Thursday, October 7, 2010

Humourous Caption Contest!!

Good evening everyone,
It’s been a long time that we had another contest!! This time around, it’s time to spread some cheer!! Humour - It's the most difficult thing in the world. Some people get it, some people don't. But, no matter what, humour is guaranteed to make you smile—there's no way around it.

"We should treat all the trivial things seriously, and the serious things in life with sincere and studied triviality."
--Oscar Wilde
"Life does not cease to be funny when someone dies, any more than it ceases to be serious when someone laughs." --George Bernard Shaw

So, the thing to do is: Look at the picture below, and give it the most perfectly humorous caption, that you can think of!! The PRIZE this time is a movie ticket for two, to the movie of your choice, at the movie hall of your choice, complete with popcorn, snacks and coke!!

So, what are you waiting for? Your time starts NOW!!!! The deadline to close the contest is 30th October 2010. We’ll announce the winner on the 31st of October 2010.
 
The Marketing Team

A Monthly List of National Bestselling Books

TOP FICTION
1. The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown
2. After the Darkness, Sidney Sheldon
3. Aftertaste, Namita Devidayal
4. The Immortals of Meluha, Amish
5. The Thousand Autums of Jacob de Zoet, David Mitchell
6. The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga
7. Dork: The Incredible Adventures of Robin 'Einstein' Varghese
8. 2 States: The Story of my Marriage, Chetan Bhagat

NON FICTION
1. The Leader who had no Title, Robin Sharma
2. Connect the Dots, Rashmi Bansal
3. TATA: The Evolution of a Corporate Brand, Morgen Witzel
4. The Art of Choosing, Sheena Iyengar
5. Don't Lose your Mind, Lose your Weight, Rujuta Diwekar
6. Employees First, Customers Second, Vineet Nayar
7. The Difficulty of Being Good: On the Subtle Art of Dharma, Gurcharan Das
8. Before Memory Fades, Fali S. Nariman

The Marketing Team

The Eat, Play, Love Scorecard at Commonwealth Games!!

Things to do when you are in Delhi

1. Taste Fhirni at Karim's at Jama Masjid
2. Try chaat paapdi, raaj kachoris and samosas at Bengali Market and authentic Malyali fare at INA market.
3. Government canteens, such as Andhra Bhawan, Tamil Nadu Bhavan and karnatka Bhavan are also recomeended.
4. Go to ignis at Connaught Place and Kainoosh at DT Promenade, Vasant Kunj, for tony restaurant experience.
5. Go shopping for ethnic baubles and clothes at Delhi Haat.
6. Check out Khan market for imported groceries and cheeses.
7. Lose yourself int he busy Lajpat Nagar market and Sarojini Nagar markets.
8. Mall crawl at Select City Walk, Saket
9. Spend hours at the national Gallery of Modern Art, near India Gate with masterpieces of Indian contemporary art and shop for curios at its new store.
10. Eat ice cream at India Gate Lawn, the favorite picnic spot for delhites.
11. Indulge yourself with theatre at Mandi House where amateur troupes regularly put up performances at Kamani auditorium or the Sri Ram Centre.
12. Enjoy the rapture of Thursday night qawwalis at the Nizamuddin Dargah, where wishes of the believers are said to come true.
13 Take the Heritage Walks of Delhi, a great way to experience the present and past of the city.

The Marketing Department

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Joy of Giving Week

Good morning everyone,

What is common between Sachin Tendulkar, Azim Premji, the auto rickshaw unions of Chennai, the dabbawallas of Mumbai and 101 amateur film-makers all over India?

They will all engage in `acts of giving' as part of the nation-wide Joy of Giving Week to be held from September 27 to October 3. Sachin will auction a cricket coaching camp for charity, the auto rickshaw unions will conduct annadaanam camps, and the 101 film-makers will make short films on how people are giving.

The Joy of Giving Week is a new national movement that aims to engage every single Indian in giving back to society in a way that she or he chooses-money, time, skills or resources. So far, 35,000 schools, hundreds of colleges, several state governments, corporates, celebrities and sportspersons have signed up, and the fellowship is growing every day.
The Joy of Giving Week is being organized in India from the 26th September to 3rd October 2010. You can visit the link at http://joyofgivingweek.ning.com/.

Why do we need to do this? We need it because India could do with more Bill Gateses and more Warren Buffets. As India continues to struggle with its paradoxes of growth with inequity, of having the most billionaires in the world and the largest impoverished population, the Joy of Giving Week is an opportunity to redeem ourselves. To paraphrase management guru Peter Drucker's words, when we look in the mirror in the morning, we should be looking at a citizen who takes responsibility, a person who as a neighbour cares.

Even if you don’t want to contribute, please do take a moment to register yourself at the website - http://joyofgivingweek.ning.com/ - to show support to the cause. Once you register, it takes you to your own page where you can get involved, blog, see what others are doing, buy, donate or just be a non-committal participant!!

What is T & F doing:
Under the Joy of Giving Scheme - VASTRASAMMAN, we are sending all the clothes and other material that we have collected till date to Goonj, an NGO that works for old and poor people. So, all that you have contributed is going to a good cause!! Gives a great feeling, doesn’t it!!

I hope we will together definitely show our support to the Joy of Giving Week. So, register today and show your support!!

I’ll keep you posted on what other good work we continue doing for the Joy of Giving Week!!

Best wishes

Shafina

Pledge Your Eyes

Good Morning Everyone,


Someone has rightly said:


“All things bright and beautiful, All creatures great and small ....
  He made their glowing colours, He made their tiny wings …..”

There are 6.8 m people who CANNOT SEE “things bright and beautiful”. Give them the GIFT OF SIGHT, Pledge your eyes – for Donation.


If you are the kind of person who would want to return to the society before you leave this world, please refer to the attached Eye pledge form. Fill it up and return to me for further processing. Alternately, you could also let me know through email if you would want to pledge your eyes. I would be happy to take this process further on your behalf.


T&F is also liaising with Max Healthcare to take the Gift of Sight Project further. We’d now be organizing a series of health workshops in the office to spread more awareness about lifestyle modifications for optimum performance.


You’d be hearing more on this soon,


Best wishes
Shafina














The Green Week Winners!!











Thursday, September 16, 2010

A Romantic Tyrst

In the public gardens
everything is naturalized.


Plastic bags grow like
weeds on mounds of
autumn leaves.

Ice cream sticks are bits
of trees, fallen dead.

Colourful sweet wrappers
scatter the ground for flowers.

Balloons are bubbles frothing the air.
The horizon is peopled with fluorescent lights
at night, like fireflies.


We stroll hand-in-hand
through the debris of created nature.


Laugh at the setting sun.
Give each other knowing
smiles We've got enough
light to last us this night.


© Pallavi Narayan






































‘Verdant’

The contrast between
leafy avenue
and
garbage mounds
piled up on the sides
is jarring.

Walking, one looks
down the dreary road
as the dog sniffs
around the grass fertile
with the remains of everyday.

Then one chances
to look up.
The heavens open the
leaves inviting.
There is a sky.

There is
a silver lining.
only here,
it's green.

© Pallavi Narayan

The Power of Forgiveness

One of the many SMSes I received last week was on the power of forgiveness. It was sent by someone whom I don’t know, and yet I can say I ‘know’ the person through SMSes. The SMS read like this: God asked a girl: “What is forgiveness?” The young girl replied,” It is the wonderful fragrance given to us by a flower when we crush it. Or the lasting auspicious colour that mehendi leaves give us when we ground it to pulp.”


This set me thinking. Can we all ever make this beautiful message sink into our mind and soul? Can we ever let ourselves realise that forgiveness is not a sign of weakness but the greatest quality that a human being can possess.

Once you have enough strength and the sense to forgive those who have harmed you etc., you are on the threshold of enlightenment. You have already lifted yourself above the petty worldly businesses of love and hate. Forgiveness is the exhibition of your real worth as a human being. It is the Gandhi, the Buddha and Christ in you coming to the fore. I must say you are on way to acquiring the ultimate awareness that all of us work for.


As someone said, the remedy for wrongs is to forget them and living well because that would be the best revenge. No wonder, John Kasper had said, “he who has not forgiven his enemies has not yet tasted the most sublime enjoyment of life.”


To conquer hatred, which is a result of one’s ego ballooning out, is greater than conquering war. While war leads to deaths and destruction, forgiveness leads to a world full of love and patience. And sooner or later, your enemies will wake up to see your greatness and they will try to emulate you. Imagine a society in which ‘forget and forgive’ is everybody’s mantra --- the first thing to recite after wake-up in the morning. There will be a phenomenal change in everybody’s attitude and behaviour. Can you promise yourself to begin your day reciting ‘forget and forgive’? Just try and enjoy the difference.




Anjali Madan

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Holidays do not make you any happier: Study

A scientific study has found that those who go on holidays are not usually happy when they come back.

Dutch academic Jeroen Nawijn, of Erasmus University, Rotterdam, investigated the link between holidays and happiness in 1,530 men and women, of an average age of 50 last summer.

On questioning, he found that approximately two-thirds had been on holiday, and that people who had been back from their holidays for more than a few days were no happier than they had been a month or two before they went away.

"The maximum benefit of a holiday is two weeks after coming home. After that, people are not any happier than they were beforehand," the Daily Mail quoted Nawijn as saying.

He also found that people who have holidays booked but had not yet travelled tend to be happier than people who had not gone on holiday.

"People who have a great holiday may start to remember why they're alive, only to be thrown back into the living death known as working life," clinical psychologist, Oliver James, said.

Felicia Huppert, professor of psychology at Cambridge University, says the results of the Dutch study may be misleading as true happiness extends beyond someone's current mood.

"The way they've measured happiness relates to how you feel at the time. If you are going to measure something fleeting, you're going to find it goes back to its normal level," she said.

"Nowadays, psychologists are interested in another kind of happiness - to do with whether there's purpose in your life, as well as such self-esteem and your relationships with people," she stated.

The answer, says Nawijn, is to maximise your happiness by not booking one long holiday, but several shorter ones.

"The length of the after-effect of a holiday does not seem to be associated with the length of that holiday," he added. (ANI)

Dr Gagandeep Singh