vocab for the week 2

How is the word ‘askance’ pronounced?

The ‘a’ in the first syllable is like the ‘a’ in ‘china’, and the ‘a’ in the second sounds like the ‘a’ in ‘ant’, ‘pants’, and ‘hat’. The word is pronounced ‘es-CANS’ with the stress on the second syllable. It is also possible to pronounce the second ‘a’ like the ‘a’ in ‘park’, ‘dark’, and ‘stars’.

The word is normally used to talk about the kind of look that you give an individual. When you ‘look askance at someone’, you usually look at him with disapproval or distrust. In most cases, you don’t look at the person directly; you choose to glance at him sideways. The word can be used with things as well.

*Raju looked askance at her with his big eyes.

The Speaking Tree-A Mother's Letter to Her Dear Children

I flipped through the crisp pages of The Times Of India at 7 in the morning and the Speaking Tree article was the first thing i read. Good piece of wisdom to start the day with..here it is-A Mother's Letter to Her Dear Children-

Dear Ones,

The truth is best as it is. No one can alter it, neither can anyone improve it. Have faith in the truth and live it. Now you will ask, what is this mysterious truth? To know that you are infinite is truth. To find that you must always begin with yourself.

The one who has no 'I' and 'me' and 'mine' does not grieve for the unattainable. Never take delight in quarrelsome disputes or engage in controversies to show superiority of intellect or talent. Remain calm and composed with no hostile feelings in your heart towards anyone. Never abandon the disposition of charity for all beings...

No one can become a true ascetic by a shaven head alone. An undisciplined person who utters lies, is full of desire and greed, lives a life of falsehood. Silence does not make a sage. Like Buddha, follow the middle path, keep perfect balance. Let your actions speak louder than words.

Ignorance causes the ruin of the world. Envy and selfishness break human ties and hatred is the most violent of all fevers. Never deceive or despise another. Never lash out with anger or resentment, or wish to harm another. Be free. Be free from pride, vanity and ego. Have faith and wisdom and you will be respected everywhere, in every land. Teachers can only teach, but you and you alone will have to make an effort towards self-transformation.

Overcome all unruly cravings. Be moderate. Health is the highest gain; don't ruin it for the sake of vanity by starving yourself to be thin and taking dangerous drugs to achieve it. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna: "A harmony in eating and resting, in sleeping and wakefulness, in whatever the action, brings freedom from all pain." A harmonious mind finds a place of rest in the spirit within, where all restless desires disappear in the vast ocean of joy and truth, where the mind becomes steady and fully content and the greatest upheavals can no longer disturb it. Contentment is the greatest wealth.

Victory breeds hatred; the defeated live in pain. Happily, the peaceful live with the wisdom of giving up both victory and defeat. Buddha said it is not life, wealth and power that enslave men, but clinging and craving for more and more. The one who is not bound to wealth or power, who uses it rightly, will be a blessing to others. Always inspect your thoughts before you act, for as we sow, so shall we reap. Seek the welfare of others and bring back those who have gone astray and enlighten them who live in the night of error. Whatever may be the cause of your suffering, never wound another, be gentle, show kindness. Benevolence towards all beings is the very heart of true religion. Cherish in your heart boundless love and compassion to all that lives...

All creation arose from the desire of the cosmic mind to create. Desire, therefore, is the fuel behind the manifested universe. Everything we perceive from the simple to the very complex arose from desire. However, that is very different from ego-based desire, which is only motivated by selfish fulfilment. Ego-based desire is the root cause of all suffering. Therefore, constant feeding of desires is not the key to happiness, but renunciation and discrimination provide the answer. That simply means giving up the lesser for the greater, and, the uncertain for the certain. Meditate in solitude and try to perceive the fleeting nature of the world. Gradually discrimination will awaken to remind us to be effortless in our quest and to finally dwell in a state of unchanging oneness...

Ma..

Life At Enkays..

Wrote the following poem on March1,09-when my CAFinal lectures kickstarted. Got kinda inspired to write about how a student grows up in Enkays and penned down the lines as soon as i reached home.

The fresher climbs the stairs in beats,
Loaded with crisp marksheets,
Some formalities here n’ there,
And Lo! He is a part of Enkays.

Doors of commerce open soon,
He enters the already packed room,
First brush with books so fine,
That’s the only day he came on time!

Golden rules, theories to learn
Practicing so much that fingers burn!
After such countless tiring days,
The Boards shine with students of Enkays..

This toddler of commerce grows into a knight,
Teachers get him ready for his first fight
He enters the battle of CPT,
(In)famous for its ‘negative marking policy’!

Soon the ICAI declares the winners,
Our warrior, undoubtedly, jumps with cheer,
But there is a lot more to do,
Articles and IT to name a few!

He now becomes an Articled Assistant,
Putting into practice all that he learnt
The teachers gear him up for PCC,
Helping him cross this road safely.

People at Enkays work tirelessly
Trying their best to carve his destiny,
With blessings from Gurus so great
Lo! He becomes ‘an Inter CA cum Graduate’!

Then comes the Final Frontier
He strikes again! Crossing all barriers
Studying n’ sweating through sleepless nights,
Teachers always there to cope up with his fright.

Thus emerges the Judgement Day,
Our toddler finally gets his pay,
Celebrations in style at the Annual Day,
Such is the LIFE AT ENKAYS!!

vocab for the week

Well I have decided to learn a word or something new to boost my vocabulary per week..will post what i learnt whenever i can over here. Here is the word for this week: (all the stuff is posted from the database of The Hindu)

How is the word ‘burgeon’ pronounced?

The ‘ur’ sounds like the ‘ur’ in ‘fur’, ‘purr’, and ‘curd’. The ‘g’ is like the ‘j’ in ‘jam’, ‘juice’, and ‘jump’, and the final ‘eo’ is like the ‘a’ in ‘china’. The word is pronounced ‘BER-jen’ with the stress on the first syllable. When ‘burgeon’ is used in relation to plants, it means ‘to put out leaves; sprout’. In everyday context, the word can be used to mean ‘to grow or flourish’.
After winning the first set, the champion’s confidence began to burgeon.

Rise in the number of Posts

The simple reason for a sudden rise in the number of posts in my blog is the 'privileged leave' i got, thanks to the fast encroaching Third Year Bachelor(who me?!?) of Commerce Examinations(kickstarting from mar.23rd!) allowing me to spare some time on blogging..the situation will be reversed (read-highly irregular posting days) once the perpetual Articleship begins next month!

Dealing with Choices

Following is one of the Speaking Trees articles (TOI) dated 28.02.2009 that helped me understand the above stated topic better...sharing it with you:

While it is not necessary that everyone who chooses love over hate will have an Oscar moment, the import of what A R Rahman stated in his acceptance speech at the Oscars recently is one that perhaps merits a few minutes of reflection: "All my life I have had the choice between love and hate, and i have chosen love... And i'm here."

Throughout our lives, we are faced with choices and these include love and hate. The choice that lasts is not always what we understand to be love, for what we initially take to be love can end in acrimony, bitterness, regret, and even hatred. Strange as it might seem, we do sometimes manage to find hate even in what we believe to be love, as if there were a deficit of hate, fear, anger and paim in the course of the daily struggle for existence.

When Rahman spontaneously says that he has chosen love over hate, it sounds simplistic. Perhaps choosing love over hate is something that only someone like Rahman - immersed as he is in making music, as his is a more philosophical and spiritual vocation than what most of us are engaged in doing as part of our working lives. Maybe we could at least choose not hating over hating?

However, the choice often doesn't seem to be a choice at all. Often we don't really choose to be angry, hurtful, resentful, or hateful. We tend to get consumed by these emotions despite ourselves. We seem to be, as former president Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan says in his commentary on the Bhagavad Gita, "...helpless tools of nature". American psychologist Seabury, however, thought that nature still gave us the final choice. He says: "Nature is at work. Character and destiny are her handiwork. She gives us love and hate, jealousy and reverence. All that is ours is the power to choose which impulse we shall follow." Exercising that power consciously can, apart from the purely philosophical point of love being greater than hate, perhaps add a few years to, and reduce a few tears from, our worldly existence.

The absence of hatred is not, however, an indication of a passive existence. It is in many ways the antithesis of it. "Krishna advises Arjuna to fight without passion or ill-will, without anger or attachment... We must fight against what is wrong, but if we allow ourselves to hate, that ensures our spiritual defeat," says Radhakrishnan.

The popular poster with the title `Anyways' sold on pavements starts with the line, "People are illogical, unreasonable and self-centred. Love them anyway." It ends with these words: "Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway." Maybe when you begin with loving people anyway, putting your hurt and anger and angst aside, that is when you are able to give the world the best you have. Looking at Rahman talking about choosing love over hate on a platform where he stood because he's been able to give the world the best he has, all this does make some sense, doesn't it?

Perhaps we can't always choose love when our reflex is to hate. But we can at least choose not to hate; we can try to be forgiving, to be compassionate. We may not have the arc lights on us and a televised audience, but perhaps, when our time is up, we can look back and say to ourselves: `I could choose between love and hate, and i chose not to hate.'

Going Eeks! with Examinations

I wrote the following funny article for a writing competition meant for collegians. Unfortunately (or fortunately) didn't get selected but hey, it got published in my college magazine 2008-09! Hope you like it too..

Examinations..Whoops! I just blurted out the Forbidden word. Examinations - The Baap of all campus fights. I still remember the last examination of my second year of the Bachelor (bachelor?who? Me?!) Course of Commerce - one of the most insignificant phases of a Commerce student’s life but when it comes down to exams, all are the same..EEWWW..

Eleventh dawn of October, Circa 2007.(No No, no numerology hidden in here!) The clock struck one.The season’s last nightmare had just begun. I flipped through the clean untouched pages (they smelt the same when I had bought it a year ago) of my book written by a firangi whose name was as long as a Southie’s. All concepts seemed Greek to me initially but after sincere efforts to absorb them, everything looked one and the same..Boohoo! And my mind wandered away (blame the firangi for this not me) to observe a couple of spiders on the ceiling - the one to my right was a male and the other was a female. Damn sure about it. That’s because the right one was blockin’ the left one’s way every now and then! Sigh..guys will be guys after all...

Oh well, had to get back to the firangi..had promised him a date you see.We burnt the midnight oil together..Ooo..How romantic! Had sleepy eyes after my date, coupled with fits of forgetfulness and my aching fingers trying to carve out all what was stored in my mind a.k.a. the RAM on a couple of dull recycled papers..No No I was not drafting a strategy for Mission C - Mission Copy, but preparing last-minute-notes to read during the endless train journey from Kalyan to my college! But soon I dozed off with the thick book as my pillow and the scraps to block the blood-hunting charcoal black mosquitoes from entering my tiny ears.

The alarm screeched within a couple of hours and I got ready in a lightning speed. Rushed to the station to meet my friend who had a similar experience at night. The journey seemed to be endless with running trees along one side of the train and the chemical smelling creek on the other. I was trying to refresh my my memory in a typical second class compartment atmosphere. Got tad annoyed by the lady beside me trying to fit herself in the so called ‘fourth seat’ (for the non commuters,its the couple of inches left when three people fill the wooden seats) whose mogra clad bun had enough potential to give hairstylist Mr. Habib a complex. A couple of ladies got in the coach shouting on the top of their voices, competing to sell some cheap imitiation jewellery (I wondered who on earth was interested to buy such stuff early morning?!) And yeah, I was right. Off they hopped down at the next station sparing some silent moments for me

Within hours I entered the college premises..and soon (gulp), the exam hall. It was similar to the graveyard except that the graveyard consists of dead people and we were Inferi a.k.a walking corpses for non-readers of Harry Potter, I had to leave the firangi in my bag...We departed and I started my 2hour battle equipped with acronyms, definitions and shortnotes..line after line, page after page..and the warning bell rang..the last 10minutes-a test of patience for those who don't write anything meaningful and a lifeline for those who write more than required in the answer sheet). I, this time,was in the second category, all thanks to the firangi!

Tick. Tick. Tick. Three, Two, One.

The final bell rang and within seconds the scene changed..It was a memorable one..Inferis running outta the graveyards back to life! I was one of them and ran to hug the firangi thereby surviving till the last day of the crusade..

Phew..What a Feat!!

Email Etiquettes..good mail(sadly..we don't follow them!)

Be sharp and to the point

Messages should be concise and to the point. No long stories and description. Don't forget that there are people who receive hundreds of messages.

Smiles

Visual cues can be incorporated in good conversation. How important are facial expressions or body gestures? They do matter a lot.

Salutations

Use a right salutation in right mail. How do you open your email: Dear Sir, Dear Mr. Misra etc? So the right words at right place do give a good impression of your courtesy and understanding.

Using HTML and Formatting

Its good if you use HTML tags and formatting, as you can fancy your email, but remember that other side must also have same email client which can support the HTML and formatting, otherwise it will be utter gibberish and vague.

The legacy of punch card

Don't type words more than 80 characters in a line. If you do not have this facility of word wrap, don't forget to HIT ENTER after 80 characters..

Threads

So what after first email has been sent? How will I start the conversation next? Shall I write a new mail? Answer to all the questions is - NO, don't ever write a new mail. Start from the reply which you receive, read what other person has written to you, providing link to both the people for their next round of talks. Bravo, you have done it!!!

Quotes

Quotes at the end of the message express what you are and your views.

Not but the least, Remember the final WORDS....

• Be concise and to the point
• Answer all questions and pre-empt further questions
• Use proper spelling, grammar and punctuation where needed
• Make it personal Use templates for frequently used responses
• Answer swiftly *Do not attach unnecessary files
• Do not overuse the high priority option
• Do not write in Capitals * Read the email before you send
• Do not overuse reply to all *Be careful with formatting and HTML
• Do not forward chain letters, without requesting delivery and read receipts
• Do not ask to recall a message or attach a message without prior permission
• Never use email to discuss confidential issues
• Use meaningful subject avoiding URGENT or IMPORTANT
• Use active instead of passive
• Don't ever forward any junk mail related to offence or obscene remarks
• Don't reply to Spam * Know your cyber laws

The Corporate language!

One of the forwards I received..

"We will do it"

means
" You will do it"


"You have done a great job"
means
"More work to be given to you"


"We are working on it"
means
"We have not yet started working on the same"


"Tomorrow first thing in the morning"
means
"Its not getting done...At least not tomorrow !".

"After discussion we will decide - I am very open to views"
means
"I have already decided, I will tell you what to do"


"There was a slight miscommunication"
means
"We had actually lied"


"Lets call a meeting and discuss"
means
"I have no time now, will talk later"


"We can always do it"
means
"We actually cannot do the same on time"

"We are on the right track but there needs to be a slight extension of the deadline"
means
"The project is screwed up, we cannot deliver on time."


"We had slight differences of opinion"
means
"We had actually fought"


"Make a list of the work that you do and let's see how I can help you"
means
"Anyway you have to find a way out no help from me"


"You should have told me earlier"
means
"Well even if you told me earlier that would have made hardly any
difference!"


"We need to find out the real reason"
means
"Well I will tell you where your fault is"


"Well... family is important, your leave is always granted. Just ensure that
the work is not affected"
means
"Well you know..."


"We are a team"
means
"I am not the only one to be blamed"


"That's actually a good question"
means
"I do not know anything about it"


"All the Best"
means
" You are in trouble"