On 'Amma, Appa and Rajnikanth'...

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

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

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 ...

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...

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 ...

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...

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 ...

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...

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 ...

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

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…

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’…

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...

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 ?

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...

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 ...

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...

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...

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...

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.