...shoOOonya...

came across this extremely beautiful wallpaper ... a lone island in the middle of the ocean with dark clouds over head ... it connected with me instantly ... and is now my desktops wallpaper ! whoever clicked this ... Thank You ! Do let me know ur name so that i can put it up in this post as 'image credits' :)

Bihar Floods ... You must have already heard about it, read about it, symphatised with the flood victims. wished you could do something but did not know how to do it effectively, easily ...  well ... here are two ways ... both simplified for you ...  First - Direct donations through your ICICI account. Today when i tried to login into my ICICI account, it automatically took em to a page where i could donate money for flood victims ... indeed ... it was definately a good gesture by ICICI to collaborate with GiveIndia.com ...  You can infact go directly to GiveIndia.com and donate for any cause of your choise ...  Second - a very unique and novel way for everybody to donate 'things/stuff' to flood victims by answering a few questions fo a quiz online .. spending one minute of their time ... and effetively donating biscuits, ropes, tarpauline, candles etc ... check out http://www.helpbihar.in/ and read press coverage of this initiative here  ...

So in the previous blog, you see where I work. Right next to the tallest building of the world - Burj Dubai.  Now let me tell you about the thought which struck me like a lightning bolt last week when I experienced some tremors of an earthquake on Sept 10 ... while working in office ...  The thought went like this ... Tremors of Earthquake .. furniture in my 5 storey office was shaking .. imagine the 'shake' in a 50 storey building ... in a 100 storey building ... now in the 160+ storey Burj Dubai standing next to us ...  What if ... it would be shaken adn stirred to result in a fall ... and that too in our direction ... woah ...  That was enough to scare the hell out of me ...  BUT all this was pretty short livedd .. a few mili-seconds maybe ... by then the logical side of the gray matter inside the head took over the creative side and explained very logically (obviously) that all the high rise buildings were made earth-quake proof and there was no real danger of them toppling...

Yeah ... thas where I am these days. The small tiny 7 floor building (group) to which the aroow is pointing to is the place where I work these days. Its the Emaar Square. My client company has office spaces here where our project team is placed. The seven storey building group is hardly visible against the 160+ floor Burj Dubai. Everyday I see the Burj Dubai (towering at 160+ floors - still under scontruction though) when i step out of office. Its amazing how high humans have gone in building the concrete pillars (and to think of it, there are plans already underway to have a second tower higher than this and a third which will be still higher)

The aim of education should be to teach us rather how to think, than what to think - rather to improve our minds, so as to enable us to think for ourselves, than to load the memory with thoughts of other men. I have never been happy with the Indian Education system ... I always felt the lack of 'thinking skills' . We learn (read 'rote'). We hardly understand. We rarely think. I dont think something is wrong with the education system. I think, we need to enhance it. We need to bring in practical creativity and thinking training into it. Someday ... maybe i will contribute to such measures .. :)