Simply Riaz... Simply Myself...

I was shocked to hear the news! One of my good friends who worked with me in my first IT company died due to brain haemorrhage. And the reason given was due to abnormally high blood pressure arising out of work stress. Only 29 years old, I have known him as a person who enjoyed life, had a great sense of humour and a never say die attitude. Unfortunately, the last attribute cost him his life. I learnt that the last 3 days of his life were spent at office almost 24 hours a day with high stress and tension over a project going live in Production. He is survived by his wife and a 6 month old baby. However the stress for his family did not end there. He was working in a remote country in northern Europe and it took almost 10 days for the family to bring back the body to India after post-mortem and completion of admin formalities. After all the pain that we undergo to go abroad, work and earn money, such ends can be really demoralizing. We have been hearing about this stress factor at work now and then. Several major companies in India and Singapore have now started to promote the importance of managing a balanced work-life relationship now. But on how far we realize the importance of containing personal stress is really a question mark. We feel sorry for the stress related deaths happening around us, talk about it for sometime and then forget it altogether. We never give a second thought that the same thing might happen to us anytime sooner or later. Its time to put on our thinking hats and make a wise decision before its too late for ourself and our families.

It still surprises me that despite the huge amount of economic growth being reported by the Indian government every year, living standards of people never change. Blame it on corruption or mindset of Indians like us, the reality still stinks. During my recent 2 week vacation to India, my mind was constantly comparing how the same kind of things work better in Singapore and other developed countries. I was trying hard to reason why some things cannot be changed here.

For instance, talk about e-commerce and e-governance. We still do not have a social security number concept here. People continue to rally around ration cards and voter ID cards as proof of national identity. But the sad truth is that these are far from being centralised and the data in them is not completely fool-proof. Recently, we shifted to a new place in Kerala from Chennai. Just in order to change the owner's name with the Electricity Board, my father had to make almost 4 trips to the office almost 6 kms away. On one such trip that I accompanied him, I found that the people sitting there claiming to be government employees were very crude in their behaviour. The person incharge of the name change was away and the response from another guy was so lukewarm asking us to come back again the next day with no consideration for the pains undertaken by a senior citizen. We keep seeing such things in movies or encountered similar situations in our daily lives, but we still continue to keep our mouth shut and do nothing about it other than lamenting to ourselves.
In Singapore, every single application is tagged to your unique national identity number. Be it tax payment, bank accounts, medical insurance or employment accounts, every single transaction happening in your day to day activities can be tracked and monitored efficiently. This effectively results in almost zero corruption and better administration.

I happened to read in some newspaper recently that our Indian government is also planning to implement a digitized identity card, but not sure by when or whether it will be ever implemented. If the government can focus and put in more efforts on this area to make it a fool-proof system, I definitely think this will be a starting point towards change a better and efficient India in future.

Well, I did it again. Successfully went down with fever over the last 2 days on my latest visit to Chennai. I have the unbeaten record of getting fever everytime I come home over the last 4 years. Call it fate or blame it on the climate and pollution, it has become a habit for me now. In fact, I had postponed my return trips on 2 occasions before due to this. My bosses back in Singapore might be thinking that I am trying to make lame excuses just to get my vacation extended!!! Alhamdulillah, today I am feeling better and Insha Allah will be returning to Singapore on the midnight of 28th after celebrating Eid here.I have heard sometime back that getting fever is in fact a good sign - a sign of the body trying hard to flush out all the unwanted toxins. Good or bad, I have always seen it as a wonderful opportunity to reduce my tummy by being forced to eat only bread and other low fat food! Weight reduction hasn't been a problem for me. I have always managed to maintain my weight to the optimum, but my tummy has always been a cause of low confidence. Nowadays, I have made it a habit to walk from office to home daily in the evening. It takes about half hour plus of medium paced walk with intermediate slopes to reach home. Excercising for my broken back is already part of the daily regime and have added on a couple of tummy reduction excercises in as well. Lets hope and pray for the best.So my dear friends... how are you maintaining your weight, health and tummies? :-) Maybe its time to share your secrets as well!

Surprised by the header? An interesting topic to be explored in the current world scenario where everything and everyone works on numbers and mechanics. Recently met one old friend from SIO who is a doctor and psychologist. He is currently working on a project on the relevance of pre-marital counseling for couples. This practice is prevalent in most of the developed countries including Singapore where it is mandatory where divorce rates are high.So how does this fit the Indian scenario? My friend revealed some interesting stats which would definitely make us sit and think. He says that almost 20% of marriages end up in divorce in today's Indian Muslim community. A staggering 60% or more marriages are on the brink held up more for ego and social reasons. Less than 20% of Muslim marriages in India are really seen to be successful to a certain extent. The reasons for this can be attributed to various factors including non-Islamic upbringing, false sense of freedom, materialistic competition and many more.Do let me know your views and opinions in this regard.

I read this recent news about the scuffle on board Air India flight from New York to Delhi... suprisingly between the cockpit and the cabin crew! I have been a regular traveller on Air India flights but after hearing about this incident, I have second thoughts. Indian tourism industry has been struggling to survive in this competitive world and now this incident worsens the situation. Singapore has been an exemplary example in this case where tourism is at its highest level even with almost no natural resources available for it to explore. Singapore airlines service levels have been rated one of the best in the world. But service levels are very pathetic in almost all Indian airlines. If the problem starts at the very point where people from around the world want to step into India, then there is no point in trying to boost tourism.