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.

Ingratitude

I was feeling a bit hurt by a few ungrateful acts of people in my network. I was wondering if “ingratitude” is a word in English. To my surprise, it is a valid word in English and means exactly how I felt today.

I could possibly share a few incidents in my life, which impacted me this way. The first was when I was supporting a student ,to pursue her graduate studies. This student completed her studies successfully ,but did not even bother to inform me ,when she got placed in a good job.

The second incident happened during my corporate career. An experienced professional working in my team ,was very sincere and committed to her job. However, when she got promoted, she could not deliver results and her performance was under scrutiny. I supported this individual and rotated her from one job to another and even changed her manager. This enabled her to bounce back .

This individual did not express any gratitude. On the contrary, she told some of her colleagues that I did not support her in her career. This impacted me as an individual and as a professional.

The third incident was from someone in my close circle, whom I had supported throughout my life. I have mentored him in his career and also supported him in his personal life. But he seems to have forgotten ,all that I have done , and is thankless.

The Bhagwat Gita tells us – “Do your duty without expecting anything in return ..”. This may be easier said than done. We are human and we do feel that, even though we may not help anyone expecting something in return, we do feel bad when such people forget all that we did for them or even ignore us.

Today ,I realise the value of the shlokas of Bhagwat Gita. I have resolved today , that I will continue to do my duty, without expecting anything in return.

When you do an act of good, it may be human to expect good ,in return. But this means, we are possibly doing it conditionally. Our ability to grow from conditionality to unconditionality, will possibly help us get over this feeling of ingratitude.

I would even go to the extent to say that ,as parents, we need to do our duties towards our own children without expecting anything in return. This will enable us to lead a selfless life and be unconditional, in all our relationships.

Today I visited four friends/relatives just to enquire about their health and well being. This unconditionality brought smiles to their lives and I was also happy ,from the bottom of my heart. I learnt that we are duty bound to serve friends and relatives, unconditionally.

God will take care of us and bless us with happy times and good health always. Let relationships have no conditions. Let us visit people and serve them unconditionally.

I realised ,that we are human and it may be difficult when you experience ingratitude from the people, whom you have supported. But, when you experience the joy of unconditionality in doing your duties to friends and relatives without expecting anything in return, you realise that it is worth the effort.

Let our journey of life be unconditional always.

S Ramesh Shankar

23rd June 2024

 

Divine nature

I was on the banks of Cauvery at Gali Bore, near Bangalore. A poster on the wall of the resort triggered my thoughts. It read – “ Observe the patterns, Create sound maps and feel the senses .

I realised that in this materialistic world, we have forgotten all the above. Our eyes are the most powerful pair of lenses, in the world and the best camera we can ever have. But, we do not put it to its best use. There is so much to observe ,all around us.

Today ,sitting on the banks of Cauvery, I can see the wave patterns on the flowing river. It can give us unlimited ideas for designing any pattern in our lives. The swaying leaves on the trees and the playful malabar squirrel can keep us engaged all day.

It may be worthwhile for us to pause for a day and take a break from the madness of our every day life. We can hear the vibrations of nature. You feel as if the birds are speaking to one another. The squeak of one bird is responded by the melody of another. Such is the beauty of nature, we are missing every day.

Can we smell the air ? In our busy urban life, we only can smell the emissions of other vehicles and the polluting industries around us. In a forest, nature bestows us the fragrance of trees, flowers and even the wet mud, which makes us realise how much we have lost our senses.

As humans, we have five senses – see, hear, touch, smell and taste. But with urbanisation and leading a materialistic world, we seem to have lost all of them. We cannot see the obvious, listen to one another, touch and care for one another as humans, smell the fresh air ,as we have polluted it and taste organic natural food ,as we have injected all possible chemicals into our food.

It may be time to sit back and reflect. We may benefit by setting the clock back and rewinding our life. We may surprise ourselves ,if we activate all our senses to see, touch, taste, hear and smell. It may not be a difficult task ,but definitely needs introspection and efforts to get back to nature.

The first step could be to take a break ,once in a while ,from our rugged routine and be with nature. Nature can teach us in simple ways ,to reactivate our senses. The sights of nature ,will invigorate our senses. We will get mesmerised by the nature’s scenes and the smell of the flowers and trees. The care and touch of animals will kindle our senses. The taste of fruits from the forest ,will revitalise our senses and the sounds of nature will make us more sensitive and possibly make us better listeners in life.

Let nature awaken us. If we are willing to learn from nature, we may be able to activate our five senses and evolve as better human beings.

It is time to wake up and re unite with nature.

S Ramesh Shankar

11th May 2024

Cybercrimes

Every day we hear of cybercrimes happening all around us. All of us are happy that everything is digitised in life today and we are able to do all our financial transactions online. The convenience of internet and mobile banking is indeed a boon.

However, I was recently visiting a friend and he narrated a harrowing experience ,of being a victim of cybercrime and it shook the wits out of me and my spouse. I could not even believe that, this could happen to my friend, who holds a Ph.D and is well versed with most things in life.

I want to share the details of his experience ,for my readers ,so that more of us are aware of how cyber criminals operate and what precautions we could take, to prevent such crimes and also report them to the authorities concerned.

It all started with a fictitious phone call from an unknown person, claiming to be calling from an international courier company, that he has received a parcel from an international city and it has reached Mumbai. The parcel has been confiscated by the police and he needs to verify his credentials.

Then he gets another phone call ,claiming it is from the police, who have confiscated the parcel as it contained some illegal items. He needs to get on a Skype call ,to identify the parcel and the veracity of the senders.

This friend of mine stays alone and they advised him to get on a call on Skype and kept him on call for a few hours. Meanwhile, during the call, they also advised him to transfer some money, into a particular account, since they had to verify money trails. hence, it was necessary for him to send the money from his account. This continued and in the process he transferred a substantial amount, since he was mentally under siege. This is termed digital arrest nowadays.

When all this ended, he realised that it was cyber crime and he had lost a substantial amount of money to cyber criminals. Then, he reported to the police and the cyber crime cell, of the government. The good news is that ,after a long drawn process of investigation and courts etc, he got his money back ,although he went through all the mental turmoil and also the process of courts, advocates and had to spend some money to recover his lost money.

What I would like to highlight is that ,when such fiticitious calls come to us, we should either not pick up or not share any personal details including bank details, PAN or Aadhar numbers etc. We should report to our friends/relatives and also the police ,if we suspect any foul play since all such calls come from mobile numbers and can be easily identified.

In no case, we should transfer any money and as early as possible, keep all evidence of the phone numbers and name of caller and report it to the cyber crime cell of the police(1930 in India). We should definitely not get into any video call with any agency, as no police force or other agencies, will ask for our personal details on phone or video calls.

In a world, which is digitalised, all our information is available on the internet. Such criminals collect all our family details etc and try to threaten us ,with half baked information. We succumb to such calls unknowingly and then regret our actions. Any of us could easily fall prey to such actions. This blog is just an eye opener ,to such crimes happening around us, every day.

If we take the basic precautions of either not picking up unknown calls or ensuring that we do not share any personal information on phone or video calls with anyone, it could prevent such crimes. Further, we should report such calls immediately to cyber crime cell of the police ,so that innocent citizens do not fall victim to such nefarious acts of criminals.

Let us spread the word and take all the necessary precautions from today.

S Ramesh Shankar

21st April 2024