David Hare: writing tips

1 Write only when you have something to say.

2 Never take advice from anyone with no investment in the outcome.

3 Style is the art of getting yourself out of the way, not putting yourself in it.

4 If nobody will put your play on, put it on yourself.

5 Jokes are like hands and feet for a painter. They may not be what you want to end up doing but you have to master them in the meanwhile.

6 Theatre primarily belongs to the young.

7 No one has ever achieved consistency as a screenwriter.

8 Never go to a TV personality festival masquerading as a literary festival.

9 Never complain of being misunderstood. You can choose to be understood, or you can choose not to.

10 The two most depressing words in the English language are “literary fiction”.

An Excerpt from Goals...The 10 Rules for Achieving Success

Success is the intentional, pre-meditated use of choice and decision. Unless you choose-with certainty-what it is you want, you accept table scraps by default!

The world is plump with opportunity. With boldness and conviction, stick a fork into the goals you want by being decisive.

You are born with great capabilities, but you will not achieve your potential until you call upon yourself to fulfill it. You will rise to the occasion when it presents itself; yet, to assure self-fulfillment, you must provide occasions to rise to. Clearly defined goals allow you to travel toward another horizon that represents the end of one experience and the transition to a new and better existence. The objective is to choose the right goals, and then to create the necessary causes-the effects will follow!

The difference between what one person and another achieves depends more on goal choices than on abilities.

The profound differences between successful people and others are the goals they choose to pursue. Individuals with similar talents, intelligence, and abilities will achieve different results because they select and pursue different goals.

Each decision affects what you become. We form our decisions and our decisions form us.

There is no escaping this; the smallest choices are important because-over time-their cumulative effect is enormous.

Never overlook the obvious: The nature and direction of your life change the instant you decide what goals you want to pursue.

Once you make a decision you start down a path to a new destination. At the moment the decision is made, your decision to pursue a goal alters what you are becoming. A single choice can alter your life, your destiny, your legacy.

Think about it-your goal decisions represent and express your individuality. You seal your fate with the choices you make.

You define yourself by your decisions.

Your dialog with success is ultimately a solo one. Decisions and goals made must be your own if you are to call your life a success.

Always establish the best goals you can. Goals are the seeds of success-you become only what you plant. The quality of your harvest is a direct reflection of the quality of your seeds...your decisions!

Indecision is the big eraser of opportunity and potential. Risks and costs accompany every decision; however, the price of decision is far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction. When it comes to decisiveness, squatters have no rights.

Everyone has an official wish list of things they think are "reasonable." What about the unofficial wish list? The one that common sense tells you to ignore? The list that exists deep in your mind, the list that keeps you up at night, the that makes your toes wiggle when you think of it? Why not choose that list for a change?

How long have you dreamed of being, having, and doing what you really want? Think big, as when it comes to your goals, the size of your ambition does matter.

A decision to lose weight and keep it off must be remade every time you feel hungry.

A decision is never made only once.

What is Incredible India : A true critic

What is Incredible India - Its Sad but true
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1. A Nation where Pizza reaches home Faster then Ambulance and Police!

2. A nation where you get Car Loan @ 6% but Education Loan @ 12%

3. A nation where Rice is Rs.40 but Sim card is Rs.10

4. A nation where people standing at tea stall reading an article in newspaper about child labour and saying "Yaar bacho se kaam krwane walo ko to faansi pe chada dena chahiye" and then they shout "Oye CHOTU 3 chai la!" That's INDIA our Incredible INDIA.

Adarsh Scam : A black spot on us .. FOREVER

Please forward to everyone you can. Do not expect that you will win a million dollars by doing that, or bill gates is going to pay you for each forward, or, you are going to get bad luck if you don’t forward. But, there needs to be a an increased common of pain and anger among us if want a better system for ourselves and our children in future.

Being in IT, we can not underestimate the power of this media. If Asmaa Mafouz can trigger a revolution which led to end a 30 year old regime in Egypt, just by writing “People, I am going to Tahrir Square”, we can too.

When is someone going to write on Facebook, “People: I am going to India Gate” and we will change this corrupt system .

Now read this forward:

Brilliantly written with passion by a Retired Colonel........

       The method of Adarsh Cooperative Housing Society scamsters of Mumbai was disarmingly simple. They simply co-opted in their scam whoever looked like standing in the way. If we judge the strategy by its results, it was spectacularly successful. It indeed disarmed everybody. From just 30-odd members, the eventual group grew to more than a hundred. Each new entrant not only removed a roadblock on the way but also increased the size of the cake. 

       Thus, someone got the land title, someone the extra FSI. Someone got clearances, someone else made the Army and the Navy objections softer. They all became members. 

       The scary bit about the scam is not that it happened. It is that in the entire chain, there was not one man (or woman) who refused to compromise himself (or herself). There was not one person whose integrity stood its ground in face of temptation. Right from the lowly collector, to the officials in urban development department and the MMRDA, to the ministers and chief minister, everybody proved over-eager to  do his bit. About the bureaucrats and the ministers, we always knew. The really sickening part is that it went on all the way to at least three service  chiefs. 

       They all sold their souls. No whistle-blower in the entire system. Nobody thought something very gross was under way and he should put his foot down. 

       And for what? A sea-facing apartment in Mumbai, worth perhaps Rs 8 crore. So there, folks, you have the price of this country. For a combined booty of no more than Rs 800 crore, you could buy the entire system. Our enemies reading about this can now rest their weapons. The message they get is that if they face the mighty Indian Army they only need to wave the allotment letters of a plush apartment. 

       And lo! The battle is won. If the chiefs go for 1000 sq ft of Mumbai real estate, how much should the poor battlefield commander go for? A Shanghai penthouse, or a cottage in Murree? 

       I would hate to be a soldier in our armed forces at this moment. The fellow has just seen Lt Generals being prosecuted for land scam. Now, an admiral and two generals are part of a housing scam. He is expected to die on their orders. 

If, after this, a soldier winces at such an order, can he be faulted? The former chiefs have now graciously offered to return the flats, professing ignorance about the fact that land was meant for martyrs' families. As if that is the only thing wrong about the deal. It was stinking from start to finish and if the chiefs could not smell any of it, the forces have a lot to answer for the kind of persons they select for their top most posts. 

           No, gentlemen, you have let down the proud institutions you headed. You have let down your colleagues who must suffer the suspicions you have aroused. You have let down your country that decorated you so much. Worst of all, you have let down that soldier who saluted you day in and day out. You owe him an apology, 

not just a glib explanation. About others, the less said the better. They occupy some of the most plum posts and yet possess all the integrity of a pickpocket.

           It is no wonder India has climbed further in corruption ladder. Merely dispossessing these scamsters of their ill-gotten apartment would be no punishment. They need to be dismissed from service and prosecuted for being unworthy custodians of our trust  ......

The Difference between Focusing on Problems and Focusing on Solutions

Often in our day to day life we face many problems and although no one wish to have them; but we have to solve them.

Problems are generally like a tree; with very small root and lots of branches; hence very small & strong root and superficially very big.

But the problems, may not be as big as they seems... Before going ahead let me present you with two simple cases (part of an email forwarded by my friend)

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Case 1

When NASA began the launch of astronauts into space, they found out that the pens wouldn't work at zero gravity (ink won't flow down to the writing surface).

To solve this problem, it took them one decade and $12 million. They developed a pen that worked at zero gravity, upside down, underwater, in practically any surface including crystal and in a temperature range from below freezing to over 300 degrees C.

And what did the Russians do...?? They used a Pencil!!!

Case 2

One of the most memorable case studies on Japanese management was the case of the empty soap box, which happened in one of Japan 's biggest cosmetics companies. The company received a complaint that a consumer had bought a soap box that was empty. Immediately the authorities isolated the problem to the assembly line, which transported all the packaged boxes of soap to the delivery department.

For some reason, one soap box went through the assembly line empty. Management asked its engineers to solve the problem. Post-haste, the engineers worked hard to devise an X-ray machine with high-resolution monitors manned by two people to watch all the soap boxes that passed through the line to make sure they were not empty. No doubt, they worked hard and they worked fast but they spent a whoopee amount to do so.

But when a rank-and-file employee in a small company was posed with the same problem, he did not get into complications of X-rays, etc., but instead came out with another solution………………He bought a strong industrial electric fan and pointed it at the assembly line. He switched the fan on, and as each soap box passed the fan, it simply blew the empty boxes out of the line.

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Most people, when encountered with problems gets trapped in the branches and loose the root; from where it can be solved in the most simplest way.

So, our primary goal should be identifying the root cause, before going into much implications of the issue and

Always look for simple solutions. Devise the simplest possible solution that solves the problems.

choose your way!!
Do not worry about the current phase, it will fade away soon till then think to reduce your overhead expenditures.