Lateral Thinking

This was contributed by Sanchit Aggarwal for the May 2012 edition of our club newsletter.

A few weeks back, I came across a book called "Lateral Thinking" by Edward de Bono. I am not an avid reader

but I decided to take this one as it was a really thin one. I ended up reading it in 1 hour straight. But this 1 hour changed a few things which I assumed were true.

According to the book, we (humans) have had the same thinking style since Greeks developed it thousands of years ago. Our thinking style has been based on analyzing the data and then coming out with a solution. We expect that

the data will produce a solution by itself without us working for it. This type of thinking style is called 'Vertical thinking'. This thinking is structured and follow processes.

The other type of thinking which the author promotes in the book is called 'Lateral Thinking'. Many of us have heard this term but only a few know that this term was in fact coined by Edward De Bono himself. He saw that there isn't a term for creative intelligence. When we use the word 'creative', it refers to the arts side. Everyday thinking was not expected to be creative. But it can be.

Lateral thinking is more of 'out of the box' thinking. Instead of following the regular route to find the solution,in Lateral Thinking we try hit and trial method. There are times when the solution doesn't work and there will be times where it will work just perfect without the hassles of going through all the data and coming out with the plan,which may or may not work. It sounds absurd but this is an 'art of thinking' which requires learning and practicing.

You may feel that 'Vertical Thinking' and 'Lateral Thinking' are different and cannot be used together. The case here is different. These ways are actually complementary. When used together, new ideas can be generated in a much faster fashion, with risk assessment and other factors taken care of.

For more insight just google 'Lateral Thinking' or order books of Edward De Bono

.

Wildlife

This was contributed by Madhu Chawla for the May 2012 edition of our club newsletter.

It was a foggy, cold, chilling winter morning. I felt as if my skin was cracking and bones were breaking. All of a sudden, I was sweating. You must be thinking, is she crazy, how can one sweat in a winter morning. I was sweating because I was standing right in front of a giant Royal Bengal Tiger. Friends, that was a dream!

It was on the 1st of January, 2005 and I had planned a trip with four of my friends to Jim Corbett Park. It was for the very first time I was about to visit this famous wildlife sanctuary located in Uttarakhand on the banks of the river Ramganga. I was all excited and could not help but dream about the exotic creatures I was going see in reality.

The road from Ramgarh to Jim Corbett is a beautiful stretch. Wide roads with huge tall trees on both the sides almost touching each other, streams of water flowing here and there on the bed of white pebbles were a treat for the eyes.

We had booked the innermost forest house 'Dhikala' for our stay. When we reached, it was evening and as soon as we got down from the car, the lights went off. Suddenly we saw a lantern flying in the air, actually the watchman of the forest house was carrying it for us.

We went to the cafeteria which was huge and open. I was sipping my coffee and I felt something rubbing against my skin. I turned and found a deer standing. One after another, there were several deers and sambhars surrounding us and having food from our hands. I was so happy for having my dinner with the esteemed residents of Jim Corbett.

One of my friends was a professional photographer and we had booked Elephant Safari so that he could take pictures from a height of all the animals, especially the beautiful tiger. But we were not that lucky,it started drizzling and elephant safari had to be cancelled. The alternative was Open Jeep safari. All we could see was deer, wild boars, monkeys, foxes but not a tiger. Disappointingly, we came back to Delhi.

After a few days of my return, there was news about a tiger killing the watchman of Dhikala and also news about numerous tiger killings. This made me to think as why the man and beast are killing each other. Would our kids ever get to see these beautiful creatures? We would only be showing them on books or on the internet and if we are fortunate a Spielberg might make a blockbuster and we would be happily showing them and telling these beautiful creatures once existed and we greedy humans killed them for our selfish motives.

Friends, we must stand and express ourselves to save our wildlife. And to express ourselves, we must learn to communicate effectively. Toastmasters help us to learn that effective communication. I am proud to be a Toastmaster

Prepared or Unprepared

This was contributed by Brijesh Bartwal for the May 2012 edition of our club newsletter.

Prepared or unprepared. Am I prepared or unprepared?

These thoughts keep on coming to our minds again and again. We believe that we are prepared, but the moment we enter into the premise of realizing that 'preparedness', we realize that the ground is not under our feet anymore, and we feel 'unprepared' again.

For example, no matter how much we prepare for our speeches, we always feel unprepared. In our exams too, we study and try to cover every single topic, but still we feel unprepared. At least, I always felt unprepared.

In general, my observation is that most of the times we are unprepared for the events which take place around us. We don't know about the unprecedented arrival of a guest, we don't know about the sudden ringing of telephone, we don't

know about the sudden rise and fall of economy, we don't even know about a surprise call from the table topic master!

Though there are big think tanks who claim that they keep a hawk-eye on economy but 2009's disaster is an evidence that most of the powerful economies were unprepared for the 'economic tsunami'.

Think about the moment when you prepared a lot but a strong sense of unpreparedness knocked you down or a sudden moment when you were unprepared to face that. And those are the actual breath-taking moments which most of the

times convey long lasting messages to us.

We all are the victims of the phobia of unpreparedness at some point of time. Even now as I pen down my write-up, it seems like there is nothing on my mind and all the words which I am writing are coming from some third world.

And there lies the beauty of unpreparedness.

Once you will end up reading this, you may feel that this is an unstructured write-up because you are only prepared for beautiful and structured write-ups but still you have read it because "The beauty of facing life unprepared is tremendous" ~ Osho

Window Seat on the Plane

This was contributed by Suraj Jain for the September 2012 edition of our club newsletter. 

"Window seat on the plane" is a request you must remember to make when

you check in for the flight to Leh. Not only will you get to see the great

mountains of the Himalayan range not too far below, but also the landing

itself is a sight not for the faint of heart! As the plane navigates through the

narrow gap among the mountains, with the wings almost touching the moun-

tain, your heart beats just a little bit faster and makes you admire the tal-

ented pilots who do this every day.

Leh, the moment you hear of it, some pictures quickly flashes through your

mind. The feeling of putting the first foot on the land of Leh, I don't know if

Neil Armstrong had felt any better, but for me it's like a dream coming true.

The aura of the place is Majestic.

This time we have decided to travel rucksack. Everyone else was being re-

ceived either by their tour agents(pick up and drop is included in packages)

or by some acquaintances. But we hunted for a cab and started for leh city.

The way we felt about journey to leh, that we weren't even settled in plane

after takeoff, it already time for landing, Similarly, we reached leh city, only 3

kms away from airport in 5 mins. Well that's the nearest place to any airport

I have known off. Now it's the time to find some place to stay.

We were on the lookout for some accommodation in form of paying guest or

guest houses on Changspa Lane (Popular for eating joints and guest

houses). Well that's most preferred way of staying, moreover it helps you to

understand the culture as well. For some time, we couldn't find one, as

many of them were already occupied, but we found some people good

enough to guide us on where to go and search. People there talk with such

simplicity & innocence and were so helping that we were astonsihed. Finally,

we could locate a place named Zanskar Guest house, on Changspa lane

adjacent to Hotel Gawaling International (Upper Tuchka road).

Well after taking a short break, we headed for market to get our first meal.

Some things really test you for your patience and getting food is one of them

here in Leh. Whatever your order might be it will take minimum of 30 mins

and the reason is they make everything fresh. We ordered some Chinese

and were surprised to see that, for the first time in life, the guy out there was

preparing fresh. No that doesn't mean that we get to eat old/rotten stuff eve-

rywhere else instead that he cut the first he prepared the filling the wrap

then into white flour and the boiled them.

After filling our empty bowls, we headed to DC office to get permits. This

was our second surprise of the day, first being at the restaurant, I had been

told that it will take 3-4 hours to get the job done. But believe me either the

system has improved or whatever I heard/read of is junk, but it took me only

20 minutes to get the permit for three of us. It already the lunch time, and I

don't know whether it is just the hunger for food, or our last sleepless night

being headed to leh, or the Oxygen factor alone, but we were really in bad

shape. we rushed to our rooms and asked Stenzin, the lady owner to cook

something for us. She was kind enough to prepare some meal for us and

have it delivered to our room as well. We woke up in evening and rushed to

market for getting the Royal Enfield, India's answer to Harley Davidson.

Luckily we got bikes with low mileage though we have to shell out some ex-

tra money.

The next morning, Sky was partially cloudy. We made a started steadily to-

wards the lake from Heaven, Pangong Lake. We reached Karu (40kms

from leh) in an hour. Here you have to stop to submit the permit. Having

passed Karu, there would be no fuel station left until Pangong Tso lake and

back again. There was 100km to go over rugged mountain terrain at high

altitude. The views back over the green crops of Shakti village were magnifi-

cent against the increasingly epic mountain backdrop.

The yellow rocks of the mountains contrasted stunningly with the emerald

crops of the villages in the valleys. Towards the 17,586 foot pass, the road

became extremely difficult and the biking became pretty much off road.

Freezing cold stream crossings were required with the icy spray covering

the arms and legs. Parts of the road were basically large rocks with no pav-

ing. It was also still cold from the night. The air was thin and we were both

feeling pretty drowsy by the time we got to the pass.

At Chang La, there was an army counter, offering complimentary Kaaba

(tea) to the tourists. I was almost numb and was shocked to see the color of

palm when removed the gloves, Blue/Black due to scarcity of oxygen and

Cold breeze. Here we have to take an almost hour break to regain the

strength to move ahead. I could feel the every drop of kaaba going down my

throat. That was a real life saver.

Descending into the opposite valley, however, was a wonderful uplifting ex-

perience. As we climbed down, the air got thicker so naturally we felt better

and the views became greener and grassier with flowers, wild horses and

goats. There was a daunting river crossing and these melt-water fords be-

come deeper as the day wears on.

Finally, we got a glimpse of Pangong, as were driving through the mountains

we could see lake from far. We pushed the gas more to reach our destina-

tion soon, as the eagerness to reach the place was just driving us crazy.

The moment first establishment for Pangong, its 120 km long. 40 km inside

India and 80 kms in China. It was like ocean, with dual shades blue/Green in

color, surrounded by mountains. Its a salt water lake, where there is no

aquatic life. water is so crystal clear that we could see the bottom. we were

all stunned to see the amazing beauty of dual shade (Blue/Green) of water.

So clear and so calm, we started feeling like as if we are in some different

world, some place that doesn't belong to planet earth.

We relaxed for some time here and then moved towards Spangmik, for our

night camping. Here we have some permanent Camping accommodation

during the summers. It was almost evening when we arrived at Spangmik.

We soon find a tent lakeside, as we have planned to sit beside lake post din-

ner. At night, it was a clear sky with all the twinkling stars. We lie down on

the soft sand lakeside until midnight, it was freezing out there, soon we real-

ized that to continue with our trip, without any disruptions, we need to move

back to our tents. We had a sound sleep that night. Though, I put the alarm

for just after 3 hrs, as I don't want to miss sunrise at any cost.

The Sunrise was one of the best of my life. The beauty was such that until

now you could have only read or have imagined about it. If seeing is believ-

ing, then I hope you will agree to it in the pic on the previous page.

After, this we had our breakfast and then started back for Leh. This time we

took the roadside route, though I won't call it a road as there was none. Only

sand and stones.

But the pleasure of driving through such a beautiful place was comparable

to none.

Finally after, 6-7 hrs of driving we reached back our starting point. And were

soon in warm and cozy beds to start for a new journey again tomorrow…...

I will not complain about anything

This was contributed by Arta Thanapati for  the September 2012 edition of our club newsletter. 

 Whose fault it is if your eyes see the thorns instead of the roses? Everything

will appear scratched, if there is a scratch in the spectacles through which

you view your life. And remember, you can't get your life right by speaking

about what is wrong all the time.

Why do you keep complaining about things over which you have no control?

Why do you keep complaining to people, who can do nothing about it?

Remember, complaining only reinforces your own pain and discomfort; thus

causing you to suffer even more. Complaining operates on the principle of

escalation. Groaning and complaining about life, situation, people, talents

will only divert you from the real you. Michael Jackson was not talented if

you complain that you don't have talents. He practiced everything he wanted

to get and stick to it until he reached to his highest potentials and he indeed

reached. That is why today he is Michael Jackson. This is the ultimate goal

of every human being to reach the highest potential. I will not complain

about anything rather I would ask for more skills. This should be the attitude

of every human being.

The world can stop you only temporarily. The only one who can stop you

permanently is yourself. I can experientially validate the dialogue in the

movie 'In Pursuit of Happiness' - "Don't ever let someone tell you, you can't

do something. You got a dream, you got to protect it. People can't do some-

thing themselves, and they want to tell you - you can't do it. You want some-

thing, go get it. Period." There will be issues. People will come and go. You

will be discouraged. The world will sometimes be vindictive. You will be

judged, belittled and laughed at. Friends will turn into foes. You will have

'You too, Brutus…' moments. But all-in-all, whether something is a stumbling

block or a stepping stone depends on how you use it. Strength of character

is born out of the obstacles overcome.