2012 Why do we believe ?

Create on : Nov 4th, 2009
Published on : Nov 4th 2009

Interesting ...a great eye catcher caught my eye balls few weeks back and then it took a lot of reading to understand what is going on. Most of you have by now read or seen some videos about the theory of end of the world on Dec 21, 2012. If not watch the new movie "2012" (releasing on Nov 13th 2009). Let me first write about what exactly the theory says:

1. According the Mayan Calendar, which is 100% accurate so far for each and every event, it has predicted earthquakes, Tsunamis, Hurricanes accurately. This calendar predicts the world will end on 21st Dec 2012.

2. Nostradamus has a prophecy for end of world on Dec 21, 2012

3. Scientific community claims there would be big celestial event on this day. Earth, Sun and center of Milky Way galaxy will be aligned in a single line. Which might result in a magnetic shift and the North Pole would move by 1 degree. This might destabilize earth's magnetic field and would result in catastrophes like earth quakes and, Tsunami.

4. Another scientific theory claim that a comet or Asteroid will hit the earth on that day or there might be a solar storm that would hit the earth.

Most of the documents/website will speak about one or all of these theories to prove Dec 21, 2012 is correct date for the end of the world.

This write-up is not to prove if these theories are correct or are just a Hoax, am under qualified to talk about that. All I want to say is why would someone think about this and why would someone believe it. I will list some points to which would help us to understand human thinking better.

1. Fear of unknown: We have a very limited knowledge about the universe, living things, Expansion/Growth and we have tried to bind these topics under the rules of Physics. We believe everything in universe would work based on the rule of physics that we have derived, due to which we can never think out of box and consider ourselves lucky to be the only planet with life. We have defined what is life and we are trying to search for similar thing on other planets/stars so chances are we wont ever get it. When we have 99% of unknown in universe, we always have a fear of unknown like something might come from other part of universe and destroy us. We want someone to be held responsible for this unknown stuff and so we discovered God, who can be held responsible for the unknown which is a result of our lack/limitation of knowledge.

2. Desire to know the future: Its almost similar to point 1, if we don’t know about universe we also don’t know what will happen with us on earth tomorrow. That is how our brain is made, but we refuse to accept it and try to make so many unsuccessful attempts to find what is going to happen in future. And I really don't know what makes us believe that someone in this world knows about future. So we try to search for that someone and believe them, few of those are Mayans, Nostradamus etc.

3. World will surely end: In our lifespan we have seen nothing is immortal, everything that has a start will surely have an end, our life, plants, animals, non living things, stars etc all get created and destroyed. So we are forced to believe, even the universe or earth will get destroyed one day and so will the human race. The best example we have is dinosaurs, we know that race came to an end thousands of years back, the most accepted theory behind destruction of dinosaurs was earth was hit by an asteroid during that time which caused the extinction; hence we would always be afraid of asteroid hitting earth because we know that can destroy the complete race. Most interesting point is all the theories for 2012 are predicting destruction of earth by known reasons like Tsunami, Earthquake, and Asteroid there could be unknown reasons as well like virus outbreak.
Again if we think out of box, being immortal is a very relative term, for a parasite living in human body having a life span of 3 mins, human body is immortal. Similarly for human beings or other animals all celestial bodies are immortal. I would rather support a theory that says nothing is constant, human race will transform to some X race in future as they did from Apes or Neanderthals earlier, or few of dinosaurs were transformed to Birds and Amphibians or a star is transformed to a black hole and similarly earth, sun, or universe will transform into something different where X race would be able to survive.

These are the reasons why most of people around us might believe the theories, few of us might not care, another few will oppose these theories based on their scientific knowledge, and another few will be surprised/scared and will try to find ways to avoid it somehow.
But am sure each one of us on Dec 22nd 2012 will say we were already aware that all this was Hoax.

Racquetball

Well summers are now over and the temperature is reducing everyday, still we can have few outdoor activities until october end. But most of my evening activities like Sand volleyball, Tennis and Soccer are coming to an end for this year. We still play soccer on Tuesday but we can see lack of interest due to changing weather.
So I need to plan for winters, last winters I spent a lot of time in understanding the stock market and analysing whats good and whats bad and making some investments but this time I would prefer to do something more physical then mental. So I chose Racquetball, after having a good hold over volleyball, I think its now time to learn one more new game. For those who dont know what racquetball is, its something similar to squash thats played in a closed room and you can have 2 or 4 players playing the game. Its a high energy game requires a lot of thinking and you need to be very quick. I have a friend of mine who plays national level championships in US and he helped me with information to understand the game. I use to think its similar to tennis but its way different, in tennis you get a lot of time to think, move and plan your game but in racquetball you need to be quick both physically and mentally, you would run a lot and would sweat even if you play for 30 mins (unlike tennis). In that small room you have so little to do to beat your opponent and you still have so much to do to save yourself from a dropped ball. I am learning, with everygame I try some new shots, some new serves am trying to do some multitasking by moving with ball and still planning the next shot so that opponent cannot pick the ball.
I have 2-3 friends who play racquetball and am planning to play with them regularly atleast 3 days a week, play volleyball on wednesday and spend rest of the time with Ishaan.

Communication Technology

Communication ... hmm its way different now, it has changed a lot in last 10 yrs. I remember when I was a kid we use to book a trunk call to speak to my nani once in a month or so and I think it was expensive to do that. I use to think why cant I have this facility on my phone why should I call someone and wait for him to connect me. So here was the answer STD facility which we took on our landline phone and use to lock it, I remember I was the one to dig out the process to place a STD lock on phone.
But still sometimes we missed calls, or were not able to call our relatives or friends because we were not at home. To resolve this problem there came the Cellphone revolution. When I was doing my MBA, only one of my classmate had a mobile phone and most of the communication was through missed calls because an incoming call was like Rs 5/min and an outgoing call was Rs 12/min. We use to laugh at him why he is carrying the mobile phone if he does not wants to pick our calls. We never thought at that time that mobilephones will be so much part of our life, like TV, electricity and cooking gas are. I always thought mobilephones are evil because that will make you available for 24 Hrs which is not good so I wont ever buy something like that.

After I worked for about 2 yrs, in yr 2002 everyone around me had a mobile phone, moreover it was easy for my family to contact me if I had a mobile and also the call price had gone down still incoming calls were charged by the service providers .. So I bought my first handset motorola (dont remember the model number) which looked like a cordless phone and was very heavy it had no other feature but to get incoming calls and outgoing calls (see the picture).

At every stage when I changed my mobile phone between Motorola and now, I was reluctant to club any other functionality with mobile phone. I always thought mobile phone should always be used for calls and nothing else. If we want to take pictures we should use camera and not mobile phone, if you want to surf internet we should use laptop and not mobile phone. But now last week when I bought iPhone, things are totally different it has everything that you can think of for communication, it has high resolution camera, it has video camera, internet surfing, games plus thousands of application which you can have to think how can you use them. It has totally changed the way to communicate, and it has the quality assurance from the best company Apple.
Now because I have started using all in one instrument, after doing some brainstorming I found iPhones dont really have everything that they could have, they are missing few very basic features.

1. Multitasking - You cannot have one application open on iPhone and use the second application as well, like using facebook application while the radio application is on ... thats not possible. I am wondering didn't apple think of this basic feature which is present in all laptops and computers.
2. Video calling - How good it would be to have a webcam in the iPhone where you can call your friend who has other iPhone and do video conferencing or call you family on Skype and show them fall colors while you are at New Hampshire in the month of October. I dont think it was a difficult thing to do for iPhone if Nokia N97 and a dozen of other phones in market can do that iPhone can do it easily.
3. Interface with TV- A good to have interface where we can connect iPhone to TV to watch a you tube video.
Similar to my previous requirements of STD or Cellphones even these requirements will be catered and am sure Steve Jobs would be aware of these limitations with iPhone, either its too tough to do and maintain the quality or Apple wants to limit the features in each release so that they can keep selling iPhone for long time with some upgrades in every release.
I am still rethinking if I should keep this iPhone or wait for the next release which might have all these features and so many others which might give me a true all in one instrument.

Summer 2009

Its been a long time since I wrote, was too busy with going around places this summer. Every weekend we had some or other plan. I think am done with east coast and mid atlantic region now, I have seen and enjoyed everything that could and its time now to move out of this region for my trips.
This summer started with an amazing trip to Miami and Bahamas and we then had lot of small trips in northern PA, upstate NY and Norther NJ region. I also had to travel a lot to washington for my new house. We did lot of adventure activities like camping, rafting, mountain biking, hiking etc and got close to quite a few good friends. Also got a very good volleyball group where we played 2 seasons at King of Prussia and finally won the championship. I think I was fairly regular at my sand volleyball on Monday nights. Although this summer weather was not as good as it use to be, we had a lot of wet days but all in all I enjoyed a lot this year.
I missed a chance to go to Canada in first week of August, just bcos I was too lazy to apply for Canada visa, I regret I should have done that trip as well.

My list of things to do and places to visit is still too long and am not sure how many yrs will it take me to visit all these places. This yr I have more than 3 weeks of vacation left but am not able to decide where should I spend these 3 weeks I have few options like Dubai, East Asia, Spain or Europe, South America or Vegas and California. The last thing I would do is spend this time in India but lets see.

Eclipse

Again there was a solar eclipse yesterday and this was the longest eclipse of the century. But I missed it because it was mostly visible in India, northern part of India. I watched it live on the news channels, also found that there were airlines which scheduled a special flight just to see Solar Eclipse. I was surprised to know that people in India are so excited about the eclipse and there are special flights for watching the eclipse.

We have really come a long way, I remember when I was in 12th grade and we watched the solar eclipse, we were really excited about it as it was our first solar eclipse when we understood what it means and how rare it is. It was around 8AM in the morning and when I was going to my friends place to watch the eclipse all the roads were empty, the doors and windows were shut, no one was even peeping out to see whats happening. There were articles in newspaper about how to protect your eyes from eclipse but at the same time there were bigger articles talking about superstition related to eclipse. My neighbors had their glass windows covered with black sheets so that none of the rays could enter their house and cause ill effects. We had a nice time watching the eclipse we took several pictures of the eclipse using my old film camera which hardly had any zoom. But the pictures were really nice and one can make out that it was clearly solar eclipse.

Even this time I saw people praying and taking bath in Ganga after the solar eclipse to avoid any ill effect of those rays, I understand this is superstition and nothing is true but I really like it. I like that there are always 2 opposite believes in India and people on both the side practice what they believe with complete freedom. Also media covers both the sides equally well and both the ideas are supported and opposed in the society. These things wont ever end we cant imagine India without a superstition and at the same time we will keep seeing those blasphemous people who have strong scientific reasons to oppose the superstition going side by side. There was a time when I use to strongly oppose the superstition and use to put examples, proofs from scientific experiments against them but in last few years I have started believing that there is nothing right or wrong its all about what one believes and its more important to respect what others believe in, respect the freedom that others have to choose what they believe. And I think for centuries India will still have 2 schools of thought, one of them will be superstitions. Because no where in this world can an idol suddenly start drinking milk, its only possible when so many people have so much of belief in that idol. I am proud to say it can happen only in my country.

Those Days ....

Creation Date: May 29th 2009
Posted on: May 29th 2009

"Myself Manish Karamchandani, am pursuing Bachelor of Science from Maharaja Ranjit Singh college Indore and my ambition in life is to become a successful man" those were the cliche sentences which we would use for our introduction when we just completed graduation and were preparing for MBA. We would copy few of these ideas from listening to others or from reading some books (we never used internet to come up with the best introduction). If I think back about those days, am not sure what we were thinking ..our priorities, exposure, idea about life and experience all were so limited. We would mostly think and do what others around us would be doing and we would get quickly influenced by them. We liked catchy lines, Jargon, quotations and with our new craze of speaking a lot to prepare for GD and interviews we were busy reading newspapers and watching new channels most of the time, so that, in any of our discussions we can throw more and more facts and figures. Most of these activities were meant to show someone how smart we are and to feel confident that we will crack it, we will be able to prove the interviewer that we are smart enough to know everything about anything.

We never thought at that time how life would be after getting admission in MBA, would all this be still useful or we would forget about it and start enjoying our new group for next 2 yrs. I feel that was a turning point, when we started reading everything that we saw and we never realized but that became a habit, figures started attracting us and we would try to remember them, do calculations based on them and prove something based on those calculations ...as we always did in GDs. This habit still helps us in making all the important decisions of our life, although we are out of MBA but there is a GD always going on within us. Where we try to bring all the for and against and evaluate them to come up to a decision. If we don't rea, don't gather facts and figures we wont be able to produce arguments for in favor and against and wont be able to make the right decision. Each and everything that we learned at that time it be Maths, Communication skills, Vocab, Data Analysis, Presentation skills etc etc could all be used in different scenarios of professional life today. Whoever took those learning ahead in life will surely get success and would become a "successful man".

The New Generation

Creation Date: May 14th 2009
Posted on: May 20th 2009

The New Generation

How frequently do we think that world is changing at such a pace, the change in last 5 yrs is much more than the change in last 50 yrs. It’s also probably because we have learnt a lot many new things in last 5 yrs so our perception of changing world is different. But usually all these thoughts don’t grab our mind unless we see a big change in our life.

I started feeling and comparing these changes after my son Ishaan was born, I should rather say during the period when Ishaan was born. Yes it was the biggest change in my life but I found I have starting living my childhood again with him. For everything that he learns or does I compare it with how I use to do that, if I remember anything from my childhood. At least I do remember what kind of toys I had, who all were in my family at that time and what were my favorite activities from toddler to teens. And every time I think about this am surprised, yes the world has changed completely in last 30 yrs.

Starting from the way we were born when child birth was a female affair and the details about pregnancy were not discussed or shared in the group and mostly girl would take suggestions from her mother or mother in law, who would confidently suggest them what is right or wrong based on the limited knowledge that they had, to the time when we freely discuss about all the details, procedure, tests, precautions and medications to be taken during and after pregnancy. It has totally changed, our elder generation would still feel shy to talk about all this but we don’t even think twice before discussing these topics. Probably because education and internet has brought such awareness in the society that these things are no more a female affair.

Similarly the way kids are brought up and taught new things has really changed. They have now become electronic and super kids, they love to play with electronic toys which have lights and music unlike our generation kids who used those mechanical toys operating with keys, rarely we got any cars with light and sound leave alone the remote controlled cars which are so common today. They prefer using cell phones as teether and listen to their favorite music on laptops and watch their cartoon shows on on-demand network on 40+inches wall mounted HDTV screen. The tricycle they use will have all music and light system and for exercising and playing they would prefer WII than actually walking to a tennis court and looking for a friend to play with them. They are brought up with laptops around them unlike our generation kids who got a chance to see a calculator only when they passed 5th grade. I wonder what kind of lifestyle would they have in future, is giving them so many gadgets actually making them dependent on the aid from these items rather than using their own brain.

Well not really, I think there is no going back from a point we have reached. So if they get dependent on something we know they will have that available throughout their life, its like when wheel was invented no one stopped using it just because they would get dependent/habitual on wheel and forget to walk, that would never happen. And it’s a proved fact that the next generation kids have a better and smarter brain.

Snorkeling

For anyone who has not done snorkeling in his life and has an opportunity to do it, I would recommend not to miss this activity. It’s a real fun and people who are not expert in swimming or diving could enjoy the sea life by doing snorkeling. I got a chance to do snorkeling during my trip to Bahamas and enjoyed it.

Let me explain in details what exactly it is. Snorkeling is an activity where we use snorkel instrument to breathe when we are under the water, a live jacket to keep ourselves closer to the surface of water and fins to swim faster in the water. A snorkel instrument has an airtight eye glass and a nose piece which keeps water away from eyes and nose and a mouth piece used to breathe. One part of the mouth piece goes into our mouth for breathing and the other long tube is held outside in the air. This provides an easy flow of air into the mouth and we breathe by mouth instead of nose. The live jackets helps you to be closer to the surface of water so that snorkel tube can hang out in the air.

Once you face down in the water your world would change, you actually cut off from the outside world and can feel the life inside the water. You can see fishes swimming around you, can see several sea weeds moving with water. If you are at place which has a reef around then you can find various see animals and colorful fishes which would either live inside the reefs or would be busy eating weeds growing on the reef. Once in a while you would be surprised by a big fish measure about size of ur hand or by a school of thousands of small fishes. The world inside the water is very quite and motion of waves, fishes and weeds is so rhythmic and beautiful that you wont feel like coming out.

After doing the snorkeling I felt if snorkeling is so interesting, scuba diving would be a great fun. But for scuba you probably need to be a great swimmer and I will need a lot of practice before I even think of learning scuba.

Happy Independence Day

It was 14th Aug 2003; I was at Hyderabad station near old city and was heading towards Indore. Friday 15th Aug, being a holiday on occasion of 56 Independence Day for India it was a long weekend for us.

Train takes about 27 Hrs to reach Indore from Hyderabad. It starts at 5:30PM and reaches Indore by 9:00PM next day. I reached station at 5:00PM making way out of the crowd at station. Vendors were selling their products; with their voice getting mixed up it was difficult to make out what were they shouting. On my way I saw Ticket Checker who as usual looked to be very strict and was continuously shaking his head saying no for tickets to anyone who approached him.

Soon I reached my compartment which was S5, my seat (No. 6) was very close to the gate. Actually it was upper birth and I was relaxed I won’t be disturbed by anyone. The train started moving as the passengers got in, the door of this reserved compartment was almost blocked by the passengers who didn’t have reservations and were waiting for TC to come and allot them some seat. But it seemed to be very difficult as the train was packed and there was hardly any spare seat/birth available.
And then the angry young man comes in, it’s the TC who comes in scolding everyone who is standing on the door and blocking the route. A few military persons grabbed my attention when they were requesting TC for some tickets. I remembered an incident while I was going to Mumbai from Indore and few military guys occupied some seats, which were not reserved by them and no one had enough courage to stop them doing this, neither the railway authorities nor the police. I was wondering if a similar case repeats we will be in trouble and I will be the first one to be kicked off.
But these military persons were very polite and they kept on requesting TC for a seat, reaction of TC here was unexpected he was shouting at them and asking them to leave the gate. Although he could have told the same thing very politely but his way of speaking was very rude, anyone could have got angry and trashed him on the way he was speaking. These guys still kept low and requested him, I was feeling bad and I pity on there condition because they didn’t have any place to sit.

One of them who looked like senior among them started telling others in the train the reason why they were not able to get the tickets. He said they were traveling since last 2 months for training at different places, and today afternoon 2:00PM they were told about leaving Hyderabad they had very little time to pack their luggage and it was almost impossible to get tickets in this short duration. They were in training at Hyderabad and none of them have slept properly since last 4-5 days by properly he meant at a stretch of 4Hrs. While these discussions were going on TC returned and again started scolding them for putting their luggage on the way. But for the spectators specially for me this time it was a bit different. Initially when the TC came for the first time and was scolding them and everyone else who was on the gate thought he is doing his job, because if you don’t have reservation you are not suppose to sit in this compartment and I was happy to see all this. At that time I had no idea about people who were on the gate, under what circumstances they were not able to get the ticket, in fact I never thought about this at all. But this time the case was different when I heard about there military persons and found that there was no fault from their side and they were willing to get the reservations but under some circumstances they were not able to then I realized there might be others who are sitting on the gate, each one might have a different story to tell, each one might have their own problems because of which they were not able to get reservations.

After an hour or so I saw two of the military persons sitting near the bathroom door and were trying to sleep and every 5-10 mins there was someone who disturbed them. I remember the senior officers words “We haven’t slept well since last 4-5 days”. I felt bad about it but thought as there are no seats available so even the TC can’t help in this case. Soon I went to my birth to take a nap so that I can later on get up and have my dinner, but even while resting I was keeping an eye on them and was checking if they are comfortable or not.

I got up after an hour and found the train was at a station so its time for dinner now. After dinner I went near the gate and was standing there for a while and one of the 4 military persons approached me and we started discussing about political issues. We were very comfortable and it was a good time pass for me as I was not feeling sleepy so I kept on standing at the door and speaking to him. While all this was going on a thought came to my mind why shouldn’t I ask one of them to occupy my birth for the time I am awake, at least one of them will get rest and its always better to be on a birth than to sleep near the toilet. I was expecting the same from other passengers who haven’t occupied their birth but I found even it was difficult for me to decide on this. I don’t know why, what was stopping me to tell them to go and sleep on my birth. I felt I was a bit selfish in saying this I really was not able to find the reason. I was awake till 2AM sometime standing on the door and sometimes reading a magazine but I always kept thinking what stopped me from giving my seat for few hours.

I knew they were tired, they were in need of my help, and they required something which I was not using then why did I behave this way. There were a lot of things that were coming to my mind, but probably that’s how we are we want to keep all the resources with us even if we are not using them instead of giving them to others who need them badly. That’s the reason we keep our money in bank instead of giving it people who need them the most, sometimes this money is never used by us and is kept in bank throughout our life.

Lost Friends

Friends: This word brings in such a meaning to the life and smile on the face. All it means is someone whom you like and enjoy spending time with, someone whom you have chosen to be with you. My life is full of friends specially because I give them so much of importance, at each stage whether it was school, college, work etc I was never short of friends and I made sure to keep in touch with each one of them who really means something to me. My friends who read this blog will surely appreciate the fact that I will go an extra mile to get back in touch with them. But I also have some of my friends from the early phase of my life about whom I don’t know anything, I haven't been in touch with them since years now and really don’t know where they are ....this article is for them, just to tell them I still remember them ... whether we will meet again or not I don’t know but the memories that I have will always remain.

Sunil

I was born in a small town of MHOW (Military Headquarter Of War), it was mostly the military training area but there was a civil area as well where people other than military personnel lived. My house in Mhow was a two storey building, biggest in that locality where most of the houses were less than 200 Sqfts. Being a small place I remember all the people who lived in that locality as each one of them knew the other person well. There was a movie theater just opposite to my house because of which there were few small shops that thrived. A tea stall, a snack shop, a pan shop, a juice shop, a pani puri stall etc could be seen and most of the times they were crowded. Between my house and the road there was a open space which was my play yard where I use to play with my friends, I was warned to be very careful and not go closer to the road. The open space was small and sometimes was occupied by parked vehicles, sometimes by animals likes cows and buffalos, or sometimes by a tent put by one of our neighbors to have a small party. Everyday morning you could hear loud music being played on those shops, you could see a lot of people standing and doing nothing there, daily commute buses passing by the road stopping to pick the passengers in the morning, a couple of trucks, drivers parked them to take a nap in the night. Sometimes those trucks were also parked because the drivers lived in that community and because they cannot take the big trucks in the small numerous lanes approaching their house they would prefer parking the truck on the main road itself. One of those drivers Sunil use to visit Mhow and his family once in every 15 days, he would park his truck in front of our house and will surely meet me in each of his visits. I was about 5 yrs old at that time and remember Sunil as one of my earliest friend, he would be about 20-25 yrs old at that time. He would pick me and take me near the pan shop or near the cows or sometimes in his truck which I really loved at that age. I never saw his house or his family but do remember his face, and I know he liked me and so he made sure to visit me every time he is in Mhow. I was always curious to find where does he go in his truck for so many days, because for me work means going in morning and coming back in evening, that's what my father use to do ... then why would sunil go out for so many days. Whenever I asked him where did he go, he always said he went far in the truck to work. I still remember him when I remember my stay at Mhow and think he might have gone somewhere far in his truck and might come back to see me again sometime, somewhere.

Vishaal

I started going to school and I remember everyone at school use to like me, my teachers specially use to meet my mom and talk about me. It was fun at school I was average at studies and enjoyed other activities in the school. Started making friends there but never actually understood how important friendship is, as I was very young to understand that. There was a boy in our class Vishaal, he was an interesting person, he was very creative and use to talk a lot. At that time I was in 4th Grade and Vishaal use to frame real good stories in his mind and narrate them in the class. Whenever we had free periods he will come over and will tell a lot of stories, and those all were like instant stories. He was very famous in the class and everyone liked his stories, he can narrate mythological stories, stories about kings and queens or some small time jokes but overall everything was very entertaining. It was about 3-5 days that Vishaal did not come to the school and on inquiring teacher found that he passed away in a truck accident. A truck got over his head and killed him on the spot. This was the first time I was hearing any such case, I was too young to digest it, friends use to narrate this incident which always seemed to me like another interesting story from Vishaal, but this time it was unfortunately about himself. Although he was not a very close friend of mine but I do remember him for his interesting stories and feel bad about his sudden death in that small age.

Rajneesh

After we moved to Indore when I was about 14 yrs old, I came in touch with RSS and started going to Shakhas where I met several friends and use to travel all over Indore city on my bike (cycle). The most important benefit of RSS was getting in touch with so many people and making so many friends, I was so involved that I hardly took care of my studies and that was the reason I got a lot of scolding from parents. Rajneesh was 2 yrs younger to me and lived very close to my house, we both use to go to Shakha together. He was a very innocent, a very straight forward and intelligent boy, he use to get good marks in his exams. He also had a very good voice and use to sing very well. His father worked in telephone exchange, mother was housewife and sister was a medical student. I have visited his home umpteen times and his family knew me very well. One day I got a big surprise, one of our common friends came to my place and informed me Rajneesh is no more, he passed away last night as he had very high fever. I cant really believe what he said how can someone die of fever. I quickly went to his house where I saw a lot of vehicles parked and lot of people around his house, which made it clear but still it was hard to believe. He got high fever last night which reached 104-106F and he passed away in the hospital, I was not able to sleep that night it was just 2 days back when I met him and he was completely all right. Next day I went to his funeral, I was not sure what to do or say there, this was the first time I was going to someone’s funeral and I could see the sad eyes of his father. I thought to talk to his father but then what would I talk, what would I say ... whenever I spoke to him earlier it was about Rajneesh. After few days I came to know his family left Indore and moved to some other city, I was unable to meet his family after this incident as I did not have courage to face them or talk to them.

Kamlesh

I was still with RSS and most of the time I was apposed by my parents to give too much time in Shakhas as it was affecting my studies. This was a common problem with everyone in my age, parents will usually appose thier children to go to Shakha as that will eat away the time that we can put in our studies. But still we fought, we got scolding and it continued so on. There were certain cases where the apposition from parents was so stong that kids will give up and will leave shakha, but in certain cases slightly elder kids will also leave their parents and join RSS permanently. I came across Kamlesh who left his family in Sagar and ran away to Indore, just because his parents did not allow him to go to Shakhas. Kamlesh was about 16 yrs at that time and ran from his home in Sagar and came to Indore, he was from a middle class family. When he came to Indore he knew no one here and was trying to find a shakha where he could go, that where he came in touch with me. Since he left his home now, he had to do something for living so he started working at a truck repair shop in transport nagar where he use to get his lunch and dinner daily and some money. When I met him, I found his work very tough, he was very young for that kind of work. I felt bad for him and blamed his parents for not allowing him to go to Shakha (off course I was biased at that time). He tried coming to our shakha for few days but then because of tedious work he was unable to do that, we use to talk to him regularly and tried convincing him to go back to his home, he had no future working on truck repair shop. After a month or so he got convinced and started thinking of returning back, he wrote a letter to his parents and they were really happy to know his whereabouts. After few days when I went to his repair shop to meet him, I was told his father came and took him back to his home. I felt good and bad, good that he is back to his family and bad because he is gone now ... I had no contact details for him and I knew I won’t ever be able to meet with him again.

Back from Bahamas

We are back from Miami and Bahamas trip and here are the picture.
Miami Bahamas Trip

It was a great trip and all of us enjoyed a lot.

CD(USA) Vs FD(India)

The rate of interest on a fixed deposit in India is more than that in US. For NRIs living in US and other countries they can invest in FDs in India and get a higher rate of interest instead of investing in US. The money transferred to India can be transferred back to US if its done through NRE account. You can check more details with the bank in which you have the NRI accounts.

Here is a sheet that gives a calculation of the difference in the returns and how much additional gain could be generated by investing in a FD as compare to a CD in US.
Download the sheet and change the upper portion of the sheet with the amount in $s that you want to invest and the rate of Interest in India and US. This sheet can also be used for all the other countries and currencies you just need to change the upper part of the sheet with conversion rates and rate of interest.

CD vs FD xls

Miami and Bahamas

About 2 months back I planned for trip to Bahamas, I always thought it would not be possible for me to go there as I need to get visa which might be a lot of work. But as I kept reading more about the cruise and Islands in Bahamas I started thinking ...well might not be too much of work. So finally I booked my tickets and cruise ....Here is my itinary

Thursday : 5:30 PM Philadelphia to Miami
Thursday Night: Stay at La Quintas near Miami airport
Friday: Visit South Beach Miami FL
Friday: 4:00 PM Take Norwegian Sky Cruise to Bahamas
Saturday: 8:00 AM Nassau Island Bahamas, Visit Atlantis Water Resort
Saturday: 5:00 PM Back to Cruise sail for the night
Sunday: 8:00 AM Great Stirrup Cay a private island, Do snorkeling and para sailing if possible
Sunday: 5:00 PM Back to cruise
Monday: 7:00 AM reach Miami
Monday: 10:00 AM Drive to Key West FL
Monday: 8:00 PM Back to Miami FL at Newport Beachside hotel at North Miami in an ocean front room
Tuesday: Relax at hotel till 11:00 AM
Tuesday: 1:10 PM Leave for Philadelphia ..

I hope I would enjoy this trip, will take a lot of pictures and will post them once I am back ...

Financial Training Starts Early

Creation Date : Nov 14th, 2006

Posted on : Apr 20th, 2009

We, as parents, teach our children a lot about good manners, human values, morals and ethics, social etiquette, etc. At school also they have subjects such as moral science and value education. But when it comes to teaching about money and finance, we generally feel that they are too young for it.

However, money and finance are a part and parcel of our lives. And just as there is good and bad behavior, there is also good and bad financial conduct. Therefore, we need to educate our children about the basics of money and money management such as budgeting, saving, investing and not the least spending, from the early years.

Good financial habits need to be inculcated from childhood.

Moreover, today children are big spenders -- games, CDs, movies, dresses, cosmetics, etc. Hence, it is important that they learn to appreciate the value of money.

1. What is 'money' all about?

The first step is to create awareness about money. We need to explain our child the concept of money. Parents go to work to earn money. This money is kept in the banks for safety. When we buy anything from the market such as toys, dresses, food, etc. we have to pay money.

Even for going to school we have to pay fees. When we travel say in a taxi or an airplane; again we have to pay for the tickets.

Taking our child for daily shopping is a good way of making them aware of real life examples. Show them the products and their prices. As they grow, make them compare prices.

Give them coins and notes to get a feel of money. Start early. Even children of 3-4 years can differentiate amongst coins.

2. Give them a monthly allowance

Once the child is old enough to understand the concept of money, start giving them a monthly allowance. This will give them a real-life experience about money and buying & selling. Decide beforehand as to what is covered and what excluded.

It is, however, important that the decision, whether to spend or save or on which items to spend, should entirely be of the child. This will get the child more interested and also feel responsible.

Let them make mistakes. This is the best way to learn. Of course, you can guide by giving pros and cons of various options and how to make good choices. However, in certain extreme cases, say, when he wants to buy a cigarette from his allowance, you can stop him. But be sure to explain the reason for doing so.

Since the purpose of the allowance is to teach financial discipline, do not give any extra allowance or if he has exhausted his allowance do not give any advance. Similarly, on your part, pay the allowance on time. Do not delay or make them remind you.

3. Encourage saving & open a bank account

Saving is one of the earliest financial lessons to be taught. Get a piggy bank and make it a habit to give your child a coin every day to put in it. When the piggy bank is full, take out all the money. Open a separate bank account for your child with a separate passbook and chequebook.

Deposit the amount saved in the piggy bank into their account. Take the child to the bank and let them see and enjoy how the money grows.

Let your child keep the bank statements, passbook and cheque book. This will help them to learn to get organized and keep proper records.

When you start the monthly allowance, encourage your child to save a portion of the same. As a financial discipline, ask your child to save the money he receives as birthday gifts, etc.

It will make savings more fun and motivated if you link it to his buying something big from the accumulated amount say a bicycle, a doll set, play station, cricket kit, etc. Also set a time deadline.

As he grows older, tell him about how the amount in bank earns interest.

4. Budgeting

Budgeting is another important lesson for the child to learn. The resources will always be less than our desires & wants. Therefore, it is important to learn to prioritize our needs/expenses. To begin with, let them make a budget of the allowance they get. Let him make a list of what he wants and then decide what all is possible within the allowance.

Over time, he will learn to distinguish between his 'wants' and 'needs.' Remember that you would be doing a great disservice to your child if you meet all their demands.

Together with saving habits, budgeting will help him to plan for his future purchases, which may not be possible in a single allowance. He will also start appreciating the fact that money resources are not infinite and need to be judiciously used. It will also cut down the impulse buying and wasteful expenditure.

Later, as he grows older, you can involve him your family's budgeting.

5. Investing

As your child grows up you need to explain the concept of investing and risk. What is the purpose of investing? What are the broad categories of investment options? What kind of risk they carry? What study or research needs to be done before investing?

A few simple books or articles on investing would be quite helpful. And you could contribute some amount to enable them to make a few actual investments.

Also, caution them against various kinds of common frauds.

6. Using credit cards is not buying free

When we pay through a credit card, the child does not see any exchange of money. Thus he/she sometimes may get the wrong impression that we are buying things without paying any money for it. Therefore, it is important to explain to the child the concept of a credit card.

It is only an instrument of convenience & safety. Instead of carrying huge amounts of cash, it is easier making the payment through the card.

Show them the credit card bill you receive at the end of the month. This will help them to understand the payment mechanism of a credit card.

7. Handle peer group pressure positively

Peer group pressure is a situation which every parent encounters. Your child always wants something his/her friend has. However, you may be against it because either you can't afford it or even if you can you don't want to spoil your child by giving him/her everything he/she wants.

Alternatively, your child may be better-off amongst his/her friend-circle and may become arrogant and develop superiority complex.

Parents need to handle both these situations with patience. The child needs to be explained the situation in detail and inculcated with right & positive behavior.

8. Reward good financial behavior

Just as we reward good performance at school, it is equally important to reward good financial behavior. We need to appreciate and applaud our child.

If the child has been consistent in meeting the rules laid down for 'saving' and 'spending', we must praise the efforts. We could take him out for a movie or buy him a present. Or even give a performance incentive, just as we get the same from our company.

9. Be a good example

Parents are a role model for their children. They pick-up lot of habits from their parents. This is true of money-habits too. It will be difficult for you to make your child appreciate the benefits of savings if you yourself are a reckless spender. Your attitudes and beliefs about money and your behavior in money situations will shape a lot of your child's money-attitude.

Therefore, make sure that your lessons to your child are consistent with your own actions.

10. Don't overdo the money talk

A word of caution: don't make everything money-centric. It could make a child develop negative attitude about money.

Be careful of what you discuss with him. Let's say his school fees are high or he wants to join some classes, which are straining your finances. It may be advisable not to talk about this with your child, lest he may develop any guilty feelings.

Teaching your child how to handle the financial matters is as important as sending him to school. Good habits, including financial ones, take time to develop. So start as soon as you can. These real-life experiences are one of the best teaching methodologies.

The child is excited and eager to learn. He feels grown-up and gets a sense of self-importance. He picks-up and internalizes the lessons much better than bookish knowledge. Good financial management attitude and skills will benefit the child throughout his life. It is one of the best gifts we can give them.