Beauty beyond the eyes

I was away from blogging for sometime due to personal and professional commitments. I hope I have kept that as vague as possible to keep you speculating :D. It actually translates to that I was busy upgrading dial up internet service to broadband at home and work at office was very hectic. (Uff! The so often heard excuses. I could not cook up better than that :D) OK let’s jump to the post now.

Can you guess where the following snaps could have been taken? (Don't react with "How would I know?" :D)

Not many of you might believe if I say its right here in India, right here in Bangalore, right in my office campus!! I would not call this yapping coz I am deservingly proud of this. For those who have known Bangalore, as “infrastructure-deprived”, pot-holed, traffic jammed, highly populated city :(, this might have come as a surprise. (Actually, I could not publish much more beautiful snaps on my blog due to copyrights issue :D)

The picturesque landscape above is the artistic work of the ever-hardworking landscape team comprising of hundreds of gardeners, facilitators, creative designers etc. OK…. so what? Why am I talking about all this? If that’s your feeling, hold on. Last month, there was a ceremony in our office which recognized excellence across our global offices among the business class, technical solutions groups and the other ‘educated’ groups. There was one sub-category of awards for “Internal Customer Satisfaction”. Guess what!!! The landscape team won an award in this category. Believe it or not!!!! There was a collective unforced standing ovation combined with continuous applause for 6 complete minutes by around 40000 people connected from all around the world through video-conferencing. I could sense a collective pride across for the efforts by this team. No monetary award can substitute this!! A reward to a great job extremely well executed. Kudos!

Most of these gardeners are very less literate (note I am not using the word “educated”…. Coz my strong belief is that education can never be derived from books and suffixing your name with a few degrees). Being a Bangalorean, I know the local language Kannada. So, I have been able to converse with them during my rest room breaks or when walking around on the lawn lanes. It is bliss to speak to them. They speak so open-heartedly and with such innocence. They are so contented (and not complacent) with their job and life. They are so enthusiastic and every helping. They smile from their hearts and not their lips. It is an inspiration to hear them passionately speak about their work, their family and other things. They are so BEAUTIFUL from within. I guess this what reflects in those beautiful lawns…..

For me, somebody is beautiful when they are simple, down-to-earth and when they can keep their child switch ON. For others, beauty may be the go-get-it attitude. For some others, it may be about being a dare-devil and so on and so forth. It just lies with us to see the beauty within us and around us!! So happy beauty searching and enjoying :D

Quote of the Moment: The best and most beautiful thing in life cannot be seen, not touched, but are felt in the heart!! - Hellen Keller

Next to Come: Me in ChinkyLand – The Series