Solar System Game

This is an attempt to:

• Form an integrated approach to learning different subjects or concepts that are part of curriculum with emotional intelligence; to make the school students of various age groups aware of self perception in order to help in developing their personality.
• At work place, it will help in making the team members responsive to each other with more informal means of communication.
• This can also be a form of team building exercise with focus on every member of the team.
• The link below provides the details of the activity.

Related Documents

II समागम II

जल के स्त्रोत से मैं उत्पन्न हुई

बनकर एक बूँद,

सूर्य की किरणों के स्पर्श से

कर प्रस्फूटित विभिन्न रंग ।

पवन की लय पर थिरका

मेरा दीपशिखा सा अंग।

मंद गति से डोलती

बन विश्व की नीहारिका,

मैं उतरती गई निरंतर;

भूतल की चुम्बकीये आकर्षण के प्रत्युत्तर ।

हुआ मंद मेरा वर्ण,

जब पहुँची मैं सघन वन,

जहाँ वनस्पति के घनेरे में प्रकाश हुआ मन्द।

झरने के कलरव को सुन

मैने त्यागा चिंतन मनन।

मैं जल की एक बूँद,

जा मिली निर्झर जल धारा से -

प्रकृति के दिव्य रूप मैं हुआ मेरा समागम ॥

अस्थायी ही स्थायी है ॥

अस्थाई  ही स्थाई  है  ॥

जल की धारा जब हुई वाष्प में परिवर्तित
वाष्प ने जब किया अम्बर को मेघाच्छन्न,
मेघ ने जब किया जल वर्षण
तब समय ने कहा:
अस्थाई  ही स्थाई  है ॥

श्वास, प्रश्वास से थिरकी नासिका
हुआ आगमन जीवन का।
धड़कन बनी संगीत सृष्टि का;
पर, जब हुआ मृत्यु का आगमन,
तब समय ने कहा:
 अस्थाई  ही स्थाई  है ॥

In English:

When the water droplets transformed into clouds and veiled the sky,

When the clouds melted into the life giving rain and showered on the earth;

Then, time said, impermanence is permanent.

When breath reverberated in the mortal form as portent of life

When heart beats became the cosmic music of creation,

But, when death approached-

Then, time said, impermanence is permanent.

Creative Problem Solving: Coping With Blocks

1. Creative problem solving is the other name for innovation. We usually use the term “Innovation” for any technical solution to a problem or issues we may face. The fact is, any simple solution we arrive at to cope with any difficult situation is an innovative step we take to do so.
   When we need to decide on a course of action to solve a problem, we may work out a process, which may not give satisfactory result or may prove to be very expensive. The very fear of failing to effectively solve a problem prevents us from trying to solve it creatively. We can overcome this first hurdle to solving a problem by “Properly Processing Given Information”.
   Step One: Try to understand the information available in the form of “Raw Data” and identify the “Problem”. For instance: The Report card of a student or the balance sheet of an organization is the “Raw Data” The unsatisfactory marks/grades scored by the student or the losses incurred by the organization is the “Problem”.
   Step Two: Understand the in terms of the “Goal”. For instance: the student’s goal is to clear the exam and the goal of the organization is to generate revenue (earn more than the functional expenses incurred). Then find out the reasons where and why one has deviated from achieving ones functional objective/goal. For instance: the student, in earnest, can find out by how much he was unable to achieve the score/grade. The organization, through internal audit process can gain the needed information.
   Step Three: More information can be drawn from past experience, available in the form of memory and past data, on the processes applied to achieve similar goals in the past. Use the collected information through present and previous experience to analyse the difference and similarity with the present problem to arrive at a solution. For instance: The student can recall the satisfactory marks scored in previous exams and how he was able to do so, and what were the causes of his present failure. He can then analyze the information to find his strength and weakness, which can help him to solve the problem. The organization: through past reports and auditing conventions can also analyze the past and present data to find a solution for the present problem.
   This step-by-step method of using given data to identify the problem and find a solution is “Programming”. This problem solving model is called “Newell and Simon Model” This is successful only when:
   Accurate Raw Data.
   Problem is identified properly.
   The solution method is defined clearly.
   Barriers in Creative Problem Solving are:
   1. Mind-set: The other term used to describe it is “functional fixedness”. This usually occurs when one, who is tuned in to an existing system is unable to work out of it. This also makes the person to solve any new type of problem. For instance, for a long time, computer was considered to be a calculator and presently, many people are unable to appreciate the diverse functions of mobile phone. This is often attributed to “Negative Thinking”. Destructive (Negative) criticism is the biggest hindrance to creative problem solving and the common example is in the form of parents and teachers, through negative criticism, hinder the imaginative minds of children to cultivate the process and habit of creative problem solving.
   2. For an Individual:
   2.1. Cultural Blocks: Influence and pressure of society in the form of social customs and value systems.
   2.2. Emotional Blocks: fear, anxiety, jealousy, etc.
   2.3. Intellectual and expressive blocks: Vertical thinking or thinking in terms of “One Right Answer”; Personal beliefs and value systems; Improper sense of perception; improper self-image.
   3. For an organization:
   3.1. Lack of Resources and Management Support to try out new ideas. The biggest indicator of this is that floating or underutilized manpower is an anathema for the management of such an organization. Such organization is unable to afford “Slack” in its System, for it believes in “Task Force”.
   3.2. Bureaucracy and Red Tape: it prevents functional flexibility and prevents innovation.
   3.3. Functional Myopic Thinking: Thinking only on the lines of production, marketing, work force and finance. The organization ignores its objective of customer satisfaction, therefore ignores the relevance of understanding what customer needs and then innovate to find a creative solution for it.
   3.4. Fear of Criticism: therefore, do not put forward their ideas.
   3.5. Resistance to Change: due to aversion to change in working habits, new systems.
   3.6. Fear of Taking Risk (Job or Career may be at stake): financial loss and fear of entrapment.
   3.7. Tendency to conform: fear of fall-out with the members of the work-group.
   3.8. Emphasis on Managerial Control: Rigid financial control expects quick and financially measurable results, thus hindering any innovative activities.
   3.9. Ideas are often analysed under microscope: in order to avoid financial and other related risks.
   3.10.Rigid Hierarchical Structure:
   3.11. Tendency for one large successful breakthrough rather than many small success stories.
   
   How to Develop Climate for Creativity and Innovation in an Organization
   1. People
   1.1. People should be encouraged to take risk in their work by defining the limit of risk they can take.
   1.2. Creating and Encouraging Innovative environment is Management’s Responsibility: The management can do this by providing a given level of functional autonomy and risk taking behaviour within the organization.
   1.3. Management Should Respond Positively to New Ideas: Should not resist innovation fearing change in status quo. Should ignore personal benefits for larger benefits of the organization as the latter benefit is bound to be mutual.
   1.4. Generating Creative Ideas Requires Freedom of Thought ~ Some Degree of Autonomy: more functional autonomy develops sense of responsibility and creative thinking to problem solving.
   1.5. Motivating Innovation through Reward and Recognition
   1.6. Provide Adequate Financial Resources for Innovation
   1.7. Create a Spirit of Teamwork: Free and informal interaction, encouraging the members to identify individual functional goals with organizational goals. This can help in free sharing of thoughts and ideas and light-hearted competition to motivate creative thinking.
   1.8. Exposure of Employees to Outside Ideas: Free sharing of ideas within the organization through internal bulletins and newsletters and also through events and activities such as workshops, seminars and lectures and journal subscriptions for exposure external ideas.
   1.9. Conduct Problem-solving Retreats: To go away from place of work to a different environment to ideate together to find solution to a problem.
   2. Process
   2.1. A Continual Flow of Idea is Required
   2.2. Review or Revise Suggestion Schemes
   2.3. Establish an Innovation Council
   2.4. Provide Time for “Pet” Projects
   3. Structure
   3.1. Differentiate the Structure: Structurally, Organization should be flexible enough to respond to the changes in the External Environment. It should have well-defined cross-departmental interfaces with adequate scope to integrate in response to structural changes.
   3.2. Encourage Different Viewpoints: This can help in getting different perspectives of a problem and eventually encourage creative thinking to find an appropriate solution considering the different functional entities within the organization.
   3.3. Establish Creativity Rooms Containing Books and Idea-generating Aids
   3.4. Proper interface between R&D and Marketing: This will help the organization to find accurate solution in the form of a proper product or service to satisfy the customer base.
   3.5. Encourage Cross-Training with well developed Learning and Development Support: More the people will understand different aspects of the functions within the organization; it will improve their ability to comprehend the problem and find its fool-proof solution.

Acknowledgement: The Essence of Management Creativity (by: Tony Procter)

Resilience

When I was feeling quite low and was trying recover from a rather rather long and arduous day at the office, I saw a column in the news paper speak something about how to cope with stress. It said that one needs to be resilient to do so. The word resilience for living beings is the ability to recover from physical and emotional setback; where as, for inanimate objects, it is the physical property to regain original shape, such as the property of plasticity, elasticity. As I belong to the first category, so I tried to find out how one can cope with stress: It reminded me of the words "hardy" and "stoic". I remembered my Father asking me to be hardy enough to rough up in any stormy weather and he still compliments my Mother for stoically withstanding the onslaughts of the partition of India in the 1940s.

Resilience means the ability to cope with stress. "Resilience can be learnt and nurtured." Rapid global changes have increased stress levels affecting the individuals as well as organizations. Some individuals excel in coping with stressful conditions while others buckle under stress. Close study of those who can cope up with stress has shown a particular pattern of attitude such as "Hardiness" and "Stoicism". They are equipped with a skill set called "3Cs": COMMITMENT; CONTROL; CHALLENGE.

1. COMMITMENT: ability and above all, the determination to cope with stress causing events rather than get away from them. This will help in charting the course of events to favourable outcome.
2. CONTROL: When we commit to cope with the unfavourable events so that we can face the changing circumstances so that we can understand the situation and the problem and find ways or solution to control the events/situation.
3. CHALLENGE: we prefer to resign to fate rather than face the adversities, come what may. Through self motivation and courage we can take up challenging situations posed by the changing circumstances.

The "3Cs" help to develop the skills of:
Coping With Transformation: ability to transform oneself to cope with changing circumstances
Social Support: ability to get others too who are trying to cope with similar challenges to jointly develop a solution.

Escaping from difficulties cannot solve them as they will continue to pursue us. In order to cope with them we need good health, morale and conduct. These will help us to find innovative and civilized ways to face the challenges.

HOW TO BE RESILIENT: We tend to be resilient when we cope with hardships and challenges. The following attributes make us resilient:

1. Exposure to stressful situations early in life.
2. Sense of purpose.
3. Well nurtured self-confidence.

These help an individual to:

1. Commit to exist positively influence an individual to positively influence the adverse situation rather than avoid facing it.
2. While doing so, understand the problem to plan and devise beneficial solutions to solve the problems posed by the changing circumstances.

REASONS FOR LACK OF RESILIENCE

1. Lack of Sense of Belonging: Little or no encouragement from family and the group to cope with the challenges posed by changing circumstances, that alienates an individual from the environment he/she exists in, so the individual avoids the challenges posed by it.
2. Lack of Sense of Purpose: The alienation from the society at large causes loss of objective and sense of purpose to effectively and purposefully exist in the group/society therefore demotivating the individual to develop resilient attitude.
3. Lack of Involvement: When an alienated individual faces the challenges by the environment viz group/society, the demotivated individual undermines ones ability to cope with them. So, such individuals tend to be escapists, passive or aggressive in nature with low morale and is easily overpowered by fear psychosis.

(A) TRANSFORMATIONAL COPING This is a proactive mental and behavioural style to cope with challenging circumstances. This helps helps an individual to take essential mental and physical steps to analyze and devise methods to solve the problems. This involves three important steps:

1. Broader perspective of challenges posed by changing circumstances.
2. Deeper understanding of the factors influencing the environment to pose the challenges.
3. Then decide on the plan of action or solution to meet with the challenges.

STEP-BY-STEP PROCESS OF TRANSFORMATIONAL COPING

• Determine the magnitude or criticality of the challenge posed by the changing circumstances.
• Try to understand the problem in terms of:
  

a. How common or rampant the problem is. b. Its manageability. c. Improveability. d. Time factor e. Unpredictability. Then try to understand whether these stressing causing factors are due to:

1. Ones own personal limitations.
2. Misunderstandings.
3. Clash of ego.

These can be understood through introspection or personal reflection; feedback from others and the results of the actions taken.
NOTE: To be resilient, we need to constantly practice it until it becomes our second nature.

(B) SOCIAL SUPPORT

We can develop social support by constantly interacting with those around us. We follow the pattern of social interaction with positive exchange of help and encouragement rather than competition and over-protection.

1. We can develop social interaction map.
2. We can resolve conflicts/problems by mutually discussing it in a constructive manner.
3. Free channel of communication should be a two-way street to help encourage finding a solution to solve a problem.
4. Actual plan of action should be effectively implemented and insights along with feedback collected to assess the efficacy of the solution to solve the problems.
   

The key to this is shared views and beliefs that help in reducing conflicts in a given situation. This means that both individuals as well as organizations have to stoically explore conflict free ways to find similarities and differences in order to understand the environment they exist in and which is posing the challenges. This eventually can transform failures into opportunities to growth and development.

Swayam

स्वयं को समझ पाऊँ येही चेष्टा है मेरी।
इसी कोशिश में गैरों को अपना बना पाऊँ
येही अभिलाषा है मेरी।

स्वयं की कसौटी पर खरा उतर पाऊँ
करती हूँ हर प्रयत्न यही  कर गुजरने की।
इसी से किसी और की भी ज़िन्दगी संवार पाऊँ
यही  अभिलाषा है मेरी।

जीवन के आखिरी पल तक
स्वावलम्बी रह पाऊँ
येही अभिलाषा है मेरी।

Lesson from a Sanyasini

I was traveling from Cuttack (Orissa) to Calcutta by train.It was an over night journey. My Father was with me, to help me settle down in the city where I was to join a new job. The train reached Howrah Station, its final destination, quite early in the winter morning.My Father and I, like the other passengers were all set to alight from the train, when I saw a Sanyasini, in her late fifties, trying to step out of the train with a bag and a small basket. She was small built and frail and her saffron attire suggested that she was from Sharada Math of Ramkrishna Mission. I offered to help her with her bag, but she insisted that I carry the small basket instead for her. When we stepped on the railway platform we realized we were on the far end of it and had to walk its length to exit from the station. In sheer urgency to hire a taxi to reach our place of destination, my Father hurried ahead of us, towards the main building of the railway station, where the taxi stand was situated. Trying to keep pace with my Father, while carrying my bag and the Sanyasini's basket, I found that she was walking rather slowly but steadily behind me. I found it to be quite a task to keep pace with my Father, who was hastily milling through the crowd, while the Sanyasini was walking slowly. I was trying hard to keep both of them within my visibility range, trying not to lose track of any one of them on the crowded railway platform. In sheer exasperation, I realized that I was a stranger to the Sanyasini and she had entrusted her basket to me; while my Father who knew me, would definitely turn around to look out for me and on not finding me, would halt and wait for me to catch up with him. So, I walked within the Sanyasini's visibility range and as I had thought, I saw my Father waiting for us at the exit of the Railway station. The Sanyasini thanked me when I handed over the basket to her and said, "So, it is not easy to carry a small and light basket too. God bless you Maa" and quietly merged with the crowd.

Suggestions to...

...Teachers and Parents

• Positive attitude in life can help you help the learners overcome life's hurdles.
• Simplicity in thought and action can help the learners to accept life easily and without any complications.
• Patience with oneself, will help to patiently help the learner acquire the knowledge and experience to solve problems.
• Understand yourself in terms of your interest, strengths and weakness and your own expectations. Then, it will be easy to understand the learners' expectations too and help them in aligning their aspirations to their capabilities.
• Have a free mind and heart, sans all worries. By thinking and imagining like a child, indulging in childish fantasies like crying out loud, singing and laughing loudly, climbing trees, making paper planes and boats so that you can help the learner unleash his/her imagination and show inclination to innovate and invent.
• Introspection will help you to understand yourself, consequently help you to help the learners understand themselves and others too.
• Humility or ego management is key that requires balance of mind and heart. This helps the aggressive or passive nature transform into assertive and optimistic one.
• Plan all activities in advance so that you can help the learners also to do so and be proactive rather than reactive.
• Learning by doing is an example you can set to the learner by being honest enough accept that you do not know the answer to a question posed by the learners and make it a point to find the answer and inform the learners.
• It is important to make learners know that unlearning is as important as learning in terms of transient nature of life. Do discuss any misconceptions or wrong information and help find out or realize the required information/knowledge.
• Maintain transparency in your relationship with the learners. Openly discuss the subjects like crime, guilt, sex and human nature with the learner and educate the learners to have a positive approach to life. It is a fact that human mind remains preoccupied with thoughts of all that it is overtly restrained from dealing with. This can affect the learners' progress and wellbeing too.
• Through self-discipline and mild manners, we can encourage the learners to practice all this in their lives too.
• Do not maintain a stiff and authoritative relationship with the learners. Allow them to freely discuss their thoughts and point-of-view with you. so that you can help them to organize their thoughts and knowledge assimilated through any formal or informal learning process or any personal experience.
• Do not discriminate between your learners. Treat all of them equally while making them aware of their unique qualities and traits that can help in their growth and development.
• All this will help the learners to easily pave the way of their own life.

...Boss

• The adage, distance creates love is true in informal relationship, but in formal relationship that of superior and subordinate, it only breeds contempt. Cordial and empathetic relationship helps to maintain harmony at workplace.
• Respond to sweet or diplomatic wedges and spikes of the subordinate by reminding the latter of the purpose of his/her being part of the organization is to identify with the organization and the given responsibilities.
• During face-to-face interaction, have the subordinate seated in front of you at same level of eye contact, even when you need to discuss issues where you need to accept your mistake or vice versa.
• Avoid eating or drinking while conversing with your subordinate or, offer it to the latter.
• After harsh altercation, make it a point to discuss it amicably with the subordinate to unanimously resolve the issue.
• Keep tab of your subordinate's interests and family too. Show interest in his/her overall wellbeing and progress.
• Know your subordinate's strengths and weakness too. Do not use them for your own vested interest, but to help the latter to develop and progress on his/her career path.
• Do not impose functional goals on your subordinate, jointly set realistic goals and dissuade your subordinate from setting inflated goals just to please and impress you.
• Discuss a project/ assignment and how the subordinate intends to work on it. Hand over the project only if you find the latter to be confident and comfortable taking care of it. Initially guide your subordinate in starting the project and keep tab on its progress through regular updates. Do not ignore it, only to take ownership of its success and blame your subordinate in case it fails.
• Maintain proper and regular channel of communication, (both verbal and written) with your subordinate., so that the latter knows that you are aware and are interested to know of his/her work progress.
• Maintain complete transparency in your relationship with your subordinate so that the latter is aware of his/her role and responsibilities and appreciates the fact that his/her performance appraisal is inter-related with that of yours in terms of the organization's goals and objectives.
• Help your subordinate in planning and even participate in his/her learning plans to achieve his/her professional and personal goals.
• Avoid communicating with your subordinate in innuendos and maintain clarity in your conversation. Your subordinate should not believe that you believe more in information received through office grape-vine (unofficial channels of communication) than direct communication. This will help in avoiding any work-related stress and unpleasant situations in work place.
• Rules and regulations are to facilitate smooth and harmonious operation of the organization's activities. They are not for misuse such as encouraging the abider to break them by challenging them to do so, by constantly intimidating them of dire consequences, if they break the rules. You may encourage your subordinate to misuse them and challenge him/her to disrespect them, if you constantly intimidate the latter of dire consequences if he/she does not abide by the rules. Both you and your subordinate should be aware of the consequences of any deviation from work objective. Remind your subordinate, whenever you find him/her deviating from work objective.
• Do not make your subordinate run your personal errands for you.
• Do not discriminate between your subordinates. Treat all of them equally while making them aware of their unique qualities and traits that can help in their growth and development.
• Respect your subordinate and do not command respect from the latter.

...not I

You hurt the boy?

...not I!

You broke her toy?

...not I!

You holed up the field?

...not I!

You stole the shield?

...not I!

You wreaked the nest?

...not I!

spilled ink on Grand dad's desk?

...not I!

You ate up the cake?

...not I!

You reached school late?

...not I!

You went to the movies on sly?

...not I!

You pulled the dog's tail?

...not I!

You toppled the cart?

...not I!

You pulled her veil?

...not I!

Why do you lie?

....who, I?...

Links in a Chain

Mrs. Chandran (nee Balan), our English language teacher in the high school I was a student of, had quite an attractive personality and was role model to many of us, her students. She took the initiative to organize us and publish the first hand-made school magazine and got me to illustrate all the articles and literary contributions. I was an average student with not much inclination towards Science and Arithmetic, but I was proficient in Hindi and enjoyed the English language. Mrs. Chandran was a divorcee. Her employment as a teacher was helping her support herself and care of her two children studying in the school she was teaching in. Unfortunately, I began experiencing unpleasantness, when Ms. Chandran started pointing me out in the class for my inability to express myself properly in English and my test scores nose-dived from modest 60% to 45% I was intrigued at this sudden discovery of my lack of knowledge of English language and it shook me up too. I was not a very self-confident student and was quite introvert too. Such a sudden change in her behaviour made me lose all my confidence in expressing myself in English. One day, she blatantly told me and my classmate, Debosree Das, to take tuition from her after school hours. Then, taking tuition was not in trend and those who opted for tuition were looked down upon. I spoke to my parents and they decided it was not feasible for me to attend tuition after school, while my friend Debosree started attending tuitions after school hours. I worked hard to improve myself and still continued to earn low marks in English. Time passed and I prepared myself for ICSE exams and earned a modest score of 62%

My question is: How relevant are private tuitions? What is a school's responsibility in helping a student effectively learn a subject being taught in school?

In the early nineties, our family moved to Orissa to set up an industrial unit, but the things did not work out in our favour leading the family to face financial hardship. In order to help the family to tarry over the difficult times, many of my Uncle's friends started sending their children to me after school to help them with their studies and now, I was giving private tuitions. When I tried to explain the lessons to the children and explain various concepts and methods of language and science, the children insisted that I help them with their homework and help them prepare for class tests. In the name of preparing for class tests, I had to help them to memorise all the answers their teachers had given to them to the questions on each lesson, of course, for each and every subject! According to them, this would help them to score good marks in the examinations!

My question is: Do we study to learn and understand? Is Education in school to learn and acquire knowledge and prepare oneself for life or to score impressive marks?

While working for an organization managing its Livelihood Training Programme projects, one of my colleagues, had an uncanny way of avoiding any work-related responsibilities as he was confident that the project would fail. He would only observe us trying hard to work in organizing training programmes. I personally believe in doing my bit and execute my responsibility to the satisfaction that no stones remain unturned in completing the project.

A time came when Management tried to set a functional target for us to achieve without providing us with the required support and it was then that most of the members of the team cautiously worked on the new assignment except the gentleman, who then jumped into the arena, while we had made it quite clear to the management that both external and internal (organizational) environment was not ready to help us meet the objective. At that time, out of clear exasperation I had exclaimed at the gentleman "Can't you keep your backbone straight and your head high and clear? You are Father of grown-up kids and have seen life more than anyone of us?"

My question is: Are not the organizations and the society at large responsible or each and every individual, who is its integral unit or building block? To what extent can organization negate an individual's individuality and as a result alienate itself from those it is functioning for?

When I left the organization, one of its business partners' gave me employment. It is then I realised that the lady, who was the Director of the organization, was treating me exactly as my colleague in the previous organization and deliberately negated all the efforts made to achieve my functional objective as part of the organization. Respecting the social network and its functional objective, realising that I was employed to accept failure as part of the role reversal, without any further ado, I stopped from all my efforts in innovating and improving the operations of the organization to complete a farce called Performance Assessment when the building blocks of the organization were not in place.

My question is: Like the schools are the organizations too not responsible for its employees? IS not the failure of an employee the failure of an organization? Is not the strength and potential of an employee, is that of an organization too? Therefore, is not the overall development of an employee or its unit the responsibility of any organization?

Basics of Career & Solution Based Counseling

Counseling generally involves two individuals. The Counselor: the one provides the ability to understand viz. an issue or a set objective to help develop the ability to decide on the ways and means to achieve an objective. The Counseled: the one who is facilitated by the Counselor to clearly understand the way to resolve issues and difficulties faced and find out the ways to achieve ones goal or objective.

Our focus is generally on issues such as career exploration, career change, personal career development and other career or livelihood related issues. Typically when people come for career or employment related counseling they know exactly what they want to get out of the process, but are unsure about how it will work

Let us now focus on the two basic forms of counseling that are effective for the prospective trainees as well as the trainees we interact with while explaining to them the various Livelihood Training programme that will be appropriate for them. At times, while training them on specific skill sets under Livelihood Training Programmes, we need to counsel them on how to remain focused on their training objective. We too need to counsel the team members to meet the common functional objective of the team.

(A) Career Counseling:

This is useful while counseling candidates from educational institutions or those who seem quite aware and are trying to develop their career or striving for appropriate means of livelihood.

Career counselors work with people from all walks of life such as adolescents trying to explore career options or with experienced professionals looking for a career change. Career counselors typically have a background in psychology, vocational psychology, or industrial/organizational psychology.

Each and every counselor has his/her unique way of counseling, but generally they generally use one or more ways to find out the interest, ability and aptitude of those they are helping in deciding on career options or appropriate means of livelihood. These assessments typically include: interest inventories, cognitive ability tests to find out the level of formal education i.e. school, pre-university, college or other levels of formal education, and personality assessments i.e. self assessment or behavioral traits such as integrity, Kindness, responsibility, determination, team work, etc.

Interest Inventories:

An interest inventory is a self assessment tool, used in career planning, that assesses one's likes and dislikes of a variety of activities, objects, and types of persons; the premise is that people in the same career (and satisfied in that career) have similar interests.
Examples:
· Ramana, who is aspiring to be a sales executive has listed his hobbies as making friends, traveling, learning languages, etc and the successful sales professionals have similar interests and their job description mentions that they need to get new clients and develop good client relationship. They need to travel to meet clients and make business deals with people who are located in distant places.
· Reshmi, who is a young Indian village girl, but is very shy by nature yet wants to work in the BPO industry has a very good voice and likes to sing, can play the harmonium and easily works on its keys and is good in accounting work; therefore shows all the interest and potential to be groomed into a successful Executive in BPO industry

Career counseling basically consists of four elements:
(a) Helping individuals to gain greater self-awareness in areas such as interests, values, abilities, and personality style.
(b) Helping individuals to gain opportunity awareness by connecting individuals to resources so that they can become more knowledgeable about jobs and occupations.
(c) Through job search engaging students in the decision-making process in order that they can choose a career path that is well suited to their own interests, values, abilities and personality style, and
(d) Through self-assessment assist individuals to be active managers of their career paths (including managing career transitions and balancing various life roles) as well as becoming lifelong learners in the sense of professional development over the lifespan.

Following is the detailed Checklist of the four basic steps of Career Counseling activity:

Checklist of Career Counseling Steps

The Checklist

Self-awareness:

1. What are my values?
2. What are my skills and abilities?
3. What are my interests?
4. What is my personality style?
5. What other life roles are important along with my job or occupation?
6. What are the family and cultural influences on my career path?

Opportunity-awareness:

1. What kinds of occupations and jobs am I suited for?
2. How much do I know about these different fields (job description, amount of pay, working conditions, opportunity for advancement, whether there is a demand for this field, the types of tasks performed, etc.)?
3. What are my options (possibilities: further study/training, work shadowing/ work experience/ volunteer work as a stepping stone towards long-term employment)?
4. What are my short-term and long-term goals?
5. How do I make decisions about these options?
6. Provide all necessary information on options available as professional training programmes that can help the individual to avail livelihood opportunities available according to his/her interest and aptitude.

Job search (How to prepare oneself for it):

Explain to the individual how Professional Training Programme will help him/her:

1. How do I prepare my resume and Job Application letter?
2. What do I need to know about attending a job interview?
3. How to search for employment opportunities? Contact potential employers to provide employment opportunities after the individual completes the professional training programme.
4. How to prepare oneself for career in the chosen industry’s specific domains viz. Customer Service in Retail industry.
Self Assessment
Self assessment is an important step in career planning process. It is the process of gathering information about oneself in order to make an informed career decision and plan and progress on the career path by regularly updating thus information. A self assessment should include a look at the following: values, interests, personality, and skills.

When you are able to clarify your own interests, values and skills then you can understand better about jobs/ careers which are a good match for you and those which are not. When you are well-matched to the career/ job you are likely to be more motivated and successful in your work, and would enjoy the job more than the person who is poorly suited for the same. That is why self awareness is so critical for successful career counseling.

An effective counselor helps a job aspirant in Self Assessment and guides the individual to Appropriate Livelihood (related Skill) Development Training Programme, if necessary, while enabling the individual to plan his/her career.

Individual Character Awareness is very important and Interest Inventory also has six basic character traits:
1. Kindness
2. Integrity
3. Community Existence
4. Determination
5. Responsibility
6. Respect
Based in part on the “Six Pillars of Character,” these traits are seen as cornerstones of good character and are necessary for social progress—regardless of one’s religious beliefs or cultural background. The Character Development Scale (CDS) allows individuals to explore their character development by rating how well actions and attributes tied to these six traits apply to them and this helps in their career development and advancement too.

(B) Solution Based Counseling:

This is useful while counseling candidates from slums, villages and other rural areas.

The counselor uses respectful curiosity to invite the candidate to envision their preferred future and then counselor and candidate start attending to any moves towards it whether these are small increments or large changes. To support this, questions are asked about the candidate’s story, strengths and resources, and about exceptions to the problem, seeking employment or means of livelihood.
Solution focused counselor believes that change is constant. By helping people identify the things that they wish to have change in their life and also to attend to those things that are currently happening that they wish to continue happening, Counselor helps the candidate form a concrete vision of a happy future for themselves through self development and livelihood opportunity available through various Livelihood/Career Development Programmes. The counselor then helps the candidate to identify an appropriate livelihood programme that will help to progress towards the desired future. Through many success stories of candidates with similar profile who have succeeded in charting the course for their life. Get such candidates to share their success stories with the job aspirants as that will boost latter’s hope and confidence. Through this exercise, the counselor can motivate the job aspirants to overcome their failures and help them plan and move towards their goal. In this way, the counselor helps the candidate devise methods to analyse the problems they face and draw up a solution to overcome them. Thus counselor helps the candidates move towards the preferred future they have identified.
Solution focused counseling can be seen as a way of working that focuses exclusively or predominantly at two things:
1) Supporting people to explore their preferred futures.
2) Exploring when, where, with whom and how pieces of that preferred future are already happening.

Coping Questions
Coping questions are designed to elicit information about candidate's available resources that will help the candidate to decide on the livelihood/career along with the required training programme(s) and how to organize finances for executing his/her career plans. Counselor should help the candidate to organize and cope with the available resources to avail to help the candidate develop required knowledge/skill specific to the chosen profession. "It is really nice to see how you are coping with your existing resources to travel from your village to come and meet me. Let me help you see how you can work out your joining one of the Livelihood programmes and in successfully getting a job at the end of it!"
Genuine curiosity and admiration can help to highlight strengths without appearing to contradict the candidate's view of reality. The initial summary "I can see that things have been really difficult for you" is for them true and validates their story. The second part "you manage to join the programme.", is also a true, but one that counters the problem focused narrative. Undeniably, they cope and coping questions start to gently and supportively challenge the objections raised by a candidate to joining a livelihood programme.
Problem Free Talk
Problem free talk is often over looked as a technique. In Solution focused counseling, it is thought to be a useful technique for eliciting resources. Many people do leisure activities that relax them, or have experiences of being assertive, and many other useful resources that can help. The counselor can also gather information on the candidate`s values and beliefs and their strengths. From this discussion during the counseling session the counselor can use these strengths and resources to help the candidate decide and confirm his/her joining appropriate livelihood programme. For example; if a candidate finds it difficult to convince his/her parent or is not free with parents to take their consent to join the programme then get a meeting with the parents organized through the candidate.

Checklist of Support and Materials needed during Counseling
1. Venue in the form of a comfortable place where two people can comfortably sit and talk to each other.
2. A note pad and a writing pen for the counselor to take notes while speaking to the candidate
3. Drinking water
4. Adequate fresh air and light
5. Information Materials on various career options available.
6. Information on financial assistance available to meet the professional training/education expenses.
7. Materials for Aptitude test or such assessments.
8. Information on the Industry Clients and domains and career opportunities in them.
9. Counseling log book to maintain candidate wise records for case studies.

Important
· It is important to counsel that parents and guardians of the candidates when counseling the candidates to various livelihood programmes Counsel the parents during the mid-term assessment of the trainees.
· Counsel the parents on how they can participate in the process of their child’s career planning & development.

Ponder

I wanted to rush to the office, so I opted to travel by auto rickshaw than B.M.T.C. (Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation) bus. The auto-rickshaw driver was aware of my anxiety, so he dexterously negotiated the traffic on the road to avoid getting stuck in the jam; while doing so, he narrowly escaped brushing passed a car that suddenly appeared on the left hand-side without honking its appearance. The auto-rickshaw driver lost his cool and yelled at the driver for causing the confusion. In order to avoid further delay, I requested him to move on and explained that there are better ways of making  erring drivers aware of their follies. I broke into conversation with him and realized that all those who are behind the wheels on the road break the traffic rules at some point in time, but they tend to generalize and blame those who make them feel as the underdogs  to be the guilty party. For instance, the auto-rickshaw drivers consider the private car owners as the bullies, who consider the roads to be their private property, while the private car owners consider the auto-rickshaw drivers to be the dare-devils who don't even bat an eye lid to violate traffic rules; therefore the blame game continues. 

This made me aware of the fact: the road traffic of a city very much depicts its urban character, its personality. It shows how urbane the inhabitants are. 

The topic of discussion eventually changed from private vehicle owners versus auto-rickshaw drivers to the roads and traffic in Bangalore and how much the vehicular traffic had increased within the past ten years. Sayeed (that is his name, owner of the auto-rickshaw, who was ferrying me to my office in Gandhinagar, Bangalore) a young lad in his mid twenties seemed to be quite well versed in the arterial system of the city roads and also had expert comments on the methods Bangalore Metropolitan Corporation had devised to DE-congest traffic on busy routes. When I further probed him to find out if he had a better solution than the one implemented, I was amazed to also receive some rather innovative solutions from him. He pointed out that most of the traffic congestion near Bangalore race course was due to sudden spate of high rises springing up on the Race course road. Neither Race course, nor the high-rises that house many offices have adequate parking space make the car owners park their vehicles on the road causing traffic congestion. The problem could be solved through multi-tiered or underground parking lots. He also cited the congestion caused by the underpass and fly-over at Maharani Collage Circle that added to the massive traffic problem at K.R. Circle. This could be solved by extending the fly-over and deviating the private vehicular traffic from Gandhinagar area through the connecting roads to de-congest traffic at K.R.Circle. 

I recalled that I had also come across a mason (brick layer) working at a construction site close to my place of residence who, through his years of work experience in construction, had some innovative ideas, but did not have the opportunity to hone his skills and formally blue-print his ideas  as any trained professional can do. Many of the construction site workers have rural background with ample knowledge of indigenous construction especially adobe homes and when they are trained in modern techniques of architecture, they will be able to contribute effectively in innovating indigenous designs suitable and better adapted to the local climes, rather than we aping the western architecture that are ill-suited to the environment and add more to the ecological problems such as unusual warming up of the environment due to excessive use of glass as facades of the buildings.

Similarly, our farmers, sons of the soil, have generations of know-how of the land they till and crops they grow. When they are trained to more scientific approach in honing their skills to improve methods of cultivation and the crops they grow. We will be able to improve our indigenous methods of cultivation and reduce the plasticity of western technology that has alienated us from the natural means of producing crops and through profuse use of chemicals has affected the arability of land.

Are we not depriving ourselves of potential talent that remains untapped and unfortunately disused in the form of unorganized workforce in the form of farm hands, construction site workers, foundry workers and industrial workers, who are to blindly follow the methods to eke their living, rather than train them on the job, hone their skills to use their ingenuity to improve the techniques oriented to the environment: climate, land and the inhabitants. Then we can say that we have innovated and the whole country has evolved and not just grown organically and developed materially.

Do all the inhabitants contribute in planning and improving the village, town or city we live in to eventually develop a sense of belonging so that we can dispel the feeling of alienation that we try to diffuse through blame game? This is the question I asked myself when I paid the auto-rickshaw fare and started walking towards the office building. 

Computers, Information Technology to Bridge Generation Gap

"Baba, why don't you write emails to me when we have computer and internet system at home?" Asked Meghna when she visited her parents during her visit to India from Norway. Father and daughter had many common interests and both enjoyed sharing their views on the current events and developments both on the national as well as global front. The only point of difference between the two was the use of technology in daily life. Meghna's Mother chuckled and said "I have failed in making your Father use electronic gadgets, see if you can succeed..." Meghna immediately picked up her laptop and placed it in front of her Father and said "Baba, I am going to leave this for you and before I go, I will ensure that you begin using it!" while saying so, she deftly opened the system and with a click of mouse button the computer was transformed into a music system playing her Father's favourite Western Classical songs, Occidental classical songs and music. She encouraged her Father to go through the play list to choose the songs he wanted to listen to. Suddenly the melodious reverie was interrupted when the computer suddenly started tinkling like a telephone!! "Baba, sit up, now it is time for you to video chat with Manik Uncle in Iceland!" She quickly pulled her Father up to sitting position in front of the computer and nimbly tapped on the keyboard and hey presto! the computer screen transformed into TV screen and the whole family could see Meghna's Manik Uncle's cheerful and animated face appear on the screen which broke into a big grin and he yelled "Hey Sagar, how are you? you seem to have lost weight and look, your hair line too has receded beyond the visibility range? What are you all up to? how's the festival season in India? Thanks to Meghna that I have got a chance to chat live and face to face with you! The families in India and Iceland had a memorable reunion through the web meeting and all bade teary eyed farewell promising to login in again soon to such web meeting. After dinner, Meghna and her parents once again sat down in front of the computer to see an old movie, which was her parents' all time favourite. During her fortnight visit to her parents, Meghna spent most of the time with her parents in using the computer to help them unravel the versatility of the machine and by the end of the fortnight, she had succeeded in getting her parents hooked to the computer system. At last, it was time for Meghna to bid goodbye to her parents and get back to Norway and her work. Her parents had come to see her off at the airport. When Meghna heard the Airline's departure call, she hugged her parents and said "Baba, I'll eagerly wait for your aerogramme..." Before she could complete, her Father said, don't forget web meeting with us as soon as you reach there and then it will be my turn to call you on web meeting, your Maa and I...take care my dear and safe journey. Thanks for the computer, I will use it when ever both of us will miss you and want to contact you..." Meghna was moved to tears, tears of joy crept from the corner of her eyes as she hugged her parents good bye.

Analysis in the Process of Learning...What About Assimilation?

"Do you know your p's and q's ?" We seem to often ask this question to the children when they are unable to discern the thin line that causes all the difference between two or more objects or concepts and that seems to be the very foundation of "Adult Material World", where we identify through differentiation, which is the crux of the function called "Analysis".

This is the very reason why in our existing education system of learning we believe more in the concept of organic learning (based on our five senses) like committing facts to memory or reasoning to differentiate in order to derive the uniqueness of an entity or to group or regroup the entities to conceptualise the very existence of a "belief" culminating into religious, cultural or political form. This is the primary reason why we eventually encourage any learner to analyze the very existence of an entity in its physical form and this is the fundamental principle of SCIENCE, which deals with the material aspects of an entity and even a thought and idea is immediately given a physical form or shape.

This also makes the learning process fall short of its very objective of making a learner realise the universal truth that one needs to be be aware of ones existence beyond the physical one. This is only possible through assimilation of one primary truth: "Everything is part of one, in its entirety". This is possible only by identifying one with the other leading to a more holistic approach in understanding the existence or various concepts and entities that blend with each other to form "complete one". This is not possible through our present system of education that is based on differentiation and not on assimilation. Assimilation encourages a learner to apply various concepts to realize ones own existence and this encourages the learner to realize that differences only appear in physical existence and everything ultimately blends into one whole concept of existence beyond the physical one.

Our education system ignores the very organ of human anatomy which is vital for the very existence of the process called "Learning and Education"! It is the well developed human mental faculty which makes human realize the existence beyond the physical existence and try to understand existence beyond the faculty of senses. Unfortunately, our current education system believes in unraveling the mysteries of all that challenges the physical senses by analyzing the facts and deducing or inferring the cause and effect of anomalies that defy the logic of the senses.; so do the animals with less developed mental faculty, so are they not better equipped than us to physically exist by their natural instincts in their natural surroundings?

Let us take the example of Robinson Crusoe, who,when marooned on an island was able to easily identify with the surroundings and ultimately realized that his formal knowledge only helped him in his physical existence on the island and the act of his "Man Friday" to save him from the tribal on the island makes him aware of the "Metaphysical" existence, the identification beyond the physical identity, which we cannot derive by analyzing any concept or entity. Awareness of metaphysical existence is only possible through assimilation, which we, unfortunately do not have in our current education system.

Should we not give it a thought?

What Education Really means?

On a bright and sunny day, the six year old Shiuli jumped out of the school bus and ran into the arms of her Mother. She enthusiastically handed her Annual Report to her mother and said: “Mummy look, I will now go to class two (Standard/Level two of Primary School)! I am a big girl now!” Shiuli’s Mother kissed her and absorbed the contents of the Report Card. She looked at Shiuli and said, “Dear, you have stood second in your class, then who stood first in your class?” To this, Shiuli innocently replied, “Kakoli got No. One position, but Mummy, she has got only One while I have got Two and Madhavi has got Thirty, which is more than what I got, then why Teacher said that she cannot go to class two with us?”
Henceforth, it became an unwritten rule for Shiuli to mention her position in the class while handing her progress report to her Mother. It was yet another Final Examination Report declaration day and Shiuli was to collect report of her year-long progress in Sixth standard. She went to school with her friend Tulsi and her Mother. When Shiuli received her report card, she first checked was her rank in the class. She then hurried out of the school compound to find Tulsi’s Mother waiting for them, who smiled at Shiuli and took her in her arms. At this loving gesture Shiuli blurted out, “Mashi (Maternal Aunt), I have stood sixth in the class, I don’t know whether Mummy will be happy or not.” In reply Tulsi’s Mother held Shiuli close to her and reassuringly replied, “My dear daughter, you have cleared the exam and that’s all that matters, not the position you have attained in the class.”
While reminiscing her experience as a student Shiuli, who now is a mother of young girl herself, has these questions that she is still trying to answer: We are community beings but, does our marks and competition oriented education system help an individual to be fully aware of ones own potential and how to harness it to ones own benefit and that of the community? Is our education system geared up to prepare automatons and not enlightened individuals adequately prepared to co-exist in the society and not treat anyone and everyone as a contender one needs to compete with to improve ones own existence? Our Straight-jacketing form of education system begins the ordeal of tension and stress from our very childhood and the rat-race like existence that makes an individual prematurely burn out through undue stress and strain caused by the very misconception of “Struggle for Existence” and “Survival of the Fittest” within the community, when community animals like elephants, ants, lions et al have proved it wrong through their community existence where they co-exist and not out-perform each other within the community. Education system should be a prop or chains to fetter down an individual and smother his/her creative potential? Do the parents and teachers have to educate the children through comparative analysis and invariably fail to identify the true potential of a child?
Pramila Mohanty, who is a Computer Science Teacher in a High School in Orissa, narrated her experience as a teacher:
While helping the students of Class Nine and Ten with their Computer Project and Practical Evaluation as part of the Board Exams, she used to team them up with three students in each team. While teaming the students she used to keep above average, average and a slow learner in each team and make sure that none of them were good friends, so that it would be a chance for them to get to know each other too. She used to mark them on their intra-personal (within the team) and inter-personal (with other teams) skills and all the students were aware of it. The students were also aware of being graded on their performance, so the question of vying with each other for marks did not arise. The students were encouraged to pick up a topic for the computation project either from any of the subjects they were studying in school or from their everyday life or of any commercial scenario. No two teams could work on identical topics.
It was an external evaluation day for Class Ten students and just an hour before the arrival of the external Examiner, a team realised that it had lost the program code of its project it had saved on a computer system in the computer lab. Before Pramila could find a solution (of approaching the External Examiner, who had been handed over the floppy disk of the codes that were to be verified with the one in the computer systems allotted to the teams, and requesting for some more time to recover the code), all the students of the batch had already volunteered to type the code manually documented by the members of the team and then to compile it and hand it over to the team. The students achieved this herculean task within the hour of arrival of the Examiner!
Pramila too has the following questions in mind: Why do we have to have marks scoring system of education? Does it help us to know whether the one who has secured the highest marks in all the subjects has developed into a good human being too? We say that education means over all development of a human being but in the present system of education are we also giving due attention to the health (physical and mental) health of the students, their personality development? How well equipped is the education in developing the skill of an individual according to ones aptitude, that will eventually help one to develop into a successful professional? When will the education system help the parents to think out of the box and stop pressurizing their wards to become an engineer or a doctor, etc and allow her/him to pave their own path in life?

A Conscientious Voter

Any citizen of a country is responsible for its wellbeing and can eventually take care of it by conscientiously exercising ones voting rights to elect representatives for effective and progressive governance, reflecting the voters’ will and efforts to social progress and national development at large. To make this happen, every voter should (irrespective of origin, gender, religion, caste and creed):
· Freely and easily identify self with the nation as its citizen. Be proud of the identity.
· Be educated and literate with knowledge of the country’s Constitution.
· Be aware of Duties and Responsibilities as a citizen of the country as well as ones global responsibility too.
· Be aware of the Rights and Privileges as a citizen of the country.
· Be aware of the National Heritage and its resources (natural, infrastructural, cultural, financial, human, etc.) and above all the ecology.
· Be aware of the National Objective (not only in terms of own well being but that of the neighbours too, both nationally and globally) considering the previous point.
· Be aware of the ways of organizing and conducting effective governance to meet the national objective.
· Be aware of the political groups and their political agenda in terms of fulfilling the national objective.
· Be aware of the members of the political group and their credentials in terms of their personality traits, their qualification, their achievements in the past and how all this will help in achieving the national objective. Functional transparency followed by the political groups as national representatives.
· Above all, should be aware of the fact that self interest or any vested interest should not be above national interest, therefore both the integrity of the voter and the members of any political group is at stake in terms of commitment to national development as well as global harmony along with ecological balance.

Amiss

While recalling my life in M.E.S. College, Bangalore as a student of ‘B.A.’ Second year, I smiled to myself remembering my contesting the College Student Council elections in 1985. I am a shy individual, who is also an introvert and had a handful of friends in the college. It’d been a year since I had shifted from Calcutta to Bangalore but had not found it difficult making friends with my classmates. I had made friends with Anuradha Kanti, who was a year senior to me in the college and was behaviourally contrary to my rather passive demeanour. She had contested the Student Council Elections the previous year for the post of Lady General Secretary but had lost. This, year (1985), it was Election time again in the college.
In the college, the Student Council comprised of President, Vice President, General Secretary Boys and General Secretary for Girls [G.S.Girls] (Since it is a Co-education college) and all them were elected members of the Council. The students had to contest for the posts through student syndicates (aka parties) and not as independent candidates. This year too, as all the other years, syndicates were formed but one of the syndicates did not have a candidate to contest for the post of General Secretary Girls (G.S.Girls), therefore were not allowed to contest in the elections. There were only ten days to go (as the college allowed only 20 days to campaign for the elections) and I had Anuradha Kanti and two of my friends and class mates: Syeda Noor Asma and Anitha R.K. approach me to join the syndicate as contestant for the post of G.S.Girls. I was dumb founded as I had never even dreamt of participating in elections except as a voter. I asked for a day’s time to confer with my Grandmother and Maternal Uncle, who were my guardians, to decide on my joining the syndicate. My Grandmother was against it while my Uncle urged me to go ahead and experience contesting elections irrespective of the results. I told them that I had to pay Rs.160/- towards the promotional material expenses: pamphlets and banners and with their permission joined the syndicate the following day. While campaigning, I found that most of the students asked me whether I knew Kannada or not and what I had done for my classmates, to which I replied that I would learn the language if they would help me do so and also that I was not elected as Class representative to do anything for my classmates ~ following the axiom that “Honesty is the best Policy”.
On day three of my election campaign, which was day thirteen of general college syndicate election campaign, I found a small white cloth banner with the Words “ELECT AS G.SECRETARY-GIRLS” covering the length and breadth of the banner with the name (SUNIPA SEN) in blue just below it appearing as the atomic number of some chemical element or compound! This banner, which was strung to the branches of a tree opposite to the college main gate, too disappeared on the seventeenth day of election campaign. The pamphlet too had the name of the candidates of the syndicate at the bottom while three fourth of it was devoted to the manifesto. I was skeptical of even getting at least 9 votes as the promotional materials did not help in giving visibility to the candidates of the syndicates. There were three syndicates contesting and the other two syndicates were campaigning aggressively giving ample focus and visibility to the candidates.
The Election Day arrived and I was quite confident that all the members of our syndicate would get the least number of votes, but was amazed to find that we were the second in command as we lost to all the victors by an average margin of 25 to 30 votes and it was quite an achievement.
I thank my class mates, who elected me as the class representative to student council and the whole class made history by becoming the first to celebrate Kannada as well as English New Year. Go on two-day long excursion to Mysore and Ooty. Get fans and additional lights installed in the new classroom we occupied as students of BA final year. We were also the first batch to donate books to college library as part of our farewell ceremony.
I was reminded of all this while recalling my stint with TeamLease as Programme Coordinator when I was entrusted with the responsibility of organizing Job Fair at Jaipur in the year 2008, with Rajasthan Government’s department for Training and Employment. We had to organize the event for maximum 10,000 people within 10 days and with no prior experience in organizing such an event, we did manage to prepare ourselves with nearly 25 clients and 22 training companies to meet nearly 10,000 candidates during the daylong event; but to our amazement, we met more than 30,000 candidates on that day though we did not have adequate contingency plan to do so nor the required support from the State Government’s sponsoring department to manage such a surprising number of job aspirants, but we did it. We provided employment to nearly thousand candidates through the event. The Chief Minister Mrs. Vasundhara Raje too graced the occasion, as it was part of her election campaign and she too eventually lost the subsequent election and TeamLease too, in the meanwhile had organized its team of professionals with experience in event management to subsequently organize such events. What I learnt from both my experiences was, being a winner or being successful in a venture does not matter, but what really matters is you doing your bit to the best of your ability with all those who are with you and as long as it is being done for the benefit of everyone and not for any vested interest.