Need For Inspiration

I came to know about this person from a facebook post of my friend. "Dashrath Manjhi (1934 - August 17, 2007 ) was born into a poor labourer family in Gahlour village near Gaya in Bihar , India . He is also known as Mountain Man. Dashrath Majhi's wife, Falguni Devi, died due to lack of medical treatment because the nearest town with a doctor was 70 km away from their village in Bihar, India. Dashrath did not want anyone else to suffer the same fate as his wife, so he carved a 360-foot-long (110 m) through-cut , 25-foot-deep (7.6 m) in places and 30-foot-wide (9.1 m) to form a road through a mountain in the Gehlour hills, working day and night for 22 years from 1960 to 1982. His feat reduced the distance between the Atri and Wazirganj blocks of the Gaya district from 75 km to 1 km, bringing him national acclaim. He died on August 17, 2007. He was given a state funeral by the Government of Bihar ." - Wikipedia    An excellent article written o

Getting attention of cricket obsessed nation by performing in some other sport is not easy. Saina Nehwal did just that. She has been performing consistently for the past few years.Though she missed a medal in Beijing Olympics she made India proud by winning bronze in London Olympics. She lost all six games against world no.1 (even Olympics semifinal), but finally won against her yesterday in Denmark Open (she breezed into the final and won the final too). As Yuvraj tweets " Saina nehwal has broken the chinese wall !! I so knew she wud beat world no 1 one day !! Inspiration!! " . She challenged the dominant Chinese at their own game. This doyen is the perfect example of the saying - hard work pays off. She is not the most talented player but she is definitely most hardworking, dedicated and focused player. She doesn't let anything distract her from her goal. In Saina's words "… one needs to have conviction, zeal and strong resolve to t

Have you ever heard of crush on a book?Well I have one on 'The Old Man and the Sea' . I had to read it as a part of my course work.Normally, I wouldn't have picked up a book with such a weak plot (summary of this book in 5 words 'Old fisherman caught a fish') ,but I am glad I read this one. The old fisherman Santiago is one of the best fictional character I came across. His never say die attitude is the soul of the book. There are number of wonderful quotes in this book. I am picking some of my favourites for this blog. But do read this short book if time permits because you'll find numerous pearls of wisdom in it. “But man is not made for defeat," he said. "A man can be destroyed but not defeated. ” “Let him think that I am more man than I am and I will be so.”- may be this the reason Shahrukh Khan keeps on claiming he in number 1 in interviews. “Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck

King Of Pop For me Michael Jackson is synonymous to dance. In my previous posts I have listed some qualities of people as inspiring, but then I don't find MJ's personal life that inspiring. You may then wonder why I am listing him in my list of inspirational people. It's because his dance inspires me and millions of dance lovers all over the world. He is a phenomenal singer and the best entertainer too, but when it comes to dance - he is surreal. Some of the best dancers in India like Prabhu Deva and Chiranjeevi (several more) have been heavily inspired by his dance. Whenever I watch the videos of Smooth Criminal or Bad I feel that the music is beating to his dance rather than he dancing to the music.               I can't get enough of MJ's dance even after watching this hundreds of times.

After reading a link http://theoatmeal.com/comics/tesla sent by one of my friend I read about Nikola Tesla (source is wikipedia obviously). Man oh man if somebody has to epitomize knowledge for knowledge's sake, it has to be Nikola Tesla. He apparently spent all the money earned in patenting in more research. He is so much into experimenting that people refer to him as mad scientist (made popular by science fiction). I guess he is god among geeks. He showed that college degree isn't a measure of your intelligence (yeah he is a college dropout). The most endearing quality of him that I find inspiring is that he is not one for money or recognition (apparently he has number of inventions that haven't been patented). P.S. He is the second Serb after Djokovic to make my inspirational people list.

    Dimag ki batti jala de :P   "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. " - this famous quote from Thomas A. Edison shows his indomitable spirit. His passion for experimenting and thirst for knowledge is overwhelming. Being thrown out of school, going partially deaf and selling candy,newspapers etc. to make the meets end ---- nothing has deterred him from pursuing his interest in science and becoming America's most famous inventor. After reading about him it'll be difficult for anybody to cite bad circumstances as the reason for their failure.Some of his inspiring quotes:  " I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward." "Many of life's failures are men who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up." " Nearly every man who develops an idea works at it up to the point where it looks impossible, and then gets discouraged. That&

Malala Yousafzai is an inspiration to many people around the world. It would be unfair if I haven't included her in the list of inspirational figures knowing that she has inspired thousands of Muslim girls to fight for their right to education. It is sad that this 14 year girl has been shot by Taliban forces. I pray for her quick recovery and bright future.

Emma Watson - whenever I see her picture or hear about her the first thing that comes to my mind is that she is beauty with brains . She is somebody who has balanced her acting career and studies well. She is an A+ student (she has 8 A*'s and 2 A's in GCSE examinations). It is very rare to see teenagers who tasted instant fame and became part of glitz world to focus on studies. But Emma turned out be somebody who cares for her education just like her onscreen character Hermoine. I also see really intelligent posts on her facebook wall. I really hope that it is she who is posting them and not some PR people hired by her. I wish her all the best and take her as inspiration to not get distracted from my goal .

I thought it'll be fun to write about a fictional character who is inspiring. Which character is better than Harry Potter, who captured imaginations of millions of kids and adults alike, for this purpose. I am a huge fan of Harry Potter books and films.Actually I am not that big a fan as I saw many people wasting lots of dough on HP merchandise and I am not one of them. Anyway, coming to the point, what is it that I find inspiring about Harry Potter. For starters I think he is a wizard,he is the best quidditch player and he goes to coolest school. Enough of the obvious, let us talk about the qualities that are inspiring. As all of you know the whole Harry Potter series plot can be summarized as evil vs good where Voldemort symbolizes the evil while Harry Potter does the honours for the good-team. So Harry Potter is a good hearted dude. What else,hmm.... he values friendship. He risks his life like n number of times to save the ass of Ron and Hermonie. Yeah, I forgot to m

Well well well, Shahrukh Khan is my favourite actor/entertainer. So it is difficult to leave him out of the list of inspiring people. This guy with unconventional looks has entered bollywood with no family connections and became the Baadshah of Bollywood. He made even negative roles look cool in 'Baazigar ' and ' Darr '. Even today, more than 18 years after ' Darr ' released, people say 'K....K....K...Kiran' to imitate SRK. He revolutionized bollywood romance through his portrayal of Raj in ' Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge '. He did not shy away from doing experimental films like ' Asoka ', ' Swadesh ',' Chak de India ' etc. He also set the trend of stars endorsing products. He doesn't shy away from trying to fill Big B's shoes either in the film ' Don ' or the TV show 'KBC'. He knows he is popular and doesn't show false humility. He is arrogant, but it justifiable since he is a self m

    There is no need to give an introduction about Mahatma Gandhi . Recently I got into a discussion with few of my friends who feel that Gandhi is given undue importance in Indian history / Freedom movement. I strongly disagree with that opinion and this post is my attempt to further my case. Seriously, non-cooperation movement is one of the most game changing idea of the century . After getting their adrenaline pumped by watching a couple of Bollywood movies on Bhagath Singh or reading about Subhash Chandra Bose some juveniles think that Gandhi is responsible for delay in India getting Independence. On the contrary if everybody co-operated in the non-cooperation movement of Gandhiji we would have got independence 25 years earlier. Just think about the idea - nobody working for government, how will the government run. Britishers would never have enough troups to cope up with the work . It is really a simple idea in which everybody can participate without shedding any bloo

Now some of you may be skeptical of why I am writing about Mamata Banerjee , considering the fact that she is behaving little eccentric lately. I may not agree with some of her recent actions like putting a professor in jail for some silly cartoon issue,dubbing anybody who questions her as maoist or sacking of the railway minister, but this post is not about condemning somebody. This post is dedicated to highlight some inspiring qualities which she possesses. Maybe I'll write another blog about her already well documented foolish activities some time later. My knowledge about her is skin deep before she became chief minister of West Bengal. When All India Trinamool Congress  won the West Bengal state elections, I asked my Dad about Didi and my father spoke so highly about her that it made a lasting impression on me. Mamata Banerjee is a very simple lady , but one with an  iron will . She has been fighting relentlessly against the CPI-M for more than 3 decades before she b

Unlike my previous post I didn't have a difficult time in choosing the cricketer to blabber about as both my favourite cricketer and the one who inspires me the most is the same person, Rahul Dravid.                                                               Rahul Dravid                     Rahul Dravid was considered a boring player during the initial stages of his career by ...... almost everybody. Hardly anybody puts on TV if Dravid plays. He was considered unfit to play ODI's. But Dravid went on to become on of the most reliable player in Indian team in both Tests and ODI's. His exploits with Laxman and Sachin are unparalleled. In spite of not having the natural skills of master blaster Sachin, or the flamboyance of Sehwag he created a niche for himself with his textbook shots. In fact during his peak form in 2002-2006 many believe that he excelled more than Sachin Tendulker. He donned various roles given to him and is termed the ultimate team-man. As Hars

I will start my blog with some sports personalities who inspired me (as I am more familiar with sports achievements). When I decided to write about a tennis star, I had to make a difficult choice of choosing between my favourite player Federer, his greatest nemesis Nadal or the gritty Djokovic. Finally I decided to write about Novak for reasons mentioned below. All of us know that there is a huge difference between the top four and the rest in ATP tennis circuits for more than half a decade. Though Djokovic and Murray are constant presences in all the big championships, but they were no way in contention to Federer and Nadal. Federer and Nadal dominated the Tennis circuits for more than 5 years while Djokovic has to wait for his turn of glory (except for his first Australian Open in 2009). Djokovic despite repeated failure to dominate slams did not lose his confidence. He always believed he can beat the ethereal Federer and the incredible Nadal. Finally with slight  modifications