Thriving in Tricolor

There is a feeling of freedom in the air

Engulfing the country with no home to spare

Citizens, proud of their nation's valor

Taking pride in hoisting their own tricolor 

Their leader's patriotism has raised the bar

Cascading a net of optimisim wide and far

Communities, Companies, small and large

Strengtheing its bond to face any barge

There is uncertainty in the immediate neighbourhood

Warmongering with an aim to severe brotherhood

Countries indebted are strained and in despair 

Borrowing more to fend, feed and fare

Their need can be the want and wisdom of our nation

Farming and manufacturing have been our prized occupation

Collaboration among its States can do many a miracle

Producing more together can save thy neighbours in debacle

There were visionaries who laid a strong foundation for growth

Monitizing that visions' outcome must be our true north

Start-ups are in the making, and making like never before

Uprising it is, let's all pledge to bring our nation to the fore! 

Jai Hind!

© Balaji Palanidurai

Doctors day!

1st of July, it is Doctors Day 

Save us they do from doomsday

We visit them when in pain

Treatment we get, rain or shine 

Our life for them is no bargain

Play with it we do time & again

Sick or pandemic they don't fear 

Practice they do in protective gear

Early interest they have in biology

Mature they get learning technology

Operations they do small and big

In retirement too we seek their gig

From hospitals and then to clinic 

Patients they save in the nick

Rest they too seek when in need

Let's acknowledge and pay heed

Quality of health is in our hands

Care let's take before it disbands

With food and lifestyle let's reassure

Prevention is better than cure!

©Balaji Palanidurai

PC: The Hans India

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I dedicate this narrative poem to the all doctors and esp to the team of doctors in GEM hospital Chennai, India. They did a marathon surgery for my uncle and gave him a second lease of life.

This morning I met a friend who mentioned that his son is determined to write the NEET competitive exam to become a doctor. I am sure something in his life would have triggered this interest. If I get an opportunity to go back in time I think I would definitely take up medicine. I know many friends who sacrificed their youth to study for years to together to become a doctor. My respect to them for their passion and perseverance.

May this tribe grow in numbers and help this world face any pandemic.

My Aunty!

"Aunty", the word is probably the second most used English word that Indians inherited from the British. First being "Sir", which is a word better left to the knights but its a bit too complex. Just like the railways, another popular and productive legacy of the British, that crisscrosses through the country, these words, too, have made inroads to most parts of the Country and are widely used by people from all walks of life.

I grew up in a State built gated community for middle income group (MIG Flats by Tamilnadu Housing Board) in the metro city of Chennai, India. All 136 flats, 8 in each block from A to Q were uniformly designed 700 square feet apartments. Each had 2 spacious bedrooms, one with attached toilet, a living room, kitchen, a common toilet and 2 balconies. The last being my favorite dugout where 50% of my childhood 'wonder- hours' were spent!

I learnt many life-skills, from cooking to confidence and communication to compassion from many aunties in that community. They were mostly my friends mother or other elderly women in the community who took interest in my development. Most were graduates, in arts or science, pursing doctorate as home-makers! Some had not even finished school. But, they were really good in what schools now teach as SUPW, value education and home economics. 

There is one such aunty, our immediate neighbour, who played a very important role in my early years and up until my youth. She turned 80 this year and I gave her a surprise visit with my children. She was the first person I addressed as aunty. I would have been 5 or 6 years old then and in the next 40 years, up to now, I may have addressed 1000s more as aunty. But, I have a very special bond with her and the rest is history, or should I say herstory!

Most mornings would start greeting her from either of the two balconies. On special days it included exchanging delicacies in baskets hooked to the end of a long bamboo stick. I learnt basic cooking, making dosa and omelet, from her while my mother was making the same for my father who used to be on long deputations away from home. My mother would confidently leave both her teens under the supervision of this aunty who herself had three children to take care of, much older than me and my sister though.

She used to help me with the correct usage of English language. I still remember the day when she corrected me, "You should say, today is my birthday". Till then I used to go around distributing sweets saying, "Today is my happy birthday!", I would have been 7 years then and English was not my first language :-)

She used to advocate maintaining good health and introduced me to ab-wheel-roller to strengthen my core. She used to proudly campaign about progress, I would make, to other children in the community and it continues even today. She finds it hard to believe that I now have children who are old enough to comprehend the special bond I shared with her when I was their age!

My wife tells me her students in the school she recently joined, call her Aunty. It happens to be that school's policy and culture that children must address teachers as "aunty"! I am 100% supportive of this culture. In fact, I would be happy to re-write the age-old phrase to "Matha, pitha, aunty, deivam!". 

©Balaji Palanidurai

Keats quotes: 2022!

"Design thinking for natural instinct shoud be it's basic instinct" - 11th Jan 2022

"Mutual recognition rewards and will eventually be rewarding." - 16th Jan 2022

"Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower."~ Steve Jobs. 

"Patriotism cannot be our final spiritual shelter; my refuge is humanity. I will not buy glass for the price of diamonds. And I will never allow patriotism to triumph over humanity, as long as I live." ~ Rabindranath Tagore

26th Jan (was shared in M92 Group by RP)

“Your presence has no meaning when your absence doesn’t alter their life."

~ Anonymous 

26th Jan (was shared in M92 Group by Muthu)

"Life is a learning and we are all learners for life" ~ Balaji Palanidurai

"The greater part of happiness or misery depends on our dispositions, not our circumstances.~ Martha Dandridge Custis. 

12 Feb 2022 (was shared in M92 Group by Muthu)

Commitment 

When you are intersted in something , you will do only when circumstanaces enable. When you are commited, you will create the required environment 

©Balaji Palanidurai unless otherwise stated explicitly

Sustainable mind at sunset

My sustainable mind during sunset 

is like a raging fire of the wild wild west.

Filled with ideas worth a million $ bet,

for wealth accrued in an angels closet.

Using the red skies as a green canvas

it creates mission statements, for a cause;

a vison to reach beyond the horizon

and, in mankind; it reimagines compassion

For clean air to breath as the outcome

it chooses personal value over income

In tandem, to elevate human potential

it fears not to sweat it's share of capital

As the vision gets wider it's canvas bigger

Liaisons join and alter the narrative together

In friends & family and neighbour

it seeks an, all weather, seed investor

"Is it an idea worth sharing?", it checks on TED

"Until proven, it's a just a story", TED said

It's matter of mindset and race against time

Proven it will be, when climate rings a chime

©Balaji Palanidurai

The Smartphone!

Designed by creative minds of the world

Gets sold in billions every year, we are told.

A tool for productivity, whilst used wise

The reason for distraction, it is otherwise.

Intelligence, it develops every time in use 

Insight it builds, with information we produce.

Text, images and videos, many it can store

Interactive it is; can get addictive to the core.

Desire of children and ire of parents

Fulfilled if not, the road to peace ends!

In its cusp & shadow, live most teens

To socialize virtually, it provides them means.

Life of few hours it has through a battery

Feature to turbocharge is akin to flattery.

A status symbol, it is for high networth

Without a network, it hardly proves its worth.

Simple it was, smart it is, smarter it will be

To make it do more, for some is a hobby.

The smarter we make it, less it will be a phone

Implant it will be, priced for our skintone!

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©Balaji Palanidurai

Predictions from WhatsApp University

Interesting predictions you may see turning true in this new decade

1. Auto repair shops will disappear. 

2. A petrol/diesel engine has 20,000 individual parts. An electrical motor has 20. Electric cars are sold with lifetime guarantees and are only repaired by dealers. It takes only 10 minutes to remove and replace an electric motor.

3. Faulty electric motors are not repaired in the dealership but are sent to a regional repair shop that repairs them with robots.

4. Your electric motor malfunction light goes on, so you drive up to what looks like a car wash, and your car is towed through while you have a cup of coffee, and out comes your car with a new electric motor!

5. Petrol pumps will go away.

6. Street corners will have meters that dispense electricity.  Companies will install electrical recharging stations; in fact, they’ve already started in the developed world.

7. Smart major auto manufacturers have already designated money to start building new plants that only build electric cars. 

8. Coal industries will go away. Gasoline/oil companies will go away.  Drilling for oil will stop. So say goodbye to OPEC! The middle-east is in trouble.

9. Homes will produce and store more electrical energy during the day and then they use and will sell it back to the grid. The grid stores it and dispense it to industries that are high electricity users. Has anybody seen the Tesla roof?

10. A baby of today will only see personal cars in museums. The FUTURE is approaching faster than most of us can handle.

11. In 1998, Kodak had 170,000 employees and sold 85% of all photo paper worldwide. Within just a few years, their business model disappeared and they went bankrupt. Who would have thought of that ever happening?

12. What happened to Kodak and Polaroid will happen in a lot of industries in the next  5-10 years … and most people don't see it coming.

13. Did you think in 1998 that 3 years later, you would never take pictures on film again? With today’s smartphones, who even has a camera these days?

14. Yet digital cameras were invented in 1975. The first ones only had  10,000 pixels but followed Moore's law.  So as with all exponential technologies, it was a disappointment for a time, before it became way superior and became mainstream in only a few short years.

15. It will now happen again (but much faster) with Artificial Intelligence, health, autonomous and electric cars, education, 3D printing, agriculture and jobs.

16. Forget the book, “Future Shock”, welcome to the 4th Industrial Revolution.

17. Software has disrupted and will continue to disrupt most traditional industries in the next 5-10 years.

18. UBER is just a software tool, they don't own any cars, and are now  the biggest taxi company in the world! Ask any taxi driver if they saw that coming.

19. Airbnb is now the biggest hotel company in the world, although they don't own any properties.   Ask Hilton Hotels if they saw that coming. 

20. Artificial Intelligence: Computers become exponentially better at understanding the world. This year, a computer beat the best Go player in the world, 10 years earlier than expected.

21. In the USA, young lawyers already don't get jobs. Because of  IBM's Watson, you can get legal advice (so far for right now, the basic stuff) within seconds, with 90% accuracy compared with 70% accuracy when done by humans. So, if you study law, stop immediately. There will be 90% fewer lawyers in the future, (what a thought!) only omniscient specialists will remain.

22. Watson already helps nurses diagnosing cancer, its 4 times more accurate than human nurses.

23. Facebook now has pattern recognition software that can recognize faces better than humans. In 2030, computers will become more intelligent than humans.

24. Autonomous cars: In 2018 the first self-driving cars are already here. In the next 2 years, the entire industry will start to be disrupted. You won't want to own a car anymore as you will call a car with your phone, it will show up at your location and drive you to your destination.

25. You will not need to park it you will only pay for the driven distance and you can be productive while driving. The very young children of today will never get a driver's license and will never own a car.

26. This will change our cities because we will need 90-95% fewer cars. We can transform former parking spaces into green parks.

27. About 1.2 million people die each year in car accidents worldwide including distracted or drunk driving. We now have one accident every 60,000 miles; with autonomous driving that will drop to 1 accident in 6 million miles. That will save a million lives plus worldwide each year. 

28. Most traditional car companies will doubtless become bankrupt. They will try the evolutionary approach and just build a better car, while tech companies (Tesla, Apple, Google) will do the revolutionary approach and build a computer on wheels.

29. Look at what Volvo is doing right now; no more internal combustion engines in their vehicles starting with 2019 models, using all-electric or hybrid only, with the intent of phasing out hybrid models.

30. Many engineers from Volkswagen and Audi; are completely terrified of Tesla and they should be. Look at all the companies offering all-electric vehicles. That was unheard of, only a few years ago.

31. Insurance companies will have massive trouble because, without accidents, the costs will become cheaper. Their car insurance business model will disappear.

32. Real estate will change. Because if you can work while you commute, people will abandon their towers to move far away to more beautiful affordable neighborhoods.

33. Electric cars will become mainstream by 2030. Cities will be less noisy because all new cars will run on electricity.

34. Cities will have much cleaner air as well.

35. Electricity will become incredibly cheap and clean.

36. Solar production has been on an exponential curve for 30 years, but you can now see the burgeoning impact.  And it’s just getting ramped up.

37. Fossil energy companies are desperately trying to limit access to the grid to prevent competition from home solar installations, but that simply cannot continue - technology will take care of that strategy.

38. Health:  The Tricorder X price will be announced this year. There are companies that will build a medical device (called the "Tricorder" from Star Trek) that works with your phone, which takes your retina scan, your blood sample, and your breathe into it.  It then analyses 54 bio-markers that will identify nearly any Disease. 

There are dozens of phone apps out there right now for health purposes.

*WELCOME TO TOMORROW* – *it actually arrived a few years ago.* 

*Unemployment problems would be many fold and the only solution is Population Control*

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Open for public. I am saving it here for my future reference!