It was a Wednesday. And to be truly called, one of the worst days for my family. It was a prophecy waiting to happen. Mom had been saying it for months now, that watch it, it’s better you take care of it now before you don’t get even a speck of a second to regret!!! Indeed, we all were full with remorse, disgust, and consternation.
Siya, my niece, had a major accident and that too at the safest of all places, at our house. It left us totally dumbfounded and stunned for not paying heed to what my parents wanted all of us to understand. Lesson No.1: Always pay close attention to what elders at your home tell you, their advice coupled with experience is priceless and rewarding.
My niece is now 1 year, 2 months, 13 days old when the incident took place. There is no denying the fact that whatever has to happen will happen for sure, and everything happens for your own good. I, my father, my mother, my bhabhi (my brother’s wife), and my niece, Siya were at home. My mom was washing clothes in the backyard, my father was getting ready to go and pay bills, bhabhi had just gone to washroom, and I was playing with Siya. We were playing in the living room, when she unintentionally threw her meal on the floor and started wandering about in the hall. The flooring in our house is all tiles, so I thought it’ll be wiser to clean the surface before she slips and hurt self. I mobbed the surface and went in the kitchen to dump it in trash without realizing Siya to have gone by then in her room where television was kept and switched on but with bhabhi in washroom. Now, the television here is lying on a wooden trolley/ cart with wheels the bottom, making it highly precarious. My dad was near the exit gate and I was in kitchen when we heard a loud thump from the bedroom. In a flash, me and my father started running towards the room realizing it would be something with Siya, and to our utter astonishment, she was there weeping, compressed under the television on the floor. I was horrified, and my dad, quickly realizing that Siya wasn’t visible from his end, picked up the television and threw it away. I gathered all my courage and sided it further to create room for him to grab Siya and pick her up into his arms. She cried incessantly, and on hearing the loud thump, my mom rushed in, and so did my bhabhi.
Dad was furious on my carelessness, but we all were utterly shocked to see her not only crying, but her both nostrils bleeding. Except my father, nobody could keep a hold on emotions and started crying on seeing her in such a dilapidated state. My father rushed, started the car, asked bhabhi to come along to the kids’ hospital. I too couldn’t resist it and decided to go along.
Reaching at the hospital, Siya was taken care of by the diagnosis of the doctor. He observed her for long and told her that she needs to be given medicine and blood from nostrils is a good sign in such cases. He told us the following symptoms for internal injuries (kindly take note of these):
If there’s a mixture of blood and water oozing out of ears of a kid
If the child is losing consciousness again and again
If there’s vomiting
If some part(s) of the body is(are) going into an inactive state
On comprehending, we soon realized that our little angel was out of danger. But there were numerous lessons learnt from the whole episode. A golden tip: follow them in your life, and lead a life full of happiness and joy.
Lesson No.2: Post marriage, it is always wiser to live with your parents, then be a nuclear family. Kids grow effortlessly and they get all the wisdom, learning and teaching from the most experienced individuals in the family.
Lesson No.3: When your kid is above 7months and less than 2.5 years old, pay him/her all the attention. For this would not only help the child to express self, but also will take care of his/her surroundings.
Lesson No.4: Buy a tiled floor house only when you have a family of all grown ups or still have a long time to go for family planning.
Lesson No.5: Never keep anything heavy on a moving trolley/cart, for there’s always some probability of disaster waiting to happen.
Lesson No. 6: And the most important one, LOVE your children, they are the only angels living in this earthly world.
This should’ve made directors of Kaminey a bit skeptical had someone told them about Kaminey, the 2nd, but let’s keep the so-called geniuses of film fraternity at bay from any worries. This Kaminey, Part-2 is the germination of the seeds sown by my mischievous twin, Rahul. I wonder what sort of lives are led by other twins in this world when our both lives are so inter0mingled and yet so exciting.
Coming to the point, I was smiling for having come across Rahul’s blog, because I never thought about penning down our experiences ever!!! And believe me; I really liked the idea as much as each one of you did.
There is no denying the fact that we’ve had so many highs & lows when we were kids, but the best thing was we both could make every damn situation way too humorous when we wanted. Taking baton from the point where Rahul left, I remember the girl he used to hang around with. He always tried keeping it as clandestine as possible from every individual out there. The only thing was Rahul kept this secret in one of our class-mates, who kept all his secrets with me. And Rahul’s girl would keep all her secrets with one of her class-mates (another female), the girl who I used to trust like anything (I mean I would keep my secrets with). Now isn’t that a convoluted pentagon with three males on one side and two females on other when there’s only one couple in between? Well, yes, that’s the way not so filmy Kaminey life is!!! Not that I wanted them not to hang around, but just that I think I was too immature to realize the gravity of a missed date.
Quoting another incident was when Rahul had fallen sick due to yellow fever and was in no condition to attend school especially when exams were approaching. During initial stages when Rahul was suffering from a very high fever, we never thought the thing would aggravate to such a level. So, I employed a strategy where in I would daily attend all the school periods (yes, that’s what we used to call classes then), but with a condition: One day I would attend as Rahul and another day as myself. This would save both of us from any attendance shortages with justification on any day being, “Ma’am/Sir, when I am present here and exams are approaching, we thought may be one of us can attend college to get notes while the other one can sit back home and study alternately!!!”
In this manner, I would continue doing Rahul’s(tweaking things a bit) as well as my homework also. But the day it was confirmed that fever is going to take a heavy toll on Rahul; we had to cut short for fear of not being able to carry this thing way too long. But believe me, it was fun doing it (for all the chicks in school, including his girl kept asking me about him on almost everyday).
Once I remembered when we were in 6th standard appearing for final semester examinations. History was one of the subjects deadlier than expected and the epitome of Rahul’s misery. J During the exam, as Rahul had already told you, I used to sit in front of him (there were times when teachers used to change our seats for having identical faces). Now during history exam, we had our class-teacher, Joel Sir as an invigilator. A very strict teacher who used to proclaim of looking back when looking ahead through his concave but convexspectacles he wore. Thinking about those glasses still gives a tickle. Half an hour past exam, Rahul sitting at my back, somehow informed me of having a clean memory wash about history chapters and was waiting for me to create some history now. Now, I wondered, was this by any sorts an experiment to challenge the quadruple eyes of Mr.Joel and conquer the cheating arena as a warrior, or an experiment to truly check if I’d loved my brother and was ready to sacrifice his as well as my exam paper on being caught if at all that happens!!! I never really wanted to test my gut skills to unleash a war against those concave but convex glasses for I knew there was not even an ounce present in me. But brother is a brother, and especially when a twin, a brother is a superlative form. Like Rahul said, “life ko jeene ke do tareeke hote hain, short-cut and chotta short-cut”, I took one about which I never bothered to know which one was it!!!
Since we had benches and desks those days, I told him that I’ll continue writing all my answers on answer-sheets and instead of keeping them beneath my examination board, I’ll keep them adjacent to me on the bench where I sat. Idiot felt elated and with 100% confidence (not the one for history answers) agreed in unison. He kept picking the answer sheets from beneath his desk and replacing them with another one after he was done. Sudden lightning-turns by Joel sir would send shivers down my spine. Luckily we both completed exam with a nice effort and scored pretty well when results were out. I don’t know whether Rahul would remember this incident, but I certainly have a smile when ever I think about the whole incident. History was indeed created during history exam!!!
There are in fact innumerable incidents I could go about writing but then there’s a thing I believe, not everything is to be uncovered and not every secret should be discussed with every friend!!!
Enjoy reading,
Raghav Aggarwal
As one of our class-mates tagged Rahul & me once with “Ache Kaminey” (Class 9th)
The topic may seem out of place on this blog but surely a right guide for young mothers, for it would certainly help them relinquish few myths & strategies that need to be implemented when it comes to baby care. I’m not a father, but by nurturing my niece, or by taking care of her, I certainly have learnt a lot about children especially the newly born ones. And since I’ve seen the bud up-and-coming, I would certainly like to share my experience in form of few suggestions and advices.
Please do not consider any of these suggestions as the gospel’s truth, as they are entirely personal and just a ray of light to siphon-off perils of darkness for young mothers. Hope they come handy and feel free to reject any of them if not found suitable.
a)First of all, the most important thing is to remember that the baby’s bones are highly fragile and should not ever be pulled or pushed too hard ever. They would generally take a long duration to develop and grow strong. Try taking care of them like a tender flower waiting to blossom.
b)A 5 month baby asks not just for attention, but also for toys or things that it can grab or hold. It would try clasping your fingers if offered, a small soft toys etc/ So kindly give due attention to babies during this stage so that they feel important and loved. They would not ask, but would give signals like:-
a.A yell would mean a sense of appreciation and enjoyment.
b.Constant or recurring yells would mean the wanting sign of attention needed to play
c.Open arms or trying to extend arms towards you would mean want of mother’s lap.
d. After playing for some time, a gentle cry would mean the time for a meal like milk/ceralac etc.
c)A baby (my niece) would feel the most comfortable when kept in hand-driven prams (push-car) and taken for a light & gentle stroll. This generally makes them feel sleepy and go into a long slumber.
d)Never push the baby to drink the entire milk, but rather play with it to divert his/her mind so that it enjoys drinking the milk (for a baby of 4 to 5 months). Always use the right temperature for milk to be served and give adequate breaks to baby to have it drunk completely. Mantra would be: Slow and steady wins the race. Try not to rotate the milk bottle when in baby’s mouth, for rotation would only cause the uneven rate of milk flow into mouth and build up unnecessary pressure for baby to make larger gulps.
e)Babies most often would respond to sounds like hand’s twitching, clapping and they find it a fun when done on recurrent basis.
f)Please avoid showing babies mirrors to see themselves as I believe it only creates confusion and chaos in a small mind. May be a bit absurd thought but would still suggest avoidance of mirrors.
g)A one to two month baby when crying feels most relaxed in somebody’s lap with a gentle care. Try giving soothing swings with care, without making them very shaky or vibrant but rather smooth and relaxing. This makes them go into a sleep.
Please note the views are entirely my personal experience and expressed here. Please use all the logic, rationale and common sense in this world while taking care of your baby and above all, look at every perspective while taking care with love and emotions in your heart for the small stars. All the best!!!
This is context to the need of a system in place in today’s corporate world to hold back the potential carrying, & talented employees. Although I’m neither a market researcher, nor a person involved in human resources specialization of management, but having worked with an organization in past for two years, I wish to express few ideas that can be put to use in almost all the organizations. The ideas would help an organization to retain its employee’s pool, gain trust and a feeling of belongingness with the company not as a business firm but as an institute that musters growth.
I would begin by a famous quote, “Always love your work, never love your company, for you may never know when company stops loving you!!!”
Here are few methods I have enumerated to highlight about creative retention strategies that can be used by organizations of today:-
·The greatest motivation for an employee to continue working with an organization doesn’t lie in perks given in form of petty gifts time & on, but in form of regular rewards & recognitions, the three R’s (Regularity in recognition, Recognition, and rewarding the recognition). Yes, that’s the key word. An employee would only feel encouraged if he/she is rewarded at business unit/organizational level for the task/project he’s been involved into. This remuneration can come in form of timely certifications symbolic to applause offered depending on the complexity & priority of the task at hand. The varying degree of work would determine the kind of certificate issued, vis-à-vis something catering to organizational level, or BU level or team level. And to compliment these certificates, the best option for any company would be to distribute rewards in form of gift vouchers, movie tickets, club swimming passes etc with them. These petty vouchers would add to the cost to the company, but the level of productivity increase and goals clearance would surpass all costs incurred.
·Next big factor that keeps an employee glued to a company is the desire to grow, not just financially but also holistically, both at work and personal life. The three areas of concern can be looked into by different strategies that need to be devised and implemented timely with full effectiveness:-
Financially: - This would be the most important growth factor for an employee esp. for the ones who are at the starting levels. An efficient bonus tracking system needs to be taken into consideration, which could be made online to the extent that an employee keeps feeding in his/her work/tasks completed (with code assigned to each task) and manager’s approval (again online) in the system, so that all those feedback can be taken into account while deciding the bonus for an employee at the end of the period. This would give the organization an advantage to introduce transparency in the system, make the whole process of project completion more efficient and productive and encourage greater employee participation. On one hand where coming up with such a system would incur some costs, the benefits reaped out of it for long term would supersede all the costs automatically. This would also allow variable bonuses to be offered to employees for doing different levels of work, rather than judging two employees with different levels of work on the same scale.
Work growth: - This would include provision of latest trainings required, both offline and online to all the employees of the company at all the levels. External vendors/ trainers need to be called in on regular basis and training sessions conducted. Also, to encourage employees to go and attend trainings externally arranged by the company after incurring heavy costs, a company can offer petty certifications (not much cost constraint for a company) to all the trained employees. But this would mean, an employee needs to pass the necessary tests at the end of the training (to get that significant certificate), and make self available for any work required outside the peripherals of his/her team. This would allow effective utilization of trained resources across teams and hence across spectrum. This may also ask an employee to devote self as an effective collaborator for other teams working in the same organizations on different platforms.
Personal growth: - This would include making the work friendlier for an employee by giving him/her the right to have flexibility at work. /this may not include a flexibility in time, but yes, a flexibility to report at work when desired by an employee on basis of an authenticate reason. This factor would help an employee of not deducting his/her approved leaves, and would be most effective if immediate senior/superior is well informed beforehand.
·Moving ahead, the next big factor for winning the hearts of employees for an employer is to have regular team-outings in form of lunch, dinners, gaming sessions, birthday celebrations etc. This would generate greater camaraderie among all employees and higher levels of interaction would help in siphoning off all the everlasting hiccups that exists between two colleagues or between a subordinate & his/her boss. Regular conversations would keep the employees abreast of the prevailing market situations and hence provide them an informal platform to discuss all the issues they face on day to day basis.All views are personal...
