I was prepared and in fact exited but the mirror told me my face is not prepared. Yes, I saw the lines, now more distinct even to a 6 year old child.

I cursed myself for not looking closely at the mirror and rushed to the beautician who held up a face cream that was said to remove the wrinkles in 15 days. Though I was skeptic, I thought, it could at least succeed in fading away the lines in 25 days.

Then God solved the issue easily. He simply cancelled my Cairo trip. Right now, I am calling my beautician for an appointment. (Smile)

Have Breakfast or Breakfast!

An interesting management article from Dr.YLR Moorthi.Have Breakfast… or…Be Breakfast!

Who sells the largest number of cameras in India?
Your guess is likely to be Sony, Canon or Nikon. Answer is none of the above. The winner is Nokia whose main line of business in India is not cameras but cell phones.

Reason being cameras bundled with cellphones are outselling stand alone cameras. Now, what prevents the cellphone from replacing the camera outright? Nothing at all. One can only hope the Sony’s and Canons are taking note.

Try this.

Who is the biggest in music business in India?

You think it is HMV Sa-Re-Ga-Ma? Sorry. The answer is Airtel. By selling caller tunes (that play for 30 seconds) Airtel makes more than what music companies make by selling music albums (that run for hours).

Incidentally Airtel is not in music business. It is the mobile service provider with the largest subscriber base in India. That sort of competitor is difficult to detect, even more difficult to beat (by the time you have identified him he has already gone past you). But if you imagine that Nokia and Bharti (Airtel's parent) are breathing easy you can't be farther from truth.

Look at the products that vanished from India in the last 20 years.

* When did you last see a black and white movie?

* When did you last use a fountain pen?

* When did you last type on a typewriter?

One last illustration.

20 years back what were Indians using to wake them up in the morning? The answer is "alarm clock." The alarm clock was a monster made of mechanical springs. It had to be physically keyed every day to keep it running. It made so much noise by way of alarm, that it woke you up and the rest of the colony.

What do we use today for waking up in the morning? Cellphone! An entire industry of clocks disappeared without warning thanks to cell phones. Big watch companies like Titan were the losers.

You never know in which bush your competitor is hiding!

Dr. Y. L. R. Moorthi is a professor at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore. He is an M.Tech from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras and a post graduate in management from IIM, Bangalore.

Source: Email from my son.

Can we miss out love if we seek beauty?

I saw a new sign in my regular beauty parlor that read: “Seek beauty and miss love. But seek love and find both”.

I thought it is not the right place. How, a beauty parlor that specializes in ironing out the creases around the eyes and on the cheeks can think of retaining their customers with that sign?

Well, it is not my business. I am happy to visit the beauty parlor as long as I am treated well. The beautician has this uncanny knack of buying the most effective anti wrinkle creams that always worked on her customers.

We, the customers, conveniently close our eyes as soon as we are seated in the cozy chair and fail to see which anti wrinkle cream is applied on our face.

When the job is done, we of course notice the shelf that is filled with a range of plastic tubes and cans. But we never bother to inquire which one of them was used on us. We are satisfied because we have been taken care of with love.

Ah, now I understand the meaning of the new sign.

My gold always glitters.

I wonder who said “All that is gold does not glitter”. Also, why he said it? I buy gold bullion whenever its price takes a beating and my gold always glitters.

If you care to find out the price of gold exactly one year before from today, you would realize you missed out a golden opportunity if you have not bought gold bullion at that time.

And let me tell you, the same scenario you will witness exactly one year from now. U.S gold bureau, one of the trusted authorities on the yellow precious metal says gold is on the move as it reaches its highest price in almost two weeks.

Whenever the U.S dollar weakens, the gold strengthens in the commodity market. Now, check how much you have idle paper currency; convert it into gold bullion NOW!

Can Aloe Vera fade out stretch marks?

Yes, Aloe Vera can and will fade stretch marks, provided no other stretch mark creams are used along with Aloe Vera. I am saying it firmly because of my experience.

Immediately after I noticed light stretch marks on my stomach, I did some research on the best natural treatment for removing or at least fading away the stretch marks at the early stage.

All the first three search results pointed to Aloe Vera but they differed on the form of Aloe Vera that we either apply on the stretch marks or consume as a vitamin.

I referred to a few old ladies in the house, made a gel like substance from Aloe Vera and applied it on the affected area for visible results.

Update on Paypal withdrawal to Indian bank account.

There is an update on the Paypal funds withdrawal to Indian bank accounts. The latest blog post by Farhad Irani in The Paypal blog is encouraging.

Paypal was expecting to resolve the issue by today but they foresee some more delay. From what is sounds, we may be able to withdraw our Paypal balance to Indian bank in less than 24 hours. This is my guess.

Farhad said that we can still withdraw funds either through check or to our credit card without any issue.

I quote him:

"It has always been possible for sellers to request a check or withdraw funds to a credit card, and these options are still available from the Withdraw Money tab of your PayPal account".

Reda the full story at https://www.thepaypalblog.com/2010/02/an-open-letter-from-farhad-irani-on-the-situation-in-india/

The acne cure for models.

On an impulse, my son bought iq derma just 5 days before his scheduled screen test. Oh, I didn’t tell you the news! He was asked by a modeling coordinator if he is interested in ding modeling during weekend.

It so happened that the modeling coordinator sat next to my son in a cinema hall. They got friendly soon and my son’s good physique sold himself though he had no aspiration at all for modeling. He is a contended software engineer.

My son frequently complains of acne and every time, when a fresh bout of pimples appears, he buys a new acne cream that worked well really but he never got rid of them permanently.

As usual, he wanted to try a new remedy for acne and he remembered reading IQ Derma produces results in just 3 days.

Since the screen test was hardly a week away, he had no other option but to try something that acts and cures acne in less than 5 days.

Yes, IQ Derma kept its promise.

Sehwag is scoring at a break neck speed.

In the second test against South Africa, Sehwag, the man South Africans fear most has already completed a century. He is right now not out on 115 scored off just 98 balls. His strike rate is 117 plus.

It must be breath taking to watch such a scathing attack.

Sachin Tendulkar, I believe, is also on his way to score his 47th test hundred. He is not out on 55. India are 210 for 2 wickets.

Their scoring rate is over 5 runs per over. This is a tremendous run rate in a test match. I hope India goes on to win this test and retain their world number 1 ranking in test cricket.

What a waste!

I was sitting in a mini hall and listening to the parents of my students who were shamelessly praising my service to students’ community. I was thoroughly embarrassed and got up to intervene and veer the topic away to something more common to all those who were present.

One of the participating parents who is also a doctor started speaking about the students’ habit of eating junk food and how parents have to tell them about colon cleanse and how colon cleansers act to remove all the accumulated waste in the body’s digestive system and refreshes one’s metabolism.

The doctor went on for more than 5 minutes about body’s waste removal using colon cleansers and how detoxification improves the mental condition that was also soggy because of toxins.

Since the topic of colon cleansers was not my forte, I sat listening and at the same time watching others’ faces for signs of boredom.

One boy caught my eye and smiled at me. Encouraged by my attention, he stood up and said ‘What a waste!”.

Twist a word; earn more.

If there is one thing that clearly stops from moving towards our goal, that is procrastination. Nothing else is more negative in our life.

Doubts, doubts and more doubts.

Do we entertain anything else more than the doubts? I doubt very much. (smile)

I could have started earning much from Google AdSense if only I had not procrastinated in buying a simple database of high paying keywords. Again I doubted over the authenticity of the top paying list of keywords even though I was explained sensibly with a simple calculation.

Even while writing naturally, one can easily insert some top paying keywords by replacing with some words that mean the same but pays little per click.

I seek your opinion on using top paying keywords.

Weight a minute!

I can’t prove my husband wrong. I rarely caught him doing anything wrong. He is thorough in everything he does and clear in whatever he says.

Clarity in express is his real forte. But there has got to be a first time for everything in life and for everybody-right?

One smart teenage girl was able to outwit him on his somewhat forthright opinion about best weight loss pills in the market. Though I was proud that the teenage girl is my student, I was sad that my husband ate humble pie.

No, I am not going expose my husband anymore by telling you how he was humiliated. One thing is sure though. He will never again say, “Don’t try to lose weight by reaching out for weight loss pills”.

Paypal and India.

So, at last, the cat is let out of the bag. It is the honorable Reserve Bank of India that rocked the boat for reasons known only to them. Instead of seriously looking into their own policy, they simply ordered the Paypal to suspend all the (well almost) transactions of Indian residents.

Hundreds of IT companies in India and thousands of freelance computer professionals rely on PayPal, to receive payments from overseas clients.

This is what Alpana Killawalla, a RBI spokesperson is reported to have said:

"Providers of cross-border money transfer service need prior authorization from the Reserve Bank under the Payment and Settlement Systems Act,” said. “PayPal does not have our authorisation.”

And how else Paypal has a big office in Madras?

All those freelancers (including I ) and small IT companies bring in quietly, foreign currency into India without spending any foreign currency. We are indebted to Paypal by making things easier for us. Paypal used to process our money withdrawal requests into our bank in 5 days.

Now, everything is stopped. While Paypal is extremely kind enough to email every affected Indian merchant and apologise for the recent hiccups, Indian Government has not come out with any clear statements as to why this drastic step has been taken unmindful of the hardships faced by its citizen.

Read the source. Times of India

Also read Thepaypalblog.com

Poor call center service by Airtel.

Yesterday I was trying to book a line fault complaint with Airtel on behalf of my sister. My God, what an experience it was!

The call was attended by a call center machine which asked me to press so many 1s and 2s. Finally, I was asked to press the faulty telephone number preceded by the STD code. I did that and again I was asked to press 1 to confirm. I complied.

The voice said something after that which I could not make out. I asked my husband to repeat the lengthy process and he also was stuck up at the same stage.

What is the big fun in engaging a call center service when I could not get my message through?Why I was not connected to a human voice?

Above all, how can they expect to understand English by everybody in India? This is really pathetic service by Airtel for which I have high regards.

BSNL makes it so simple to lodge a complaint but Airtel, in the pretext of using technology, is making a mess of it.

I would challenge any top executive from Airtel to lodge a complaint using their own telephone.

I hope our Government who always stood for promotion of the state language to make a note of this and arrange for Airtel to provide their customer service in local language.

Anything more unique than stainless steel backsplash?

I should be ashamed to ignore my inner voice that kept me urging to look up the meaning for backsplash whenever I came across the word in newspapers. Just an hour before I had another opportunity to look it up when my neighbor invited me to her house to show how she modified her kitchen with stainless steel backsplash.

An alarm bell rang inside me. I must rush to find out what is meant by stainless steel backsplash before I entered her house. My prestige was at stake.

But before I could ask to be excused for sometime, she literally dragged me into her kitchen and she the wall around the stove was covered in Cobalt blue metal surface.

Oh, is that what they call backsplash-the area that protects the wall from splashes of oil and grime?

So, all along I knew it but only didn’t know the word backsplash. In my house, that area is covered by ceramic tiles.

I decided then and there that I will find something more unique to cover the kitchen walls.

Image courtesy: Google images

My poor vision.

The reason for not updating this blog is rather unique-at least to me. My left eye is partially paralyzed and I am not able to see clearly with both my eyes. I am seeing everything double or distorted.

The doctor informed me that I will get back my proper vision in about 3 months. Right now, I am closing my left eye and typing this blog post.

I will somehow maintain to write two posts per week.

Till such time.....