LIFE IS ROCKING

2009-01-21T03:22:00.000-08:00

Night Life

For people living in the city, night life is something they love. Often they swear by it. However, night life in a goddamn factory in a goddamn town is nothing but a pain. In fact, come of think of it, the usage Night life is an oxymoron in this context. It’s simply insipid. And it isn’t just about me. It’s about anyone who works during this time without choice.
I had thought that my days in the night shift had ended with my software company days. Lo Behold!! That’s when I am asked to come for a week in night shift as part of my training. Well, the idea was to observe how things work during a period of time when the management or administration isn’t there.

The first night was really bad. I wasn’t prepared at all. I didn’t carry any book with me. I still hadn’t got my internet connection. The outgoing facility in my phone got snapped because I hadn’t paid my bills. And with no one around, in fact there was no work too. I thought I’d die of boredom. In the subsequent days, I started carrying a book. I also sent reading stuff to my official id so as to keep me occupied. And I started doing other things to keep me engaged.

10 pm – I reach office. Read and respond to mails. I hunt for personal mails amongst a flurry of official mails. Pillai never disappoints me though the mails he sends might be related to Malayalam cinema.

11 pm – 1st Line visit. The seamless production process of atta getting converted into a packet of noodles always amazes me. 50 pairs of prying eyes. I nod and smile as I move along and eventually meet the Shift officer to get the night visit report signed off.

12 am – The tea boy comes with a plate of bread butter jam toast and tea. This is one of the things I cherish in the night shift. Probably it’s got something to do with the boy who adds a tinge of love and respect while making the foodstuff which makes it all the more palatable.

1:00 am - 2nd line visit. In college, I used to think that I was best suited for a factory because I had an uncanny ability of getting along well with all kinds of people. This myth was based on the friendship I forged with the non teaching staff, security, canteen folks and others. However, this got busted when I reached the factory. I found myself struggling to break the ice with the technicians. I still am not quite comfortable at it though attempts continue at that during such line visits.

2 am - Tasting session. Well, this is the advantage of being in a food industry. You can satiate your appetite by just going for a tasting session. Ideally, the people who go for such sessions are the sensory evaluation experts who after tasting are supposed to provide feedback based on which it is decided whether or not the batches can be released. However, I don’t have any dual intention. My motto is simple – savor the magi :). Am reminded of my hostel days in TISS when Jaideep and Joseph used to sneak into our (Vibhu and mine) room and steal Vibhu's maggi. I didn't have much option other than being a silent accomplice. haha..

2:30 - Take a tour of the factory with the security. These rounds are meant to be more of an inspection. Checking the hygiene of the social blocks, canteens, checking whether there are people sleeping in the social blocks are some of the activities to be done. A couple of times, I found people sleeping the social blocks. They are very smart. You won’t be able to find where they are hiding. They change the position of the lockers, sneak in between them and sleep. A hide a seek game at 3 am in the morning. :)

3:30 am: Its tea time again. Quality of the tea served during the night is a concern, say some of the workmen. I note down my observations for the night and read a bit.

4:00 - Planning for the next day. Essentially this involves sending mails to people prescribing what needs to be done the following day. Now I am acting like a manager. :)

5:00 - Am almost ready to leave. I can’t wait anymore. It’s just beginning to get on to me.

5:30 – I take a stroll outside. It’s pretty cold. “Pahaad mein baraf gir rahi hain. Isiliye yehaan pe thandi hawa chalti hain”, says the security person. Bhajans from the neighborhood temple fill the air with devotion. I am immediately transported to the banks of the Ganges in Rishikesh. Well, that’s the feeling that you get. Damn good.

5:45 – I punch out and run to the hotel with a fear of losing the sleep if I see the sun.

2008-12-09T05:12:00.000-08:00

My Short Sales Stint

Dusty roads teeming with traffic,

Sleeves rolled up, seated on a scooter that’s rustic,

Ferrying across the route to market,

Through a puddle of dust and dirt.

Shopkeepers smoking beedi give orders and Haryanwe Hindi dose,

Short breaks in between that keep me away from doze,

I come back to hear them say ‘Zyada chahiye margin’,

The haggling continues, I think with a grin.

SKUs in the form of packets, bottles, sachets and cases,

We fill them in all the available shelf spaces.

Malls, star outlets, shops large and small,

Irrespective of size, we visit ‘em all.

Soups, Noodles, Dhooth and Dahi,

With pride we say, ‘Taste bhi, Health bhi’.

BarOne, KitKat, MilkyBar and Munch,

We sell them even in times of financial crunch.

Cycleboys, Salesmen, Officers and Managers,

They all have their respective monthly targets.

Those who meet them are all merry and gay,

FMCG is SALES is what they all say.. :)

2008-11-22T00:44:00.000-08:00

Happy to Help

During our management trainee induction program, all of us were asked to comment on our company ads. We didn’t give them a good rating. We were later asked which companies’ ads we like. The answer was unanimous – Vodafone, where a puppy always follows its master and is happy to offer help in all possible ways. That’s the beauty of an ad. They help imprint a brand’s image in the minds of the customer. It’s a passport that will make a customer reach the door of the company. However, loyalty of the customer hinges on factors like the first experience and the customer service he continues to get.

After coming to Delhi, I thought that I would continue my Bombay number thinking that I wouldn’t be connected with people that much and hence wouldn’t be using my phone to a great extend. Getting settled in a city brings with it, its own set of challenges and I had mine too. My phone bills were surging and I had to tighten my purse strings. I decided to take a new connection and this time for a change, Vodafone. Rather than heading straight towards a gallery, I found a dealer on the way and gave him all the required documents thinking that he would be my lucky mascot who would get my sim activated in a day’s time.

Things always don’t happen as you want them too. Thanks to the terrorists, service providers have become finicky. Along with address proof and identity proof, to get a connection, one would need to give a landline number and a couple of mobile numbers as reference. Forget my case, but how on earth can someone expect a migrant laborer from UP to furnish such details? All this has done nothing but just increased the average time for sim activation. A visit to the Vodafone office becomes a part of your daily agenda. You get there and you will get assurance from the executive that your sim will get activated in half an hour, a duration you wouldn’t want to sit in the gallery and sulk. Instead, you trust the executive and head towards home. You wait for 4 hrs, 12 hrs, 24 hrs but nothing happens. You call up customer care and you would have a ball of a time conversing with Vijender Singh, Santosh or Beena and listening to “Shudh Hindi”. You get pooped providing the same details every time. I realize that the next visit to the Vodafone gallery is due.

Quite contrary to what I normally do, I decide to give the executive a piece of my mind. But once I reach the gallery, I am my normal self and I ask why the sim hasn’t got activated. I get the same response; “Sir, this will ready in 15 min. If you want, you may go home”. This time I decide to stay back till I get activation done. I go and get myself seated in the plush sofa and take a good view of the office. Suddenly, a lady storms into the office and slams the door behind her back. She heads straight towards an executive and asks a question which to me appears as old as the hills; “Why hasn’t my sim got activated?” But she was quite different from me. She had applied for a connection for her son about six days back and still she hadn’t got it. In fact she was a Vodafone customer whose monthly bills are a meaty Rs.15000. Forget the differential treatment that she ought to have got. In my mind, I thought that I was lucky to get a connection in 2 days. She slammed the executive and all attempts made by the executive to mollify the lady were in vain. Oh! How beautifully she spoke. I was all merry listening to the lady giving her incisive comments on the customer service. I loved her chutzpah. She was doing something which many customers like me couldn’t do. She was the voice of the customer who trusted the executive; got betrayed and had a strong sense of indignation and a feeling of being cheated and she literally mortified them and reinforced to people like me that customer is still the king.

I do appreciate the fact that there is a need for service providers to be more vigilant especially in the wake of our country being under the radar of terrorist attacks but the trade off cannot be customer service. Processes no doubt need to be robust so that atrocities like these don’t happen but at the same time service providers need to beef up their resources and ensure maximum customer satisfaction. Possible solutions are many. Either you increase the staff to do the additional processing or make the processes leaner so that the customer doesn’t have to wait for long. The most important thing is not to give false hopes of the sim getting activated in x hours but to be more realistic and sticking to the deadline given.

It takes a couple of days to start a business in Singapore and it takes more than that for a sim to get activated in India…

2008-11-17T23:12:00.000-08:00

Pushkar - Seeking Salvation !!!

A little away from Ajmer, where vegetation begins to get sparse and cactus begins to emerge from jutting rocks, narrow roads cut in the mountain lead to a place called Pushkar. It’s the only place in India that has a temple of Lord Brahma (creator as per Hindu Mythology). Little do we guess en-route that once we get to the other side of the hill, we reach a small town that houses almost 51 temples and a lake that is considered sacrosanct.

Men with colorful turbans on bus tops

Women draped in bright colored traditional sarees

Bus is packed with people all and sundry

To head to a place that appears to be all but dry

A dip in the holy waters,

A 3 km walk to the sacred altar,

To catch a glimpse of the creator

In all his glory in this sole altar.

Camels and Cows get traded at the fair,

For prices that are considered fair.

People of all colors, dark and fair,

Come here to witness what is known as Pushkar Fair.

Beads, bangles, bells and bags,

Handicrafts, artworks and other skunk works,

Men and Women with blue, green and brown eyes,

It’s a color riot of sorts.

Sweets of different tastes and kinds are in the making,

Falafel, Pita, Pizza and Pasta are in the offering,

Bedi, Cigarette, Chai and Pan,

It just seemed like there was no ban.

Ghats, lights and placid waters of the lake

Am at another world where peace with everything is what I make…

2008-09-18T03:56:00.000-07:00

For VSP...my first piece of poetry

He comes in a red car,

Clad in a white shirt with no scar,

With a face that is beaming,

Wisdom in his grey cells gleaming.

He enters the class with a smile,

And takes us through that extra mile,

Conflict and clashes happen

He teaches us to manage them.

Stand up for something,

You can negotiate anything,

Don’t get nervous, be staid

All of you will do well, he said.

He made us meet the Golden Swan,

Gave us a memorable sundown

Oh you roaring lion of AP,

We all love you VSP....

2008-07-15T21:48:00.000-07:00

Doctor Hunter

Well, almost a year back, I was doing my summers in a Pharma company. As part of my project, I had to meet the marketing managers and collect information from them. That's when I met him for the first time.

Me: Hi, I want some information from you..

Abhi: Come tomorrow and get some stuff for me..

Me: What is this stuff?

Abhi: Grass (with a grin on his face)

Well, the following day he agreed to spent some time with me without the stuff. Boy, what a meeting it was. He asked very pertinent questions as to why this project was being done and he said that until he was satisfied, he wouldnt help me out. Thankfully, he got convinced.

From then on, he was one of the persons I got closely associated in the organization. Primarily, because, he wasnt satisfied with the way the organization was growing and I liked that..his sense of positive dissatisfaction. I knew that this guy was different but never to this extend that he had such an entrepreneurial blood running in his veins..... Well, I am referring to Dr.Abhilash Tirupathy, the maverick behind HealthcareMagic.com who has been currently selected as one of the top eight finalists for the Tie (The Indus Entrepreneurs) Cannan Entrepreneurial Challenge.

There literally hundreds of doctors and dozens of hospitals in Bangalore, but if you’re new to India’s IT Capital, you’ll probably be lost if you need to judge the competence of your neighbourhood doctor or the specialty clinic some blocks away. “There is very little transparency on the data available for healthcare providers,” says Dr Abhilash Thirupathy, a dentist by training who co-founded HealthcareMagic.com with Kunal Sinha a second-time entrepreneur. The portal, according to Thirupathy, is India’s first portal and call centre to provide medical advice and referral in real time. Doctors chat with patients online and provide initial medical advice. The patients are also referred to a specialist if needed. (Courtesy: Business Today, July 13)

A few useful links:

http://healthcaremagic.com/hcm/home.jsp

http://healthcaremagic.com/blog/

So, the next time, you need a medical advice, you know where you need to go....

Kudos Abyaby..

PS: Preethi, this site might be of use for you and your org..Check this out..

2008-07-12T04:57:00.000-07:00

GLASSMATES

Often, for a person residing outside Goa, Goa is a place of 3 B’s; beer, beach and babes. The third option is a bit elusive, the second one requires a lot of efforts in traveling but the first one doesn’t require anything. In Goa, getting drinking water might be a problem but not the ubiquitous beer.
Drinking alone is a pain; especially if you have had some great glass mates in the past. So this post is a toast to some of my favorite glass mates with whom I have had some of the best times along with beer.

The first name is always a bit difficult to choose; hence I would go the alphabetical way.

Anuj - I cannot stop laughing when I think about this incident. I think we were in a bar in Chennai when this happened. The bearer came to our table to ask for the last orders as it was time for the bar to close. As usual Anuj, though he had guzzled down a good 5-6 pegs, was still normal and wasn’t quite amused by the fact that the bar was about to close. In his quintessential manner, he replied, “ oru 15 peg rum poratte..”. I still remember the bewildered look on the bearer’s face. There was a roar of laughter when the bearer left and the banter continued…
Enjoyable moments – When he laughs at the silliest jokes you feel like laughing when you see him….

Bijoy – You never know what will happen when you are with him. At times he would be the only person who would be perfectly alright even after downing 7-8 pegs. At times, he can be the only person who really gets knocked out and then god knows what will happen.
Whenever I get back home, he would be the first person whom I call. In his usual manner, he would say, “Namukonnu koodende….vaikunneram vaa Indrapuriyilekku..”
Don’t know whether he has changed his hang out place now.
Memorable moments – Most of the times…(though I have landed in trouble at times also).

Motta – Sporting a cap, this bearded man has always been fun to be with during such sessions.
Most memorable moment – When he sings Andhikadappurathu…..

Murali – From school days, I knew that he had interest in music but never knew he sings really well. Murali has been a revelation in that aspect. The last few drinking sessions that I have had with him have been memorable. His rendition of Venugopal songs is fantastic. I am sure, even now, he would be learning some song for his next session which would definitely elicit an encore from his audience.
Most memorable moment – When he sings Mayamanjalil….

Musthafa – There was a time, when we used to have daily quota of beers. Tired of this, one day we decided that we would stop. He suggested that we should kick this habit by having a can of beer. So both of us went to Amrapali to have a can of beer together but ended up having 4 beers each. With that, we put an end to our dream of quitting drinking.
Most memorable moment – When we had Red Label in Helen Villa at 3 am in the morning while it was raining outside. The yellow lights that stood tall in the streets, against which the rain drops felt gently lighted the room that was otherwise dark. It was beautiful….

Rahul – Discussions of all sorts happen with this guy. Music, movies, work, girls..the list is endless. He has this unique thing. He will obliterate all our thought processes in a single moment with his ideas and make us think over it again. Creates a sense of positive dissatisfaction by asking, “dey, ingane irunna mathiya…rekshapedednde….cinema edukkende.. Days spent in Sai Vihar bar will always be memorable primarily because of the above mentioned reasons and also because of Fish Pulimoonji..
Most memorable moment – When he scripts a story on the spot, especially murder mysteries…

Reghu – He drank with me for the first time at our house in Bombay. He started off by saying that he has drunk only once before. The way, he guzzled down the pegs didn’t quite seem to tell the same tale. Instead it appeared that he was more of a seasoned drinker.
Most memorable moment - When he said after drinking, “Dey, fan karangana pole thonnunnu….”

Drinking is a vice. I don’t really believe it. If you have such glass mates, then I think we need to meet them to create memories and part to preserve them.

Cheers……….

2008-04-13T10:35:00.000-07:00

Writers and their films

While sipping Vodka with lime at Bijoy’s house, we were musing over which movie we need to see amongst the Vishu releases. After seeing the promos and a song we decided that it won’t be “Innathe Chinthavishayam”. But eventually, we gave in to the wishes of one of our comrades who wanted to see the same. Must say that, we (at least I) were disappointed but not surprised.
We knew that it would be something of this sort. If it is Sathyan Anthikkad, then it has to have certain elements, family being one of the most important and the protagonists being morally correct people who take on the onus of counseling the world around them. It’s no different in Innathe Chinthavishayam.

But I need to admit one thing. All writers in general have certain common elements in some of their scripts. We have already seen Sathyan. If it is Sreenivasan, then for sure there will be one or two references to the color of his skin and his height. The degree of this self-derision also doesn’t vary with movies. Having said that, Sreeni is one of the finest story tellers in Malayalam. One doesn’t have to go too far. Katha Parayumbol, as Rahul says was the saving grace among all the movies of 2007 as far as commercial films are concerned. Impeccable story telling along with some fine dialogues that had the tinge of sarcasm, a regular feature of Sreeni and a superb cameo (in its literal sense) after a long time by Mammootty were the highlights of Katha Parayumbol. The climax of the movie wherein Mammotty comes and delivers a speech in the school is excellent and is what is called a real cameo. Compare it with the climax (especially the dialogue part) wherein Mohanlal speaks about his own problematic childhood, its poles apart. Hats off Sreeni…

One of the reasons why I prefer to watch a Renjith movie is primarily because he is one writer who sells dreams. His protagonist, most often, a free spirited globe trotter will be a person with specialties. He will mouth philosophical dialogues with most of them as Jayasankar says having a touch of soft hindutva; he will be a connoisseur of arts and most of all, he will be a “know it all” types. But Renjith’s films also have certain common traits – character sketch of the main protagonist as we have just seen, a few friends of the hero who will be waiting for him in the native land and of course loads of nostalgia, which the protagonist, most often who comes back after a long time brings along with him. Though predictable, it’s enjoyable.

So there’s nothing to complain about Sathyan except for the fact that it would be good, if he can attempt to make something different next time which the other two writers do at times.
Well, for this Vishu season, my bet is on “Dey Ingottu Nokkiye” by Balachandra Menon who has taken the courage to put a junior actor Jayasuriya in the lead unlike others who are still dependant on the veterans...

Happy Vishu...

2008-04-08T10:52:00.000-07:00

It’s all about an experience….

Two years at TISS have come to an end thereby marking the end of formal education. What has TISS given me? A brand name that has enabled me to reach the threshold of an organization. What next?
Well, in fact formal education can take you this far only. It can give you a brand and open doors. Further opening of doors and finding the way completely depends on you and your personal brand.

There are 2 things that come to my mind especially at this juncture when I am going to join an organization. First of all, there would be many like me who are eager to join their respective organizations where they have been placed. Personally, I have a lot of expectations and also hope to add value to the position that I am going to occupy. At this point there could be point of concern, i.e. to what effect can you bring about changes in an organization. Well, the fact is that ideally one should not hope or think too much about introducing an organizational change as early as joining.

Perhaps the answer lies somewhere in Stephen Covey’s 7 habits of which one is to widen your circle of influence (1). While joining the organization, we might belong to a particular department, say human resources. Ideally, the focus should be on improving the systems and processes that lie within the realm of HR and thereby slowly gaining the confidence of the people around you. Here is where your personal brand matters. Be it any sort of transaction that you are having with your people around, you need to create an experience for the other person (2).

For instance, as HR people, one of our routine functions is recruitment. If we were to draw a parallel between a prospective customer and a prospective employee (synergies between HR and other functions can be another post in itself), the way we would go about interviewing a candidate would be different. This only means that the interview in itself should be an experience for the candidate. What would constitute an experience is completely up to you. Basic etiquettes like offering tea, snacks etc are to be followed and attempts to make the candidate at ease should be made. It would be great if the candidate upon rejection could be given some sort of feedback as to why he failed to make the cut. All this would prevent the candidate developing a negative feeling and instead would etch a positive impression in the mind of the candidate about the organization as a brand and he/she is most likely to join your organization in future given a chance.

This is just one example of what HR professional can do in terms of providing an experience. There are umpteen transactions that happen in an organization on a daily basis. Care should be taken to make them all meaningful and engaging experiences.

As poet Maya Angelon said, “People will forget what you said, they will forget what you did but they will never forget what you made them feel”.

It’s all about providing an experience and thereby enhancing your brand value and subsequently your organization’s brand value…

2008-04-05T06:48:00.000-07:00

After a long time…

Well well…for those who visit my blog, I am writing after a long time..hence am having cramps in writing. Yet I will make an attempt to write something..There is no specific topic in this blog. Just a few random thoughts put together, that’s it.
The recent tussle between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu over the Hogenekkal issue is surprising. The issue was resolved ten years before and has now surfaced again. The interesting aspect is the timing of the issue – just before the elections in Karnataka which in itself is a huge manifestation of vote bank politics that continues till date in India. This is not the first time that such a thing is happening. It’s sad because in this case, the issue was resolved previously and for no reason has been brought up. The intent in this case is pretty clear – to gain political mileage and garner more votes.

I was immediately reminded of a similar thing that happened in our TISS campus just before the union elections. A very sensitive issue was brought to the front by the constitution review committee which was whether there should be any affirmative action (read reservation) for certain communities in the executive body. Once again, it is the timing that created ripples. In a college like Tata institute where the majority of the students come for programs like social work, by virtue of what they learn and what they are forced to think, they always favor reservation without even understanding the larger purpose of the same. The institute clearly got divided along two lines with the people going against the concept of reservation being a minority (in terms of numbers). For sure, the aspirants who by virtue of their philosophy opposed the concept of reservations, lost because of sheer numbers.

The timing of an issue and the sensitivity can create a huge impact as people, I presume, generally vote on the basis of emotions and not rationale. I can bet on this, otherwise India for sure would have had better leaders. Secondly, the stakeholders never speak on the issue. For instance, I am not sure whether the people who are out on the streets of Karnataka and Tamilnadu destroying properties of each other are the actual representatives of the culture of the 2 states. Karnataka is generally known to be a peace loving state but the current status doesn’t quite reflect that. So was the case in TISS. The so called communities or people from communities never expressed desire that they wanted reservations. It was from some faculty corner or straight from the brains of a few intellectuals who wanted social justice to prevail in TISS as it represents a microcosm of the society.

Applying principles of position vs interest (courtesy: Conflict Management class of Patwardhan sir), the positions of both the states are clear. But it is the interest of Karnataka state that is appearing a bit murky. The issue is not water for sure. The interests lie somewhere in the upcoming elections.
Similarly upon probing a lot, the group that supported reservations in TISS were never quite able to provide satisfying theories. The communities are getting marginalized and hence they need representation or they need to be empowered and hence they need reservation; all these sound like mere rhetoric. If discrimination is the problem, use the cell that already exists for the communities in a more effective way. If empowerment is the real interest, then build the capacities/capabilities of the communities instead of fighting for a position in the union which would in the long run benefit the communities too.

Moving from position to interests in fact helps a lot in arriving at the root of the conflict. But whether it gets resolved or not truly depends to a certain extend on the skills of the parties involved and to a larger extend on the authority. In TISS, we were finally able to stall the process of amendment (of creating reservations for communities) by reaching out to a higher authority. In case of Karnataka and Tamilnadu what will happen is something that we need to wait and see..

2007-11-30T04:35:00.000-08:00

Right here, Right now...

Saw a movie at office today. A short 28 min movie… It’s really beautiful to watch such a movie which had a powerful message but was shown in the most creative and subtlest way.

The first shot shows a young man in his haste to go to some place and taking two actions - he screams at his mother for making him late, and he lovingly appreciates his brother's painting. By doing so, he strikes off two cycles - one of frustration and sorrow and the other of love and joy. His mother vents out her anger on her maidservant. His brother gifts the painting to his girl friend. Thus begins the cycles of sorrow and joy, forming a Domino stairway, leading to an unknown doorway. After shaking hands with 15 other characters and traveling through 17 locations, in just two shots, both the cycles meet at the end in an attempt to give a logical understanding to the seemingly absurd human life. It's a humorous look at the bizarreness of the cosmic accident, otherwise known as life.

After watching the movie, we sort of tried to reflect on the message that was being communicated through the movie. One team member said that the lives of all are interwoven while another said that if we have a positive mentality and do good things, they will come back to us. Perhaps what intrigued all of us were the 3 liner songs in this short movie that came at every alternate shot. The song would be in different languages depending on the actor who was in the shot but for line that was common for all….Red Blossom Cherry………

We tried to comprehend what it meant but in vain. One member stretched her imagination a bit and said that if we were to take the first 3 letters – R,B, and C it could mean that when we are happy, the RBC count in our body would be high. Well, that was something which none of us could digest, still we appreciated her imagination. Suddenly out of the blue, one member said that a flower in Japan blooms for only 10 days in a year and it is called cherry blossom. This flower is supposedly a metaphor for transient nature of life, rather ephemeral nature of life. The movie in fact celebrates the transience of life. It says that we shouldn’t wait for the next moment. The moment, right here, right now is your moment and one should be happy during this moment and spread a smile.

Spanning 17 locations, starring 18 characters and taken in mere 2 shots, Right here, Right now, the 28 min movie directed by Anand Gandhi is quite simplistically shot, highly innovative with a subtle, powerful message that has a tinge of philosophy.

2007-11-12T20:04:00.000-08:00

Om Shanti Om – Mere noise.

This is not a film review but the manifestation of indignation of a hardcore disillusioned fan…

It was with much anxiety and bated breath that I waited for SRK’s latest release Om Shanti Om (OSO). Being a hard core Shahrukh fan (which I became especially after watching movies like Swades, Don and Chak De), I went and watched the movie on the first day itself even though I knew that the story revolved around the age old tried, tested and decayed concept of rebirth and that the movie was made by none other than the famous director, Farah Khan whose previous movie was Main Hoon naa. Yes, in spite of all this, I went and watched the movie still thinking that there would be some offering from the director’s end which would make the movie viewable.

But hey…hang on. OSO disappoints. The movie is nothing but a mix of all ingredients – few good songs with one song starring almost 31 stars of Bollywood, another one in which SRK matches rhythm with chics in an item no. Dard-e-Disco showing off his six pack, huge sets, which resemble the 70’s era as the first half of the movie is set in that period, and are pretty good (credit goes to Art director, Sabu Cyril) and efforts by the rest of the crew who have put in a lot of hard work to give the movie a look of the 70’s with the heroes sporting side burns and wearing bell bottom pants etc.

But that’s it….A movie can’t be appreciated just because of the sets and a couple of good songs. How different is it from an album then? A film’s usp can’t be a song with 31 stars or a song that features SRK showing off his recently worked out body. But unfortunately that’s what OSO is. There is absolutely no stuff in the movie. Not a single scene or dialogue in the movie is worth remembering. Oh yeah….i remember one dialogue which the thespians keep mouthing throughout the movie, ( If someone wishes something genuinely, the entire universe will conspire and help him/her get that even to the extend of being born again to fulfill certain dreams, :) ). I am sure that Paulo Coelho must be turning in his grave.

It somehow appears that Farah has made the movie for herself. If you have a friend, who is a popular actor and lots of money with you, then you can make a movie and be guaranteed of the fact that you can make money. That’s what has happened. The duo (Farah and Shahrukh) it seems, don’t give a damn to what the viewers think. There was a recent interview in which she said “I don’t want Shahrukh to sit and cry in the movie. He is my hero. I want him to save the heroine, fly like a superhero and smash the villains”. Everybody can have his/her own idea about a hero but is film making just about giving shape to one’s thought however bizarre it may be or is it much more than that?

Of late, Bollywood has witnessed what can be called “media corporitization”. These corporate offices have taken up film production and distribution and hence the dynamics of movie making have completely changed. Marketing holds the key to the success of a movie is the new age maxim. Big production houses like Yash Raj spent a lot of money marketing their movies. Eros International, another big name was perhaps playing big for the first time in India tying up with Red Chillies Entertainment (SRK’s own production banner) and didn’t leave any stone unturned as far as marketing of OSO was concerned. But if you observe, there is a trend that is emerging. Most of these movies which are marketed in a big way lack the spine – a good story and a script. So marketing in fact makes up for all such lapses and helps package the movie in way that enthuses the audience to go and watch. Lo, behold. These strategies aren’t going to work in the long run. The last few Yash Raj films bombed in the box office. OSO might become a hit but definitely it’s not something that is worth emulating. Soon, the time would come when no amount of marketing and commoditization of movies would come to the rescue of movies that don’t have the spine.

PS: My dear friend, Rahul, I am confident that you will make a better movie; hehe. If you lack the confidence, go watch OSO. After all film making isn’t rocket science dude (Courtesy: Farah)

2007-11-05T10:45:00.000-08:00

Eccentric Musings of a Hippie…..

The train sluggishly moved out of Mumbai Central station thereby marking the beginning of a spiritual (not religious) journey in what was going to become a remarkable experience.

Hailing from a typical middle class family in the south, my idea about North India was formed mainly by the trips that we undertook to various places as a family during the summers. But then, there comes a stage in your life when you would want to revisit most of those places for which you have suddenly developed an appetite for seeing and appreciating. So that’s how it struck me to visit Delhi, Agra and the twin temple cities of Haridwar and Rishikesh.

Bombay has always been my first love and though Paru often used to tell a lot about Delhi, I never used to agree with her on the fact that Delhi is better than Bombay. I didn’t have any expectations about Delhi but what welcomed me on my way to Kingshuk’s house in Sarojini Nagar was dark, tarred, well maintained roads with trees on both sides forming a canopy which completely captured my imagination and I fell in love with Delhi. A well planned city (credit goes to Edwin Lutyens), Delhi is far better than Bombay at least on a couple of parameters like good roads, lesser pollution and fewer traffic snarls primarily because, this is the place where the nation’s top executive and the judicial institutions are. At the same time, a lot of initiatives have also been taken in the capital to ensure a better environment – by enforcing a rule that made all the public transport run on gas. Credit also goes to the metro that was recently launched that takes away a lot of road traffic.

But Delhi was just a base camp. Calling ourselves hippies, Romit and I set out for the twin cities by road. We reached Rishikesh earlier than we had anticipated – 5 am in the morning. Draped in half sleeved t-shirts and jeans, we moved out of the bus towards the ghat braving the biting cold that was killing us. We spent almost 2 hours waiting for the sun to rise and relieve us from the cold and then slowly we proceeded to Lakshman Joola which is a huge bridge and is one of the major attractions in Rishikesh. The bold and beautiful Ganges flows under the Lakshman joola. Standing on the bridge and gazing at the Ganges with the wind kissing your face is an ethereal experience. A holy dip in the greenish blue waters of the Ganga that were shimmering in the sunlight was another exhilarating experience.

We rushed back to Haridwar in a bid to see the arti (evening prayers) only to find to our dismay that the waters of the river were blocked as some purification was underway and hence the arti wasn’t as beautiful as we had thought it would be.

To what extend a person would go as far his love is concerned? The answer would be Taj Mahal built by Shah Jahan in memory of his wife Mumtaz and what more, he even chopped off the hands of all the workers once it was completed, fearing that they might build another monument that would be more beautiful than Taj. Being a highly dreamy and romantic person (I really think so.J ) I was quite eager to see Taj but the kind of welcome we received at the Agra station was pathetic. We were tortured to hell by the ric drivers and guides who completely spoiled our mood. It seems like the “Athithi Devo Bhava” campaign by the Tourism Ministry hasn’t quite had its effect on any of these people.

Be it Agra or the beautiful Fatehpur Sikri or Haridwar, as Romit says “Divinity of all these places has gone” and it’s the guides, the people who manage and who work here are the ones to be blamed. In Fatehpur Sikri, a man came running towards us and told us in panting voice that the shrine of the Sufi saint would be closed soon and hence he requested us to go and visit it once before it got closed. The moment we went there, he asked for money. In Haridwar, if you go near any priest who calls you to give you the tirtha (or the holy water), you would need to pay him something because by the time you accept the tirtha and drink it, and he would have started chanting mantras for the welfare of your family that finally you would be forced to give. Such is the plight of the devotees and tourists who easily fall prey to these money sucking men.
The most exciting thing about this journey was that I believe that I have been able to touch the heart and soul of each and every place I went. Be it, taking a dip in the Ganga that flows through the rustic and exotic Rishikesh, or watching the evening Arti in Haridwar, or walking through the Parantha gali in Chandni Chowk (referred to as Old Delhi) and occasionally taking quick bites of the yummiest paranthas in India or taking a bumpy ride in a Mahindra jeep through dusty roads while returning from Fatehpur Sikri followed by an even more stupendous journey in a train that was packed with people…

Its been one enriching, spiritual experience.

2007-09-09T09:23:00.000-07:00

An experience of a lifetime!!!

The dust finally settles down. 3 months of work and the last three days which formed the grand finale of former comes to an end. Moments of action, excitement, anxiety; it’s all over. Key note speakers, session topics, quizmaster, banners, posters, delegate kits, mementos, sound systems etc wouldn’t give a nightmare anymore. It’s all over.

All this wouldn’t have been possible had it not been for my entry into the core committee of Manthan 2007 which happened to be a serendipitous one. The biggest learning of my life has happened in the last 2 months, I must say and that is something which didn’t happen in the last one year. HR, I believe as a subject is more of action and less of learning. It’s all about implementation. The subject per se perhaps happens to be a mere fad with a lot of jargons and I really hate giving the exams. But HR, the function is perhaps the most difficult to implement and practice. Manthan 2007 has essentially given an opportunity to try and practice HR. OB was a subject which I could vaguely understand when taught in class but reinforcement happened time and again when Manthan preparations were going on. It was not a pleasurable learning experience. Its true when people say that success is a bad teacher for whatever I have learnt have been through my own mistakes or through the mistakes of my colleagues in corecomm which I keep track of.

Here are a few learnings from the last 3 months…

a. Don’t give advice where it is not sought. You might have benign intentions but people will tag you as a preacher.

b. Use words carefully especially when speaking with big people no matter how much so ever you get pissed off with the way conversation keeps heading. If you want to put across a message, put it in the form of a suggestion/question rather than making a statement. In that way you wouldn’t hurt the ego of the other person.

c. There are always better ways of conveying the same message and that is not diplomacy. Communication is an art which is very difficult to learn.

d. When people leave institutes they suddenly might become professional. Whenever you address any alumnus always maintain a certain degree of professionalism except with people with whom you have a personal contact, else your request wouldn’t be appreciated.

e. Teamwork - greatest challenge. Its not a cliché, its not a banal competency. It’s perhaps the most difficult thing to do - to work in a team with an intention to contribute. There have been teams where the individuals within it have been stars but the group as a whole has been disappointing. The team members cannot stand each other. Ego hits a high and not the overall goal/objective of the team.

f. There might be moments when you will be down - things won’t happen as you want them to. You need to be patient and not act in a fit of rage. You will only end up losing more. (But I was rebuked by my colleagues for not getting angry.J )

g. Perseverance holds the key. You cannot be a happy go lucky person always. To make things fall in place, you need to slog, stalk people and make it happen. You just cannot sit back and wait for opportunities to come your way. Need to go and seize it.

h. A value is not a value unless a trade-off is attached to it - Quite true. You will be tested to the core. If you strongly believe in you and your values, the entire universe will conspire and help you in getting things you want. (Courtesy: Anirudha and Alchemist)

i. Be genuine - People will appreciate it. A mask at the end of the day is not the real you. It can be removed and people will come to know. Better to be always genuine.

Manthan 2007 might have been a success. But a lot of introspection needs to go into it. Especially from a leader’s point of view or as an HR professional, we always say that we need to create stakes/process ownership. That has been one of the greatest challenges during this event. There have been people who didn’t contribute anything during the last 3 months. Going to classes and giving motivation speeches seems sometimes to me as a big joke. At the same time, there are people who take a lot of initiatives, who slog their asses in making the event a grand success. What is the difference between them is something I fail to understand. Hope to get that answer some day and that would be the biggest learning of all…

2007-04-05T09:49:00.000-07:00

God's own Country - Golden Jubilee

Kanna ezhunthireda……amma called out loudly from the kitchen loud enough to wake me up but with a sense of reluctance as though she didn’t want me to wake up. I get up from my bed to find a hot steaming cup of filter coffee beside my favorite newspaper “The Hindu” kept on the table. I sheepishly flip through the pages while slurping the coffee when a news suddenly strikes me. Today is the golden jubilee of Kerala’s first government. The first communist government was sworn in on this day before 50 years.

A sudden sense of excitement caught hold of me and I began reading the articles related to the news one after the other with a new found sense of purpose. The reasons are obvious; a lot to do with the history of the state which I had just studied earnestly as part of my semester curriculum. The first government had earned fame in more than one way. It was first communist government that was elected to power anywhere in the world. It was the government which introduced a lot of path breaking reforms and policies which aimed at achieving social justice apart from economic development all of which has eventually gained a name in the form of the Kerala model of development that has attracted the attention of many an economist. It still remains a paradox as Kerala is a first world state in a third world country because it mirrors the US on many of the physical quality of life index (PQLI) except for the per capita income.

While the government introduced many policies that had the benign intentions, it also bought with it the trade unions that made the life of any entrepreneur miserable. Any person who attempted to do business in Kerala broke his back. Trade unions used to resort to strike for reasons as silly as non-availability of a special variety of pappadam (famously known as the Pappadam strike of FACT). All these had become the theme for many a Malayalam movie in the 80’s which depicted the plight of the average educated unemployed malayali youth and the various problems that plagued the state.

The story still continues. Red flags can still be found fluttering in almost all the junctions of the city. Even this time the day I came here to Trivandrum, there was a strike by the lorry drivers against the road tax which was hiked almost after a decade.

At the same time the city landscape is undergoing a sea change. It seems as though a new city is being built with the old edifices being pulled down although as part of the road widening process and nascent buildings coming up in their places. I was completely startled to see a lot of a new buildings cropping up, new hoardings being put up and a hell lot of new cars swarming the city. A lot of this change has to do with the IT revolution that is sweeping across the city. With big companies like Infosys, Mckinsey and a host of other IT/Consulting companies setting up offices here, the lifestyle of the city folks has also started changing. A few years back, a Pizza corner or a Café Coffee day is something that I couldn’t have imagined in Trivandrum, but they all have crept in due course of time.

It is very difficult to say whether Kerala has achieved a level of development that it ought to have achieved partly because of the paradox that still hounds the state. The communist government cannot just sit back and rest on its past laurels (although they introduced a lot of initiatives aimed at social welfare) but try and push for more investment and thereby pull the section of people who are still over dependent on agriculture. But things are changing for sure. Trivandrum as I perceive is all set to join the big league of metros if the number of IT companies that have mushroomed in the recent past is anything to go by. As the communist government is back to power after 50 years it will be interesting to see what policies they take at this juncture when industrialization, liberalization and not redistribution hold the key to the growth and development.

2006-12-11T08:00:00.000-08:00

Revisiting Times

December... A month when I live mostly in my dreams and thoughts. Perhaps it’s true for everyone. It’s that time of the year when we revisit and introspect the year that’s just gone by and also optimistically think about the year that’s going to arrive in a few days.

Today I was traveling to my field work organization sitting in a corner of a Best bus. The sun was smiling benevolently at me and cold chill morning wind seeping in through the half opened window pane was kissing my face. Unknowingly I started my journey down the memory lane. It soon started throwing up a lot of memoirs just like waves keep lapping up the sands of the beach. I don’t know why, but I thought about my company a lot and more about the people in the organization. Those moments of anxiety that hovered around the delivery date of our projects, those moments of excitement just before attending a party wherein we used to swear that we wont drink to the extend of losing our consciousness and still get drunk to the point that we forget ourselves; those moments of eternal bliss wherein after forgetting everything, we enjoyed the ride back home in a rickshaw(thanks to those n number of rickshaw drivers who safely got us home) where the cold air of the night used to gush in from both the sides making the journey an exhilarating experience.

It was as though a film had started playing. Reels continued to flow in and so were memories.
Those days that we spent at Helen Villa (our house at Thane) where I spent some of the best days of my life, those times when we sued to rush back home and cook food (everyone barring me used to take part in that activity and I used the pretext of going out and getting vegetables for not cooking, the reality being that I hated cutting vegetables) and eat food to our hearts content, those nocturnal visits to the Marine drive wherein we used to sit on the platform facing the sea, spot the ship in the distance and philosophically say “ Sid….tu who jahaaz dekh raha hain…” as though we were the Khans and Khannas of Dil chahta hain musing over our bleak possibility of meeting one another once we leave Bombay.

Well…I could just go on and on…As the main protagonist of Albert Camus Outsider, Meursault who is undergoing a trial says ” Even after a single day’s experience a man could stay in prison for 100 years…” How true, isn’t it? For whiling away time, perhaps one of the best past times could be remembering all those details of the past. The humor of blaming the present and admiring the past is strongly rooted in human nature and has an influence on persons even with the profoundest of judgment. We meet to create memories and we part to preserve them. Well said by Vipul. But here lies the irony. Although these memories could bring a smile on your face quite unconsciously, sometimes they are a pain as you are immediately reminded that those moments can never be recreated. Perhaps, that’s the reason why sometimes I feel that one shouldn’t get attached to any person, place or for that instance to anything and this is what the Eastern philosophy emphasizes on: the principle of non-attachment. But all this is sometimes beyond our control.

I have always been fortunate enough to be with some good people and that legacy continues. Perhaps that’s the reason why all those sweet memories keep lapping up and they do without fail bring a smile unconsciously on your face.

Enjoy the past………Live the present……….Chuck the future….

2006-11-10T06:45:00.000-08:00

Some Point No One...

This is a mail which I had sent to my classmates during our vacation..
I missed them badly.......

As I step out of auto and enter the campus, the senior watchman dressed in his khakhi asks me “ Kyun Ram babu, ghar nahi gaye aap”? . I try to dodge his question with my usual tactics..dont really know whether he was convinced. But the sense of naivety in his face told me that he would have been. I walk past the main lounge which was for obvious reasons empty. Images of Mohalla bolta hain and all those regional festivals which used to arouse fervor of festivity flashed across my mind. I march ahead and reach the cross road in front of the library and LH. Parul is busy on her phone talking to ..ehem….cant make any comment on that..u see….I can see Kingshuk, Subrato and their respective KANK families sitting in the lounge and sharing their moments of joy. I can hear them talking loudly in Bangla. In a few seconds, Kingshuk spots me and hides his face….haha…boy he is one person who can make you laugh without doing much…
I see the library and wonder when I will go there. For me, truly it’s a place to visit.
I walk past the phone booth crushing the brownish yellow foliage that had suddenly become ubiquitous, thanks to the autumn season. It seems the crows also had gone on hibernation along with the hostel inmates. The entire ambience was so tacit contrary to the din that usually characterizes the campus.

Finally I enter the Men’s hostel. I seat myself on the raised platform beside the corridor in front of Joseph’s room. Just as it is getting dark I see a motley crowd over there getting ready for some musical extravaganza. Joseph steps out of his room singing the song “ Tere bin..” pointing his finger towards me with a smile. Romida and his roomies join in. Neville glides his fingers over the strings and what we have is perfect harmony. Raghav comes along with his hand brushing his chin. I wonder what he is thinking. Suddenly we spot a beautiful girl coming out of the indoor stadium. I look at Raghav and say that “wow..she is beautiful..” Raghav retorts “ Bhabhi hain teri…”.

I move upstairs and reach room no.18. Its open. I see Goel sahib reading some book on philosophy. Must be some isms…Seeing me, he asks…” prapanchi insaan, kahan tha u..” I throw my bag onto the bed, tell some lie and move out of the room. I knock on the door of room no. 22. “ Khula hain…” shouts Subhashish..I open the door only to find him engrossed in some work of flash. I think I should escape before he asks me for my valuable comments on the artistic piece of work that he has just completed. I move ahead to room no. 25. Major is lying in his bed. Sporting a blue shorts torn at some places that can’t be disclosed, with a fag in one hand and phone in the other, he is engaged in a romantic undertaking.
On hearing the sound of the door opening, JD turns back and sees me. He asks “ Oye BW, aa gaya tu….Aaj raat ka kya plan hain…”
“Abhi tak to kuch nahi…lekin jab plan banega to sabse pehle tumhe bataoonga”, I say.

I come down and sit on the verandah near Joseph’s room. There was no one. No music. No guitar. Everything had become silent. Sensing some sort of vibration, I take out my mobile from my pocket. No. There was no call. I desperately stare into my mobile to see whether any call was coming. I take out a cig from my pocket and light it. There is a plume of smoke around me. The huge tree beside me has cast its shadow…a long spooky one. I desperately try to keep my self awake as I sense there is some kind of danger of intrusion by an enemy whose name is loneliness into my well guarded fort, my mind. I say to myself. Its 30th. Just one more day to go…..

2006-07-14T08:53:00.000-07:00

Confused Wisdom

As part of restructuring, TISS has introduced the Foundation courses for its first year students. Students, irrespective of their area of specialization come under one roof to learn the foundation courses which focus mainly on topics like society, social structure, culture, identity, conflicts, idea of nation state etc. I would say that this has perhaps been one of the excellent steps that were taken as part of restructuring. The specialty of TISS is that we get a chance to study with the social work people in the same institute which always gave us a chance to listen to views that were completely divergent from ours which is mostly business oriented. But the foundation courses have actually given us a formal platform where we can hear their views and may be get into some kind of interactive discussions.

Recently, I attended a session on what my close buddy, Rahul jocularly says”Indiaye engane rekshikkam” (How can we save India). To begin with, the debonair lecturer asked us the idea of India we had in our minds. There were a host of replies like unity in diversity, developing nation, poverty among others. Then he asked us what that we find in common among all of us is. Once again there were a flurry of replies like values, traditions etc.

The faculty went on to teach us the idea of India that our great leaders, of the likes of Nehru, Gandhi, Patel, Savarkar and others nurtured. He also spoke about Savarkar’s views on “Who is a Hindu” and his concept of Hindutva. In the second half of the session he showed us a couple of short films that featured mainly the issues people were facing in Manipur – AFSPA(Armed Forces Special Powers Act) that empowers the officials to arrest, shoot anyone on grounds of suspicion and how that act was being misused to the extend of putting peoples lives in peril. One film showed the tragedy that a young girl Manorama faced. She was picked up from home for interrogation purposes and the next dawn people awoke to see the body of Manorama lying in the fields with her clothes tattered and body full of bruises. No doubt, she was brutally raped. A group of women (naked) protested against all these happenings in front of the Assam Rifles office. Another video featured the case of a teenager who again was picked up from his home on grounds of suspicion and was killed.

For a moment we were all shell shocked. What is it that is happening in North East? What is the purpose of a law like AFSPA which is supposed to protect the masses of the land is in reality responsible for so many custodial deaths, rapes etc. For whom are these laws created? The videos just threw a host of questions like these in our minds. The faculty asked us to feel what we saw. Just feel, he said.

Once again he came back to the question” What is it that you have in common amongst you”? We don’t have anything in common. That is the truth. Perhaps we should not look out for something in common; rather we should try and negotiate the differences. May be what all of us have in common is INSECURITY, I felt. A fear of rejection is what probably makes us adhere to all our customs, traditions and it is indeed this insecurity that makes us part of a social milieu.

All our ideas of India were shattered during this course. Where is the unity? People of Kashmir want a separate nation. People in the North east tend to identify more with the people of Burma and hence they want a separate nation. A part of the population in Andhra wants a separate state, Telengana. What do we mean by a nation? What is national interest? All these questions, it seems do not have answers. One thing is for certain. There have always been differences. There wasn’t anything in common. But the point is that we have failed to negotiate the differences. And perhaps that’s where the root cause of all these separatist movements lie. (Again I was rebuked for using the word separatist. I was asked “Who calls them separatist”? The British called us Indians separatists.)

Boy, I tell you, this was one of the most iconoclastic sessions we have had. I am sure that the notions that all students carried about India has been shredded into bits. All that we have now is confused notions. Perhaps this is what the proponents of the Foundation courses wanted – Unlearn the past and become individuals of confused wisdom.

2006-04-21T07:33:00.000-07:00

Signing Off

Today is a poignant day in my life. I resigned from Patni, my first employer, after a stint of 3 years. Its time to take a rewind of the last 3 years and reflect on what changes Patni has brought about in me.

More to come....

2006-04-19T08:59:00.000-07:00

A Note of Thanksgiving

It’s time to give a vote of thanks. Thanks to all those people who have made me what I am today. For today I am extremely happy and see a fresh new life ahead. Till yesterday I felt as though I was approaching the edge of a cliff just knowing that there is a deep trench ahead, its depth unfathomable and if I fall, I knew that I was going to get hurt badly. But no longer. Ok…am breaking the suspense. Have got through TISS - an institute where I have been longing to go for the past couple of years and do something which I wish to do from the bottom of my heart – Labor Relations. Finally that has happened and I am all set to go.

But hey…You just can’t go like that. True. There are many stakeholders in this success of mine and I need to give them a part of the pie. So this space is for them. Let’s do it the memento style.

First of all I would like to thank my Manager Uday who gave me the liberty to come back from US after losing an account just because I didn’t want to stay there. It was for certain that if I stayed there I wouldn’t have been able to appear for TISS. Thanks Uday.

Thanks to the entire PeopleSoft team at Patni which during my preparation helped me keep faith in me. Thank you Sanjay for taking the pains to understand why I was keen on doing HR. Your relentless pushing and prodding has helped me a lot in coming up with better, rational and convincing answers. I know that you still are not convinced and do not still consider my domain as something that offers potential challenges. I hope to demystify all your concerns and give you a satisfying reply in the next 2 years. Thank you all.

Thank you Preethi, for pitching in at the right time and helping me take the decision of rejecting the much coveted onsite opportunity, stay back and give TISS when the whole lot of people around me asked me to go. Thanks dear. (Very big thanks for letting me know that there is something called TISS…you deserve a large piece of the pie for that).

Thank you appa and amma for giving me the freedom to do something of my choice. I respect the freedom and will continue to cherish that freedom in the next 2 years. Thanks Renjini (my sister) for keeping alive the hopes in appa and amma’s mind.

Thank you Datta, for inspiring me to do IR. You have been there mentoring me throughout the last 3 years. Thank you for listening patiently to all my crap, immature statements about HR and for guiding me.

And now…..time has come to thank the main stakeholder. I don’t know what name I shall give him. Friend, philosopher, guide, critic, mentor….he has been that and much more than that.; a person who has been with me for the past 3 years and who has been solely responsible for shaping me the way I am today. Our relationship took off on a high met with a low and then has come back on a high completing one full circle. I don’t know how to thank you. I sincerely wish that you have a great life ahead. Love you and your bulging eyes with which you see a completely different life around. The most creative, innovative, pragmatic, eclectic and iconoclastic person whom I have ever met in my life – Rahul S. Thank you my friend for those golden words “Why don’t you go for HR and try giving TISS” even though it was over 2 rounds of booze.

Thanks to SAI Vihar bar for always being there as our last bastion of companionship when everything else in the world ditched us. Thanks to those rounds of Kingfisher which shook us up and made us think about life in a new direction.

Thanks Vijay Mallya…Has anyone got his number…:)

2006-04-17T09:00:00.000-07:00

Bombay meri Jaan

What is it about Bombay that I cherish? I tried to answer this as I sat on the raised platform along the Queen’s necklace bang opposite the Hilton hotel facing the sea. In front of me lay a city, which had already earned many a description like “The city that never sleeps”, “The city of dreams”, “The land of Bollywood”, “India’s financial capital”, “India’s Paris” (Bombay looks like Paris when approached by sea), “India’s London”(Thanks to the Britons and their excellent town planning) etc.
All these descriptions might be true; rather they are. Nowhere in India you would find so many people rushing to catch the local train, which is the river of life, even at 12 o clock. Nowhere in India would you find so many people stepping in to make it big in their life; thanks to Bollywood and all those great men who made Bombay famous the way it is. Bombay houses the premier Stock exchange of India, some of the richest men in India, some of the poorest of people in the whole world; house of hijadas, hookers, peddlers and hawkers who throng the footpaths, the city of dons and encounter specialists, home of king khans and bollywood starlets, land of red street and dancing damsels, city of skyscrapers and shanties (though the latter is what Bombay is famous for –largest slum in Asia)… you name anything and I am sure that you would find it in Bombay. Such is the charisma and the innate ability of this beautiful island city to accommodate all those different identities that it has captured my imagination. I am sure that given the space and time I would just go on and on writing about Mumbai; no wonder Suketu Mehta took almost 600 pages in describing Bombay.

Underlying all these ornate descriptions there is something that makes Bombay so special, which can’t be expressed in words. It’s the spirit of Bombay, the soul of Bombay - its people. Many come here with dreams in their eyes, but we hear only about Bacchan or Dirubhai Ambani for that instance. We hear about people coming in but not about anyone who wants to leave Mumbai. There is something that holds us on here. I would say it’s the spirit of the people that is the true soul of Bombay. People live in houses like matchboxes, breathe polluted air, drink unclean water and travel miles a day to do something and eke out a living. Most of the people have a hand to mouth existence; still they stay here and continue to do something to make a living without the slightest of concerns for their dignity. It is the inequality that this city has by default that has affected me the most. I see people around striving to make a living without cribbing about how difficult it is to live in this city of crowded trains, crowded roads and crowded footpaths. It is this spirit of the common man that has taken me aback by surprise and sometimes I feel that in the stoicity of their eyes lies my lost resilience. They have tales of lost opportunities; luxuries that they are not destined to and having a comfortable and cozy life, which they can only dream, in this city of dreams. It is this sheer in-equation that forces me to think of the luxuries and privileges that I enjoyed; which rather shakes me to think “Shouldn’t I be more responsible, more committed to the society, rather take more ownership and create a difference?”

I had recently been to TISS (Tata Institute of Social Sciences) for an interview for Human Resources Management course. I had been asked to report there by 9 am for my GD/PI. The GD got over by 11 am and I went and sat outside the room where I was supposed to get interviewed. Contrary to last time, I thought that the admission process this time would be more organized but I realized only to my dismay that there was no change in the whole process. Students were called in random into the rooms where panelists were ready to grill them for the next couple of minutes and give their verdict on how good or bad they were judging them during the 10 min stint that candidates share with them. Initially I saw that there were only 10 candidates that my number would come soon. But later I noticed that there were always 10 candidates and that number never seemed to decrease. I was perplexed, as I could not make out from where were those students coming from. I sat there with a bemused smile, though I was already on the verge of losing my patience. But hey..You need to be more mature, I told myself and you just can’t be like those kids straight out of college who were sitting beside me and cribbing.

The time was 5 o clock and there were still 10 of us left to be interviewed. I was getting tired of this entire process of waiting and the whole scene reminisced me of some movies in which people used to line up outside offices for getting into those limited coveted posts. Disillusionment had started to creep into my mind and I was increasingly getting the feeling that I wont perform well in the interview. Just then I noticed a lady in a wheelchair advancing towards me. Her eyes were gleaming and she was telling her friend that she could manage by herself as she turned the wheels of her wheelchair with more zeal and enthusiasm. The spirit of this young lady whose smile and energy made me think that it was I who was handicapped and not she amazed me. I realized that this was the specialty of TISS. Handicapped people are also given opportunity in this institute and it has truly lived up to the expectations of a Social Sciences institute catering to the needs to a wide variety of people and in meting out social justice. There were a flurry of thoughts in mind; again of lost opportunities and that comparative advantage which I enjoyed but which never ever had captured my imagination to this extend. I just hoped that I would be the last person to be interviewed and it happened so.

I entered the room and I greeted the panelists warmly and told them that I was the last man standing. There were relieved. After hearing to a host of “Why HR “answers they were tired.
I gave my own reasons for doing HR and I hope they were convinced. My interview got over in 15 min and I was about to leave. I reached the door and I turned back. I said in a mellowed voice, “ Sir I have a suggestion”. They asked me to be seated. I told them about how candidates who had come at 9 o clock had to wait almost till 6 o clock to get interviewed and how it had disillusioned and disgusted them. In addition I told them that if this entire procedure could be made more organized by giving time slots to people, they would feel better and more motivated. At least the first impression they shape about the institute in their minds would be a lot better, I told them. One of the panelists riposted “ That’s a good piece of HR advice”.

I was extremely happy that I could tell them how things could be made more organized in an institute in which I dream to study one day. In my mind I thanked the lady in the wheelchair for having given me the courage to speak out something that was in my mind. I returned home happy and satisfied.

2006-03-17T03:38:00.000-08:00

Truly Flat

The world is no longer round but is flat says New York Times journalist, Thomas L Friedman in his book “The World is Flat”. Friedman propounds that the playing field has been leveled due to technology. In his book, he explains the various forces that flattened the world which all started with the Fall of the Berlin wall and how there has been a paradigm shift in the thought process of people from “Me and my computer” in the late 80’s, to “Me and others” in the 90’s envisaged by the internet and instant messaging to the present scenario of seamless integration between “My application and their application”.

As I was reading the book, I thought about some of my own experiences, which reaffirmed my faith in the notion that the World is flat. I had been to Chicago in December 2005 for a project. It was wintertime and it was really cold. Chicago is often termed as a windy city and the cold was biting and unbearable for a person like me who never had to withstand such cold in the past. I was all alone in this windy city and knew no one out there. I was least inclined to move out also because of the extreme cold. Since I landed there on a weekend, for 2 days I was there in my hotel room just like Sanjay Dutt in Zinda absolutely alone and the only person whom I talked to in person was the black lady who used to get me shredded bits of plastic (read cornflakes) and milk for my breakfast. I called up home and literally broke down saying that I was all alone, that there was no one to talk to and that I could not go out because of the cold. After the initial outburst, I just started settling down and lent my ear to dad’s stoic philosophy and its underling principle that Survival is an art.

As soon as I put down the receiver, I got a ring from the front desk saying that a laptop has been shipped to me and that I should go down to collect it. I was a bit delighted but didn’t quite know the reason. I brought the laptop to my room and got it charged. What next? I was at a loss. I wasn’t the sort of tech savvy person and never in my life had I a yahoo account and never had I used the instant messaging system. I remembered Shyam Mohan, a friend of mine who used to eat, drink and sleep on yahoo and who used to relentlessly chat with his ladylove who was located just 10 houses down the lane of his house so much so that if he screamed she could hear it. I got on setting up a yahoo account for myself, the first of its kind other than my company id and went on to set up the instant messaging system. I added some of my friends’ ids and waited for them with my eyes glued to the laptop screen. For a while no one seemed to come online.

I went back to the fantasy world created by Jhumpa Lahiri when suddenly I heard a knocking sound. It wasn’t the black lady but it was my friend Preethi, about whom I was thinking a while ago, pinging me on instant messaging. I was delighted. It was as though somebody had brought her and made to stand in front of me. I was getting ecstatic as a few minutes of chat made me exuberant and the life which I was cribbing as insipid was suddenly turning out to be exhilarating one. I was just beginning to wonder at the amazing ability of the Internet to change things. It was giving something, which a Jhumpa Lahiri or an Arundathi Roy book couldn’t give. She was sitting there in Mumbai at the other side of the world and was chatting with me as though she was with me in the same room. Amazing. She went on to show some of the photos she had taken in their recently concluded fresher party at her college. Soon another friend of mine, Reghu, came online. He shared with me the photos of Ganga Snan and the Ram and Lakshman joola at Haridwar. I couldn’t just control the excitement. Here I was in Chicago and I am seeing the photos of Haridwar, a beautiful serene religious place in Uttaranchal, shown to me by a friend sitting at Delhi. The way digitized information such as files, photos, data, music etc could be sent over the Internet was suddenly appearing to me amazing though for the past two years I had been sending out emails and reports to my onsite coordinator who again was sitting miles away from me but which had never got my attention to this extend that I started wowing at the power of the Internet.

Technology has gone far more than instant messaging and emails. Blogging, of which I became aware, quite recently is absolutely wonderful. It gives us a space of our own and makes us a part of the Internet fraternity. It allows us to write and publish information on the net and makes it available not only to the ones we know but also to the unknown. It has given us a platform to express our ideas, thoughts and share them with many like us. Amazing, Isn’t it?
What more, it has even provided to many amongst us a vent to our creative energies. Anyone aspiring to be a reporter or a journalist need not get into any News company but just needs to have an arsenal that includes a tape recorder, a mobile that can take snaps and access to internet. Here you have your own channel, your own means to publish news and make it available to a large section of society. My God, am going crazy.
There hasn’t been anything that has flattened the world so much as the Internet. Truly, the world is flat. I am sure Christopher Columbus might be spinning in his grave after hearing so many of us yelling, “ The world is Flat”.

2006-02-11T01:15:00.000-08:00

Back to Loyola School

I was very happy to see my school again. Happier, because I will be studying there again.

We are into the 11th std.Thikurishi sir is waiting for us in the classroom.
Students enter the class with folded umbrellas from which water is dripping.
Its the monsoon time in Kerala.

As each guy enters the class, Binu Ninan who is sitting in the front row greets them
in his own way.

I am seated there in 3rd row with a seat next to me lying vacant.
I am expecting Shyam Mohan who had shared the 2-seater with me when we had been here b4
7 years. Its a long time...7 long years...

Before Shyam comes Sanjay enters and sits next to me; but I don’t object.
Then Shyam comes in. He isn’t excited. He gazes all around; might be searching for me.
But on seeing that the seat next to me isn’t vacant he sits elsewhere and tries to make himself comfortable, but doesn’t quite succeed. There is some thought in him that's lamenting him.

Next comes Bebin Abraham. I just wonder why he is here.
He was in London getting trained for flying the Hawk. How come he's here?
I wanted to talk to him. I am excited as I had talked to him over phone in London but hadn’t met him.

Jeevan J Arackal is coming and Abhilash T K is getting ready to bash him up.
Jeevan has worked in some NGO's; it’s going to be nice to be with him for the next 2 years. That was what flashed across my mind as I saw him.

The classroom is almost filled and the students are all talking amongst themselves what they had done in the past 7 years. Oh god they might have some good big stories
as many of them had already completed their management, some others had spent some time abroad. It’s going to take the next 2 years to listen to all those stories.

I am expecting Kushti who was with me in Mumbai. We had a good time in Mumbai.
He's not there. Well he might be busy in his home; in fact in his bathroom with a signboard outside saying "Man at work"...

Suddenly a girl enters the classroom.
She's fair and beautiful. But the first thing about her, which caught my eye, was her nose ring. I realized that Loyola was now a co-ed school.
Everybody was looking at her.
Suddenly Joseph Mathew who seemed to know her b4 suddenly turned to me and said
"She's a Brahmin; she's yours...."

T k who is sitting behind me cries..."No I want her"..
Shyam Mohan who has had his days of romance in college and office is still hungry
as a lover. He shouts" Come on man TK u r married...How can u say that"...

The bell rings. It isnt the school bell; It is alarm bell.
I wake up to realize that I am late for office.

Science says that a dream lasts for 1/nth of sec...
but i guess it was much more than that..

2006-02-10T03:37:00.000-08:00

Question of Choice

The sun was setting in the distance giving the entire horizon a pinkish look; a sight, which I am sure, no one will be able to stop themselves from looking at. For the first time, I looked at the distant horizon. It was vague, bleak and dark; just like our future, I imagined. For the past 2 years we have traveling the same route. I had always enjoyed watching the tiny ripples in the shallow waters of the creek and the white-feathered birds, which fly across them in a group. I had never dared to look beyond these, rather this was the first time I started thinking of our lives ahead. And it appeared to me, vague.

For the past couple of days, ever since the results of CAT came and calls from different colleges started coming, a feeling of disillusionment had begun to set in the once fun filled Helen Villa. The level of disillusionment was ostensibly high in one of my friends, who made his way to the top of charts of the CAT results, yet managed to get only one call. This disillusionment was quite palpable as it reflected in every action and word of his. May be I was seeing someone turning rebellious for the first time, who was completely frustrated with the whole system and tired of the whole rhetoric of why we need an MBA.

Are we getting into a groove from which extrication is not possible? I have reasons to think for and against it. With each year, inarguably we are getting into a position as we climb up the corporate ladder, where we can’t dodge our responsibilities like we had done a year back. The time we can get to spare to prepare for an exam of the magnitude of CAT also gets less.
Once the CAT season ends, we are back in the office gazing at the 14” monitor without even the slightest of inclination to work. And then comes the lucrative onsite opportunity which is nothing but corrupt. It corrupts the aspiring minds of individuals giving them dollars, cars in addition to apartments on the 34th floor from where you get an absolutely fantastic view of the downtown below, and from where you are really reluctant to touch the books which once you had kept close to your heart while sleeping. Rather you stop thinking of your ideals, your dreams that get buried in these worldly pleasures which you can’t even dream of abandoning.

But eventually whom are we supposed to blame? Is it the system, which doesn’t give you enough opportunities to do what you want, rather help identify what you want? Or is this the way it works? You land up somewhere doing something which you don’t know and which you didn’t know when you were doing that either and then you realize that you are unfit for this and start thinking about greener pastures without knowing the plausible fate of what could happen once you land there. No, I wouldn’t blame the confused souls but they are many amongst us who know what they really want but don’t do anything to achieve it.
Because, to achieve it requires hard work and it involves taking certain risks which I am sure they are not going to take especially if they are leading a trouble free life in which they do nothing but some work, sitting in those revolving chairs of the corporate, which even they don’t respect, have lunch from a nearby kiosk with some teammates who add spice to the already spicy food with their lies and comments on how other people in the company walk, sit and… and end their day having vada stuffed inside the bun of the MacWorld along with a tinge of love from their beloved(those who have them..:)).

I don’t hope to awaken those souls who have gone into a slumber but the fact is that nothing is going to happen unless and until you decide that something should happen.

2006-01-27T02:56:00.000-08:00

A CULTURE OF DIVERSITY
SHASHI THAROOR
The idea of India is not based on language,not on geography, not on ethnicity and not on religion.The idea of India is of one land embracing many.
H OW CAN ONE approach the India of snow peaks and tropical jungles, with seventeen major languages and 22,000 district "dialects" (some spoken by more people than Danish or Norwegian), inhabited by nearly 940 million individuals of every ethnic extraction known to humanity? How does one come to terms with a country whose population is 51% illiterate but which has educated the world's second-largest pool of trained scientists and engineers, whose teeming cities overflow while four out of five Indians scratch a living from the soil?
What is the due to understanding a country rife with despair and disrepair, which nonetheless moved a Mogul emperor to claim, "If on Earth there he paradise or bliss, it is this, it is this, it is this..."? How does one gauge a culture which elevated non-violence to an effective moral principle, but whose freedom was born in blood and whose independence still soaks in it? How does one explain a land where peasant organizations and suspicious officials attempt to close down Kentucky Fried Chicken as a threat to the nation, where a former Prime Minister bitterly criticizes the sale of Pepsi-Cola "in a country where villagers don't have clean drinking water, and which invents more sophisticated software For US computer manufacturers than and other country in the world? How can one portray the present, let alone the future, of an ageless civilization that is the birthplace of four major religions, a dozen different traditions of classical dance, eighty-five political parties and 300 ways of cooking the potato?
The short answer is that it can't be done - at least not to everyone's satisfaction. Any truism about India can be immediately' contradicted by another truism about India. The country's national motto, emblazoned on its governmental crest, is "Satyameva Jayate": Truth Always Triumphs. The question remains, however: whose truth? It is a question to which there are at least 940 million answers.
B UT THAT SORT of answer is no answer at all. Another answer may lie in a single insight: the singular thing about India is that you can only speak of it in the plural. There are many Indias. Everything exists in countless variants. There is no single standard, no fixed stereotype, no one way". This pluralism is acknowledged in the way India arranges its own affairs: all groups, faiths, tastes and ideologies flourish and contend.
India is not just a country, it is an adventure, one in which all avenues are open and everything is possible. The British historian E. P. Thompson wrote, "There is not a thought that is being thought in the West or East that is not active in some Indian mind."
That Indian mind has been shaped by remarkably diverse forces:
ancient Hindu tradition, myth and scripture; the impact of Islam and Christianity; and two centuries of British colonial rule. The result is unique. Many observers have been astonished by India's survival as a pluralist society. But India could hardly have survived as anything else. Pluralism is a reality that emerges from the very nature of India.
One of the few generalizations that can safely he made about India is that nothing can be taken for granted here. Not even its name: for the word "India" comes from the river Indus. which flows in Pakistan. That anomaly is easily explained, for what is today Pakistan was part of India until it was partitioned in 1947. Yet each explanation breeds another anomaly. Pakistan was created as a homeland for India's Muslims, but from 1971 till very recently there were more Muslims in India than in Pakistan.
With diversity emerging from its geography and inscribed in its history, India was made for pluralism. It is not surprising, then, that the political life of modern India has been rather like traditional Indian music: the broad basic rules are firmly set, but within them one is free to improvise, unshackled by a written score.
W E ARE ALL minorities in India. A typical Indian stepping off a train, a Hindi-speaking Hindu male from the Gangetic plain state of Uttar Pradesh, might cherish the illusion that he represents the "majority community", to use an expression much favoured by the less industrious of our journalists. But be does not. As a Hindu he belongs to the faith adhered to by some 82% of the population, but a majority of the country does not speak Hindi; a majority does not hail from Uttar Pradesh; and if he were visiting, say, Kerala, he would discover that a majority is not even male. Worse. our archetypal UP
Hindu has only to mingle with the polyglot, polychrome crowds thronging any of India's major railway stations to realize bow much of a minority he really is. Even his Hinduism is no guarantee of majorityhood, because his caste automatically places him in a minority as well: if he is a Brahmin, 90% of his fellow Indians are not; if he is a Yadav, 85% of Indians are not - and so on.
Or take language. The Constitution of India recognizes seventeen today, but, in fact, there are thirty-five Indian languages which are each spoken by more than a million people - and these are Languages, with their own scripts, grammatical structures and cultural assumptions, not just dialects. Each of the native speakers of these languages is in a linguistic minority, for none enjoys majority status in India.
Thanks in part to the popularity of Bombay's Hindi cinema, Hindi is understood, if not always well spoken, by nearly half the population of India, but it is in no sense the language of the majority.
Ethnicity further complicates the
notion of a majority community. Most of the time, our Indian names immediately reveal where we are from and what our mother tongue is; when we introduce ourselves we are advertising our origins. Despite some inter-marriage at the elite levels in the cities, Indians still remain largely endogamous, and a Bengali is easily distinguished from a Punjabi. The difference this reflects is often more apparent than the elements of commonality. Karnataka Brahmins share their Hindu faith with Burr Quorums, but feel little identity with them in respect of appearance, dress, customs, tastes, language or political objectives. At the same time Tamil Hindus would feel that they have far more in common with Tamil Christians or Muslims than with, say, Punjabis with whom they formally share a religion.
Affinities between Indians span one set of identities and cross into another I am simultaneously Keralite (my state of origin), Malayali (my linguistic affiliation), Hindu (my religious faith), Nair (my caste), Calcuttan (by marriage), Stephanian (because of my education at Delhi's St. Stephen's College) and so on, and in my interactions with other Indians, each or several of these identities may play a part. Each, while affiliating me to a group with the same label, sets me apart from others; but even within each group, few would share the other identities I also claim, and so I find myself again in a minority within each minority.
I T IS IN SUCH a context that we must understand that much-abused term, "secularism". Western dictionaries define "secularism" as the absence of religion, but Indian secularism means a profusion of religions, none of which is privileged by the state. Secularism in India does not mean irreligiousness, which even avowedly atheist panics like the Communists or the DMK found unpopular amongst their voters; rather, it means multi-religiousness. In the Calcutta neighbourhood where I lived during my high-school years, the wail of the muezzin calling the Islamic faithful to prayer blended with the chant of the mantras at the Hindu temple and the voices of the Sikh faithful at the gurudwara reciting verses from their sacred book.
Throughout the decades after Independence, the political culture of India reflected these "secular" assumptions and attitudes. Though the Indian population was 82% Hindu and the country had been partitioned as a result of a demand for a separate Muslim homeland, two of India's first five Presidents were Muslims; so were innumerable Governors, Cabinet Ministers, Chief Ministers of states, Ambassadors, Generals, and Supreme Court Justices. During the war with Pakistan in 1971, the Indian Air Force in the northern sector was commanded by a Muslim; the Army Commander was a Parsi, the General Officer commanding the forces that marched into Bangladesh was a Sikh, and the General flown in to negotiate the surrender of the Pakistani forces in East Bengal was Jewish.
Indian nationalism is not based on language. It is not based on geography. It is not based on ethnicity. And it is not based on religion. India is an idea, the idea of an ever-ever land.
This land imposes no narrow conformities on its citizens: you can be many things - and one thing. You can be a good Muslim, a good Keralite and a good Indian all at once. Where Freudians speak of the narcissism of minor differences, in India we celebrate the commonality of major differences. To stand Michael Ignatieff on his head, we are a land of belonging rather than of blood.
So the idea of India is of one land embracing many. It is the idea that a nation may endure differences of caste, creed, colour, culture, cuisine, costume and custom, and still rally around a democratic consensus. That consensus is around the simple principle that in a democracy you don't really need to agree - except on the ground rules of how you will disagree. The reason India has survived all the stresses and strains that have beset it for fifty years, and that led so many to predict its imminent disintegration, is that it maintained consensus on how to manage without consensus.
And so the Indian identity that I believe in celebrates diversity: if America is a melting-pot, then to me India is a "thali", a selection of sumptuous dishes in different bowls. Each tastes different, and does not necessarily mix with the next, but they belong together on the same plate, and they complement each other in making the meal a satisfying repast.
Indians are comfortable with multiple identities and multiple loyalties, all coming together in allegiance to a larger idea of India, an India which safeguards the common space available to each identity, an India that remains safe for diversity.
If the overwhelming majority of a people share the political will for unity, if they wear the dust of a shared history on their foreheads and the mud of an uncertain future on their feet, and if they realize they are better off in Kozhikode or Kanpur dreaming the same dreams as those in Kohlapur or Kohima, a nation exists, celebrating diversity and freedom. That is the India that has emerged in the last fifty years, and it is well worth celebrating. °
Shashi Tharoor is the prizewinning author of The Great Indian Novel. His new book, India: From Midnight to the Millennium is published by Viking Penguin in New Delhi and by Arcade Books in New York at $25.95.