Sunday 19 July 2015

What's in a Name........



Shakespeare has said, 'What's in a name, a rose by any other name is still a rose'!
I beg to differ from the Bard of Avon on this one......
Let me start off by my own name, Azfar .......people find different ways of calling me.......I have been given the exalted status of being called 'Ishwar' ईश्वर (meaning GOD) to the depth of degradation , 'Aa Suwar' (meaning 'Come here, Pig !).
When I was in school, my Geography teacher had the habit of starting sentences with 'As Far....', to which I would stand up thinking she is calling my name, only to be rebuked by her that she was saying 'As far as this was concerned.....'. This used to leave the class with a lot of amusement and me with a lot of embarrassment.


Anyway, after coming across many people with names that are frankly......as they say in hindi - Hatt ke - I thank my parents for giving me a rather dignified name.
Someone told me that they know a person named - Bhikari - which literally means a 'Begger'. When I asked why the parents had inflicted such a lifelong torture on their son by naming him such, I was told that this is because this son was born to the parents after many years when they were blessed by a Bhikari (a fakir or a enlightened mendicant). Well, the parents' wish came true but the poor son was left wishing all his life 'Aakhir Kyon??' (why me??) !!


I have a lady in one of my projects named Sushma Kamath Baje Giridhara, a rather musical name. It is a clear case of the daughter bearing the brunt of her parents' unfulfilled musical ambitions !

 Then there are parents who leave no stone unturned. I have another colleague named -
Augustus Daniel Ray Michael Chandra Doss

 In this context we know of the all too common practice in India of having the name of so many Gods and Goddesses the child's name that his/her success in life becomes  fool-proof.
The former Indian Leg-Spinner - Laxman Sivaramakrishnan - had 4 Gods in his name....just one of many such examples.

 We had the case of a young Indian Chennai Super Kings player's name - Napolean Einstien.....a perfect combination, if ever there was one.....
While we are on names....a real incident ......in one of our meetings a British colleague informed with a straight face....'We have a lady joining the India team, her name is 'Security Pune'....we were taken aback by the unusual name. When we checked the mailbox later, her name was 'Sukuriti Pur naye' !!

 Another real incident.....one of my British managers was taking the interview of my Indian Team member named Kamini (a very sweet Indian name meaning an 'enchantress'). Throughout the interview she kept calling her कमीनी instead of कामिनी !! Can't blame the British lady that just the emphasis on the wrong syllable had converted the name into a vile Indian abuse. We in the interview room found it very difficult to to control our laughter........though poor Kamini had the toughest interview of her life......

 My uncle had a nieghbour named S. Ale Mustafa. Mr Mustafa had a big name plate in front of his main door. Some mischievous fellow erased the 'dot' after the 'S' in the name plate which now became 'Sale Mustafa'.......giving a rather undignified twist to his name......

 Then there are numerous cases of our South Indian friends having a tough time (particularly in America) due to their names.
I had a colleague in US named Vishwanathan Kamasamudram. I went with him to get our Identity card photo taken. When his turn came to be called, the lady calling out the names took a long pause and announced with a straight face - 'Man with the Long Name'. My friend was so used to this that he got up immediately.......He had learnt his lesson.....very soon he was seen introducing himself as 'Nathan Kamas'. This single act won him many American friends !!  

 Then there was this case of a guy named Anatharaman Subbaraman, waiting for more than 2 hours for his name to called for an US visa interview. When at last he asked angrily why his name has not been called when people who were after him were called, he was told 'We have been calling out for ANOTHER MAN SUPER MAN for the last 2 hours' !!!!

 In short, names do matter.................

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My friend Jitesh Sharan has informed me that there is a dhaba in Punjab named 'PK Tunn'....

About Me
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Saturday 18 July 2015

Eid







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Tuesday 14 July 2015

My Birthday

Today is my Birthday.....Ammar's card on the occasion ....please check out the 'mini quiz' !!



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Sunday 12 July 2015

Ammar's Sketches

Shadow


Mummy - way to go !!


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Friday 10 July 2015

4 Steps to Change Your Life



I wrote this article in 2007.
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A New Job or a New Life?

            Most people start hunting for a new job when they feel they are underpaid, when the stress at work begins to tell, when they are fed up with an insensitive boss, when they find no excitement/challenge in the work they are doing. What they may not realize is that the new job they yearn for is not going to make a sea change in their lives. They may continue to be a cubicle-slave and they will basically be swapping one 9-5 (or 9-9!!) job for another 9-5 job. The job may feed their body but is it feeding their spirit? They have to address this deeper malaise. They have to look facts in the face and ask themselves ‘Should I look for a new job or a new life, a life of my dreams?’


            A life of your dreams? What is that?

Each one of us has dreams. When we were kids we had lots of dreams. Anything was possible then. As we became adolescents these dreams changed. As we advance in years we get to hear more & more –‘Live in the real world, don’t dream’. So most people start losing touch with their dreams, give up on them to become practical citizens of the world. They accept reality and stop dreaming.

It is said that God endowed each one of us with a unique ‘music’. The purpose of a man’s life is to find this unique ‘music’ and create it. It is only when an individual finds this gift and tries his best to develop it that he becomes the best he can be. And that’s when he is the happiest and most fulfilled. This is his ‘true calling’. But most people spend their lives trying to conform, trying to fit in rather than nurturing that gift which sets them apart from everyone else. No wonder most die with this sublime ‘music’ buried deep within their hearts. 




Never Lose Touch With Your Dreams.

This is a tragedy. A man who loses touch with his dreams has lost touch with himself because dreams are what he yearns for deep down. If you ask a person what he would do if he knew he cannot fail at anything he does, I will bet that most of his dreams will figure in that list. So why do we give up on our dreams? Because whenever we expressed these deep desires in front of our friends, relatives, the responses we got were –

  • C’mon, that is impossible.
  • It is nice to think of such things but you can’t do that in reality.
  • Your dreams won’t pay your bills. Your job does. Hang on to it.
  • Wake up, live in the real world.
  • If you went after that, you will be nowhere. You will lose whatever you have now as well.

            They are the dream-stealers.

            So slowly we start conforming to the ways of the world, become ‘practical’ and instead of trying to find & pursue our ‘true calling’ cling on to the J-O-B. We are convinced that pursuing our ‘true calling’ is not going to pay the bills. So it will be foolish even to take one step in that direction.

            Let’s get out of this mental rut and try to reclaim our dreams. You can make that ‘leap of faith’ and pursue your ‘true calling’. The transition from your current J-O-B to your true calling will be tough but it is possible no matter what your age & current circumstances. You have to follow these steps to make that transition.

  1. Knowing what your ‘true calling’ is.

      Many people go through life without really figuring out what is that they really want to do in life. They may reach a position of prominence, may become successful in the eyes of the world but they die unfulfilled with the yearning that somehow they missed their life’s mission. You can avoid this tragedy by acting now.
       One simple method to find your ‘true calling’ is to recall all those occasions when you felt sublime, unalloyed pleasure. Then think what you did which gave you that pleasure. Let us assume that you are an engineer doing a job. You should think back to recall all the high points of your life when you felt really happy. You find that when you won prizes in painting competitions in school and when one of your paintings was selected for an art exhibition, those were the occasions when the depth of your pleasure was the deepest. Congratulations, my friend, you have found your ‘true calling’.   
      There is a catch though. Now that you have completed the above exercise and determined the thing which you are meant to do in life, we must double check and make sure that this is THE thing because this is the most important decision you are going to take in life. We can’t take any chances. Let us take the example of a woman who was stuck in a 9-5 job and hated it. She went through the above exercise and found out that as a child and as a teenager when she used to go for vacations to hill stations with her parents, she was at her happiest. So she concluded that she has to leave the hustle and bustle of the city and move to the hills. While she was contemplating buying a house in a hill station and move there she got an invitation from a friend who owned a lodge in the hills to stay there for a month. She found out to her dismay that spending time on vacation and staying there permanently had a world of difference. She didn’t like living there day in and day out.
So you may have felt great doing something and maybe convinced that it is the thing for you but you have to put yourself in that situation to make sure that it feels just as good to have it as your vocation.

  1. Take baby steps in that direction.
            Have you ever observed a river changing course? Sometimes it takes years and the process is very             gradual. It never happens overnight. Similar is the case when one tries to change course of one’s career. It never happens overnight. One has to be patient and take small steps in the direction one wants to go.

  1. Making your ‘true calling’ pay.
            You have to be creative in this endeavor. Think of ways to make your ‘true calling’ a paying proposition.

  1. Complete Transition
You are now living the life of your dreams.

     
                                   

                        You can excel only at something which you are passionate about.

            Mahatma Gandhi was a lawyer in South Africa. He was deeply moved by the inhuman way in which the black & coloured people were treated by the white rulers. He wanted to help them claim their self-respect. This passion later on turned into the dream of seeing India free from the clutches of British Imperialism. He gave up his practice and plunged totally into this struggle. He took on the mighty British Empire solely with the support of poor masses whose only weapons were non-violence & non-cooperation. He & his methods were mocked at by Churchill who called him a ‘half naked fakir’. But this half naked fakir’s indomitable will and firm belief brought the British Raj to its knees. Gandhi realized his dream of a free India and today all Indians savor that freedom.

            Amitabh Bachchan, (the megastar of Hindi movies) had a cozy, well paying job with a shipping company in Calcutta. To family and friends he had embarked on a successful corporate career. But to Amitabh himself something was missing. In his hearts of heart he yearned to try his hand at the thing he loved the most, acting. His dream was to act in the movies. His prestigious job fed his body but failed to feed his spirit. He faced the choice whether he wanted to climb the corporate ladder doing something which did not quite fire him or take the risk of pursuing his dream. He took the leap of faith, chose the latter, chucked up his ‘prestigious’ job and went to Bombay (now Mumbai) to pursue his dream. The rest, as they say, is history.    

These men were not born extraordinary or ‘Great’. What made them great was the fact that they had the guts to pursue their dreams. They were prepared to put everything they had on the line for their dream. They then pursued it with doggedness and resolve.

Ordinary Man + A Dream + Unrelenting Resolve = Great Achievement

So don’t lose heart. It is never too late to embark on the journey of being truly alive.

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Wednesday 8 July 2015

What I learnt from Cricket (Other than Cricket !)

There is a saying, 'what does he know who only Cricket know'. It is correct, to really understand the game one needs to know the history and the traditions as well as the spirit of the game. There are many things which are not prohibited by the rule book but are called 'it's not Cricket'....these are the unwritten rules of the game.

I am deviating from the topic. My passion for this game from early childhood has been a prime factor in me gaining some proficiency in the English language. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that I learnt English because of my interest in Cricket. 

I spent my childhood in Kanke, which is in the outskirts of Ranchi town (now in Jharkhand, India). This was a place which can be called semi-rural and far from the main town, Ranchi. Most of the kids I used to play with were from poor background. Some of them grew up to become Darzee (tailor) and Auto Rickshaw drivers !!

When I was 10 or 11 years old, and had started following the game, my father would buy 'The Sportstar' magazine for me. At this point of time, my understanding of English and vocabulary were very limited. But I just had to read everything that was there in those magazines on Cricket. I remember the cover of one of the editions of The Sportstar had this line 'The Drama Down Under'. For many days I wondered what was 'Down Under'. Since the story was about the Benson & Hedges tri-series in Australia, I guessed 'Down Under' must be Australia. And it made sense as it is located at the bottom of the Atlas! 

In the 1983 India-Pakistan series, the headline was 'Imran Khan - India's tormentor'. Since Imran took 40 wickets in the series and was virtually unplayable, I figured out 'tormentor' must mean something close to a 'destroyer'.....I learnt the meaning of many 'big' English words this way. 

I was exposed to similes and metaphors also through Cricket writings. Mudassar Nazar, the Pakistan opener infamous for slow scoring was described as 'he collects runs like a chipmunk collects nuts'!! I had no clue what a chipmunk was. I guessed it must be something like a squirrel !

When Kapil Dev was made the India captain in 1983, the sports headline read 'Captain's Cap for Kapil'. My father pointed out to me that this was a great example of an alliteration.....first time I heard of an alliteration.....


Since most of the Cricket books and magazines were in English, I was forced to read them. By the time I was 14 or 15 had read all of Sunil Gavaskar's books, 'Sunny Days', 'Idols', 'Runs & Ruins', 'One Day Wonders'. I had also read the autobiographies of Keith Miller, Imran Khan, Jeff Thomson and many others. I read from cover to cover 'Fifty years of West Indian Cricket' by  Tony Cozier. I would devour any cricket magazine or book I could lay my hands on. Later on I also started reading the Hindi magazine 'Cricket Samrat'.



By this time I had not read many English novels or other classics but due to my reading on Cricket my English improved.

Cricket can also be credited for my knowledge of geography. Any self respecting follower of the game has to know where these places are - Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, Jamaica, Barbados, Guyana, Trinidad & Tobago (Port of Spain), Auckland, Christchurch, Napier, Karachi, Lahore, Faisalabad, Manchester, Leeds, London , Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth....the list goes on....Sitting in a remote corner of India, I would keenly follow the fortunes of the English counties Essex, Kent, Glamorgan, Lancashire, Yorkshire, Middlesex, Sometset, Derbyshire, Northamptonshire.....again a long list....I now live in Kent and was living in Essex before this. But long long before I visited these places,  I knew them only because of Cricket. For me Essex meant Graham Gooch , Somerset - Ian Botham and Viv Richards, Sussex - Imran Khan, Yorkshire - Geoff Boycott, Hampshire - Gordon Greenidge, Lancashire - Wasim Akram.....and so on......

Also came to know through cricket that the Aussies are called 'Kangaroos' , the New Zealanders 'Kiwis' , the South Africans 'Springboks'.....

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Thoughts on the blog from my cousin Dr Ashir Husain -



Very well written and interesting  points brought much similar to my thoughts and days of learning.
Since I was couple of years older,belonged to the same era and Ranchi my town as well where I was learning literature in school and cricket everywhere be it school,HEC where I lived,kanke where I occasionally visited was very much part of our lives.
Richie Benaud on Australian radio,Martin Jenkins,Blofeld on English radio learning the nuances of cricket and english words as you have mentioned in your blog.
I remember I read somewhere in one of the dailies in the sports column about a cricketer 'hanging his boots'.I ran up to one of my uncles to understand what the meaning was and was happy and smiling inside that I knew something not others may have known.
Similarly as you have recounted about the numerous places,Derbyshire was a county in England I knew only because of Azharuddin.
Cricket surely has taught us a lot and I realised it after reading your blog that it was always a part of our learning process.



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Saturday 4 July 2015

Ammar's Scouts Investiture

Ammar has joined 9th Dartford Scouts a few weeks back. His investiture ceremony happened yesterday. Here are some snaps from that-






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