Eaglezview

Do you remember anything about the first time you walked? I don’t remember that. My memory fails me with a whole bunch of similar things – the first time I uttered a meaningful word, my first day at school, the first prize I won at school and a numerous  other things that would have meant the whole world to me at that time ? I am sure, as I progress towards adolescence and beyond, there would be countless occasions to cherish and many others to be just left as bygones. When I look back now, I realize that many of these probably didn’t merit such a furor of emotions and attachment. Nevertheless, it is exactly these milestones, the highs and lows that has shaped me more than my education or anything else. For the outside world, I am what I am because my cognition and behavior was  and is guided by these unseemly or joyous occasions. Internally, I define myself with these milestones more than anything else. I judge myself with these, chastise and pat myself, predisposed by these blips on my life’s radar. Some blips are as large as the ocean, drowning me forever, others are like the tip of a pin – pricking and poking. Then there are the huge helium balloon blips, that lift me off the ground into weightlessness, into the ethereal experience of joy.

How did I choose them, when did I give them form and identity? Or is it that my environment and the people around me gave them to me? Do I share my milestones with others around me? Are there school friends, college friends, family members who share the common experience? Did they recognize the same events as a milestone in their lives? Did they give it the same shape and form? A hundred questions!

I think, I chose my milestones partly driven by the judgment of the outside world and partly because of my fad during that period. So, if being good in sports as well was an emphasis at home and Boris Becker inspired me, then the simple act of playing tennis after school for 3 months became a cherished milestone for me. Why ‘milestone’ and not just another leaf from the pages of memory? Because, those 3 months did give me a part of me which still lives in me and is not yet history. Of course, there are the obvious landmarks of marriage and graduation which are more concrete. Do I share milestones with friends? Except for mere completion of academic courses, on the calendar, I don’t share much common milestones with my friends; which is sad to a certain extent.

Milestones – we may formalize them or we may not even acknowledge them when they happen – no matter what we do, we can neither deny their existence in our lives nor the power they sway over us.  

After innovatively using technology in Learning Management Systems, Blogs, wikis, mashups, webcasting and bulletin boards now companies are turning to the good old TV to connect to its employees and enhance their bonding with the organization , its values and culture. Just this time the TV is on your desktop and programs are webcast via the network. Just two weeks back, I came across an article in a newspaper about Satyam computers starting an internal TV channel to help them connect more closely with their diverse employees spread across the globe. 2 days ago, my company has started an internal TV channel which can be accessed by me on my desktop & I can tune into programs as per the circulated program schedule. The 3 thrust areas are internal organizational news, entertainment and learning. I find this a very good innovation. As no other medium is as powerful as the TV; extending this further, the day shouldn’t be far when we will have these internal TV channels being podcasted onto our ipods and mobile phones!

Recently I was in a training workshop in my company. The participants were from different departments in the company hence all of us were different in terms of our professional qualification and experience besides the obvious difference in our outlook. One of the exercises was to come up in front of the group and give an impromptu talk about a topic picked from the list on the board in front of us. One lady picked the topic ‘children’ and one thing she said (she admitted to having picked it from some book) was really a great way to look at parenting. In my growing years, I have seen parents of my friends being either completely lenient to the extent of actually not being bothered about their kids or parents who are stern and strict all the time. Luckily, I was blessed to have moderate parents. I and my brother were given enough freedom, but we knew our limits. Given this dilemma of nurturing children without being restrictive to their cognitive growth, how can parents be taught to strike the right balance? Well, the answer to that was summed up by the lady in the training workshop like this, Parenting should be viewed in terms of a duality – of roots and wings. Parents should give their children roots of values and wings of independence. This would ensure they turn out well.” It couldn’t have been said more aptly. I am sure there are a thousand other things to say about parenting. But this one is simply beautiful.

(c) Suresh Damodaran,2007