Its crazy cold here today. Some office campuses are closed. My office had about 25% attendance today morning; I expect it to get thinner by afternoon. I don't know what happened to the MLK walks and marches scheduled around town.
Today is Makar Sankranti in many parts of India. It is also Pongal, a harvest festival, for the Tamils. Pongal literally means "boil over", figuratively means "overflow"; and the hope is that a good harvest will result in abundance all year round. The days around Pongal (both before and after) have special significances that I only wish I knew. Usually in times of doubt, I resort to two of my good friends - Google and Wikipedia. Here is the Pongal page on the latter. Helps when we know so little about our numerous traditions and festivals. In Maharashtra, where I grew up, we greet each other with "tilguL kha aNi god (pronounced 'goad') god bol". tilguL - sweet sesame balls, kha - eat, aNi - and, god - sweet, bol - say. Needless to say, tilguL are a rage this time of the year in Maharashtra. Someday, internet and time willing, I hope to understand the variety of language and traditions present to this day, much of which I follow without, at all, understanding the background and basis.
It is amazing how much information one has on his/her fingertips today. Plus there are perspectives and opinions to learn from as well. I always find good opinions on Slashdot. Folks, by and large, give intelligent comments. But it would be unfair to mention only that. It is amazing how there are a ton of opinions and a zillion ways of expressing these. Each opinion has a unique flavor that encourages an equally individual way of thought. This is especially good (works for me) for a person conditioned by experiences to think in a couple of different ways only, and therefore effect a restricted look at everything around; sort of like a horse with blinkers. Sometimes, at work, during meetings, we go around the table discussing the merits/demerits of a certain project, and I notice how the same opinion I have is effectively delivered by someone else by careful choice of words and convincing sentence constructions. Those in turn trigger a better, more intelligent discussion with wider ranging corollaries. If you have seen/experienced this before don't forget to leave a comment. Too cold and grey outdoors for me to continue....later folks.
Life moves!
10 years ago
1 comment:
Actually one of thing I noticed when I was promoted to from senior engineer to an architect position was my lack of patience for people who needed help in understanding stuff. As time went on, I started realizing more and more that it is not just the knowledge you have that matters, but the power of knowledge comes from sharing. Now anytime anyone comes to talk to me, I always always take as much time as the person need to go over the core concept. As they say in Apollo 13, impatience is not an option.
So yes it is always good to share and everytime I am talking to someone (whether a novice of the subject or the expert), I always find something new to learn - whether it is just how to explain things and in the process learn to better communicate, or just learning new stuff from the experts.
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