Marbles in the fish pond

On 'Amma, Appa and Rajnikanth'...

2010-10-11T10:26:00.005+05:30

One of my junior collegaues at work recently pointed to me, when children are born in Tamil Nadu, they are introduced to three people even before devotion and temples beckon - Amma, Appa and Rajnikanth - and not necessarily in that order. Such is status accorded to one of the greatest filmstars ever to some on Indian screens. Adulations and deity like respect is not alien to film stars in South India, where a good percentage of the population have the pictures of a MGR or an NTR in their prayer rooms and also among the sepia tinted pictures of the yesteryears. These are film posters, cuttings from obscure film magazines and the like. There are also the framed pictures of them among the Hindu deities.

The current generation has seen less of this and there are some who attribute it to the waning influence of the medium of cinema in general and also the fact there are now more avenues of entertainment, increasing literacy and the birth of 'internetectuals'. But there are still times when one cannot ignore the impact of these phenomena of the past and we get live glimpses of this, even today. Such was the release of the movie ' The Robot' and its vernacular version 'Endhiran'.

As a first disclaimer, I must confess that I have not seen the movie die to work related exigencies and also will not attempt to review this movie as I have not had the firs hand feel. But I can't suppress the desire to write about what I hear about the movie and the frenzy around it. For firsts, the movie has got good reviews about it from nearly every quarter. The yardsticks are that of a standard Indian pot boiler with the regular recipe of good Vs evil and we are not looking for a arthouse critical claim and nor we have any illusion that the art of film making would have gained anything worthwhile from this contribution from Shankar. But like his earlier movies, he has managed 'scale' yet again and the demonstarted yet again that we are in no ways inferior to the Jerry Bruckheimers and the Camerons and can manage scale in our limited economics.

Now talking of the actor. It also needed someone like Rajni to pull this through. Look at the size of his fan associations. Among the four popular associations he has, there are appraoximately 25,00,000 fans. Which means if every fan watches his movie once ( @ Rs.100 ticket) - that is close to 25 crores which is the average collections of a decent hit in India. So most of his movies are guaranteed successes. We have not even delved into the astronomical ticket pricing of the theatres and the multiplexes etc. Rajni Saar has the filography which vouches for the fact. Added to this is persona of this man. He is as simple as an ordinary man in real life, spartan living style, does not unduly force his image into politics and stays miles from any product endorsements. he is the only actor at that who does not indulge in cashing his popularity any further with the pot pourri. A trend which is unimaginable in today's economics and inimitable.

On second thought, is it suprising that he has a fan following like this. He shows all virtues of great mind, simple living and has a saint like truthfulness in his appeals to the people. And these appeals are seldom requests to watch his film. While intelligence and 'rational behaviour' will still be tall excuses to us, the common man will still not flinch from telling his child his legend - Once upon a time there was this gentleman called Rajnikanth .......

On the fascinating fact of life - AGING

2010-08-25T17:09:00.006+05:30

Well, with all the advancements of medical science, we still have not found solutions to stop aging neither have we, with all technology experiments, managed to stop time. Called it old fashioned, but of these things of the yore are here to stay. So like all aspects of life, when something is a given, we attempt to make the best out of it and make it look good in our minds (at least)…

There is something very poetic and lyrical about aging. Most of the amazing emotive words and phrases in the English Lexicon have something to do with it. Check out ‘wistful blues’, nostalgia, memories, ‘ache in the heart’ are all concepts around this. While three quarters of the cosmetic industry tries to fight this ‘evil’, quite a lot of the literary world survives just by writing and painting visages of this concept.

I have a theory. When we age, we initially have an excitement of moving up the time ladder. More and more independence comes our way and the excitement of ‘growing’ is in every neuron in our body. The excitement dies down somewhere down the line and the inflexion point is somewhere around thirty years, when we built in a ‘subtle sadness’ of the fact that we are ‘growing old’. The general tendency is to look at ‘those good days’,’ when I was your age’ and starts sounding a tad boring for some of the folks listening to us. Then of course the war stories creep – “You know this incident when I...”; And interestingly we ignore the ‘there he goes again ….’ glances around us.

That is the funny part! Then, there is the romantic part where our five senses sends a pulse when we have a déjà vu experience. That taste, that sight, that familiar smell et.al. Our minds then moves into quickly to place the similar experience of the past and then there is ‘wistful blue’ fleeting though your mind and the all too familiar ‘ache in the heart’. What does that tell you? We never cease to be our young selves. Age seldom hits our mind when we are silently sitting along and flirting with our solitude. It is only we are amongst others that we are silently reminded of the sundry years of the past. Within ourselves, we are the toddlers, who loved to play with trivial things, ask the naïve questions and had our lives full dream, ambition and hope.

So the recipe for remaining young – think young , feel young and the final secret ingredient - spend some with yourself – once in a while …..

On my daughter's high heeled shoes

2010-08-24T16:18:00.009+05:30

This piece is dedicated to all my ardent readers who abuse me on my procrastination and ‘promise of a more productive tomorrow’ ; I finally decided to write when the abuses descended to bomb threats and booby trapped emails which procreate viruses on opening…

Shopping has never been my forte! It has always been something others are better than me at. I have done the minimalistic stuff during my courtship days and hid the yawns and fast emerging critical comments. But my wife was quick to latch on to my ennui and as we grew old, she was understanding enough to make sure my wallet was well informed and not me of the purchases ! Well, not to sound chauvinistic, she picked all the right things and made the right choices ( including me :-))

Now shoe mania – that is a different story… I am fond of shoes – well that is like saying that the Sultan of Brunei is rich! I am obsessed by shoes. The story is that as a kid I would wear my shoes in the morning and my mother would remove it only after I am fast asleep – otherwise I would not allow her. Being the spoilt first child of my parents – I did have my way in those days! Well, circa 2010, the disease has been genetically passed on to my 5 year old daughter. She is equally obsessed about shoes. The most popular pastime she has is to dress Barbie in different shoes physically or play one of those computer games of changing shoes of Barbie !

So, the last week, when I had a rare Saturday to spend time at home, we did a little 'father and daughter' shopping. I had to pick a regular black shoe (yeah, I like all colours of shoes as long it is black) and I thought of picking up a sandal for her. We spend exactly 5 minutes for my purchase and then we moved into the kids section. The offerings were not too much as it was regular store with shoes for all genders and ages.

She picked a silver beaded high heel shoe right out of one of her comic books. In the next 45 minutes, I coaxed her with every other model in the store (fearing some straight talk if I land up home with heeled shoes for her ). Every ploy in my book of negotiations fell flat as she did not budge from her stand and choice and I politely relented at the end…

In spite of my initial fears, I was pleasantly surprised to see her walk wearing them. There was a certain sense of poise and confidence which I found inexplicable. She seemed to have aged by another 5 years just wearing them. Well, may be my brain is playing the cuckoo, but I was just happy seeing her thrilled wearing it. Maybe that is what Jimmy Choo means when he says that ‘women in heels make men heel around them’ …

On reporting of tragedies ...

2010-05-25T14:38:00.003+05:30

I don’t read obituaries. It has been a while. I never even peruse the news items on tragedies, terror attacks, air crashes and the like. Can’t remember from when but has been so for a while. So am I scared of such news items – maybe I am! Maybe that is why, in spite of lot of advice on picking on a writing career, I never considered a career of a journalist. Whether it is the print journalist who thrives in romanticizing every calamity or the sheer bravado of the TV journalist trivializing every iota of respect by pestering near and dear ones of martyrs, my blood curdles when I see the naked disregard for others.
And then you see the mockery on the television screens of every channel covering an air crash in Mangalore! Well, I do agree that people are entitled to hear the truth related every such event and be aware of causal factors because that is when the civil authorities work their best. It is also very imminent that the factors of resolution become part of daily mitigation operations going forward. It is also one of the fundamental tenets of risk management – never to lose an opportunity to learn from an untoward incident.
But are we learning here? Or are we tickling our sadistic vein which loves to hear and see gore and derive some perverted voyeuristic pleasure from all this footage. The answer is both is not remotely attached to what the media should be doing which is
1. Report the tragedy
2. Understand the ‘why ‘ and ‘how’
3. Ask the relevant questions
4. Close the footage with homage to the deceased and polite prayer for their souls
That is it ! And what do we see – television channels using ever simulator available to re do the crash and with back ground music ! Well, my friend in the media, I don’t see audience foot tapping to the disaster background music ! Having no empathy is pardonable but public mockery and apathy – is criminal.
My heart goes with the survived and the relatives of the deceased. God give you the strength to continue on ! Life adjusts but never becomes normal again. For the souls , I wish I could say what was written on a cenotaph at Hiroshima – “Rest in peace, for the mistake shall not be repeated…”
Amen !

On Kerala - Gold's own country...

2010-01-04T20:35:00.006+05:30

Wealth is a state of mind and in Kerala is the status of your gold jewellery. Fascinating but true ! When you are totally flummoxed by the throng in the jewellery shops in Kerala , come rain or sunshine ( read recession or economic boom ), you are even more amused by the attire of the average buyer. You will see white lungi clad men and women wearing the most casual sarees and perhaps even a pair of bathroom slippers - the ubiquitous Hawaii chappal.. The only sign of wealth is the dilapidated handbag safely tucked in the arm pits and which they carefully caress every now and as if they are the stroking the mane of their chihuahua pets ! And then lo the smiling salesman at the counter brings out a six figure bill and they don't bat an eyelid ! Three minutes down, you will see the same customer negotiating tooth and nail with an autoriskshaw driver who is asking for 20 bucks over the normal 16 or 17 rupees ... In most likely they will skip the luxury and head for the public buses ! Well, that is Kerala for you !

So why this fascination for the yellow metal which is of course a wonderful investment but limited in value of use. Most of the purchases are for one time occassions like marriages and most of it is hardly worn by besides on the big day. The liquidity content has never been a big motivator perhaps till recently since no middle class or uppper middle family wants to pledge their jewellery for loans. But that is changing... Gold finance is ctahcing up steam and is flying ahead in its business. Gold has truly replaced land as the prime asset to watch out for as the prices seem to the steeping up the curve come whatever economic macro situation.

So how come gold came into fashion in Kerala which does not have any metal deposits to boast of.Well, history tells us that when the spices were more popular than metals , a bag of pepper or cardamom fetched bags of gold from the traders from other coutnries. So gold started being the foreign commodity which was wanted much by the rich and famous and their ofcourse their wives... Then of course the craftsmen took to the design and the artistic talent burgeonef across generations...

Well let me not bore you more history than can be palatable - Check this out - an average middle class woman wears a chain ( avg. 3 sovereigns), two bangles ( 4 sovereigns ), a ring ( one sovereign ) and a pair of earrings ( 2 sovereigns). At today's cost that is Rs one lakh seventy thousand rupees - equivalent of $ 3,200 ... And that is only for accessories ! Maybe I am exagerrating but that is something - What say you D&G, Versace, Gucci and my Italian friends ...

On the new year ...

2010-01-03T14:30:00.004+05:30

Another year go by ... Lots of new things, tons of old and no question that I had a whale of a time ! Hope this year brings in its own bouquet of the old and the new...

Have never really been the 'new year resolutions' kind but have been quite successful in changing habits these days. Whether it is teetotalary ( which is total ) or vegetarianism ( which is an on-off fad ), it has always been a pleasure to embark on the journey and see how one manages the various twists and turns...

But there are several facets of 'new habits' which has reconfirmed that the times are changing ....

1. One of my close business friends addressing a public gathering lamented " Signing of cheques is fast becoming a rare activity"... While the humor in the statement hits you fastr than the true meaning - these are the ominous signs of times to come...Stinginess is in...There will be a lot of caution execised by corporates while spending. The good timeas are around they say but this habit is here to say. So the days of doing less with less have gone and now are days of doing more with less ...

2. Methodologies and 'the way we do things' is changing faster than one can fathom... The regular terms like long term strategy and 5 year plan are passe and now the horizon decision making is smaller. So what does that mean - getting back to the drawing board much more than often...

3. The last point also ushers in the new competence - ability to unlearn. The changing landscape not only reiterates the point of picking up new skills but also permanently erasing some business practices of the past

4. The 'how of doing things' have also changed. Ethics are good business practices are much more in cmversation and for once most senior business heads urge their teams to walk the talk and constantly reinforce the need of following these practices. If one if doing or abetting the wrong things, he / she can be sure that the damocles sword is much more closer to his/ her head than it was couple of years ago. Luckily a lot of rhetoric in the media speak this language of straightforward deals. Quoting Subroto Bagchi in Professional - " Ethics is about dong the right things even when no one else is watching" I cannot imagine it be more succintly put ... Or what Narayana Murthy says - " Integrity is the sofest pillow"...

So are we in for more learning and fun this year... I am sure it is - There will be more roads to cover and alleys to traverse and I touch the feet of Ganesha and walk on ...

Human Capital Series - 3 - On leadership development...

2009-11-15T09:55:00.004+05:30

These are some of the excerpts of an article which I helped co-create on the various initiatives one can do under the umbrella of leadership development...

Leadership competencies
Every company has it own take on what they want their leaders to accomplish. This wish list needs to be broken down into a series of winning behaviors. These behaviors can be further be grouped under various leadership competencies. These leadership competencies become the recipe for the development process. It provides the context to the basic development process and also gives cues on the design of the development process

Leadership Kindergarten
The fundamental tenet for every nursery or kindergarten is to create experiences around what the child needs to learn. This could be in the form of rhymes, action songs, jigsaw puzzles et.al which provide support to the basic framework of learning whether it is numbers or the alphabets. What organizations need to do is to create leadership nurseries for their employees- opportunities where the individual can work and learn. The essence of these programs is also to design experiences where the individual has to be exhibit these leadership competencies to solve and manage real life work situations. The experiences need to be created around class room training and board room interactions.

Leadership Mentors
A good practice to follow in these programs is to assign a leadership mentor. These mentors need to be professionals in the organization with high credibility and whom the entire organization admires and the junior management wants to emulate. Constant interactions with these role models reinforce various management behaviors and also serve as opportunities where the individual can use the mentor as a sounding board for bouncing off ideas and doubts. The role of the mentor is to also probe the various actions of the individual and delve deeper and ask questions on the rationale for various actions. These dialogues need to tease the reflective analysis skills of the individual and help him or her to question various exhibited behaviors. Reflective observation lays a key foundation in building the ability in the individual to cement his learnings from various diverse experiences and also connect them to the larger the structure in his / her mind.

Leadership Fox trot
While mentoring helps in the tutoring process, a more personalized approach is the ‘leadership fox trot’. Fox trot unlike most other dance forms around the world enables the pair of dancers to gradually match up steps and then encourages the dancers to develop their own signature style. The basic slow-slow-quick-quick rhythm helps the individual to slowly pick up pace and then match the routine of the leader. Such close interactions with leaders help in building confidence in the individual and also help to explore what suits best from him or her preferences - behaviors that suit the individual strengths of the person.

Leadership Musical chair
There is no substitute for the exposure different positions – with the changed job description and different expected work outcomes – it contributes to the overall development of the individual into a well-rounded professional. The metaphor of the different chair in each round is for the change assignments and the reducing number of chairs denotes the move up in hierarchy. This also helps in fostering a general management outlook in the individual rather than the targets and pressures of the respective function of business unit.

Leadership Podium
An experience and learning sharing process of the individual in front of the top management core of the organization build confidence in the person and also provides an opportunity to interact get the views of the wider leadership community. Organization needs to have a structured program where the individuals get an opportunity, on a periodic basis, for formalized learning sharing capsules. When this process is embedded in the operational fabric of the organization, it serves as a regular experience reckoner.

Leadership Chronicles
“Education is best imparted through fables” – one cannot over emphasize this notion. Whether it is our Panchatantra or Grimm’s fairy tales, we have always found their allegories build a basic sense of life, good, evil, socially acceptable actions in all its readers especially in their formative years. Leadership chronicles are what great leaders in their organization or industry did in various trying and dodgy times and how they prevailed over the obstacles. These ‘stories’ filter through the rank and file of the organization and become the subject of many a discussion. Whether it is the water cooler chat or the coffee table tête-à-tête, these discussions are indispensable in creating an atmosphere of positivity within the organization.

Leadership project management dashboards
These programs and initiatives need to have a serious focus on execution. Although organizations have several such implementations going on at every point of time, what they lack is the discipline to create a robust feedback and control dashboard which also encourages the rigor of project management on to some of the less tangible initiatives. Having execution metrics is also fundamental to the sustainability of these initiatives.

They say that HR budgets are always under the axe when the business cycle hits a rough turn ; little needs to be emphasised that the HR role needs to play the vital role of the blacksmith to hone the skills of its leaders and enable business to meaningfully circumvent every new challenge ...

On Schooling ...

2009-08-12T14:28:00.003+05:30

Entering the portals of an educational institution is one of those and holy functions which one comes across in life. While we kids tagged along with our parents on their professional sojourns, I managed to change eight schools till matriculation. Every other year, I was staring into a class room with a bunch of strangers. By the time, I have made friends, it was always time to move on. This continued into college, but I found some stability in engineering college where, it was the same environs for four formative years. What had never occurred too seriously at least in my mind was – was I going to the right institutions? Well, I guess I did not care less as a student…

But this seems like a whopping question in the minds of parents of my generation, who do everything short of hiring a consultant to help them identify a framework to identify the right educational institution for their toddlers. I guess as concerned parents, everyone has the right to choose the best ecosystem which suits the value system of their family. Broadly if you look at the options in front of them, I get eager to put it into a framework.

There are essentially four categories of schools which the parents look that
# International Schools
# Indian schools modeled on International syllabus
# New concept schools – innovative teaching methods
# Traditional schools teaching the state, central syllabus

International Schools have always been of attraction from the point of view of internationally ‘exposed’ course material and boasts of having been tried and tested in lots of geographies. It does make sense for kids whose parents travel abroad for extended periods and the family migrates temporarily for these periods. Some semblance of continuity is required. For the social elite, it is also a matter of prestige to put their kids in these schools as it adds to their social resume, makes a statement of their financial with the steep rates they pay as fees. The second category are the wannabes ; they take up franchisees and at times the blends the positive from the international schools and try to also build in the best from our age old rigmarole like exams and homework.

The new concept schools are what the name suggests – New Concepts. Somewhere they try to bring in the oldest Indian forms of gurukuls and build in some of the old scriptures of learning in the tutoring format. We also hear concepts like ‘green learning’ and several others in the experimental mode.

The last is the regular school a lot of us have been to. Big classes, entrance interviews even for nursery, tons of homework, class tests, annual exams , competition, teacher pressure blah blah.

So, what did I choose for my daughter? The fourth category. Why? Not a very complicated consultant reply. I wanted her to appreciate competition – the fact that however unique you are as a person, you will have to compete for every other accolade in life. ‘Appreciating someone who has done well’, easier said than done – it takes a lot more to step back and appreciate someone else’s success and respect someone who has beat you to it. Our standard run of mill school sets the stage for those realisations. It is for the individual to develop on those and build his or her own value system...

On a summary of the IPL redux...

2009-06-07T19:18:00.002+05:30

Well, maybe this time I have taken too many liberties and have run out of excuses for not writing. Too many working Saturdays and another barrage of workload impending, had clouded the lean periods of relaxation and the immediate priority remains spending some time with my daughter who started official schooling last week. Having said that I thought I do a little postmortem of the IPL to begin with and then return to the rigmarole of writing.

IPL 2 was not a whimper like what a lot of us believed and firmly advocated. With the resounding success of this format and the tournament, I seriously question my ability to predict current affairs. It was also slap on my hand that – “Rajesh, stick to advising organizations on strategy and human resources, let the pundits do the same for cricket!” Moreover ‘The fake IPL player’ blog ruled the roost and I enjoyed it too much to critique or to copy the style!

A quick dekko at a team wise personal view :-

Deccan Chargers - They emerged champions after languishing at the bottom of the pile last year. I always maintained through out last year that they were one of the best teams in the tournament even last year and the performance in the previous tournament was never totally lacklustre , they just seemed to be loosing it at the end ! But they re wrote the story this time with Gilchrist carrying on from where he left last year and Rohit Sharma turning out some gems during the choking stages. Ojha’s bowling impressed me more than purple cap RP Singh and somewhere I appreciated the grit shown in dropping Laxman though I do not think the Ravi Teja or Venugopal Rao justified being brought in ahead of Laxman.

Royal Challengers - My favorites for the year ! Not because Kumble proved that his art is ageless, or Dravid fought hard to keep his reputation intact but for just standing up and delivering against the media who were somewhere cozy lampooning Mallya. Ross Taylor played the innings of the tournament and young Pandeyji came good when the spot light on the team.Whether it was Roelof, Kallis, Praveen, Dale Steyn, they laughed at the media for counting them out.

Rajasthan Royals – Well, you can’t win them all. Lady luck does not always the favor the brave and even if you have Shilpa Shetty as your mascot, it takes a little more than sheer grit to be the Big Boss ( or brother) ! Pathan did his cameos and Warne spun it around but Sohail and Shane Watson were badly missed. Like last year no one gave them too much of a chance and this time there were no stars and master protagonists.

Mumbai Indians – Well, Sachin and Sanath can only do so much ! Duminy turned consistent and Malinga was easily the best bowler of the tournament, but it takes a lot more than that to stand on the winning podium and somewhere they lost the plot big time inspite of the elegant Nita Ambani personally sitting with the crew in the dugouts.

Preity’s Lions – They just could not get the act together when it mattered and lost some crucial matches. Brett Lee came too late and Sreesanth did not deliver. Poor Purple cap contendee Abdullah was swatting flies in the dugout and cursing his luck for being dropped after his wicket taking spree and being replaced by Sreesanth. Finally when Sree came good, he had to dance and celebrate – wicket of Dhoni – Something tells me from Dhoni’s face that – it was the end of Sree’s career with the national team.

Chennai Super kings - I have never remembered anyone as consistent as Hayden who went out there on each match and gave Chennai the start they wanted in each game. Dhoni’s astuteness as a captain was questioned time and again but he still managed to douse all criticism with wins and a semi final berth. Murali spun mysteriously as usual and Raina came good with the bat and on the field. I guess they will always be among the top contenders for the tropy each year for a while.

Delhi DareDevils – Perhaps the best team on paper ! Dilshan and De Villiers outshone Gambir and Sehwag by miles and they were quite good at backing the totals of their batsmen with bowling. But have we not seen the best teams choke in the semis especially when one is hit by Hurricane Gilly ! Nehra and Nannes came good for them and but Sehwag’s excuses for not including McGrath was just not convincing enough. You cannot leave McGrath from any team in the world !

Kolkatta Knight Raiders – Last and definitely the least was the baffling consistently poor performance of this team. They played hard to throw muck on Shah Rukh’s face. The fielding was pathetic and sitters were almost consistently dropped. Saurav truly showed how a retired player should play – lazily, in deep fatigue and thorough disinterest! Eventually the cheer leaders of KKR were dancing whenever he got out eagerly awaiting for Hodge to improve things! From me Booooooooooooooooo !

Finally kudos to the BCCI and specifically to Lalit Modi who rocked it, even in South Africa !

On Networking and Not working ...

2009-05-17T15:52:00.003+05:30

Hi,

A deep, sincere and heartfelt apology to all of you who have been sweet and stern (:-)) and definitely correct in reminding me that the output of the blog has been on a decline in this financial year (since March). No excuses,it was one of the normal pressures of time of adult life - the ushering in of several little sundry activities which were unavoidable. And of course our tryst with finding a domestic help (!) for taking care of our child.

The interesting part of ‘connecting back’ is the way we naturally pick up the threads and twines and run around tying things back in place. ‘Connecting back’ itself is a phrase I pick up from a good friend and colleague who uses the word effectively and truly understands the word – Networking! While we normally use the epistemology of the word more, ‘net – working’, and usually do the rigmarole of sending a mail rather than truly connecting through a meeting face to face, there is something worthwhile even in the occasional mail. Whenever I go to into a shell blaming it on too much work or busy travel schedules, I remind myself that connecting with others is something as essential as a daily hygiene activity. I have in the past insisted to a lot of my juniors and ‘attentively listening clients’ that there is no substitute to keeping in touch with people to have a ‘world’ view of things and know what is happening around you. And with communication costs reaching the rock bottom, we now don’t have the excuse of ‘costly exercise’!

With this emphatic moral cause in mind, I paid a little more than warranted attention to a client’s mail asking to connect on Yaari.com. Once I opened the site, the geeks behind the site had a mail send on my behalf to all the hapless members of my address book and on my Inbox. Fortunately I was online for a while longer to realize the faux pas, and send mails to my college groups and the few clients on my private mail box. Obviously some of them confirmed that they have already had a similar experience and we exchanged a sheepish chuckle.

In the past couple of weeks, I have still been bombed with more requests and the like from the names of friends with highly emotional mails ‘ X is having sleepless nights since you have refused to connect to him’, ‘Y is fallen sick in depression because Rajesh Nair refused to connect to them’ ! My heart is with all those who have fallen prey to such sites and the immense embarrassment they have to go through!

Having said that, I don’t want to enter into a spiel maligning networking sites. I use LinkedIn quite often and have often suggested friends to do the same. I have stayed clear of Facebook since I have heard the addictive facets of the site and don’t want to get into another time stealer as of now, however good the site is. Times launched Peer.com and I connected more out of obligation to the guy who send me the invite rather than an intention to use the site. The infusion of these sites and their time stealing facets has given the English Lexicon a new word – “Notworking’ – a characteristic of various net junkies who effectively spend most of their working time on the networking sites and land up NOT Working !

On the South African Premier League outsourced from India

2009-04-26T09:55:00.004+05:30

So the IPL-2 started more on a whimper rather than a bang in the far away wilds of South Africa. The common man has to stick to his television to have a dekko at the cricket fare, the mundane and fairly insipid coverage. The Set Max team covering the event are doing everything except covering cricket. There is the Chinki dentist from Dhanbad, Meiyang Chang, cashing on his Indian Idol fan following and trying very hard to impress exercising his Hindi and often landing on a pile of tomfoolery. There is Mandira Bedi, back in full form and less hair, doing a wee bit better than her performance in the coverage of the 2003 World Cup. There is some tall dude, model, I guess, doing such that- modeling and engaging with Arun Lal. The normally loquacious and glib Arun Lal has perhaps been given feedback to improve his vernacular and keeps more engaged at communicating in Hindi rather than concentrating on cricket. The ever trustworthy Samaritans - old stalwarts Harsha, Gavaskar, Ravi et.al., restore some semblance of propriety with proper cricket coverage.

For the game, I must say I do not have too many complaints. The nature of the 20 – 20 terrain is such that the most innocuous of batting skills can win the day and couple of bad overs can take the game away from you. If you can live with that then there is a lot to applaud to. There is the dependable Hayden starting off Chennai Kings on a run riot in each game. Rahul Dravid is a man on a mission and plays all the shots he never played in his career. Gilly continuing from where he left off last time, has been playing like someone who easily has another ten years in him. Shane Warne turning and bouncing as usual and leading his band of unknowns. Sachin has turned in couple of blitzkriegs, though I think he is ‘trying’ too much. But the best batting so far has been AB De Villiers’s century, which was a classy innings and made Delhi Daredevils’s batting line up perhaps the most destructive. Then the magic man Murali whom I still can’t read and don’t think most of the batsmen do – but then at time swings connect and runs come in this form of cricket.

The celebrity quotient is fairly high with actors, models and business heads wanting to show their mug and talk cricket. There is Shilpa who is basking in the glory of her new found role, Priety continues to charm her team and the crowds, Shah Rukh flys kisses at the televisions as if the entire world is watching IPL to have a glance at him ( secretly I like him in this role, far more tolerable than his film roles and prosaic acting ), The GMR hoi polloi with whistles and clarnets, Nita Ambani showing some polish and looking more glam than the others and our man Vijay Mallya keeping his fingers crossed and praying that Jessie Ryder and Peitersen will do some justice to the Kingfisher beer sales – gobbling beers if not runs !

The popularity of the event is definitely no match to what it was last year. The ad men are running around frantically with the falling TRP rates, with election coverage in India picking up equal TRP and some viewers preferring to read the news rather wake up till late for the match results. The cheer leaders seem to have faced the recession with receding top lines and reducing bottom lines. Thank God, the Muthaliks of the world did not have enough dollars and are totally engrossed with their political futures, to fly in the moral police from India and mess up the dances. Lastly, I do feel for the Pakistani cricketers who could not participate in this event - I hope things are better for the next IPL and we see them play active roles.

For the business consultant in me, this is another venue for more consulting / outsourcing moolah. The IPL actually seems like the South African Premier League outsourced from India !

On the changing landscape and shifting of residence…

2009-04-23T11:24:00.004+05:30

I render my apologies to all of you folks who have been motivating me to write more often and commenting on the slowing output of the blog entries. Not as an excuse, since I consider my writing seriously and will one day be hopefully sitting and gazing at the ocean and watching a sunset and nibbling away on a laptop, watching the sea gulls and the birds guarding the sea and lilting to the tunes of my mother’s ancient lullaby from those wonderful days of childhood; Huh( deep sigh !) – But I digress.

Moving into a new residence can be a tedious task, even if you are lying around in the couch and firing away orders to a group of thin wiry Bihari and Bengali packers chewing and sucking on their ‘khaini’. We shifted into another part of town near the buzzing M G Road and the busy Brigade road. In spite of the busy traffic and the proximity to thickly populated business streets, we are cushioned in the saddle of some aging greenery and large rain trees. The streets inside are more silent, has the everlasting dampness of the tree guarded denizen has the rare smell earth one has to consume and not write about. As the rain gods showered blessings in the last two days, the green gained in pulchritude and the jacarandas boasted their blossom, suddenly I felt I was in the Bangalore of the yesteryears when it was truly called the ‘Garden City’. Those days when your backyard had the Mayflower, Moulmein Rosewood, Hibiscus, Tabebuia, Silk Cotton, Indian Coral are just memories and we have to rely on the ‘Namma Metro’ to restore some of that green grandeur. For someone from Kerala, like me , greenery is no novelty but the sheer variation in the naturally found trees in Bangalore has been a matter of a queer inquisition. Lalbagh has managed to retain much of the old glory in spite of the plethora of vendors and the apathetic citizens trying their level best to tarnish the place with all sorts of waste being thrown around.

One of the ills of urbanization has been the children of this generation missing all the faun and flora. When we stayed in our apartment in Gurgaon which we were always talking of the day when we will have to show our daughter a ‘rain tree’ on Google and not take her one and bask in the wide shelter it gives to the on lookers. When I first considered Bangalore for relocation, I was warned of the nagging traffic and the disappearing trees and I must say that some of my earlier day trips to Bangalore have been excruciating on the count of traffic and have barely managed to reach the Domlur airport for the return flights in the evening. But the shift never felt so rewarding till the last few days at the new residence.

Today, a walk in search of the morning dew, preciously stored in the folds of leaves, is not a futile one. I can step out after a down pour and shake a branch to shower on me with the saved droplets. I can hear the odd bird chirp in glee inviting the rains. Little pleasures in the ‘garden city’ where I am yet to see a house with a garden …

On Booing, Shooing and ‘Shoeing’…

2009-04-10T18:19:00.007+05:30

We are from the land of ‘non cooperation’ where, we believed that active non-participation can move mountains or at least the British. What we learned from the efficacy of these tools is also the power of such protest and a non-violent way of showing dissent. Well, some of these methods may find takers when the opposition is full of civilized minds but may fall by the wayside when the opposition is paan chewing, red spitting, back and front scratching politician. But methods of protest have always seen the creativity of times!

Bush survived two strong well directed volleys by an Iraqi journalist – much credit to his fitness and reflexes. When you have eight years experience of ‘ducking’ issues, one gets a little talented at this kind of stuff. But I secretly admired Bush’s reflexes when the Iraqi statesman standing next to him did not even blink while Bush was all in parry posture.The sales of the particular shoe model increased thirty fold in the next three months ( are you hearing this Gucci, Jimmy Choo ?).

A blog entry on the Wall street Journal writes “ shortly after the incident, online shoe throwing games were the rage. At http://www.sockandawe.com/ 91,498,174 have already hit Bush in the face and the website is even offering a $1,000 prize for the person who hits the 100,000,000th shoe. The tech freaks at DVICE even did a Top 10 listing of Internet shoe games.” In February earlier in the year, another shoe was hurled at the Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao at the Cambridge University did not find its target. This time the Chinese media panned the coverage and virtually censored the news and the video recording. But the effect remained and the inspiration to all those potential ‘shoe warriors’.

Now our own ‘desi’ shoe throwing incident! I would not call it 'throwing' as our man Jarnail Singh gently tossed it at Mr. Chidambaram who did nothing to duck or evade but still maintained his calm and shot out his innocent smile and asked the security to treat the journalist gently. Well, my lament is that the journo targeted the shoe at Chidambaram who is definitely one of the better political faces we have ,and definitely did not deserve such a demeanor. On the same breath, I also wish some one had shown the shoe at some of the other ‘worthy’ politicians.

While the security let off Jarnail Singh and no official police case was registered ( the Iraqi journo is on a three year jail sentence ) the media and the Sikh groups made a hero out of him. Also interesting was the monetary rewards, job offers and even a Lok Sabha ticket that were offered to him. With such incentives, shoe throwing is here to say. For the concerned security men, this is a new challenge – how does no prevent people from wearing shoes to conferences. Well, they may take a page out of ancient Indian ethos were shoes were always left outside houses and places of worship and encourage conference and meeting invitees to remove their shoes at the entrance of the building. But I pray this will not usher the era of a new protest weapon – smelly socks!

On the God of Nano things...

2009-04-03T20:59:00.004+05:30

It has finally arrived! India and a good part of the global fraternity had been keenly following the story – the development of the world’s cheapest car. The initial plaudits have found takers in both the television and the print media. Every automaker has envyingly admired the car with the green tinted lenses. ‘Low cost and affordable’ is fashionable in these times of global penury and perhaps the timing of the launch matches the sentiments of the current hoi polloi.

For me, the news ushered in a lot of wonderful memories. The great old GET days at TELCO Jamshedpur! The homely colony, the friendly club, our favorite bar man Khayoomji, the thrill of riding a two wheeler, the October chill in the air and … True, it has been a long while since those days. And it has also been a long while for Tata Motors to emerge into its new avatar. “Why does every TELCO product have to look like a truck” – a cheeky fresh engineer has asked during a top management open house at the Jamshedpur works. The comment was directed at the Tata Sumo. The market also did not take favorably to the products – Sumo was involved in more toppling incidents in those years than all the other vehicles combined. The centre of gravity of the vehicle was the initial target of the critics and then the plethora design errors. But these comments did not dent the market demand and it more or less reigned till the advent of the Scorpios and the Qualis.

Indica (which began as Tata Mint – till the brand definition was changed from small car to Indian car) had too many startup issues right from design bloopers, reneging suppliers, conniving competitors etc. Even when the recalls ended and the design modified, the car was still not the favored passenger car that a consumer would want to take home. Even the wallet conscious did not flock around a very economical diesel design introduced later. But what Tata Motors won the process was the heart and faith of many a consumer and even the customers of other cars unanimously agreed that “Tatas have learned how to make a car!”

To top it all, the name ‘Tata’; it brings in a kind of romanticism and ethical purity like ‘Gandhiji’, our national anthem, our national flag – four letters which have some kind of a spiritual connection in the mind of every Indian. Amongst a lot of us Tata ( and ex-Tata) couples – we have a common joke that our kids will say that Ratan Tata is the father of the nation and not Mahatma Gandhi !

And now the Nano ! Indian technology has for once hit the business headlines and every business reader in India has definitely read the news with lot of pride and for me, it was the kind of feeling where one gets goose pimples and a soft Yanni tune plays in the background. It was a semi–emotional moment where I just wanted to call everyone I knew in Tata Motors and talk, talk and talk… Of course, the first response from their end – “So when are you buying the Nano?” followed by the chuckle. Well, it is not a ‘Na’ or ‘No’ to Nano now, let me just enjoy this feeling and walk around glowing in pride and pray that it will be the dream that a lot of us Indians cherished…

The young turks, rabid remarks, future of Indian Politics ?

2009-03-27T20:41:00.002+05:30

Weekends are for relaxing, a little extra time at home, playing with my daughter and trying to make some sense of the vertiginous political landscape. And that is a tall task! Frankly, I do not worry too much about the outcome of the elections,as the dealings of the governing framework is in the hands of educated and erudite civil servants and increasingly the business leaders have been, of late, not been hauled up with any rabid legislations. Somewhere, there is also a broad consensus that business should be let alone and but for the odd Mamtas, it is business as usual.

Now politics is a whole different smorgasbord! With a little wisdom and some common sense, I feel I can state that ‘Days of coalition politics has now confirmedly become a reality’. All national parties have lost lustre and have increasing dissociated themselves from state level issues. State level issues have been under the grip of the regions which perpetually harbour national ambitions! Without a charming national face and a party to look up to, the media runs around each day to cover each face in the elction fray.To catch media, the new Turks seek routes of infamity and voice the most provocative and thoughtless (Well, perhaps not all that thoughtless) banter.

Latest to enter the melee is Varun Gandhi. His volatile comment against the Muslims is totally uncalled for and is a page straight out of the diaries of the Muthaliks of the world. From relative anonymity and only a ‘Gandhi’ title in his armoury, he has now emerged the ‘media boy’ and soon will be among the league of star BJP campaigners and all in the space of ten days. For the young ‘babalog’ of and the impressionable ( and also the older politicos), this is a crash course in how to make headlines and draw national attention.

1. Make a fiery casteist, racist, provocative comment
2. Be a little temperate – blame the acoustics and see the reaction of the media and the crowds
3. If the reaction is negative – blame the media and the politicians chiding you and claim that the story was concocted and you were misinterpreted by the media
4. If the reaction is - attention and the media is mollycoddling you for airtime – stick to your speech and blame the others for duplicity and hypocrisy – the beauty of our politics is that there are enough instances of leaders and parties taking partisan stances

For the Sangh Parivar, he is the chocolate boy – ‘well’ groomed youngster with a ‘national’ surname right down the lineage of the enfant terrible of National politics once upon a time – Sanjay Gandhi. For BJP, which is projecting L.K.Advani as the youth icon – this maybe the long searched for answer. For the Congress, this is a new line to throw brickbats at – and also an avenue for branding Rahul Gandhi as the more mature face. For the media, the sundry debates and interviews of politicians. For the mother Maneka, sworn animal lover, moments of deep pride – her son seems to follow his father’s footsteps and has picked up some animal instincts too !

It is win-win for anyone concerned. But for the poor, confused voter – another silent prayer – if the youth face of politics demonstrates this demeanour – God save this country!

On getting lost in the rigmaroles of life...

2009-03-21T14:20:00.001+05:30

Thinking on the same lines as my earlier in the blog, I perused my old journal of five six years ago and saw this unfinished set of stanzas. Wrote a few more lines and posted the same. Maybe it is a slightly retrospective, since life has been sunshines of late :-)

There were days when I felt choked,
So full of energy and zest of life
But so less time to take space
A moment for my breath

The rush was everywhere
The cars, the mad rush at the lights
The hungry hands at the closed window
We were all in a hurry

The birds were never there
The green was always a passing blur
The sky, I guess must have been there
And we lived, of course

Then when the time came
I looked for all these
Something to hang on and cling
To a support for our dear lives

But the flowers had withered
The leaves were dry
The smell of rains were gone
Just the heat and the dune remained

I lived a life of noticing nothing
Never the leaves and the pulchritude
Never the soft whispers of nature
And never the touches of loved ones.

But life is strange healer
The smiles were fast to come
The minds bend to forgive
I was on a bed of roses once again !

Of motions of life, seeking meaning, ennui ...

2009-03-21T13:54:00.001+05:30

The other day, ‘once in a while’ periodic call from one of my prior colleagues, led me into a train of thoughts into my past consulting life. The rush between the planes, trains and automobiles; the sundry presentations, the lonely drinking sessions to cut down ennui in an alien hotel, the detached run through motions of life…

“Life is good. I have got the best ratings among peers; I got favourable feedback and my seniors are happy with me. The clients trust my advice and the current assignment is going on really well. But there is some void somewhere; where is all this leading? What am I actually delivering? Am I happy?” he asked with the amazing earnestness that he shows in every interaction. “Six pegs of vodka, plenty of lime and some cubes of cube and the drink induced stupefaction and then deep dead slumber should do the trick!” I joked. But amidst the ensuing smiles and chuckles and the easing air, I went into some of my null days of the past – before my teetotalling present.

Yes, life just drifts away most of the time when we are working with that ‘detachedness’ a sort of ‘present but absent’ existence. So do a lot of us go through the rigmarole of daily life, hurry through every minute of life and blame it on the ‘pay cheque’ or realities of adult life ! Yes, we do – because we just want to; because it is convenient to do so; because that is what my friends, batch mates and colleagues do; because it is so difficult and unpragmatic to do anything else. I could think of a thousand excuses to confirm to the schedule I don’t like but I find it difficult to think of even one ruse to do something I like!

Fundamentally looking at life like an engineer, a bean counter and a stodgy management consultant, we spend most of our waking life in our working careers festooned in cubicles, office spaces and maybe boardrooms. With all checks and balances of life to cancel out in this life time, that is a tough call. The work scale is always heavier and tilts the balance to its side. So what is your advice Mr. Consultant – I ask myself. Well the key thing is to enjoy what you do … “Ok save the spiel, not another ‘lift me’ literature!” I reprimand myself.

So what else – a very simple set of rules

1. Look around you – notice all the different colours
2. Smile at every opportunity
3. Look at the faces of people around you – they are all going through life
4. Buy a bunch of flowers to give it someone you love
5. Watch a romantic comedy or read a comic

So, will this solve all the problems in your life ? No, it wont. Because we are the choices that we make. Nothing will change till you make that choice to lead a meaningful life – whatever that may mean to you!

'IT'ty, 'BIT'y conversations...

2009-03-15T13:08:00.003+05:30

Change is one of the phobias that most of us have in our cells. True , but this fear can be in various proportions and intensities in various individuals. This phenomenon can be seen at its diseased worst in the employees of this organization which I visited the other day. The chief executive of the enterprise has, in the recent past, picked up a fascination for ‘IT’.

With our man’s new interest in Information Technology, the company is sweeping all over its various factories. IT education has been made mandatory to all employees and the added carrot or rather the stick is that – promotions and upward movement in the organization is linked to IT prowess.

But what does poor Mr. Rami Reddy have to do with this entire melee.

He has seen change in the last two decades and was always a silent unthinking spectator. Work life had always its sanctimonious reverence and it was too sacred to be shaken by the machinations of governments and the leaders. Things always happened for the better. The screen ‘god’ had emerged from the green rooms of the top management and set out to ravage the company landscape. The benevolent Maintenance head, was always there to provide spice to life and at times a little ‘peg’ to boost the moments. All in all there was the must-needed tranquility in the offices.

Then came that thing – computer. That small television screens seem to fascinate everybody to no end. How can one trivialize all those important information lying around in lazy dusty bundles ? Is there no sanity in the ambience any more ? How could a ‘Kam-puter’ do jyada work? Now CEO Garu insists on all employees in the office to go to Secunderabad for a training program. Imagine what will Kalyan think of his father. What face will I put on the next time I teach him arithmetic? His Appa has still to learn!

This was a short conversation I was privy to, sitting in Rami Reddy's office

“ Reddy Garu , have you heard about the computer installation in our office. There will be a computer in every table. It seems we will not have files on our tables any more.”
“ So ?”
“ At least we will have space to keep our tiffins on the table. There is a rumor that the machines get very hot after a while. Maybe we use it to heat our food during the lunch time.”
“But I heard that the air conditioning the entire office.”
“ In that case we get kulfis also from home.”
“ Our record room is also going to be demolished. There will be a ‘customer complain booth’ in the same place. Now those filthy contractors will trouble us more for their bills and tenders.”
“ But of course the computer will be on our side. It won’t team up with rogues and scoundrels.”
“ But what if the computer starts taking bribe ? Our pocket money will reduce, na ?”
“ Oh my God ! There is also a rumor that these machines are actually robots spying for our CEO. It will send all-important messages to him by something called ‘e-mail’. It is some kind of courier service.”
“ Yes, yes I have heard about that; and if anything incriminating is caught, they will send vigilance by this same e-mail and have us put into some ‘datawarehouse’.”
“Oh! What is this world coming to? There is no ethics in the office anymore.”

Road less traveled – Of bumps, jumps and aching bones...

2009-03-15T11:01:00.002+05:30

It was an eventful evening… We huddled into the dilapidated Herbie ( read A/C Volvo) which had seen more bumpy rides than several human lifetimes. Inspite of the driver informing us that the vehicle is younger than my daughter – three years, I could not help gaping at it observing a silent homage to the battered warrior. I humbly offered a few excuses about nausea and vomiting and sat in the front throne just behind the pilot. The conductor still tried hard to convince me to take a seat at the back – “ We have plastic bags on every seat ; You can comfortably vomit ! “ A thousand expletives found its way to my tongue but I restrained myself. A damp stench filled the vehicle as if it were perspiring, thinking of another twelve hour journey to our destination.

The initial portion of the journey was fairly uneventful besides my admiration towards of hoard of mosquitoes which repeatedly attacked me with the zest of a samurai and vengefulness of a Ronin, trying to reclaim the faith of the emperor. My much cultivated habit of sleeping in a jiffy deserted me and I kept blinking at the lights and most the darkness ahead.

When my eyelids finally gave in, a sound of a revving engine came from the back seat . There was a rookie Lewis Hamilton – a fellow traveler, revving up, bludgeoning his nostrils and letting out snorts through his nasal exhaust. So much for sound sleep, I lamented.

The terrain had the inconsistency which made the Indian Cricket team look like gods. During the dips and the leaps, I remembered a person from my wanton school days. Sister Agnes !! She was like an Amazon inside the garb of a nun, always looking busy teaching us Biology. Her fury and deep baritone voice made her seem more like a drill sergeant taking ‘extreme’ PT lessons !But I digress …

But what I remembered was, she teaching us that there are ‘XXX’ no. of bones in the human body. Man, she was wrong! I just counted a wee bit on that evening. Every joint groaned like a mangled dog and I was just beginning to feel like a bundle of bones loosely attached with some adipose tissues.

The Oasis came after our camel had trudged a good three and half hours over sublimely rural India and we reached the land of the 'bald surd'. The welcome break had me rejoicing like a traveler in a Thai Massage joint. Suddenly I saw a surd with flowing sweat licked hair sitting at the counter. Was this a mirage or what is just fatigue? A sardarjee in an obscure part of South India – Man, that is enterprising! Luckily before I lost my marbles and perspective on reality, I saw the good old bald surd squatting on a coir bed and busy counting the hair around his navel under the rolled up vest with his right hand, and casually scratching his family jewels with his left hand… Needless to say I lost my appetite!

I looked around to relieve myself and had company in a cow letting out pee by the buckets with a purposeful look in its eyes. The seriousness made me begin to look for my business card and introducing my consulting company to the creature who seemed to be only sane animal ( read potential customer) in that dhaba ( colloquial for road side inn) of inebriation. I was just into the first introduction when I heard a muted thump!! Two dollops of a green substance dropped in retaliation from behind my new-found bovine friend … Message was clear “Dude, I dole out shit when I need to; But you do it for a living”. With these wise words of deep understanding, I lazily trudged on, for another leg of dips and leaps !

Tribute to a woman's life...

2009-03-08T18:39:00.004+05:30

Growing among 'women of substance', this is a tribute to all of them who , made me who I am and still make me want to be a better human being each day of my life, on this International Womens' Day.
To my late grandmother, who, unshamedly lavished her love and partiality to me among all her grand children...
To my mother, who wanted nothing more than my happiness and prays every living moment for my well being...
To my sisters, whom I bullied and teased, but never flinched from calling me the best brother in the world...
To my wife, who is my favorite and most ardent critic keeping me grounded in reality, who I want to wake up with each morning...

To my lady colleagues, who have understood and appreciated every professional victory of mine ...
And to my daughter, who remains the centre of life , whose smile is worth all the troubles of adult and professional life...

This is for you all -------------

As a sister to brats galore,
She tends and mends fights
Bullied and tugged by the ponytails,
She still makes it up in the end

Brothers are always lost
Without the care and the compassion,
Without the trusted ear
Who is sump for every secret

As a wife to a kid (men never grow up)
She mollycoddles and massages
Gargantuan egos and complexes
And makes the day special in the night

She lends ear to every bickering
Comforts every rejection
Lauds each achievement
Lends a shoulder for each grief

As a mother, the creator of all
She has learnt the trade
After mothering her husband
She has the child in every heartbeat

She has a premonition of a kind
An accurate sense of feeling
Of whatever the child goes through
And prays every minute for the well being

As a grandmother of toddlers
She develops prowess in stories
Spoils with gifts and goodies
Pampers to heart’s content

She reminisces through life
Proud of what she was and is now
And readies herself for the yonder
And another life of love and care.

Human Capital Series -2 Understanding regulation...

2009-03-08T17:34:00.003+05:30

While I have clients constantly asking questions related to their people issues, organization and corporate strategy, there are also the general questions on the state of the economy, markets and various management theories, I get to field. The most recent has been the tanking of the stock market – both the Dalal and the Wall Street and the eternal debate of “How much regulation is good?”Most of my replies are the logical dissection of the various parameters and the informed guesses and speculation on the future of business. I also attempt to create a model for clients to use and clarify such questions themselves. Now, the interesting or rather the difficult part of modeling is the inability of us professionals to create rules or patterns around various phenomenon. The corollary is the complaint that we tend to trivialize ‘facts’ by fitting them into models and formulae. As a senior client once commented “ You consultants have a model for everything – the only difference between you and an amateur mathematician is the jargon you paint it in and the tie !”

So I try to tread the waters to explain why markets are complex systems rather than rolling out another jabber or formula.

The financial system much like the ‘textbook’ complex entity is one that shows spatio-temporal correlations and are not determined purely by localized conditions. With large number of forces and flows affecting it, there are several limits to the tractability of the modeling process. Regulation brings in boundary conditions to any equation making it more focused for an optimization. Although at risk of classical reductionism, it also helps in detailed denotation in some of the presuppositions and logic. Regulation brings in a boundary condition that at times may 'intelligently' prevent 'excessive creativity.

Complexity brings with it its own virtues. Every complexity puts forth variables which we at times tend to neglect, newer permutations of key parameters and in essence brings out the need to always have a Plan B.In retrospect the immunity of our financial system vis-à-vis the western markets is perhaps a victory of institutional boundaries over individual unleashed creative thinking. There is an interesting article by David Brooks in the NY times speaking for institutional thinking over individual thinking - He says “Faith in all institutions, including charities, has declined precipitously over the past generation, not only in the U.S. but around the world. Lack of institutional awareness has bred cynicism and undermined habits of behavior. Bankers, for example, used to have a code that made them a bit stodgy and which held them up for ridicule in movies like ‘Mary Poppins.’ But the banker’s code has eroded, and the result was not liberation but self-destruction."

Like all management consultants, I have been pre-conditioned to avoid complexity when ever we enter the domain of decision making. May be there is a little virtue in using regulation to simplify the representation of financial market as a complex dynamical system.

On Wall Street, terrorists and Sachin Tendulkar...

2009-03-08T14:39:00.003+05:30

Every now and then I wake up to the political canard like Rip Van Winkle from his reverie. "A little knowledge," said an English poet, "is a dangerous thing." I have always believed that partial knowledge lead us from what little light we have to greater darkness. Meticulous reading and understanding is warranted before one decides to exercise his right to opinion and debate. So I decided to use this Sunday to peruse the dailies and the NY times, to wake up to discussions and debates around me.

World has not changed – Blood bath continues on the Wall Street, Obama is on a quotidian, uninspiring agenda of the bail offs and the complete circle of violence in our unstable 'curry republics' states which slide on the terrorist gravy train in and around India (which looks unstable itself).Employment statistics in the US enter new crevices, the economic uncertainty clamps on the businesses and the optimism business world leaders tanks further.

Bangadesh Rifles just decided to take the pecking order into their own hands and planned a ‘private’ restructuring assignment - all because of a little comp & ben problem (Compensation & Benefits as the HR folks)!! When the army – the most disciplined of organisations - takes up cudgels in such fashion, one is politely reminded that every organisational entity is adrift with cultural and process based underpinnings and no one is immune to it !

The terrorist attack on the Srilankan cricket team proves the myth of inviolability of sportsmen - wrong and reminds us to leave security matters to the heads of the state and policy makers ; we would be best served by listening to their analysis on security and take their recommendations seriously and not plough through it in television debates. The stodgy IPL organisers and Mr. Modi better keep their fingers crossed during the event and pray to all their Gods to revent untoward events – we are in no way different from a Pakistan when it comes to these issues. The TV anchors may also be quietly nudged around the corner – ‘attack on Pakistan opens discussion on the fragility to the security cover of this region and not only Pakistan’.

After a few cursory glances at the cricket match at Christ Church, took a moment to savour the forty third century of our own ‘baby faced dynamite’ Sachin Tendulkar. Being around his age, cricket according for me has been laced with pages from his illustrious career and in every Indian match – my sole concern like millions of Indians,has remained – How much did Tendulkar make ? True, the senior most player of the team displays the kind of enthusiasm that one would expect from a rank fresher or a rookie !

Human Capital Series – 1 Understanding culture…

2009-02-28T05:30:00.001+05:30

It is very often we hear the spiels – “Our key success factor is our culture!”; “There is something wrong with our culture”; “We want people who will fit into our culture!” While these are more like the clichés and banal statements, they also present an interesting cue point to understand the organization.

Culture is like the pulse of an organization. It cannot by itself give you a lot of information – slow, fast, normal, weak et.al. But it is an opportunity to peek into the portals of the organization. It helps you to ask questions to delve deeper into the institutional psyche at the moment – what ails it and what could be the probable causes. With the mindset of organizations moving from the ‘asset based’ to ‘people based outlook’, this discussion populates your guesses and surmises about the organization and helps in ‘intelligently’ drafting questions during your interactions.

Edgar Schein the ‘supreme guru’ of culture defines it

“A pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group learned as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems.”

“…a basic set of assumptions that defines for us what we pay attention to, what things mean, and how to react emotionally to what is going on, and what actions to take in various kinds of situations.”

“…is neither innate nor purely driven by strategy, rather culture is learned and therefore can be changed.”

The interesting thing about culture is that – it can never be clearly defined by the people bound by it – difficult to ‘see the forest through the trees’. The task of the consultant is to ask questions and understand the connections between the various symptoms and draw a palette of link diagrams that effectively helps one to boil down to couple of causal factors.

All the tools that we use in the normal context – Culture web analysis, Social network analysis are triggered to categorize and affinitize various issues and present to you a diagnosis chart that broadly describes the organizational alignment to various people and strategic issues.

Hence the end document of a culture diagnosis should be like the diagnosis chart of an executive health check up – comments and readings on a sundry of data points which enable us to read and mull into the ‘What next ?’ strategy with the client

Human Capital Series - Introduction

2009-02-24T20:35:00.001+05:30

Having sold ‘knowledge and experience’ through this last professional decade, I have encountered sundry of material on the ‘art of selling’ including the highly acclaimed and read publications on what makes ‘rain makers’. Moreover during the academic stint at B School we of course had an entire discipline of Marketing teaching us the finer art and also preparing us for the never ending battle at the corporate battlefield. What I remember from those days is mostly the skullduggery of the plethora of case studies and anecdotes and some guiding principles that I have modified and used to some success and lot of failures at the market place.

Intriguingly interesting has been my stint of selling human capital services across the national geography. ‘People issues’ and Organization Behavior were a one credit course in my entire selection of courses at the B School. But over the years, personally I have found work in this space the most challenging, fulfilling and engaging. The more intricate and esoteric travail is selling these services. I always found it squeamish to even ask “Do you have any people issues?” I am sure the ubiquitous reply from anyone right from the CPO to your laundry boy would be – “Don’t we all?” In this rather naïve or ordinary repartee lies the essence – All of us individually, in a group or in an organization are bound by principles and rules that the environment prescribes on us. Our successes are based on the efficient maneuvering of ourselves through these labyrinthine routes. At each bend on this road is the enquiry post where we seek advice – The talking post may be an elderly person, a psychologist, a psychiatrist or a human capital advisor / consultant.

So what these animals – human capital advisors- do in organizations? More often than not, people policies in organizations tend to fall on the ‘black spots’ of the organizational outlay. While strategic issues like structuring and target setting remain on the top of the memory of the CXO, some of the root issues on the people front do not present themselves on the same level just because they are shrouded by multifarious factors and each issue has a spin much like the locus of a toroidal plane! The very nature of these issues requires a Socratic mode of questioning to unravel them. Having said this, I must apologize if this area suddenly sounds like rocket science. As all areas, there are simple and interesting principles here which make it interesting, exhilarating and totally engaging.

The broad palette of these ideas and musings has led to a few governing ideas which I use time and again. The following series intends to traverse some of these areas and explore ideas and experiences, test various principles empirically and provoke some thinking and tickle the grey matter…The other reason for penning these down is to articulate and understand issues and discuss what are the signs one needs to be cautious of. The broad format will be to look out for the symptoms and understand their connections of the systemic pathology.

And the award night goes to ....

2009-02-23T20:15:00.000+05:30

Ok! I take all the besmirches on the movie back and ignore the ‘bloopers’ which were omitted by the Oscar winning editing department. Poverty porn/tourism or regaling dystopia – all complains and shenanigans have been vehemently discarded by the 5810 strong jury. There were some lovely scenes which will be etched in our memories forever. The kids looking dapper in the designer attires, suddenly gorgeous Freida Pinto, ‘little boy’ Rahman in a black Sherwani, a shy Vikas Swarup in the background, Anil Kapoor swaying the ‘golden man’ as his own and the magnanimity of the producer who made the podium look like a party while accepting the award. Eight Oscars and the issue is settled. Let us move on …

It was one of those days when there were minimum surprises at the announcements at Kodak theatre. Some may argue that Sean Penn sneaked the rug from under Mickey Rourke’s feet but we all know that Sean Penn has been an academy favorite and some of Mickey Rourke’s antics would not have earned him too many fans in the past and the Academy has long memories. Poor Jim Carrey is still a pariah when it comes to Academy Awards. I saw ‘Milk’ yesterday and really liked the movie and the superlative acting – as Robert De Niro said ‘Sean is never in his movies – it is always the character - whether it is a Sam, a Milk or Dead Man walking!’( Secretly let me confess, this is fifth time – I see a movie on the eve of the awards ceremony and the actor wins Best Actor in a leading role – As Good As it Gets , Training Day, Mystic River, There will be Blood… )

Like the Oscar acceptance speech, I could not resist making a few notes and words of mention to squeeze in before the ‘limiting tune’ plays again …

Kate Winslet, finally overcame the thirteen year curse and embellished her already awesome filmograhy with the golden statuette on her sixth nomination. If anyone has any realistic expectation of even coming close to the ‘15 and still running’ record of Meryl Streep – it is her. Like Meryl each movie of hers is like a once in a lifetime performance. Kudos – We hope to see more of you!

Penelope - for making it big Hollywood with the accent and getting over the glam doll innuendo and some mindblowing original stuff in perhaps the most fought category of the evening. Finally you emerged ‘the woman on top’!

Simon for writing Slumdog Millionaire from an otherwise trite and average story (sorry Vikas ! Much as I like your writing ‘SM’ is a Simon Beaufoy creation!)

Antony Dod Mantle – for teaching us that there are visages and hues of India that make it starkly different from any other place in the world. And a silent prayer that there will be bolder attempts behind the camera in our cinema !

Heath – May your soul rest in peace! Perhaps not for the untimely death, the others could have given a run for the award – nonetheless sadly the grand finale of one who could have been up among the legends of all time. Perhaps you are already there !

The brilliant format of actors coming on stage to introduce the nominees of this year was amazing. I hope our own Filmfare and other organizers copy this remarkably wistful and delicious idea. I hope this is here to stay – listening to Sissy Spacek applauding Anne Hathaway was itself like an award bestowed !Finally for Hugh Jackman for being one of the most underplayed hosts at the Academy Awards who flitted and sailed in and out effortlessly, making this perhaps one of the most punctiliously coordinated Awards functions I have seen !

All the hubbub about the pub !

2009-02-15T09:21:00.003+05:30

What people do for a little airtime in the name of political propoganda ! The phrase Ram Sena has taken the infamous innuendo and just blemished the original folflore for years to come. While some channels are taking media responsibility to new avenues like the Greenathon, we have a motley crew of disgruntled and queer pack of mendicants who subscribe goons to their version of 'society cleansing'.

My first tryst with a similar group was when we in first year of engineering school heard that couple of our batch mates were roughed up a gang of seniors calling themselves 'Bajrang Dal' and had censored all activities of our the Literary and Debating Society which indulged in 'anti- ethical' activities like debating, JAM, book reading which encouraged 'untoward' interactions of boys and girls. The issue was immediately laid to rest with our hero 'Princi' pulling the whole group up and sending them off on a two week suspension !

Feb 14th was also celebrated amongst us friends but for a much different reason from Geoffrey Chaucer, St. Valentine or courtly love - Feb 14th is the death anniversary of P G Wodehouse and as Wodehouse buffs we had to get together with a cuppa and dog earred book off the shelf and one of us would read the 'ever sensible' Jeeves out to the others and share our Wodehouse jokes and phrases. Wodehouse has been the greatest purveyor of pabulum for me then and now and is infamously responsible for my amateur writing forays.

When we had larger purses to gloat over, the cuppa turned into a pint size beer bottle and the cheeky cocktails and our 'gaggle of friends' invaded the - the very old English establishment - The pub ! True, some of the discussions were curtailed by the excess inebriation of a group member and the odd interest in a more serious topic like the latest Madonna album or the Van Halen poster, but we were never marched out of any establishment by the 'tyrannical aunts' !

While I never intend to glorify excess drinking - the current threat on the pubs amuse me. Has all the national issues become so prosaic that political mileage needs to be had from some wayward moral policing - and who are they trying to recruit and what are they trying to achieve through this excess show of tomfoolery ?" The Western habits have corupted our minds .." quoted a senior politician - So what ? 'The very word 'corruption' here is a state of opinion and if a twenty five year old decides that he wants two swigs of beer with his female collegaues - it is bloody business whether he chooses a pub , a friend's home or his own apartment ! It is not anyone's right to disenfranchise our friend of his constitutional right and curtail his frisson.

BCCI officials ask - What Recession ?

2009-02-08T12:25:00.002+05:30

The sun set and the group dispersed in parts. There came in the lights and another bunch of ‘enlightened’ mosquitoes. A chaiwallah with a soiled or perhaps rusted kettle came along. A cup of tea as a companion didn’t seem to be a bad proposition. Ignoring the package, I audaciously asked for a cup. The tea was not bad at all. “ What time is it, babuji?” enquired the host dressed in tatters. On hearing the time, the chaiwallah hurried along with an urgency our trains seemed to have forgotten.

A voice from nowhere announced that ‘my train’ was indefinitely late. No apologies, only a silent mockery of the passengers, who had by now unpacked on the floor of the railway station and were settling down to their rigmarole. There seemed to be no panic and the quietude was alarming.

After an unsuccessful bout with the hordes of mosquitoes, I got up to stretch a little. The ambience was one of calm. The officer at the enquiry had removed his shirt and was scratching his armpits. There was a leaking faucet under a banner ‘Drinking Water ’ and a seemingly fleas stricken dog was lapping at the puddle formed below. A group of ladies were fanning themselves with their sari ends and seemed to have a lively discussion on. There was a cow defecating at the edge of the platform caring a damn about the trains, the passengers or the station.

“Saabji, latest evening newspaper”, I looked behind to see one of those urchins, now with a bundle of paper under his arms. “Cricket officials ask – What recession?” reported the boy with the authority of those roadside ‘cure all medicine’ salesmen. I shelled out the barter and picked up a newspaper. There was an air of importance around the boy similar the midwife who reaches the king to tell him about the birth of a new baby boy.

The IPL auction was all over the pages. Flintoff and Peitersen posted astronomical amounts under the auction hammer bettering the record our desi Dhoni. In these times of recession, a Bangladeshi player got the price of lifetime and now is the richest sportsman in his country. Preity, Juhi, Nina and now Shilpa Shetty made the proceedings much more glamorous and there was confetti and celebrations everywhere. India, it seems, will now be revered as a force to reckon with.

What an exhilarating moment! I should share the news with the others, I thought. The urchins will be delighted to hear that now Indians can feel rich. The chaiwallah, I’m sure will distribute free tea on this auspicious occasion. The officer will for once perhaps wear his shirt to ‘dress’ for the occasion. The ladies can sing some patriotic songs to illuminate the event. The cow will of course smile bovinely and shit in ‘peace’. As for me I decided to put the entire issue of late trains behind me; after all how can one crib about a few late trains when the country is busy beating recession on the cricket field!

Elegy on the death of the engineer !

2009-02-07T10:57:00.001+05:30

Technology has invaded the lives of billions with an unseen ferocity. Social strictures have changed and so have the ethos and the codes of daily conduct. In this deluge, the most confused are the technocrats of yesterday and the budding engineers of tomorrow…

Change has turned into the unwanted salesman who pops in at the oddest of hours with an infuriating roster of products. What is more frustrating is that the products are attractive, lucrative but beyond the reach ! Technology mocks at the portals of every institution and the resource centers and libraries resemble Jurassic parks and historical museums. With genetic codes of the most wanted classified columns ushering in avant-garde, engineering colleges of today look blankly at their mediocre armory and the ‘now-not-exploding’ ammunition. Four years in these walls students bandy words of an extinct civilization and learn a trade which finds no buyer. At the end, a confused ensemble walk out into an unforgiving world equipped with nothing other than an extra cell of ‘common sense’. Four years of rigor and hardships and now he has to pick up another set of skills that are alien to his education.

The best at the craft think of when they can do their MBA and pursue the ‘big bucks’. The pragmatic ones have their eyes glued onto the next software company and have ‘when do I get to go abroad ?’ brooding like a Damocles Sword on their minds. For the once who also tried and failed the only option is to get an engineering job in some organization which will treat them with the disdain of a stepmother reminding them each day that they are there due to the dearth of better options !

True, the brick and mortar needs a set of hands to make concrete jungles and labyrinthe circuitry, but the engineer behind is the blue collared layman of today. While he values years of ‘experience’ and working , enter the geek of today half as old as he is and twice as current. Speaking a language foreign to the engineers he even plans to retire by forty with a fortune unheard of to the mind which turns to the tune of worn out gears and unlubricated grey matter…

Calamity dawns even though a little late then the beginning of a quest of unlearning and erasing a knowledge block which was bread and butter of a generation long past. Crowding into blocks of new avenues, a sojourn into the unknown embarks. With the curiosity of Alice and the impetuousness of the Cheshire cat , the fight goes on with the worst nightmare of all – Unemployability !

Understanding Art – The Pressure Cooker

2009-02-06T15:05:00.002+05:30

Some things amuse you as much as they baffle you. My daughter always had this fascination for the pressure cooker – She would be excited at the whistling sound and a wee bit scared though. The first sound she attempted which had nothing to do with the gradual buildup of her vocabulary was a hissing sound which we interpret as an impersonation of the pressure cooker whistle. Interesting this sound is also lavishly used for other purposes. This is also the sound of pee which we try to orchestrate when she sits on her potty time and again with the zest of cheer leaders dancing to invite their favorite team on to the gridiron. The most amusing moment is of course when she tries to make the sound herself - there is immense glee in her eyes and naughty quirk around her lips and then the tongue conjures into a semicircle and the air column is excited to produce a vibration which comes out to the audible ear as a hiss.

Interesting when she started to scribble on the hapless walls and every book in my collection, she chose to draw a pressure cooker … Every time she mischievously wields a pen it is to draw this very same inanimate object !

Interestingly she always chooses the top view. Having seen these myriad times, I sat on the web to interpret what this means in terms of art. A rather inane task but I was determined to crack the code behind each of these ‘old C scrolls’. The chase began by concentrating on the art forms of the twentieth century – trusting that he must have been influenced by what she sees around the house and the in her ambience which is bridled with etched of modernism as we understand.
Since most of the century has been marked by clear focus on abstract art in which pastels, lines and figures have always been independent of the subject matter.

Did it have anything to do with Fauvism ? There were moods of ‘les fauves’ – wild scribbles and there were also traces of the remarkable alacrity and pace of most such works. But then she never tried to mix colors into the boundaries of the art and let the lines define the picture.

Cubism? All the pictures were single dimensional and a immediate representation of the picture she sees in the perpendicular plane. There were never the multiple dimensions or interpretation of various views cluttering the diagram. So I ruled out analytical cubism and synthetic cubism without further thought.

Futurism? Definitely not. None of the various forms suggested movement or energy and she never attempted to represent the steam from the nozzle.

I ruled out Orphism when I saw the works against the back drop of the Eiffel Tower with pronounced taste for color rather than the forms.

Neo – Plasticism was exciting with its stress on lines and even audacious representation of the male and female lines. But her drawings had the blend of curvaceous lines rather than the defined straight vertical and horizontal lines.

Expressionism seemed a likely explanation – The whole picture was expressive. The place occupied by figures or objects and the empty spaces had also profound proportions

After this pensive cookie cutter syndrome where I tried to fit the simple picture into multiple forms of art – I decided to let the artist grow from being the toddler and figure out what she scribbles which are clearly nothing but the virtual impression of what sees and retains after her visual senses are out of direct sight of the object.

So now I let her scribble more pressure cookers each time with a sense of déjà vu and the joy of having created another work of art.

The Awards season...

2009-02-06T10:13:00.004+05:30

Back to more things prosaic and quotidian. I watched a lot of movies and read a lot of books in 2008 - perhaps as much as I used to do during college days where we were given a 'must see' movie list by our Quiz coach and the English class needed a review every fortnight. So a quick tour of the movies I saw and savoured and some which I just could not watch...

1. Oye Lucky Lucky Oye - I think it was one of the best or perhaps the best movie I saw last year ! Strange , but I just loved the movie - be it the camera, the accents, the acting and of course Abhay Deol. Move over everyone - this guy is right there ! It was the first movie I saw of his and I really enjoyed it. Now this is a Deol who can act ! But secretly I have always been a great fan of Dharam paaji too ( I still see Chupke Chupke & Sholay whenever it is playing ! )

2. Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi - The worst movie I have seen this year - Mr. Khan, I have decided not to visit the theatres for amy of your movies again! I never liked your 'acting' skills but this was the cake !You may be Baadshah or whatever shit, but as far as I am concerned "You are just one hell of a fortunate cookie "

3. Ghajini - OK, it was better than the Tamil version and that itself is saying a lot as Surya is as classy an actor as Aamir. Aamir has done the fab job and now a benchmark on 8 pack abs is sure going to give his compatriots nightmares. He is truly the best ! The discussion is over.

4. Rock On - Different and a good acting ensemble and neat movie. Hopefully it will pave way to some decent scripts to the movies.

5. Wednesday - Good ! I don't normally get surprises when I watch movies but Pandeyji - the twist was good and Naseer Saab - Tussi thop ho ! I watched it on DVD and watched it twice back to back.

6. Aamir - Absolute surprise of a movie. I never knew some of these Ekta Kapoor employees can act - This Rajeev guy was just right for the role and of course with a script and background score like that - you can't get it wrong

7. Jaane Tu ... OK, maybe I am too old for this gelato and chuski - though again I loved Naseer Saab on the wall !

8. Jodha Akbar - Well, a very hardworking movie ! You know the kind of class mate in school who would slog through out the year and then again burn the midnight oil on the exam eve too and chew all his finger nails and look nerdy and be the teacher's favorite. Well for me that was Jodha Akbar - But music - ARR rocks !

9. Tashan - Sorry no review ! I actually slept in the theatre inspite of my wife nudging me throughout to control my gentle musical snore !

10. Roadside Romeo - My daughter's ( She will 4 years in Feb) favorite movie and hence we went to the theatre and dutifully bought the DVD and saw it more than 20 times ! But frankly I loved Javed Jaffery's bull dog Anna ! He is perhaps the most underrated, unlucky brilliant star - imagine we have brain dead turkeys who are more popular him.

11. Dostana - Not for me ! I did not see too much humor in it and it takes more than yellow underwear, John Abraham and svelte Priyanka to drag me to the movies.

12. Fashion - OK , now the Madhur Bhandarkar style is getting monotonous and trite. Though I sure did some good performances from the female stars

My film awards for the year

Best Screen Play : Wednesday

Best Original Story : Wednesday

Best Musical Score : A.R.Rahman - Jodhaa Akbar

Best Lyrics : Prasoon Joshi - Guzarish

Best Art Direction : Jodhaa Akbar

Best Costume Design : Jodhaa Akbar & Oye Lucky Lucky Oye

Best Cinematography : Aamir

Best Animated feature film : Roadside Romeo

Best Film editing : Aamir

Best Regional Language Film : Kadha Parayumbol ( Malayalam - Original of 'Billu Barber')

Best Actor ( Female ) Debut : Asin Thottumkal

Best Actor ( Male ) Debut: Farhan Akthar

Best Actor in a villanous role : Ashwini Khalsekar in Phoonk

Best Actor in a comic role : Javed Jaffery in Roadside Romeo

Best Actor ( Female ) in a supporting role : Shahana Goswami in Rock On & Kangana Ranaut in Fashion
Best Actor ( Male ) in a supporting role : Ravi Jhankal in Welcome to Sajjanpur
Best Actor ( Female ) in a leading role : Priyanka Chopra in Fashion

Best Actor ( Male ) in a leading role : Naseeruddin Shah in Wednesday

Best Direction : Dipankar Banerjee & Neeraj Pandey ( Consolation prize to Ashutosh Gowarikar :-))

Best Picture : Wednesday & Oye Lucky Lucky Oye

Life time achievement award : Gulzaar

Special Jury Award : Abhay Deol for Oye Lucky Lucky Oye

Living beyond of the hype of 'Slumdog Millionaire'

2009-02-06T10:08:00.002+05:30

Well now we are getting bored Agreed that the movie was Ok and but there is more to life than the Oscar expectations of this movie ! Check this out - ( I subscribe to the online version of NY times - just as a language reckoner rather than anything else and to read movie and book reviews ) one of the critics wrote "..Western film critics instructed the laity to 'see Slumdog Millionaire in order to better understand this benighted Asian metropolis".And, despite the temptation of easy available pirated DVDs, I waited for the official movie release, hoping for the full 'movie-going' experience.

Well, the positives first -

The kids ( especially Ayush Khedekar) was fab ! Lovleeen Tandon take a bow for selecting these kids. I liked Dev Patel - given he is a little goofy here and there but he does have his moments. It is shot very well - Anthony Dod Mantle's disarmingly honest camera and India has been captured the way Mira Nair did in Salaam Bombay and Monsoon Wedding. It does have a Dickensian flavor and one leaves the movies feeling all is well in Jamal's life unlike some of the arthouse stuff where we walk out of the cinema even more frustrated and feeling helpless ! Simon Beaufoy's screenplay is far more superior than Vikas Swarup's novel which I found very trite and much like a one trick pony - every chapter has one answer !

The bloopers are many - you have already added some and let me also add some more

1. Which govt primary school in India teaches Dumas ?

2. Towards the end when Don song is blaring in the background in Javed Bhai's den - Kareena is dancing to the tunes of Yuva ?!

3. Jamal knows Samuel Colt invented the revolver because Salim's got a gun ? Since when did Mumbai goons leave 'khoda', 'samaan' and switch to 'Colt' ?

4. Since when did call centres serving customers in Scotland keep telephone directories of Indian cities accessible at the click of a button, where mobile phones are listed in telephone directories ?

5. How does the blind kid 'recognise' Jamal ?

Having said all this regarding the ever continuing debate about romanticising of poverty of amchi New York - this is what a western reviewer wrote on how the West would have reacted on a similar movie based in US - " Say an Indian director travelled to New Orleans for a few months to film a movie about Jamal Martin, an impoverished African American who lost his home in Hurricane Katrina, who once had a promising basketball career, but who -- following a drive-by shooting -- now walks with a permanent limp, whose father is in jail for selling drugs, whose mother is addicted to crack cocaine, whose younger sister was killed by gang-violence, whose brother was arrested by corrupt cops, whose first born child has sickle cell anaemia, and so on. The movie would be widely panned and laughed out of theatres."

Ok, if 5810 film aficionados finally decide that this movie needs an Oscar, I will shut my trap and change my spiel and start liking the film all over and meticulously find more things to praise it.

Saw 'Luck by chance' yesterday. Despite my irritated daughter who totally got bored and I had to walk out seven times with her for excuses of popcorn, Samosa, ice cream and susu , I still liked it. Maybe it could have been edited better and made a little shorter and the implausibe last five minutes where everything is about Konkan SenSharma who was just one of lesser characters in the movie till then - it is still worth one dekko !

Satyam, Sharam, Scandalum !

2009-01-28T09:33:00.005+05:30

This was the caption on one of Amul Butter hoardings at a busy traffic junction ! Besides of course the obvious disturbance of each passerby stretching to see and savor the hoarding, one could not but pass a silent chuckle on seeing this satire. True our own version of the 'Enron' scandal has come in the form of Satyam and the seething rage is also because the organisation has the audacity to fudge a bluebook of its 'socially and environmentally concerned' policies and win the Golden peacock award for corporate governance !

Perhaps one of the good outcomes of such a scandal is the stricter review of what auditors do at the firm during the periodic audits. True it is very difficult for auditors to pick out anomalies in organisation which have cooked and marinated records for years and even the law suggests that the auditors need to treat the records furnished as bonafide ! But now auditors will go the extra mile and ask more questions to vouch their work.

The hapless employees of such organisations - my sympathy goes with them. After doing all the right things - burning the midnight oil and delivering value to the orgnisation and its clients, one fine day uncertanity walks into their lives as an invited guest and eats up their supper and usurps their houses. To add to it the general stigma attached to them - as if they were somewhere part of a unholy nexus which cheated not a company but an entire industry and the aspirations of a nation. Then the auditing firm PWC. Once such scandal is enough to turn stars into pariahs and the obvious plethora of coments like the Shakespearean " There is something rotten in the state of Denmark!"

With able names and eminent personalities joining hands to clean the mess, one hopes and prays that this will also pass !

Slumdog Millionaire again !

2009-01-23T22:17:00.000+05:30

We just can't have enough of this movie, can we ! And not the ten Oscar nominations and the wider acclaim to A R Rahman has endeared this movie more than any Indian movie. And I finally watched it !

Absolutely wonderful, like a sugar candy with the sweetness lingering longer and I refusing to fluch my mouth to retain the taste. Danny Boyle has done it ! To think it took an Irishman who has never really seen India to make a movie like this - capture the city like none of our desi directors . Perhaps the only similar camera work of an Indian city was Monsoon Wedding by Mira Nair where she painted Delhi like no other. Simon Beaufoy's screenplay is amazing and far more captivating than Vikas Swarup's book and of course the famous potty scene - One of my all favorite cinematic moments which will remain with me for a long time.

Our media had a field day with some pundits including our own Big B raising an opinion or two. But nothing can take away the glory from this story and actors like Ayush Khedekar who will never age in the mind of the viewer, being the same 5 year old all his life.

And then of course the Oscar mention for Gulzar. Boss, take a bow - You may attribute everything to A R Rahman but every song you pen deserves a bow !

'Slumdog Millionaire' at the Golden Globes

2009-01-13T13:04:00.000+05:30

Yesterday morning had the Golden Globes ceremony coming on live on the television and I beat the morning cuckoo to wake in the wee hours of a Monday. With A.R. Rahman being nominated, it promised be an occasion not to miss and that too with a lot of favourable press reports of his chances and the prayer of another 'First Indian to ...."
And disappointed I was not ! When the shy maestro fished out a little piece of paper and read out his 'acceptance', one felt a rare sense of pride. When Danny Boyle walked to the dias to accept his 'Best Director', I tried to hide my face seeing Anil Kapoor monkeying around and thumping the air in a gauche manner. But what the hell, all is pardoned when honours galore were bestowed on a movie we have now 'adopted' as our own !
What I hope it will usher is more foreign studios hunting for scripts in the subcontinent, looking for talent in areas more than acting like music. I also hope we get more Indian producers getting attracted to more 'interesting' and meaningful cinema. But with the films that hit the screens last year, there is also a promise of good cinema with audience flocking to the multiplexes appreciating 'different' genre films and actors like Abhay Deol, Vinay Pathak showing the way to senior colleagues.

Promise of a new year

2008-12-31T23:43:00.001+05:30

'Present' is a promise time makes to man to re- adress the promise he made to time and to make up for the failures and failed expectations in the past.
When the cuckoo chirped again, I silently made a note in my mind. I will live upto the dreams of myself this year and do everything that I wanted to do in a lifetime. Tall as it may sound and soothing as my mother's words, the strong resolve wakes up to iron will and the proverbial spider rose again the seventh time and King Bruce will behold the lesson of his life living again !
For verses will find the canvas this year and I will strive to exercise my dormant pen and etch out my promise to the literary world !

On ambition

2008-09-16T16:13:00.000+05:30

The fluster and the rustle
The attractive inviting green
The subtle elegance erudite elegance
Even a leaf wants to be somebody

The clamor on the roofs
The chill in the air
The smell of fresh soil
Even the rain wants to be somebody

The buzz around your ear
The song of interrupted beats
A sting and the tickle
Even the mosquito wants to be somebody

The bolster of the world
The heart of every concrete
The mother of civilization
Even the brick wants to be somebody

The carpet of flickers
The timer of rest hours
The blanket of warmth
Even the Night wants to be somebody

Looking out for attention
Wanting love from everyone
A pat on the back for every nuance
Even I want to be somebody

On a moment in heaven...

2008-09-16T16:12:00.001+05:30

The shadow of the moonlight
And the fragrance of buds
She lay there still as the stream
With the lights caressing the curves

The shiver of the alien
The whisper of an unknown tongue
The creased sheets waited
Till the cloud of passion set in

Soft purrs blew the horns
Quivers gave way to tumble
The moment was of rhythm and motion
And the dashing of flesh

I drank the wine divine
She played the whistling tune
Together we discovered
What a joyride means

The pace was ecstatic
The ambience cuddling in
For a moment we attained
What ambrosia and manna meant

Every moment was of wistful blue
But so was the déjà vu
A walk in the meadows
And yet every sight refreshed

Wilting like a bow
She strung the arrow up
We pained to keep it there
And then went the chimes

Drops of energy moistened
Like fresh dew on a morning
The Sun was out and bright
But we cuddled and slept in tight

On imagination or lack of it ...

2008-09-16T16:09:00.000+05:30

A picture tube with a million stories,
A click away from sundry knowledge,
I lost my ability in the mountains and trees,
To work my way through every wedge.

They tell me what I need to do,
Back a tell with many a ream,
I stop to wonder and belch a moo,
Need I know or it should always seem.

My tourage has gates and boulder,
Grey is surrounded by a ugly moat,
The plank across is too much to shoulder,
Green is where they painted the note.

Free from the shackles of an open mind,
I learn to obey and accept the line,
Where ideas are not there to bind,
I never sense a tear or a whine.

With no burden but to align,
I live through in calm and peace,
Imagination a forgotten wine,
Never to mix up with my peace.

On drifting into intoxication

2008-09-16T16:07:00.000+05:30

A feeling crept in with silent paws,
Peace covered the waves of acid rain,
Mind lulled to a faraway loss,
Thoughts drifted beyond the pain.

Troubles were lost in a goblet of wine,
Senses were pampered with each swig,
The sea was calm as a silent shrine,
Silence cried out to a leaf and a twig.

A drop balanced on the tip of a circle,
A message came of an empty tune,
The violin strings froze to a tingle,
The rumblings began in the mind dune.

A gush of grapes and a whiff of life,
Many a bubble to the rising fire,
Smoke went up as a docile friend,
A floating yacht moved into its lair.

Gulps and swallows followed in random,
The balance went on the passion,
Life dulled to a faraway tune,
Oblivion eased into intoxication.

On understanding...

2008-09-01T12:14:00.001+05:30

There are moments of angst when
The memories rip through the surface
Ushering disdain and chill
Sour and pungent thoughts…

The actions that denied
Any shred of love or belonging
The Words that evoked
Hatred and putrid minds

Seconds of dark clouds
The onslaught of mocking vibes
Glances which belie numbness
And resoluteness of never wanting more

But we still go on
The storm always tides over
The softness still enters
The smiles come riding in

Is it always so easy I thought
That there is light after every night
The sunshine always return
Mirth embellishes the mind

Do lovers always forget?
The bad days, the ugly words
The moments of hatred
The aura of unreasonables

Then I realized the truth,
We do not always forget the bad days,
We do not pretend it did not happen
But we just forgive each other

On lying down alone...

2008-09-01T12:12:00.000+05:30

I stared at the ceiling
A crack creeping on the yellow
The mount of a serpentine tent
An escape for the seeping

The walls sang the same elegy
There were dunes everywhere
Was I on a bed cavorting?
Or living a cold night in the Sahara?

The bouncing of monsoons
And the glee of the rustling leaves
While nature danced to the windy tunes
I lay with sundry thoughts of her

Loneliness can be like the leakage
Seeping inevitably into the mind
The pillows whispered into the ears
And bugs sneered at you

The rains poured further
The cracks grew to new designs
I still lay there
Measuring ennui closing in

A moment in heaven...

2008-09-01T12:11:00.000+05:30

On the 'Celebration of life'...

2008-09-01T12:08:00.000+05:30

A shower of blossoms flirted in vacant air,
A muse of mirth overflowed into the ambience,
Beads of laughter echoed in abandon care,
Beatitude blessed in every human sense.

Minutes tickled the passion to live,
Hours brought in the blues of the yonder,
Clocks gifted the bouquets to give,
A future with more glee and wonder.

Blessed were the souls I met in the past,
Kind were the hearts that sang me songs,
Sonnets lulled my memories vast,
And time was filled with hearts and throngs.

A canary chirped a sweet wish,
And branches danced to a wanton tune,
Paricles waltzed when the dust came in swish,
And earth orchestrated the whirl of grime.

Nature’s symphony was at its best,
The flora blended in without rife,
The sun opened its benign chest,
And God played “ The clebration of life”.

On what to write...

2008-09-01T12:06:00.000+05:30

I wondered why I never wrote
Why the pens dragged along
The blocks seemed mountains
And the lexicon always failed

Perhaps a sequel to a comic
But Archie is in a septuagenarian
Phantom is long buried
Tintin has already been canned

Perhaps a soap
But sex and incest will only thrive
Only mundane can conquer
And couch potatoes have to swallow

Perhaps a family saga
But ‘Roots’ have rotted
‘Glass palace’ has cracks
And there is no ‘ god for large things’

Perhaps an autobiography
But I never experimented with truth
Never was close to a Mein Kampf
And never had a tryst with destiny

Perhaps that is why
I need to see and breathe
Wait for the wistful sorrow
And an unfulfilled dream

On the death of imagination...

2008-09-01T12:03:00.000+05:30

Me and my beer belly...

2008-08-31T23:24:00.000+05:30

We were the best of pals
Sticking together through the good and the bad
Sneering at very mocking eye
And celebrating the zest of life

The bulge of the apple
Fought with many a shirt
And the wiggle spruced up
My every buoyant step

When sprinting with glee
My belly waltzed inside
The steps immaculate in order
And the rhythm putting experts to shame

Many a winter night when
The world needed something to cling on
My belly gave the bulging handles
For the loved ones to lean and hold

An unselfish relation
We remained true to each other
It saved me the ogles and I
Saved it from hunger and thirst

We were inseparable
The bond known to none
A relation with no riders
No obligation or no promise

The day I lost my watch...

2008-08-31T23:21:00.000+05:30

The day I lost my watch
I recklessly mourned my empty wrist
The wistful thoughts of the cheating hands
Which turn and turn in abandon

I looked up to the sun
It stared blankly
It was day, I could conjure
But how far from the night?

Days were stopped by nights
And the day won again
It seemed years
And perhaps a lifetime

I started enjoying the emptiness
No targets and running short
No urgent and mocking deadlines
There was just all the time

I stole minutes and then hours
There I was enjoying the unlimited freedom
I flirted with myself
Glee and merry thoughts

Then I got my watch
Alas, I had now lost time
There was the pending and the impending
Time never was lost with the watch

On ambition...

2008-08-31T23:20:00.000+05:30

The first monsoons...

2008-08-31T23:17:00.000+05:30

The first drop fell on my raised forehead
The clouds then smiled with glee
A shower came in with a swoosh
Drenching my skin before the clothes

The road turned into a brown swamp
We leaped across on the islands
But the fun was landing on a puddle
And wrecking another island

I peed into my shorts in mirth
And the heat blended into the showers
A tadpole looked up in disgust
Where did this come from?

Paper boats capsized around
The grass shook off the drops
Water trickled into my mouth
Purest form, Miss Rose told me

I ran into our house
An army waited with towels
There was the rough wipe
And I sneezed for the first time

Smell of Amma’s vadas
The coconut chutney topping
A quick morsel and there
I was ready for my next shower

The Day I fell in love ....

2008-08-31T23:13:00.000+05:30

The morning went long,
And I sold every idea,
She did respond and then a murmur,
I went to the moon and back.

The potholes were flowers,
And the angels showed the way,
A Chicken 65 I thought,
And the evening was better.

We went through history,
And the events of disdain,
There are times when you listen,
And the world is waiting…

The supple lips and truth beneath,
I went on an adventure beneath,
But the thought was alien,
For I had fallen in love.

The green leaf...

2008-08-23T12:31:00.001+05:30

I looked at the leaf
So many different shades of green
There were many a patch
Many a dull moment
But the leaf was still green

The leaf was still green
With all its ingredients
Its sorrow and the bloom
The moth hole and the bright stem
The leaf was still green

For all those days it stood
Swaying and rustling
Flirting with the dew
Adamant at the stem
The leaf was still green

Age took its edges
Wrinkles dried the surface
The legs away in cracks
Then it gave in to the wind
The leaf was still green

Lying below its towering friends
It crumpled further
The others looked in dismay
It floated with its lost weight
The leaf was no more green

When memories are short...

2008-08-23T12:23:00.000+05:30

I sat alone in the melee
Chatters and the drowning glee
A forlorn shadow came over
My countenance and my lips

I stared at the white
Blinking words and the cursor
Was I an alien in this land?
Where I tilled and ploughed till late

Memories are short
Not seen is gone
I saw the eyes through me
I was transparent as a glass

I stuck to my thoughts
They took to my own land
I was riding across the pasture
With smiles showering on me

I resolved to live
In another land of mirth
For memories are short
And the farm was alien

Adieu I whispered
But naked ears never turned
I turned away
And walked to next horizon

My baby's first day...

2008-08-23T12:22:00.000+05:30

The numb touch of feather,
The coziness of soft velvet sinking ,
A peek that stole through,
Was my lovely baby peeking…

A lifetime sped through in front,
Of ups and downs and falls and bend,
But the glimpse seemed enough,
To justify everything and fend…

She said a thousand stories,
Through the little movement and the wad,
A gurgle of a smile paled
Every sensation that I ever had…

A rare feeling of déjà vu,
Tinkled up the spine ,
A clearing around the throat,
And then, all I did was pine …

I reluctantly moved to leave her
to the comfort of motherly touch
And waited for another look
Praying for being given so much..

On a solitary hour at home,
I melted into the depth
For there was a far away whisper
Of each of my baby’s breath…

The Paradox of Motivation

2008-08-23T12:21:00.001+05:30

In most organizational motivational problems the key lies not in making better leaders, but in having better followers. Mistrust and cynicism on the part of the follower is a common barrier to an effective leader follower relationship.

Power is often thought of as something, which is evil and undesirable and powerful people are regarded as dangerous and manipulative. However once we realize that Power is just a means by which we can influence others (for better or for worse) we begin to realize its importance for each one of us.
If there is one thing we fear even more than power, it is; "being influenced". Being influenced by someone is usually regarded as undesirable and a sign of weakness of the individual. Yet we are being influenced all the time, by parents, neighbors, friends and even advertisements. Every time we accept a friend’s dinner invitation, each time we agree to oblige someone, and every time we buy a product we are "being influenced". We are so caught up in trying to influence others that we are totally ignorant of ourselves being influenced. So if we are being influenced anyway would it not be better to understand the process better and at least be able to select consciously the influence that we most desire.
Leadership has now been described as a relationship between the leader (initiator of the relationship) and the follower in which the leader changes the goals of the follower while keeping in mind the followers' real needs. This clearly indicates that the two roles of leader and follower are not permanent but dependent on the nature of individual relationships. Also we see that the follower has a lot to gain in this relationship, since his / her real goals are addressed.
The leadership relationship in the organizational context is often expressed in the interactions between boss (leader) and subordinate (follower). The boss influences the subordinate in order that he (the subordinate) make’s the boss' and the organization's goal his own and simultaneously takes care of the subordinate's real needs (material rewards and job satisfaction).
A crisis in this relationship is manifested in the form of low motivation levels, low productivity and indiscipline. If we recognize that all motivational problems are a breakdown of the leader-follower relationship, we realize that the obvious solution lies in setting right that relationship.
There are different ways of resolving these leadership (relationship) crises. The most common solution looks at the communication channel between the two individuals and tries two rebuild the link between them by increased interaction, clearing misconceptions and regular feedback. The next method is to influence the attitude and behavior of the leader. There are a number of books and workshops, which teach us on how to be a good leader, how to influence others and how to motivate our workforce.
The basic assumption underlying all these leadership books and workshops is that the sole responsibility for establishing the leadership relationship lies with the leader. Even though we recognize that there are various follower characteristics and attitudes (like cynicism, fear and arrogance) which are impediments to being influenced, we leave it to the leader to overcome all these and establish the relationship. The popular literature available tends to underplay the role of the follower, and considers him to be a passive creature waiting to be influenced by the leaders who are out to get him. It is true that there are highly effective leaders who are able to influence and impress almost everyone. However these persons are rare and the potential of our development into these is limited. Hence the need to look also at the follower and his contribution to the relationship (or its breakdown).
If we move beyond the conventional approach and look at the follower we may be able to evolve a fresh approach to motivation. This approach would consider the follower as an active player who goes beyond his usual cynicism and mistrust and allows himself to be influenced by the leader of his choice in order to help him reach his own life goals. The first step in developing a follower involves identifying those characteristics and attitudes (like cynicism and mistrust), that are a blockage to getting influenced. Next we must try to make the person aware of how in the leadership relationship, there is a potential for his own goals being realized. And finally we must try to instill in the follower a sense of love and respect for the leader.
Something similar to the process described lies at the root of patriotism and love for one's country. Since here there is no person in the form of a leader (the country is an abstract entity) the only way of developing a bond is to influence the followers, which is done by means of books, films and stirring speeches of leaders.
The process of enabling the follower to be more open to being influenced must not be confused with the brainwashing and sloganeering done by some companies to maintain loyalty which is nothing but an attempt by the leader (the company's management) to influence the employees.
What I am suggesting is more at the personal level of the follower. It involves making an individual more open to the ideas and visions of persons around him / her in order to achieve his / her own goals. Obviously this is not an easy job considering that the act of making the individual "more open to being influenced" is itself an act of influence and presupposes an existing leader-follower relationship.
The best method perhaps is for each of us to introspect and to remove all those barriers within ourselves, which prevent us from trusting and objectively evaluating the potential leaders who are trying to lift us beyond our normal existence to a superior level. There are a number of leaders all around us who have the potential and are eager to guide us in achieving our true potential and raising us to a higher plane of existence whom we fail to recognize due to our own preconceived fears.
The way out of this is two fold: First, to realize that you in most cases you always have the freedom to move out of a relationship as and when you feel like and second, to look upon "being influenced" not as a tool of exploitation in the hands of people more powerful than us but as an opportunity for us to fully achieve our own potential with the help and guidance of persons more knowledgeable or experienced than ourselves.

The Elegy on the death of the engineer

2008-08-22T12:49:00.000+05:30

Technology has evaded the lives of billions with an unseen ferocity. Social codes have changed and so have the ethos and of codes of daily conduct. In this deluge the most confused is the technocrats of yesterday and the budding engineers of tomorrow…

Change has turned into the unwanted salesman who pops in at the oddest of hours with an infuriating roster of products. Technology mocks at the portals of every institution and the resource centers like libraries resemble Jurassic parks and historical museums. With genetic codes of the most wanted classified columns ushering in avant-garde, engineering colleges of today look blankly at their mediocre armory and the ‘now-not-exploding’ ammunition. Four years in these walls students bandy words of an extinct civilization and learn a trade which finds no buyer. At the end, a confused ensemble walk out into an unforgiving world equipped with nothing other than an extra cell of ‘common sense’. Four years of rigor and hardships and now he has to pick up another set of skills that are alien to his education.

True, the brick and mortar needs a set of hands to make concrete jungles and labyrinthe circuitry, but the engineer behind is the blue collared layman of today. While he values years of ‘experience’ and working , enter the geek of today half as old as he is and twice as current. Speaking a language foreign to the engineers he even plans to retire by forty with a fortune unheard of to the mind which turns to the tune of worn out gears and unlubricated grey matter…

Calamity dawns even though a little late then the beginning of a quest of unlearning and erasing a knowledge block which was bread and butter of a generation long past. Crowding into blocks of new avenues, a sojourn into the unknown embarks. With the curiosity of Alice and the impetuousness of the Cheshire cat , the fight goes on with the worst nightmare of all – Unemployability !

The faceless rulers...

2008-08-22T10:55:00.000+05:30

The taste that felt similar
The thoughts, which gelled with ease
Every glance threw understanding
Of something tied deep below

The mind worked up myriad thoughts
Of want and desire of every kind
Yet the voices across were ominous
Was I crossing the ubiquitous line?

A breach that brought in gazes
Glowers, glares and the like
Angry faces were those which
Never bothered a glance otherwise

I was amazed by the way
Were we fail to hear our hearts
Blaming a unknown million cribbing
About the chastity of our thoughts

We are ruled by the sundry
The faceless, who set the rules
What is appropriate is a debate
Which we always thrive to avoid

Life has become a pawn
Of unseen, apathetic hands
Who thrill to control and rule
Without an iota of understanding…

On the swan...

2008-08-22T10:40:00.000+05:30

The zigzag motion on the rippling waves,
Mastering of a ballet dancer
And the grace that raised raves
The making of every waltz answer.

The beauty was yet subtle
Of a calm and composed inside
Through every mossy whittle
It danced away to every side.

Peace and serene were the mind
The satisfied glances hither
Where no sorrows to bind
And no scene did wither.

But alas, I missed the struggling legs
The strain and the furious fight
To keep moving across each peg
The vigor and the full throat might

The pressure to keep a cool stance
The worries to hide beneath
We all have our swan dance
To never open the sorrow sheath.

Have we lost of onions ?

2008-08-22T10:20:00.001+05:30

The economy is in a turmoil, bank performances hardly ‘creditable’, stock markets singing elegies which often sound like requiems, the political scenario more horrifying than the best horror shows and the common man is worried about his onions…. With the other topics left in the able hands and laps of our intelligentsia, we move on to the more ‘earthy’ topics like onions.
The problem is nothing short of a catastrophe. The stakeholders in this situation are more than what meets the common eye. One of the important ingredients of most menu, eating will have a subtle void without the inclusions of ample quantities. Besides the vitamins and the proteins it contains , there are some more medical benefits through its use. It provides the much-needed cleanser for the eyes of housewives. In today’s polluted environment the benefit of such a cleanser cannot be trivialized. Of course the tears that it produces finds invaluable niche in securing sentimental apathy from near and dear ones.
Coming out of the cocoon of the household , the corporate too have a thing or two to worry. What will happen to the mouth freshener and the mouth perfume industry ? with the most vital inducer of halitosis ( bad breath for us ) out of the way ,there will definitely be red days ahead for the industry.
If that was not enough , this would lead to unemployment, chaos in that section of the economy.
What will happen to the quintessential ‘Sardarji from Patiala’? What will he crush with his fist to eat with the rotis? The impoverishment of the onions will require him to change his hereditary food habits and of course change is no their favorite topic.
And just when we thought that drug cartels were coming under control, we are faced with a new threat – ‘onion cartels’. This time the perpetrators of the crime may themselves be deified by the hoi polloi for providing their taste buds those nostalgic and wistful memories of a distant past. Law and order will pose new challenges and the social fabric may itself get a riffraff.
But ain’t we going too far. Our leaders I’m sure have worked out agendas to use this as the new missile in their election manifestos. Governments will fall and parties will disappear if this topic is not dealt with . Afterall the politicians themselves have to hear the crib of their house wives.
What the industry is focussing on is the way to leverage this calamity into an investment opportunity. We are talking of a blue chip option and a sunrise industry. Onion plantations will take the stock markets by storm and investors will crowd in money.
But these are all visionary predicts. For the time being the will be ‘ videshi’ onions available in the swadeshi markets. At least now the common man can savor a ‘continental’ delight with every meal !

The way side inn...

2008-08-22T10:16:00.001+05:30

There was clamor in the air,
Blurs of smoke was fogging in
I breathed in the ambience
And trotted to an empty corner.

There were umpteen calls echoing,
White dresses floating around,
The glasses seem to clatter in chorus
And forks and knives went of in tandem.

Amidst the orchestra of cutlery,
I found a desolate corner,
A neglected table cloth gave off a sigh,
A creaking chair squealed under my weight.

A glass of water with swimming ice,
Looked as solitary as the Artic,
The neglected was yet too known,
For none wanted the pure anymore.

The early morning...

2008-08-22T10:13:00.000+05:30

The eerie feeling of an alien dawn,
Creeps into the heart as the birds chirp goodnight,
Hours of interrupted sleep,
And an early morning and the flight.

A lump moves with virility,
A vulnerable glance at the sleeping beauty,
I could gaze for a million years,
If not for the honk in the yonder.

I collect my wistful pack,
Walk cautiously down the mundane steps,
I miss the unseen level and scramble to balance,
So similar and yet so different.

The trip is a count of good glimpses,
The air that of a lazy morning,
The occasional light brings you to life
But then you are lost again.

The abyss was never too deep,
Yet I kept falling down,
There were trusses and props
But never did I extend an arm for help.

A monotony embedded in the moment,
Void spread around the ambience,
Vaccum echoed into mute ears,
A smell of the plain and the normal

The reverie went on till the stop,
I whipped out a couple and the cursory ‘Thanks’
Still in the stupor and the blur
I move to another day…

The other side...

2008-08-22T10:12:00.000+05:30

I moved over in a reverie ,
The familiar feel of the empty space,
A naked void woke me up,
And shook me to cognizance…

I was watching a gloom,
Of a guestless inn,
A rainbow missing its colours,
A pot without its gold,

It was the softer side ,
The side she lay herself,
Her curls found home on a disheveled sheet,
And the pillow was embossed with her head,

Stars shone as a halo,
Fairies guarded it with envy,
It was the heaven on earth,
It was her side of the bed…

On inebriation...

2008-08-22T10:08:00.001+05:30

The air was a stale yellow,
The drink was paler to a fever,
Sipping in the quarts,
The adieu was way too swift…

The feather was light ,
The float soft and smooth,
I moved over the void,
And entered my realm…

Blank were the thoughts,
Colorless and then the pristine,
Words conjured up an imagination,
Without limits and realities…

Another swig and a moment,
Clarity blended in labyrinthine,
A walk across the indelible,
I sighed a relief of familiarity…

A whisper in the ear echoed,
Of the trumpets of entry,
Atlantis shone on the horizon,
And the top peaks of a Xanadu…

Then was the bevy of beauties,
Swarming in herds of millions,
Stalking like the honey of the yonder,
I was sweet and inviting in a jiffy…

Limits were a fantasy,
Blurs had bold borders,
I fetched a mind,
To sail me through the lagoon…

The night was gentle and paced,
I fell onto the bosom of comfort,
Hoping for a dream,
Till another mundane morning…

Into the darkness...

2008-08-22T10:00:00.000+05:30

I walked out into the balcony,
A short wall bordered the edges,
A barrier between the lights behind,
And the ocean of darkness and flickering lights…

I felt the cold railings,
There was the soft purr of a lonely mosquito,
Fireflies flew randomly in merry,
I looked at the lights on the concretes ahead…

I looked at the windows lighted,
Balconies frigid in the blackness ,
Were there souls looking at the night,
Searching for lights and a distant face?

Loneliness echoing in my ears,
Thoughts stooping my shoulders,
I shaked my head like a pendulum,
And then the shine met my eyes…

A jewel that was on a window,
Eyes sneaking through a curtain gap,
The gaze froze my arms,
I lowered to focus my clouded eyes…

We stared into the stillness of the night,
A fresh wave of air brushed the curtain away,
The jewels belonged to a forlorn pale face ,
As lonely as the darkness between…

A nod of approval,
And the curtains veiled the face again,
The lights went off ,
But the shine was still on the window…

They seemed ashamed of the loneliness,
Sad to look out into the darkness for solace,
A look I had seen in the mirror,
On many a solitary night…

Daily Scoop 1

2008-08-22T09:49:00.000+05:30

The scene was one we pass off with a ‘nothing in particular attitude’. But a late train and ennui in general, induced a not too casual perusal of the station premises. A group of filthy smelling urchins had crowded around the edge of the platform and were looking with immense glee skywards. A ball of thread in the hands of two of them explained the laughter and the enthusiasm. There were two distant spots in the horizon, which move in random abandon. The dialect was an incomprehensible nasal tone punctuated with the shrill of whistles. But the exuberance and the joy of the toddlers were evident. At least someone was not bothered about the late running trains and the herd of flies, which seemed to be everywhere.
The sun set and the group dispersed in parts. There came in the lights and another bunch of ‘enlightened’ mosquitoes. A chaiwallah with a soiled or perhaps rusted kettle came along. A cup of tea as a companion didn’t seem to be bad proposition. Ignoring the package, I audaciously asked for a cup. The tea was not bad at all. “ What time is it, babuji?” enquired the host dressed in tatters. On hearing the time, the chaiwallah hurried along with an urgency our trains seemed to have forgot.
A voice from no where announced that ‘my train’ was indefinitely late. No apologies, only a silent mockery of the passengers, who had by now unpacked on the floor of the railway station and were settling down to their rigmarole. There seemed to be no panic and the quietude was alarming.
After an unsuccessful bout with the hordes of mosquitoes, I got up to stretch a little. The ambience was one of calm. The officer at the enquiry had removed his shirt and was scratching his armpits. There was a leaking faucet under a banner ‘ Drinking Water ’ and a seemingly fleas stricken dog was lapping at the puddle formed below. A group of ladies were fanning themselves with their sari ends and seemed to have a lively discussion on. There was a cow defecating at the edge of the platform caring a damn about the trains, the passengers or the station.
“ Saabji, latest evening newspaper”, I looked behind one of those urchins, now with a bundle of paper under his arms. “ There has been a bomb blast in New Delhi” reported the boy with the authority of those roadside ‘cure all medicine’ salesmen. I shelled out the barter and picked a newspaper. The boy held the coins to his eyes and seemed to offer a silent prayer. “ Boni he, Saabji” he explained to my quizzical look.
The news lines declaring some nuclear weapon has tested positive and we are no a certified 'potential' annihilator, and the details went into reams of pages. The Prime Minister says that India can now feel secure. Of course what a relief thinking that when an enemy pukes one of those nukes and inflicts severe destruction, we will blow more nukes in their land and decimate their millions. India, it seems will now be revered as a force to reckon with. This will be a milestone in the history of India, a day every Indian should put in the better pages of their memory. And now Indians can be proud of being Indians. What an exhilarating moment! I should share with the others, I thought. The urchins will be delighted to hear that now Indians can also ‘play’ with bombs. The chaiwallah, I’m sure will distribute free tea on this auspicious occasion. The officer will perhaps wear his shirt to ‘dress’ for the occasion. The ladies can sing some patriotic songs to illuminate the event. The cow will of course smile bovinely and shit in ‘peace’. As for me I decided to put the entire issue of late trains behind me; afterall how can one crib about a few late trains when the country is busy becoming a 'new clear power'!