Why Clinton you are not our Madam President

I followed this 2016 election season as a ritual along with my husband each and every debate. I strongly supported Hillary not only this time but even the first time when she contested alongside Obama.

I have always have good words for this lady. I hope I atleast have an iota of strong determination she has. She went thru many hardships through her entire life. Major being her decision to leave her career aside and marry Bill and support him through his career until he became the President. And the devastating scandalous news of numerous affairs of his husband. No one I bet would have emerged out of this still smiling and putting up a brave face.

Sometimes I feel like I just keep loosing hope on humanity. I wondered how she lost it out to a mean, women bashing, racial discriminating guy. I can't even fathom how anyone could vote for him or what justification they have for that.

Tears rolled down my eyes when I listened to her concession speech. America has lost such a wonderful opportunity to elect such a strong iron lady as their first ever female President.

But I will always have a lot of respect for you no matter what.

A Good Deed

One day when I went out with two of my colleagues Sravanthi and Keerthi in India. I remember we ordered too much food than we could eat. We almost ended up throwing the extra food which we didn't even touch in the dustbin. Well though we didn't. Keerthi took it and searched all over the place for somebody to give that to, crossed the very busy road and gave it to a small poor boy. There's no doubt that the boy was happy to have it.

I was totally awed by her kind gesture and I mentioned it to her too. I was so happy that whole day. I learned a very good thing from my friend that day to share the food and to never throw it away.

--- Do you believe in karma that if you do good to others good things will happen to you too. Well, I do. It can be as small help as it could be which could bring a smile on a sad and depressed face. Don't you think so.

Which path to choose?

I just wanted to write this post to question myself what I want to do or achieve in my life?

I know there always comes a situation for everyone where they are on the crossroads of choosing an option to move on ahead in life. Oh yes, even I went through such situations and I always made decisions in haste or went ahead with my intuitive feeling. I can say most of the times I made wrong decisions whether it is regarding my career or myself. But every time I learnt from my mistakes. I remember one of my uncle telling me, "It lies in your own hands to mould your future into a better way. So think a lot before coming to any conclusion while making a decision and if it went wrong, explore the options how you can set it right. If you can, 'just do it', if not then don't keep lamenting on your wrong decisions, just leave it at that point and try not to repeat that mistake again".  Hmm don't you think it's easy to say and hard to implement.

   Yes, even I feel so too, that it's very easy to say, but it's true that you have to move on too. Well, even now I am on such crossroads again and I hope I would take a correct decision.

My Prized Possession

I love this book "How to Win Friends" by Dale Carnegie. This is one of my prized possessions in my collection of books. I can read it umpteen number of times and still never get bored of it just as I do with Harry Potter :)

I learnt a lot from this book, mainly how to control my anger, how to stop myself from indulging in arguments. This book has definitely a greater influence on me. It has a number of short stories which are real life incidents which took place in the lives of great people as well as between normal people. They are inspiring and thought-provoking. The entire book speaks of Effective Speaking and maintaining good human relations with everyone.

Hmm well it's very hard though to follow every principle of it for me. But I felt there is nothing wrong in giving it a try. Sadly I never implemented all of the said principles in my real life. But whenever I read this book again I used to make a resolution that I will strongly follow all the said principles. :)

Whenever you get your hands on this book. Don't forget to read it and add it to your collection of books as well.

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Here is a small pick from the book.

"Bob Hoover, a famous test pilot and frequent performer at the air shows, was returning to his home in Los Angeles from an air show in San Diego. At 300 ft, up in the air, both engines suddenly stopped. By deft manuevering he managed to land the plane, but it was badly damaged although nobody was hurt.

Hoover's first act after the emergency landing was to inspect the airplane's fuel. Just as he suspected, the World War II propeller plane he had been flying had been fueled with jet fuel rather than gasoline.

Upon returning to the airport, he asked to see the mechanic who had serviced his airplane. The young man was sick with the agony of his mistake. Tears streamed down his face as Hoover approached. He had just caused the loss of a very expensive plane and could have caused the death of three lives as well.

You can imagine Hoover's anger. One could anticipate the tongue-lashing that this proud and precise pilot would unleash for that carelessness. But Hoover didn't scold the mechanic; he didn't even criticize him. Instead, he put his big arm around the man's shoulder and said, "To show you I'm sure that you'll never do this again, I want you to service my F-51 tomorrow."

Try not to loose a Good Friend

I was so foolish to have lost the support of two of my one time best friends and make enemity with them(Sowmya, my inter friend and Suma, my Engg. friend). I don't say it was entirely my fault nor their's, it was both of us but still I could have talked to them and clear out the enemity between us.

It is easy to make enemity with any person but it is very hard to win them back as a friend. And that I realized very late. After these many long years I still miss their friendship.

It is true that no person in this world is perfect. Each person has one or the other bad quality assosciated to him. But donot point that out to him/her bluntly and hurt their ego. By doing so you will definitely make an enemy but not a friend.

A true friend doesn't try to change you according to his way of thinking in any aspect, but respects your opinion, your way of thinking, and accepts the way you are always. And each one of us should realise that before we make the mistake of loosing a friend again.

Can a Film Star be a Good Politician?

Well even I like the so called contester for the CM post. But if he contests for a CM post. I wouldn't definitely vote for him. An election for a CM post is not a child's play. It needs a highly experienced person who would be able to make a good judgement in crisis situations and who is knowledgable about the Indian politics and aware of the problems in our country/state . Don't ask me then how could Arnold Schwarzenegger prove to be such a good Governor. That's an exception.

Here in India and that too Southern part of India where fans treat their Film stars as Gods and godesses. It's so difficult to tell the people and make them understand that there is a lot of difference in cinema and reality of life. Your crazy speeches (lengthy filmy dialogues) don't work here, you have to prove yourself that you are good enough to be a CM by your good deeds and not just by giving the usual attractive speeches(well i consider as preachings :) ) fooling around with people.

I think India should also start the process of conducting debates for the prospecting candidates about the issues the state has and how they would handle them when elected like they do in US. And then let it decide for the voters to think who would be the most deserving candidate.

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This is just my opinion and this was not written to hurt anyone's intentions.

To My Best Friends

This post is entirely about my best friends Sindhu, Bala Abhirami, Jyothi, Jeelan, Jay and me. Everyone except Jyothi are my Masters friends, jyothi is my btech friend. Sindhu, bala, jee, jay and I were the 5 member batch and always moved as a group in the first semester of my Masters.

I met Jeelan and Jay in the Java class and I think I was the one to first introduce myself to them. Then came in Sindhu who was introduced by me into the batch. Within short time we became good friends and basically I think this was because we had common interests, same kind of inclination towards studies and being a responsible person. Sindhu, me and jay are alike short tempered and moody at times. But jee he is completely a Gandhian, in our 2 years of MS none saw him shouting or scolding anyone. Well my other friend jyothi is also pretty much the same as Jee. She is very quite and patient.

My first semester is worth remembering. Our favorite spot for combine study was the lower stacks in the library, where along with studies we used to chit chat. Sometimes we used to talk or laugh so loudly that others sitting there used to get disturbed. We did bunk classes too mainly Prof. George Blank class. And we always enjoyed the long walks all the way from our college to Jeelan and Jay house or Bala, Sindhu's house in Kearny sometimes. Forgot to tell you we always had this little discussions on any topic like technology, politics, world news, movies, and about each ones plans in the future to name and friendly humor rather than gossiping always whenever we met. Each one had their own goals and we did work really hard to achieve it.

I may not express in a good way about them in my blog. But I really thank them for bearing my nonsense talk at times and for being with me at good and bad times. I am very very lucky to have them as my friends and I hope we never will break our friendship in future.

I never mentioned of my other friends here. Though I lost in touch with them I still remember them a lot. Fathima, Pavani, Ayesha, Venitha, Gowtham(my 6th classmate), Waseem, Prasanthni, Anita....

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There are many funny memories assosciated with my friends in NJIT. I definitely need to mention those here about how Jeelan sitting in the Data Structure and Algorithms morning hour class used to doze off and how me and Bala sitting besides him both pinched him to wake him up whenever the professor saw. 

And about our Distributed Systems class in the big step-up auditorium class where we(Jeelan, Sindhu nd me) always occupied the last row. Well the lecture used to be so boring so we used to do our own works finishing off the assignments and so on.. Sindhu once wanted to check some movie site and when she opened it, there was this big sound with her speaker of the laptop on full volume "Congratulations, You have won a Apple Ipod" :):)  in between a serious lecture with pin-drop silence. Everyone from the front rows turned to see who it was and we were acting as if we didn't know what happened :) 

Terrorism and War on What?

Last week there was a small discussion with a group of my friends on the terrorist acts. This started as we happened to read the news on the bomb blasts in Bengaluru, Ahmedabad and in Hyderabad which occurred months back. At that time I also happened to watch the National Geographic documentary Inside 9/11 War on America. I was rather shocked and literally shivered when I watched these videos depicting the smart moves of these terrorists(finding loopholes in the security).

I wondered that, if such a Supreme Power Country could not counter the terrorist acts, then how about the developing nations like in INDIA. Its a highly unsafe place and we don't even have the finest resources or money to uncover the plots of these terrorism and stop them before hand from happening.

What's surprising when I watched these videos was to see all these plots were carried off by well educated people who stupidly believed when somebody preached saying it's written in their holy books to kill and torture the other sect people and God will reward you for that. How stupid is this, Do they really don't understand that God will never reward such people but rather punish them real hard. And don't they understand that all these preachings are cleverly planned acts of the wanted A-list criminals to fulfill their idiotic thoughts. They either misinterpret their holy books or manipulate the real context in it according to their thoughts. No holy book or a real holy preacher will preach such things. Well its saddening though that these people still believe in these meaningless preachings or whatever.

Understand that if you are supporting terrorism or terrorists and such acts you are clearly making a unsafe world to live in for your future generations by creating rifts between nations.
If you want to die then die but don't kill other innocent people along with you who sometimes never even know why they are unnecessarily being killed for and why such acts are being carried off.

Well what brought the 9/11 act? They killed many people and then the supreme president decided to wage war against the Iraq as a repay. Both the terrorist act and the war resulted in loss of many people and plunged the country into a severe recession. Needless to say people who are alive are even hit badly by these after effects of both war and terrorism.

Well I never believed a person's idea can change the world either for good or bad. But it did see these stupid, wickedly/dangerously smart person who masterminded the terrorist act is sitting somewhere peacefully and enjoying his act where other people rather say the entire world is suffering due to it.

And guys wherever you are think before you do any such acts, don't become a pawn of the masterminded criminals and please don't kill others in the name of power or GOD.

Growing up in a Town

Though my home town is Hyderabad, as my daddy works for Singareni we have been to places like Kothagudem, Bellampalli, Srirampur, Manuguru till my Inter. Growing up in town and that too Singareni township was fun where everyone knew the other person. I had to change 6 schools from my Kindergarten to 10th all bcoz of my fathers transfers. But I did make many friends wherever I went.

Every saturday we used to go to the Yellandu club, a recreational society for Singareni community, just like TANA for American Indians in USA. It always looked more like a get together or social gathering where we all kids enjoyed more than parents. And if it was Diwali, Holi or New Year we used to have a lot of fun celebrating the festival together with all our other family friends. Remembering of Holi reminds me of an incident. Immediately after 6 months of shifting to Srirampur, there was Holi and we had a Holi party in singareni community. My mom a doctor was reluctant to go play holi. All the other aunts in our singareni quarter street came to my mom as if to talk to her about something, called her outside and drenched her in a bucket full of water. Told you we always had lots of fun let it be kids or elders. We used to have picnics, fancy dress, quiz competitions, games(Tambola, cricket, Badminton,Pool), get togethers and many more.

Of all the places we visited in the towns, I love our Manuguru Singareni quarter(home). It was on a slightly raised hill, far away from the pollution, with lot of trees in front of our house and also within our compound. It was as if we were in a forest, so peaceful. It was safe too, as our quarter was right next to the DSP, District Superintendent of Police and their family. My childhood friend and classmate Gowtham always used to scare me that if somebody is going to bomb the house of DSP, my house would also get affected. Well though it never happened, he was just scaring me as all these places Srirampur, Yellandu, Bellampalli, Manuguru are naxalite places.

Growing up in town has also brought me a town brought up girl tag. As I was always out of fashion wearing only chudidhars and keeping myself away from jeans and western dressing. Well that changed a lot afterwards, thanks to my friends Ayesha, cousin pratima and my current Masters friend Sindhu. I always followed their dressing sense closely.

We shifted to Hyderabad finally to our own house when I was in Engineering. I missed being in town in the start. As it was so different in city though it was my hometown Hyderabad- a city. Since there was no interaction with neighbors, it's as if they don't exist, a busy culture where everyone is busy with their office and when anyone is at home they don't step outside much. It was so different from the place where I grew up as a kid the Singareni township where everyone knew the other person. Well no comments now though as I got adjusted myself to the city, my home place, though I still miss my growing up days in town.

Fond Remembrances of my Childhood

I loved Teddy Bears and Barbie dolls when I was a kid. Well even now I have a liking for both. I never owned a barbie doll of my own in childhood. When we once went to exhibition I cried a lot to buy me a barbie doll. But my father said a serious no. Though he did bring me a very nice doll than barbie when he went to UK. That's the way my father was, he always wanted the best for us, but wait for it sometime to get the best among anything.

And I used to be so excited about summer holidays. As we(me nd my brother) could go to Hyderabad to meet our cousins. My cousin pratima was our leader, me nd my other cousin sirisha used to follow her. If she was the teacher in our school game, I and sirisha used to be her students. We used to play a lot with gorugulu(small kitchen toys) and we also tried sometimes real cooking in that age gathering papers and putting it to fire. Well we never succeeded though. As my other cousin pradeep and my own brother sandeep used to sneak into our play room through the window to check what we were doing and complain about it to our grandmother(nanamma). She used to scold us for doing so.

Other than that we sometimes tried new plays like puppet show too. We used to enact a story and our grandmother used to be a good listener and a good viewer. I miss her a lot. And when we grew a bit old we also tried our hands on Rangoli. We used to wake up early in the morning, all the three of us used to put rangoli in the front yard of our grandmothers house and our elders used to judge whose was the best. If not any of the above things we(all my cousins) used to all sit together to watch the cartoon shows on the tv.

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I actually remember every small incident from my childhood. May be it has something to do with me being a Cancerian. I just can't forget anything.

Why these regional differences?

I hate the discrimination based on either region or religion. The recent attacks by VHP in Uttar Pradesh and our own Hyderabad politicians quarreling for a separate Telangana is another political gimmick. I seriously don't understand why there is a need for separate Telangana and what difference would it bring us?

These politicians for their own known hidden motives are rubbing these regional differences on the innocent minds of people. Previously people used to fight on religion discrimination. Now it would also add fuel to the region biasing. Seriously if they say ok for a separate Telangana, I doubt within few days people will also start protesting for separate Andhra, Rayalseema. Rather than creating such regional tensions, it would be better if the Government allocates equal amount of money to develop different regions and also equally distribute MP and MLA seats among all the regions within the state. People should not fall prey for this political gimmicks and should stand united in such situations.

From my childhood I grew to respect every region and religion equally. Actually my family also helped me in tuning my mind in such a way not to discriminate people. As my big family is a mixture of people of origin from different regions and religions. (Andhraites, Kerelaite, Tamilians, Malaysian, Muslim). We respect each others culture.

I know I have touched a serious issue. Anyways this is completely my own opinion. And sorry if I had hurt anyones feelings or sentiments through this blog.

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Sorry and Thank You are the words which I use regularly. But, only when I really mean it.

Exams-Tensions-And the Sleepless Nights

I am not very smart or intelligent, but a hard working student. So, the thought of exams makes me feel nervous like any other normal student. When I finished my last exam of my Masters I thought I was relieved of those tensions and those sleepless nights reading for the exams.

But I was wrong. I didn't know that the real exam starts when you start searching for a job. The endless nervousness and tensions which you go through makes you feel the exams in the student life was far more better than the job search. Atleast, when you are done with your exams you are happy the next day, the tensions used to last for only some days. Finding a job in this dropping economy has brought me even more sleepless nights. I don't know when I would finally land up in a right job for me. But that would be the happiest day of my life.

Thinking of exams, reminds me of a funny incident. We had 2 exams consequently and we were doing a lot of reading. I was doing combined studies with Sindhu, Jeelan and Bala Abhirami (Those exams days I stayed at Sindhu's & Bala's place). We finished our first exam and everyone was happy. There was a gap of 3 days for our next exam. I was happy that atleast now I could read the last book in the Harry Potter series, it was published 4 days before but I couldn't read it because of my exams. I read it half till late 1 am in the night and slept off.

May be Sindhu couldn't take the exam tensions to her heart. She gave such a big scream as if somebody has stabbed her in the sleep in the midst of the night. Everyone from other rooms Bala, Sridevi came running to her including me in the same room. She woke up and said Did I talk or mutter anything in my sleep. Imagine the situation of me with all the characters in the book revolving in my mind when I went to sleep and her shriek. I was so afraid to go even near her to ask her what has happened. We laughed a lot before we went to sleep again and even the next day remembering the incident. Such was our tensions during the exams. :) :)

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I generally don't like reading novels. As my uncle has rightly said reading novels makes your mind roam in the dream world. Keep your mind in the real world and don't waste your time reading those novels. But again, this is completely my opinion too. I followed his advice, but I don't know somehow I got myself interested in reading this Harry Potter Series. This is the only one children novel which I ever read fully and liked it very much.

My Family

Hmm how can I forget to mention about my family.
Ours is a very close knit traditional family. My mom and dad both are my best friends. Yes you are my good friend to annaya. Though we almost disagree on most of the things, I know you are there for me always.

I was pampered a lot with love, care and affection from my childhood by all the members of my family. I am as close to my uncles, aunts (Kavitha atha nd Hazar atha) as I am to my grandparents.

I learnt being talkative, caring, patience, forgiveness, sensitivity to things from my mom. Ofcourse being sensitive at the drop of the hat too. I am definitely my mommy's girl.

When I first came to US for my Masters I made friends with Sindhu, Bala, Jeelan and Jay (Sindhu, Jay nd Jee are my best friends now). Within weeks of our friendship they came to know of all my family, uncles, aunts, cousins names. I used to repeat their names so many times in all my discussions. I am that close to my family.

There were petty quarrels too. But never did it break the strong bond among us. I am very lucky to have been born and brought up in this family.

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If you really feel good about anything about a person. Tell them that, it would make them happy. But remember that it shouldn't be flattery, it should come straight from your heart. I actually read this in a book "How to win friends" by Dale Carnegie or "Chicken Soup for the Soul at Work" I don't remember. This works out not only in friendship, but also in maintaining positive relations among people.

My New Found Hobby

In my kiddie days, when I was very happy, angry about anything or sad I used to write a letter addressed in the name of God, putting all my thoughts in the paper and then throw it away. It might sound silly to anyone and me too if I now think of it. But that's the way I used to relieve myself of anger or sadness.

And then when I grew up I had a very old diary wherein I used to write down about my thoughts. I don't know if it's still there in my pile of books. Have to check it out when I go back to Hyderabad.

Slowly I realized that I enjoy writing. This blog is not for anyone else to know about me in detail but for my own personal satisfaction. Some say that you have to do whatever that makes you happy and I am happy writing my thoughts in this blog.

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I am sorry if I hurt anyones feelings through my blogs knowingly or unknowingly.