Author: S Ramesh Shankar

Born in Trichy, Tamil Nadu, India, I have been brought up in different parts of India. Graduate in chemistry and post graduate in personnel management and industrial relations. Have been a HR practitioner for 38 years in the industry and have experience in working in steel , automobiles, FMCG and engineering industry. Was head of HR for Siemens in South Asia based out of Mumbai till March 2019. Currently founded hrishti - joy forever, a social enterprise to give back to society and work as Chief Joy Officer.

Personal Crisis


Today I met a young colleague, who is going through a personal crisis.  Her father is seriously unwell and bed ridden at home.  Her father in law is hospitalised and is in a serious condition.  She and her husband have been going through this crisis for the last two years.  She was heart broken and was not sure how to handle such a situation.  “Why me ? ” is a question she asked and I had no answer.

I listened to her patiently and shared some of the crisis I have gone through in life.  We can neither share the pain nor give her any advise in this situation.  Many of us have grown through such situations in life. Each of us may have faced a different type of crisis in life.  When we are going through a crisis, we have no tears to shed and no advice to follow.  In most situations, you have to face it alone and the journey is ardous.

Most of us wonder why me ?  Why is God so cruel to us ?  What did I do wrong to face such a situation ?  We have no answers and may be many more questions ?  While we may ask many of our friends and well wishers, we have no solutions.  It is in these situations, you can really know the genuine people in your life.  Your own relatives may behave differently and your so called friends may move away from you.

One may almost lose hope in life.  There could be days where you may like to talk to God and tell him that he is being unfair.  You even lose faith in God.  It is at this time, it may useful for us to keep faith in ourselves and our good deeds in life.  May be God is testing our patience and He is expecting us to lose our faith in Him.  But, we should never lose faith in ourselves and hope in life.

Hope is like water.  It will always quench our thirst.  It is in this phase of our life, we tend to recognise the authentic people in our lives.  Some of them who we thought were close to us may lose significance in our lives by their displayed behaviour during this crisis.  But, we have to keep our faith in ourselves.  We have to be grateful to the people who helped us during this crisis for the rest of our lives.

God bestows us with the courage to face this crisis.  She will support us with the resources we need to overcome this phase of our life.  Such incidents make us stronger and wiser in life.  The people who listen to us and help us wade through such crises are God in human form.  We have to respect them, love them and be grateful to them.

It may also be useful to realise that there are millions of people in the world, who may be facing much tougher crisis than us.  They may have much lesser resources to deal with their issues.  We may consider ourselves lucky to be able to face the crisis and deal with it by ourselves.  If married, we may be grateful to our spouse for being with us and enabling each other to be brave and helpful during this phase of our life.

Life is journey and we may have good days and bad days and ultimately we do fulfill our goals by our own means and that gives us happiness.

Let us live life as it comes. We need to remember that there is sunrise after every sunset.

S Ramesh Shankar

Heart or Mind ?


One is always in a dilemma whether one should listen to your heart or to your mind.  Heart rules your mind or mind rules your heart.  All of us go through this in our every day life.  While logic is analysed by the mind, the feelings and emotions are gauged by the heart.  Let us look at different life situations and  review as to what guides our decisions – mind or heart .

Our academic inputs guide us to gather data, analyse them and look at alternatives before you take a decision.  This means that we are taught to be guided by our intellect.  However, in real life what happens ?  If we are to buy clothes for ourselves for a festival, what do we do ?  Do we look at our resources – say money and the time available and then look at options of where to buy and what to buy and then go ahead and buy clothes.  I am not sure.  Most of us will go to a nearby market of our choice and buy clothes which make us feel better.   

Let us take another example.  If we have to buy a car, what do we do ?  We do first define our needs.  Then, we explore the options and  examine our financial capacity.  We go to a dealer and choose a car based on all this analysis.  However, as we reach the dealership, we may end up choosing a car and a colour, which our heart dictates although it may be a bit beyond our original plan and budget. We may end up changing our decision at the last minute.

Now, let us look at our choosing our life partner.  What do we do ?  There could be two options.  One is that we are choosing our own partner and then inform our parents about it.  Alternatively, our parents choose our partner and we finally agree to it.  In either case, do we gather data, analyse options and then finally choose our partner.  I am not sure.  I think in most cases, the heart rules the mind.

There comes the interesting debate of whether heart rules the mind or vice versa.  I recently read an article that all our decisions are made by gut and then we apply logic to justify it.  This may be true.  But, according to scientists it is also true that we gather data all through our life and it is stored in our brains.  So, when we claim that we take most of our decisions by our gut, these are decisions taken by us using the data stored in the brain of ours.  Our mind analyses the data in seconds and passes it on to our heart to guide our decisions.

Like in the picture above, your heart may want you to drench your feet in the water and mind may say no because of high tides ?  What will you do ?

So, for me, it is always by the gut.  How about you ?

S Ramesh Shankar

The Moon


The sight of the moon is romantic.  It is radiant and cool.  It is selfless to say the least.  It absorbs light from the sun and reflects it to the earth.  While the sun is bright and warm, the moon is artistic and cool.  Nature has its unique way of balancing itself for our benefit.  While we need the sun in the day to warm us up and provide us with all the vitamin D we require, the moon keeps the darkness away and still allows us to sleep peacefully at night. 

I have always wondered as to why the moon is considered romantic.  One, you can admire it with your naked eyes and enjoy its beauty.  Second it radiates the light from the sun but keeps the environment cool for us.  It allows the stars to sparkle around it unlike the sun, which brightens the sky so much that no other stars are visible during the day.

The sun remains the same to the human eye right through the year and from morning to evening in a day.  On the other hand, the moon transforms from new moon to full moon over a fortnight and expresses itself in various forms each day.  You can admire the moon all night without harming your eyes.  On the other hand, the sun can be admired during sun rise at dawn or sunset at twilight.  If you try to admire the sun during other parts of the day, it may impact your eyes badly.

As the moon rises in the sky, the stars sparkle and the reflection of the moon on the ocean or rivers is worth a million words.  Poets and authors have revelled writing on the moon and its myriad forms.  While the sun sparkles our life with its warmth, the moon cools us with its mysteries.  While the sun encourages us to work hard and toil in the day, the moon teaches us to relax and sleep well at night.

The sun, moon and the stars are nature’s gift to mankind.  Each of them have their own gifts to give us.  The sun is hot, the moon cool and the stars sparkle.  Each of them add colour to our lives.  They play a useful role in our daily life and inspire us to admire and learn from them.

The sun can teach us to be bright and bold.   The moon teaches us to be selfless and cool and the stars advise us to sparkle and enjoy life.  We can learn from all of them and add energy to our lives.  The sun can be a symbol of intensity, the moon can be a symbol of patience and the stars can infuse energy into our lives.  We need to learn from the beauty of all of them.

Lets keep our cool like the Moon.

S Ramesh Shankar