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I have started running at the Marina beach in the mornings. I jog from Anna Square to Light House and back. I complete it in about 38-40 mins. My pre and post jog walks are about 20-30 mins. I feel refreshed.
However, a word of caution – unlike this picture, don’t go near the water in the mornings. Men, and I repeat men, are seen relieving themselves at the shore. My guess is they are fisher folk and vendors who sell their wares in the evenings at the beach and sleep overnight.
Marina does have a beach patrol, but sadly they turn a blind eye to this spectacle. Thankfully there is no stench in the mornings. I usually reach the beach a little before 6am. There are lots of people walking, jogging, playing, doing yoga, karate, boxing, laughing (humour club) etc.,
The corporation swimming pool near Anna Square charges Rs. 15/- per session, though I have not tried it yet.
The who’s who of Chennai are supposed to be at the beach at that hour, though I am yet to bump into a celebrity. Were it not for the beach, Chennai would be unlivable.
This is the book that I am currently reading. The subtitle to this book says
Parachute emphasizes the necessity of finding one’s “mission” in life in order to obtain meaningful employment.
This book is written by Richard Nelson Bolles and he lists several reasons why a job search might include a change in career. Some key components to consider when deciding a change are:
. We made a bad choice when we first chose our career, and now we’ve decided to set it right.
∙ We’ve been asked to do the work of three, and we feel stressed out, angry, exhausted, burnt out, and grumpy…
∙ We’ve decided we want to go into business for ourselves.
∙ All we wanted in the past for a job was money, now we want a job that has meaning…
Concerning job hunting methods, Parachute contains one notable surprise. In his very detailed research Bolles reveals that the Internet, with all of its job search capabilities, may actually provide the least successful method in finding work. Too often, Bolles alleges, job seekers rely exclusively on job boards to post their résumé to and then they wait for their employer of choice to call them about an open position. Unfortunately, according to Bolles, the Internet alone only offers a 4% success rate in finding a job when it is used as the exclusive job search method.
I have just started reading the book and I agree with above. One has to get to know more people and thus widen one’s horizon. I will update this post as I progress further into this book.
The Govt. of India has recently announced Palna – the cradle baby scheme for girl child. Under the proposed scheme, the Government plans to open a centre in each district where parents can leave their girl children if they do not want to bring them up themselves. The state will then raise the child.
Jayalalitha the former chief minister had already introduced this in Tamil Nadu years ago, but its nice to see entire India covered now. The government is stressing on the girl child as they find statistics to show that female infants are the one’s abandoned the most.
It is pure ignorance, selfishness and to a lesser extent illiteracy causing this. China too has a similar problem and I suspect because of their censored media, not much is heard of female infanticide/foeticide and abandonment. Girls in Tamil Nadu, compared to most other states of India, are better educated and score more marks than boys in high school and college exams. Go to any industrial town in the state, Tirupur, Coimbatore, Chennai etc., and you will find women workers far outnumbering the men. There are more women engineers and graduates in the state and the IT and Call Centre industry reflects that.
Female emancipation has brought in its own set of problems, especially for men, but I would rather have my daughter emancipated than lead a life subservient to men in her life. I propose laws should be made stricter so that any man or woman found guilty of abandoning their infant girl should be forcibly castrated or sterilized so that they are no longer capable to repeat such callous behaviour.
More details of the Palna scheme can be found at this official press release.
I saw this movie y’day and liked it. I will not write a review as that is available all over the web. Here is my take on the movie
Pros
Watchable once
Abhishek, Mithun-da, Roshan Seth and Madhavan have done good roles
Mithun as Ramnath Goenka is very impressive
Its hard not to see the comparison between this and Dhirubhai Ambani and his Vimal and Reliance ventures
Bombay city is shown well
Its a feel good movie
Cons
Mallika Sherawat is hardly impressionable in her item number, given all the hype that was generated with her role in this movie
Vidya Balan’s role is wasted
Aishwarya thankfully does not try to act and so all is well
The song after Guru’s children are born is totally unnecessary
A R Rehman has provided no value addition to this movie unlike Mani’s earlier movies where his songs played a major part
Aishwarya Rai as a village girl and as Kokila Ben is unconvincing
I recommend you watch this movie but don’t expect an autobiography of Dhirubhai Ambani and you will not be disappointed.
