weekend fun

This Saturday our B team played a match. Now I just love the B team. Here I magically become one of the most experienced players. So this time around we had a match with some really good players. Some 20 plus somethings who play and practise regularly. I was given eth responsibility to open the innings. It was one of the most hostile pace attacks that I might have played. The ball coming on fast and pitching and moving off the seam. Wow. The ball hit me a quite a few times. The ones that are still sore are - Once it moved off middle stump and went on to hit my bums, the other bounced and hit my thigh pad, and the third moved and hit my shin. The fact that it still hurts through all that padding goes on to show how fast they were bowling. I survived the opening six overs without getting out or beaten even once. This just goes on to prove that if your standards are adequately low you can always figure out a victory.

One Sunday we decided to have lunch at a restaurant near the gateway. Since there was a small waiting, I decided to take the kids to the Gateway. Jispa was game as usual, one other friend joined in and the third thought it was too hot. The other parents also thought it was too hot. How could that be my excuse? I just played in the same sun on Saturday. So Jispa, a friend and me went sightseeing. There you could see the standard tourists and the camera guys who now roam around with highly portable photo printers in their back packs. They give you the photos instantly. Their stated charge is 30 bucks a pop but I sure they can be bargained down cheaper. I paid 50 bucks for two prints of the same picture. I love getting these cheap touristy thrills.
While we were posing I did my usual nonsense posing and Jispa happily followed. She too is used to this. Her poor friend took some time to figure out that being silly in public is normal by our standards. You can see her a bit restrained (at least by our standards).

The original photo is a bit bleached out. I think they do that to ensure that maximum white is used and hence the colour cartridge is used much less – or they just don’t know more. Our photographer was using a Nikon D60 with his knob on manual. The other photo is what I like, a little more saturated (hat tip – the other kids mommy).

The fathers curse

Jispa has been reading a lot these days. She recently finished the book Matilda by Roald Dahl. Awesome achievement considering she is only 7 years old. It is a 225 page book. I think that’s quite something.
But the dad in me is a bit worried. We don’t change over all these years do we?
But why on earth am I worried?
I am worried that while she is reading more than her age suggests, she might be skipping words. This way while she might follow the entire story, the habit of skipping words you don’t understand is not exactly a good thing to do.
Yesterday she was reading ‘diary of a Wimpy kid’. The book is recommended for 9+. So I made her read it aloud. One line said – and rocky primitive mind said… I asked her if she understood what ‘primitive mind’ is. She replied ‘smart mind’. There, issues in my book. So while I was happy she is reading a lot but, I told her to be sure of what she reads and ask for what she does not understand.
So that’s daddying. Keep a close watch on everything. Big daddy is actually big brother. But I find it so ironic that even good things need to be regulated. That reminds me of an age old maxim that ‘if it’s too good to be true, it’s too good to be true.’

random thoughts of a unfettered mind (the adjective is for effect)

Corporate speak. One guy N wants data. He tell his flunk V. V asks R. R say H has it. H says A has it. A says only R can give. So circular loop happens and the V is flustered as he is the fall guy. N tells V to write mail. I get marked on it, as H and A report to me. I raise hands. Tell him to buzz off. V calls me and cries. I call V and R. Tell V to tell R what exactly he wants. I tell A to give whatever is required and matter solved. All it required is a guy who calls everyone else’s bluff. That was my value add to something I wasn’t even involved with. Corporate is such a bitch.

Forget that. Lets come to something I like. Teaching. This year I am given the job of teaching something I don’t know. Well I actually don’t know too much of what I assume to know but atleast I know how much I know or don’t know. This time I don’t even know that. Basically I am being asked to take some lectures on quali research. I have a fair exposure to the same and I guess any half decent guy is better than a half a point decent academic.

But this time I have resolved it to be different. I researched on some high end sites for white papers. Taken the trouble to understand these and give it to the kids to read before they come to class. Today I had to kick out around a dozen of them for not reading and coming. It is difficult thing to do but if they have to shape up then I have no option. My only worry is how much to push them and not have them break. But they must grow up and I must be tough for that. Let’s see how much that takes them and me. But at least thanks to this I am learning more, understanding more and improving my knowledge on the dam subject. It’s a good thing to be outside your comfort zone.

While you are driving around Mumbai you realise the rank stupidity of Mumbai road planning where, you have really broad roads becoming tiny and narrow suddenly. If that doesn’t jam what will? I faced this today morning at 630 am. Purely a case of narrowing. So bloody frustrating. We need mass rapid transport and connections to the stations.

One of my team is on leave. That gives me the chance to sit on her desk and with my team. I dunno about their feelings but I sure feel better. The senior cube holes are so disconnected form the rest. This is where the action is and where I don’t feel bored. Now I realise what happens in my appointed nice corner. I am disconnected with anything and everything around the office. Its nice to get demoted once in a while. This place is so much fun. It takes 10 odd years to realise that length of your cube is no barometer of fun in your office. In fact I think there is an inverse relationship there.

excuses excuses

This is easily the funniest thing I have read this month. The world’s most powerful particle accelerator was shot due to some bread (baguette) being dropped by a bird. Read here and here
This is same LHC that critics said was extremely powerful and could produce anti matter that could end the world. Something like matter meeting anti matter and BOOM – end of the world.
After the hilarity of the dropping, one another thing struck me. They actually seemed to have told the truth no matter how embarrassing it would be. Or it is the most implausible of excuses. I am sure a lot of the scientists working at the LHC would be teaching somewhere and what would their reaction be if a student gave a similar excuse for not having the assignment on time. “I finished it but a stork flying overhead shat (diarrhoea perhaps) on my laptop, short-circuiting it”.

jispa - when you do get older, remember the excuse - if a bird can shut down a LHC with a bread piece, imagine what they can dow ith your assignment. Especially if you are studying physics.

graft

I had such a long week end. It started with my trip to Igatpuri where I bought some land. Someday when I save enough I might decide to build my small home there. I remember a Nancy comic that I read many years ago. It was at least more than 25 years ago. Nancy takes her small doll house and walks to the forest. She leaves her doll house in the middle of the forest and then walks away remarking… ‘now we too can talk about our home in the woods’. I remember that comic strip as if it was yesterday. I guess, this is the first step in that direction, though the Igatpuri land is definitely not in the woods but the feel is like a hill station.
Though one thing realy bugs me is the cash dealings that in India land or almost anything is subjected to. People like us are salaried guys with zero black money and no cash income. Hence we like paying by card and cheque wherever we go. This has ye to percolate in the innards of India. Our tax laws and system seem hopelessly inadequate for the sheer breadth of this country. But atleast now the paperwork is getting computerised and they take the photos from their webcam and thumb scans for the records. That should solve a lot of issues.
While Jasmine and me were talking about cash I was explaining to her the various source of scam cash that I have come across while working. It is crazy to see the ethics of the white collared workers. We keep coming across strong instances of people across sectors siphoning off money or asking for bribe for almost anything, right from printing, ad films, stamp papers, passing routine bills for payment, choosing vendors, anything. The sheer scale and shamelessness is shocking. I even send back diwali gifts that I think cross ethic levels. Pens, watches, silver and even pressure cookers have been on the list. Somebody once asked me why? What motivates me to do this and be clean? I told him, I want to show my face to my dad. I wouldn’t be able to do so if I did this. That my dad passed away 11 years ago des not make any difference.
On Saturday while I was talking to Jasmine explaining my position I was explaining that cash is always a bad thing. In my estimate any one in my position could have taken at least rupees fity lakhs to 100 lakhs. This kind of cash would have social repercussions. Imagine if I had this cash lying around the house. I would not know where to use it. We would end up buying a lot of stuff, gadgets, premium luxury, ostentatious vacations; we would let Jispa buy a lot of stuff, pander to her whims and what not, make a brat out of her. God knows what physiographical changes it would have on us. The cash in your pocket is always ready to go out… Jasmine and I are quite clear on the values we don’t want Jispa to have. Not having cash is not a value in itself but is an important value driver. I am so glad. Ethics have their payoff in different directions.

We also saw the movie A Christmas Carol. Nice movie, but it should have been rated U/A.

office wars

I came across this amazing para from this source. http://cheeptalk.wordpress.com/2009/11/18/inside-story-saddams-strategic-thinking/
"Saddam lived in fear of a coup mounted by the Republican Guard. His solution was to create the Special Republican Guard, whose main remit was to protect him against coups particularly from the Republican Guard. You would think that the head of this outfit would be a fearsome figure who would terrify any budding coup plotters. Woods asked other leading figures if this was indeed the case and the answer was a resounding NO! Why? Saddam was well aware of the “who monitors the monitor problem” – what is the head of the Special Guard mounted a coup himself? Saddam’s solution was not original: appoint a relative. Make sure the appointee is a coward so he would not dream of mounting a coup. Just in case he is tougher than you might think, choose someone stupid so he cannot mount a successful coup and is too stupid to recognize someone else’s good ideas for a coup."

I see this happening in corporate life as well; when an insecure though seemingly smart head has an amazingly dumb guy as his side kick. Many times this amazingly dumb guy is a guy from his same caste and village. Thick caste / language loyalties substitute blood loyalties as the latter can be easily accused of nepotism.

Look around you. There are Saddam’s everywhere. One way to look at it his fate is - look at where Saddam is now, the other way is – look at how far he went.

manhood ki lalkaar

Taking from yesterday’s post, where I spoke aloud of my quest to be grey before I get bald… I was at the barber’s shop where he encountered white hair above my ears in plenty. He told me ‘saab, there is a lot of white hair inside’. “Great” I answered. I think that left him a little flummoxed and bereft of a hair dye client.
I hadn’t been shaving since the last ten days and hence I even had a beard with strands of white. I normally don’t like getting a shave outside but this I made an exception. The experience is rarely nice as they are used to really tough beards and they get a chance to butcher my skin which is still (happily) soft. I rarely get away from such butchering without a few red spots, that too after I tell him that shave only once. Otherwise they shave twice and get rid off the complete epidermis, exposing a lot of red spots. They might be trying their best to justify their price I guess. But shaving twice is an interesting habit that I see a lot of guys having, when I first took to shaving after my 10th exams, I too used to shave twice. In fact in college days, I shaved everyday and that too twice, with about 1/10th the beard that I have today. These days I shave just once and that too on alternate days. These days my laziness quotient is up to three days or even a week.
I remember around ten years back I had a shave at one of the various villages around Ahmedabad. It was a typical barber shop with a wooden rickety chair and a scruffian for a barber. He gave me a tough man’s shave. First they splash water, then apply the cream, works up a lather on your face with the bristles then give you a shave pulling and pinching your skin, then start again. After you are through with the shave, he splashes water, wipes it with a napkin (ugh), then applies alum all over the face, then wipes that off (same napkin), then takes a bottle with vile green liquid (warned poison with a death skull) and splashes it on his hand onto your face. Whew, its only an after shave. But then that’s not all. He takes an afghan snow look-alike bottle and takes some in his hand and gives you a face massage. All this is happening with his very rough hands. Why would anyone want to be subjected to this? And yes if anyone wants to know… I did tip him (I think).
Yesterday I got away with three red spots and some burning sensation. But its worth testing your manhood once a year I guess.

father of the bride

Two days and two functions to attend. One was a simple marriage ceremony of a simple colleague which was in a simple hall with minimal fuss and décor. The other was a massive celebration of the fact that a friend’s kid (friend’s brothers actually) completed five years and hence was able to finally shave his hair! Yeah yeah. The latter was an elaborate affair with three separate functions, all done in the splendour of an elaborate ceremony. What on earth? I keep thinking that one day Jispa will grow up. I have tried to keep aside some money for her for her education but have no money set aside for her marriage. It’s a complete waste. Jasmine and I are in a way quite ‘practicallists’ who don’t understand the value of splendour. We are the cheapo who have not celebrated her first birthday. Our reasoning being she was too small to figure anything. In all these functions the baby is inevitably harassed by the lights, the attention and the noise.
On all her birthdays we take Jispa and some of her key friends for a fun outing and ensure that the occasion is celebrated in a small but hopefully meaningful way. Jasmine has also struck a deal with Jispa that she will celebrate her 10th birthday in any way she chooses.
So when she grows up I am planning to oppose every prospective groom that comes our way. This way she will be forced to elope and then I could forgive all and call them back. Imagine the money we would save in the bargain. And the pain… has anyone seen the movie ‘father of the bride’, I might just fit the archetype. Only one issue – I have to figure out a way to go white before I go bald.

superman in action

Stop press: we have photos of the spider game we played.

Here is the basic game. You can see the net and that you have to pass people through the net without touching the net itself. This is the most popular way to do it. And once on the other side you cannot come back to this side, hence in the end there will be one man standing.


So either an easy hole gets left behind or you resort to superman…. the guy with the hat is the trainer looking in disbelief.

Sense and sensibility

One of the things I hear these days is the radio commercial where Red FM plays in support of the mid day meal scheme. Basically the scheme gives school going children one full meal a day. Now if memory strikes me right, when MGR introduced this scheme in Tamil Nadu it was dismissed as a fancy publicity stunt by a flamboyant politician. But the results put some of the staunchest critics to shame. I quote from the hindu business line…

“…brought to mind a visit my colleague and I had made many years ago — 1980 to be specific — to Chingleput district, near Chennai. We made a round of visits to schools in villages run in sheds or under a tree to make a study of the Midday Meal scheme launched by the then Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu M.G. Ramachandran. Of course, the learned scoffed at the idea and the newspapers had dismissed it as a populist stunt. The Indian Express, Madras, decided to have a field survey before drawing conclusions. My colleague from the reporting team was just a year old in the profession, and was very enthusiastic about doing the assignment given to us by none less than the Resident Editor himself. We spent the next two days visiting several village schools and spent a lot of time talking to the children, the teachers and parents about this scheme. Slowly, the negative thoughts of the scheme we nursed gave way to a positive outlook. True, the cooking could have been more hygienic, the quality of the grains used better, the plates in which they were served cleaner... . but the villages were happy that their children were getting a much-needed meal. They were happier still at the thought of the kids showing eagerness at long last to attend school!
It is difficult for us, the city folk, to imagine what a morsel of food means to these children. Or to their parents, small farmers or farm labourers, who toil in the fields from morning to evening, having hardly any time to take care of the children. To cook a meal or finding food means a lot of hardship.
But entered the mid-day meal scheme and suddenly the three `Rs' of education assumed significance and the school suddenly became a place the child looked forward to each morning.” read full article here

This taught me not to dismiss politics and policy with a sleight. But understand the potential value within each. It also helps me not completely dismiss the now in vogue NREGA.
But that is not the point I want to make. I was at the radio commercial on the channel which has rightly partnered with the cause. The voice over is of a child who talks about the mid day meal scheme and the fact that he gets to go to school thanks to the scheme. It was fine and ok (though personally I did not like it) till it got to the last line where the kid urges you to support the scheme for some paltry sum of rupees. That would keep him in school. … Read it again… support the scheme for X rupees a month and I can eat well and stay in school…. Read it again… didn’t that amount to begging? Since when did we teach our kids to beg? Sure the scheme is good and the heart is in the right place but you can get the kid in question to beg on air. What message does it send? Beg for your food, beg for your school. I wouldn’t want any kid in the world to beg. Even for a schooling? I wish they had some RJ voice over in the end doing the begging instead. They talk a lot of rubbish in any case.

Inspirational irreverence

v-inu wouldn’t care two hoots about commenting directly on blog but is a regular reader. He reads almost everything but gets tuned off when I chatter philosophically or moralistically or any other callys.

Here is a video he sent for Jispa



The lyrics are as under
An Effervescing Elephant
with tiny eyes and great big trunk
once whispered to the tiny ear
the ear of one inferior
that by next June he'd die, oh yeah!
because the tiger would roam.
The little one said: "Oh my goodness I must stay at home!
and every time I hear a growl
I'll know the tiger's on the prowl
and I'll be really safe, you know
the elephant he told me so."
Everyone was nervy, oh yeah!
and the message was spread
to zebra, mongoose, and the dirty hippopotamus who wallowed in the mud and chewed his spicy hippo-plankton food and tended to ignore the word preferring to survey a herd of stupid water bison, oh yeah!
And all the jungle took fright,
and ran around for all the day and the night but all in vain, because, you see, the tiger came and said: "Who me?!
You know, I wouldn't hurt not one of you.
I'd much prefer something to chew
and you're all to scant." oh yeah!
He ate the Elephant

He also writes that “This is by Syd Barrett - one of the founders of Pink Floyd. Teachers wouldn't exactly prefer him as a role model for a kid.”

Well I guess so, but she can take all the inspiration she can get.

PS: she seems to be doing well with Lester for the elocution competition but I guess its not as funny as the original Crocodile's toothache. This one has a limited set of emotions and does not allow for sharp contrasts. Am I making sense? Atleast to me ... I think.

While we are on the topic, I would rate the above equally inspirational for Jispa as this link here http://www.ted.com/talks/pranav_mistry_the_thrilling_potential_of_sixthsense_technology.html

superman in spider shadow

Just went for another training program over the weekend. This time it was an outbound training program. I don’t what the objectives were but it sure is better than being cooped up in a conference room with no light coming in, both from the sun and the speaker. Out in the open one can be assured of at least one source.
The games were good but the debriefs were quite pathetic. One should have short focussed group with clear objective based discussions; that would take the group forward. But the highlight for me was that while being amongst the oldest I managed to attack all the activities with some of the highest levels of enthusiasm and gusto. Yes that itself is no indicator of performance, only an indicator of intent but, I was the top performer in almost every activity. As I was explaining to someone, these games are tailor made for me. I have some higher than average sense of visual reasoning and most of the problems are typically that. So while others would argue I would see the solution in an instant. But sometimes I wonder why the others don’t really get it so fast. It is not that difficult. The gap cannot be that high. Am I dumb to be surrounded by dimwits or it’s a case of people being different from me. I dunno, but at least my benchmarks on all these activities were not those around but others who I consider top class in their fields.
One of the greatest moments for me was an ego boosting one. We played a game which is called the spider web (I think). Basically each team of about 12 is taken to what looks like a set up badminton net. The net is made up of rope tied around in a way that it has many holes of various sizes extending till about a foot from the ground. The team has to cross over to the other side through the net without touching it. Each hole can be used only once. The first guy takes the easy hole and then helps collect the people that we pass on horizontally over to the other side. Soon the easy ones gets taken and the light ones pass over. With some difficulty more pass. As we were passing more and more people over I was one the last one left. The only possible hole was one that was about 2 feet wide and two and half foot tall. It was around five feet from the ground. What to do. In a rush of blood I went back, ran hard and jumped… right through the hole like superman. I landed softly on the other side with my palms breaking the fall. I had done it. There… easy a pie (this is a mixed up phrase, no?) After the team went ecstatic I realised what I had done. The trainer said that this is the first time he had seen something like this. He made everyone clap for me etc etc… Everybody was talking about it for a long time. Those who missed it, regreted it and told me as such. Even they were animatedly talking about the jump as if it happened before their very eyes. I truly realised what I had done the next day, when one of the staff who worked at the site came up to me to ask “sir, have you done commando training anywhere?” “err.. no… why?” “the way you jumped over the web. We thought you had done something like that so I wanted to join such a course”. .. WTF, I am now a freak stunt man. I told him that “it just happened and there was no way I was trying something like that again. Just be fit and agile and you will be able to do it as well” Testosterone is a stupid thing. It clouds your better judgement. Imagine one leg getting stuck in the net and you could be left dangling like a bat caught in a spider’s web. It looked good because it was pulled off else it would be pretty dumb thing to do. Kids – don’t try this at home. It was performed by an experienced dumb ass. It was just his lucky day.

the big boss

This is really funny. It couldn’t wait. While getting bored in office I did a random google ego search on my name. One of the links that popped up was a Businessweek site. Yup the official Businessweek site. Not just was I listed there but I was listed as amongst the key executives of the firm. What a laugh. Everyone I showed it to spontaneously burst out laughing. It is hilarious.


Here look at it. The screen shots as below. On the second shot you will see the names of the executive directors who are like my boss’s bosses. It is so funny.

I am thinking of framing this.

lottery ke bazaar mein

I am livid. Price of three tickets for a late night show – Rs. 540. Cost of two pop corns – Rs. 140. Price of a soup and rice ordered to our seat – rs. 220. Total cost of movie value – rs. 900. not including opportunity cost of sleeping/ watching other movie/ reading… etc.


The returns – absolutely ugly. Movie in question – ajab prem ki gajab kahani. What a yar(w)n. The old lot of directors should just retire. Old jokes, ugly locations, bad camera work, jumpy editing, horrible acting, clichéd dialogues, crotch crushing, electrocuting, bumpkin behaving…. This movie had it all.

I was telling Jasmine that at my age (34) I am not going for any bollies (bollywood movies) directed by anyone older than myself.
----------

Its that time of the year again. People clamouring for admissions to Jispa’s school. Since we are amongst the elite (lottery winners) who already have admission we get into consulting mode on how to crack the lottery. Which numbers to buy and which to avoid. Which shop must you buy the lottery from, which time of the day we bought it etc etc… they have a session where a question is asked of the parents, the answer to which they pen down. I was on high alert these two days. I warned my wife against telling anyone that I helped some close ones in answering these forms. The stress that is built up is amazing. I can’t handle this anymore. The pressure on choosing the right lottery ticket to buy is amazing. One would need to conjure up all the luck in the world every single time.

It was good that we had no clue it was such a big deal when we had to go through it. We went through it like a breeze. Not knowing the implications of rejection is the best defence against rejection itself. Fun is so important an attribute for success.

this is it

I never thought of myself a Michael Jackson fan, but something in me wanted me to go to the ‘This is it’ concert movie. It is a behind the scenes footage of the rehearsals for the ‘this is it’ concert tour.


I have had this theory for sometime. People generally identify and stay with the music they grew up to with the tastes and style preference getting stuck from their teens. I don’t think post 22 you can really change your preferences. I think this is true for most of us. I have used this to great effect when we had bands playing at some of our client meets. I used to instruct the bands to play the right era as the right boss walks in. As long as the boss likes the song, so will the audience.

I forgot this simple rule while I went for this concert movie. Suddenly all the MJ hits came at me as a blast from the past. I found my feet tapping and the emotions running. Absolutely awesome. Black or White, thriller, heal the world…. A lot of this was the music my elder brother and sister used to listen to. In the older ear of one two in the in the house, I would get no time for my music. Hence the concept of my music did not develop. I just heard and graduated from my sister’s music – pop to my brother’s music which moved from pop to rock to hard rock. Hence there is no rap in my emotional arsenal.

Now while I would have not have touched Michael while in college, I had outgrown him, (more like out ‘cooled’ him); I found my self loving his music and his style… as I write this piece, I am listening to some of his best songs. This paragraph started with the guitar start piece of black or white and my heart just jumped a few notches in beat speed. The awesome dance moves with the crotch movement… oooo…aawww… grunts through out the song.

Thriller in 1982 was all that was west and all that could not be had in India. You could only have smuggled cassettes of Thriller and the thriller video was watched only by the priledged few. Many years later I remember watching the black or white video as it released world wide for the first time on a classy program called “the world this week’ on doordarshan. That was the first program that allowed India to see world news and video clippings. Thank you Prannoy Roy. He did comment on the irony of the lyrics while the video featured a considerably whitened MJ. I remember the video being the talk of the town in being the first time computer graphics were used in this manner. It dazzled the world and definitely my neighbourhood cricket club. We spoke about it in awe for a long time later on this. Besides the awesome graphics the big India highlight was MJ dancing next to a bharat natyam dancer. It was one of the first real India shiny place in the world. Haha. India believed it had arrived. So what if we have poverty and starvation, we have culture and see... see… even the west is now beginning to acknowledge.


Also while he dances with the Indian there are polluting factories in the back ground. Do I have to read too much into it?

B&W video here

you too can win

Here are some photos of the training program that best elucidate the principles behind our success.

The lounge set up. While other teams had an official looking room, complete with tables and chairs as their war room, we had a lounge set up in ours. This contributed significantly to the fun element and the relaxed atmosphere. Learnings to take to office - Please tear out the tables and the tight arse chairs from all conference rooms.

This is a pictoral representation of our philosophy – you too can win. It means everyone in the board room is right and that anyone is equally capable of outstanding thought. Did you get it from the picture. Fret not. I didnt either.

Deep. Really deep strategic thought.

Me trying to draw  conclusions (sad pun intended). When you can’t think without a marker and a board, then you have officially broken into top management.

This one team member is trying hard to keep her strategic direction right while the PJ’s flow.

If you make the official court jester laugh, you better be funny; or really really sad.

While the strategic direction was missing, the inspiration was out of the window. While he learnt to use his new SLR, he accidentally shot a nice pic. He was trying to get the brown statues behind. Where are the statues? I told you its an accidental pic. But you don’t argue with genius do you. It IS a nic pic.

This was supposed to be a funny pic for a group photo. Someone said be funny, so I decided to give some uptight ones a ‘push’. Another sad pun intended.

But on a serious note, this training program taught me the value of laughter (a sad attempt at another figure of speech – this time The Paradox). Thank you dude. I dont think the others really caught on to our secret. even after telling them, and presenting it as such.

training your sights on....

Training programs are like books. Even the worst ones will teach you something. I just came back from one marketing modelling one. The prof was an ex Unilevers guy with a strong theoretical base in research. His research bit was good but his marketing bit was a quite a let down. Anyone who gives examples from a Kotler marketing text book that is at least 15 years old is an issue. I wonder why people refuse to acknowledge that the world has moved on and upgrade themselves accordingly. It would have also helped to have stuck to core subjects in which you have obvious expertise. You are not teaching kids. Some of us are practioners with ten years of hard core experience.
But not all hope was lost. We had some really funny guys coming from MTV. That was some redemption. We had a character called Shantanu who is much smarter than he would like to admit. While it would kill him to admit as much he did get some of the stuff faster than others in the room. Add to that an outstandingly irreverent sense of humour, the three days went off far better than most training I have been to.
Of course it did help that he and me were in the same team trying to blast the others in the marketing game.
One realisation that has dawned upon me in recent years is that one need not be ready to win at all times. Relax and have fun while you are at it. Our team was the funniest of all. We were also the simplest of all. We did not do too much excel analysis, we had no issues with dissension and we had no arguments on way forward. I think the fact that we allowed for every one to have an opinion and the freedom to implement it was what worked. Whenever someone had a strong view we ensured that we did not go ahead till he was convinced on the decision we took or we took his word forward. We had some teams voting and some teams fighting and some teams pointing fingers, while we laughed like crazy with no such pointing contests. We had inherited in the game a bloated sales force which we did not trim as we had a parsi in the team who thought its not nice to fire. We agreed on a pricing strategy and closed conversation because the lights flickered. What’s that got to do with pricing? Nothing by itself and everything if you believe it was the message of god. When numbers came for every period, the only real thing I saw was sales and most importantly closing stock. If that’s good then you are doing a fine job. We quickly realised that there are four distinct segments and that there should be four distinct positions. Once we got that going, we didn’t change a dam thing.
The thing to learn in real life is that it’s really not so complicated. Look at a few figures you can understand and those that are fundamentally important. Rest will follow. It pains me to see so many people paralysed by analysis.
We were open about our serendipity at the post games presentations and I hope the others figured out that it’s not really that complicated. Like I was telling a younger contestant - most of the time you probably know the answer when you first have a look at the data, but when you anlayse it too much, think of creative methods, etc etc… you probably miss the wood for the trees.
Marketing or even strategic decisions are often common sense. A simple analysis should show you the broad direction, and a thumb rule might be that if it takes too much to understand then it is just that – too much to understand.
Another thing that comes with age is that you get to go for more and more places where you are the average spoiler. It is great fun to see what makes them tick and what works and does not for them. Meeting young minds is as important as meeting older ones. One tells you what was, the other, what will.
A case of opposites reconciling?

like I was telling the HR - the training was good, but for the wrong objectives.

and ya... did i tell you. we outsold everyone and got some huge brand shares and remained highly profitable. Trainers dont like to declare winners, but I reckon we won.

writers blog?

Getting a writers block for blog? Well it’s ok… I am not calling myself a writer but I can’t help it if I am suffering from a writers block. What to do… block hai toh hai.
Tomorrow I am off for a training session on marketing to lonavala’s northpoint. I am not a big fan of training sessions. They are normally quite boring and don’t really offer too much. Add to that my ego and arrogance of working for the world’s best marketing brain – Dharen Chadha. So it’s going to take some doing for me to be ‘trained’. Those this time around I am a bit excited. It is a marketing simulation program run on computers where one would be constantly at it doing something. So I guess it’s probably a good thing. I have always wanted to check out these games if they really do make sense and are not simply designed for failure. Some management games leave you with such a cheated feeling that one wonders the point of all these games. You don’t need to cheat people with unsolvable problems to give them a lesson.
And I sure hope we don’t have any of these really boring booze parties in the evening where everyone gets piss drunk trying to network with each other. On the subject of networking, I just remembered to take my visiting cards for the training program. I am definitely not taking my laptop and acting superbly busy. But I have my black berry to bury my snooty nose into if the conversation gets too boring. I could pretend to be checking mails while I am busy creating the highest score while breaking a ton of bricks. Creating and breaking in one sentence! Is that an example of creative destruction?
But I hope to be suitably impressed to be writing my blog from there. I have never blogged off location. The office time is too precious not to be blogging and the rest too precocious to be…

On that slightly witty note, by my standards at least… see ya in office on Monday.


The PS note: we had some of Jispa’s friends over on Sunday. They were being parked between two parties. It was such a fun thing to have a few kids over. I went wild with my friend’s camera that I had over the weekend (by a lark). It was 50 mm lens and it did take some time getting used to but here is one of Jispa’s photos I clicked and for some reason I so love it… I really do. For me it symbolizes what Jispa’s nature is.

lif kara de

Today as I was leaving for a Microsoft conference I thought a bit on which t shirt I should wear. Today being a Friday I wasn’t going to wear formals, no matter what the bloody occasion. So I choose an appropriate red t shirt that said ‘unfakeable linux’. I didn’t get kicked out for sure. Thank you v-inu for the t-shirt. I got my two bits of hehe snigger value.

So as I was driving out of the complex, I saw a woman with a purse and slightly heavy looking bag, slightly distraught. .she seemed to be looking at taxi’s eagerly, but they all seemed to be full and there were none waiting. I passed her. Then stopped in front and then thought a bit. I said ‘what the heck’. I put the car in reverse and went back to her. She might have been in her late twenties. Overcoming my fear of rejection even while doing what is essentially a good Samaritan act I rolled down my windows (with automatic windows, you don’t really roll them down you just press a button on the side, but you get the drift… do you). So I rolled down the windows and shouted out… you want a lift outside till the taxis? She looked at me for a second and thought for another… “ya, sure, thanks”. It is a bit ackward for me I guess, but I really feel bad for people at Bhakti park (the colony where I live). The dam place is separated from the road via a small rivulet and there is only one bridge across it. The exit from that bridge is a good 110 meters from my house and around a 100 less from where I gave the lady a lift.

I asked her where she was going. She wanted to go to lower parel and since I was planning to go via dadar, so to avoid the crazy traffic on the western expressway, I offered to drop her off. But you know what, its always a little awkward for me. I give lift but I really don’t want to be seen making any conversation. So I don’t initiate any conversation. But these days women are changing, they are getting far more confident. They are ones initiating conversation and leading. It wasn’t so when I started college in 91, but the younger lot is far more at ease with themselves and life in general. I asked if she was from out of Mumbai. She was from Delhi. No wonder I told her. All the ones that look lost in the morning are from Delhi. I told her to take the bus. That would take her to dadar from right inside the colony. But it seems as she was Delhi she had a general aversion to the bus service, to which I told her that I would never ever worry if my wife or daughter would be using the BEST service. It is by and large, safe and honorable.

It so happened that she was friend of a colleague from office. When I spoke to the colleague, she was surprised that her friend accepted a lift from a total stranger. Come to think of it, ya… I was a total stranger but I guess the vibe is what people bet on or the fact that it’s pretty irritating to be stranded without a taxi early morning, forcing you to take silly risks. Whatever. But it is heartening to see more women confident and relaxed. Today at the conference venue also I cracked a joke with my comrade about the biscuits only to face a rejoinder by a woman I don’t know who was standing beside. That’s good.

ab tu chilla ke dikha... chilla....

There… I have my office desk all set up for blasting the dam music. I was inspired by this ted talk by Julian Treasure on how sounds affect us all, especially in office productivity.

Nah. actually the answer is elsewhere. We had this huge set of Logitech speakers at home to connect to the laptop so that we can watch movies / CD’s. It was quite a pain, large unwieldy things with multiple wires getting entangled all the time. Two speakers with some sub woofer boofer something. A real irritant. they look nice and sexy in the photos here but they must show all the wiring in the photo as well. no one will buy it then.

Then we came across these really tiny speakers (x minimax) that could be connected to the laptop. They had inbuilt batteries that could be charged and hence no constant electric connection as well. Hence the big ones have no where to go but office. they each must no more than 2 or 2 and a half inches tall.

So now I have this huge ugly (but nice and clear) speakers set up in office. I also sit in an unusually noisy section in the office with one particular lady who handles 3 peons. She keeps shouting at them. In fact she keeps shouting at the four poor junior reportees she has. She reminds me of the Egyptian pharaohs whipping their slaves into building the pyramids. She is like one hunterwaali all the time. Add to that a screeching voice. It all makes for a noisy atmosphere.

Don’t get me wrong, I am all for a noisy fun filled office. Go ahead shout loudly, crack jokes, play music, but… if one goes on as a nag all the time then it does create some issues.

That’s what I also try to avoid whiling reprimanding someone. Use voice to get effect but use it sparingly. Even if I scream at Jispa. It will be one loud short scream, then your tone must go down, you must talk less, you must communicate exactly what you want in soft measured tones. Being a constant machine gun is a nuisance for all.

So now I am all set for war. Loud noise will be greeted by louder soothing sound. I have to somewhere get the chants that play in every music shop in Rishikesh. The beautiful soothing chants (dev prema – I think) playing along the Ganges while you are sipping hot lemon mint tea at devraj coffee corner while flipping through your William Dalrymple “city of djinns”; with the Lonely planet at your side; over looking the bustle at Laxman jhulla.

A ha… kya vichar hai aapke… prabhuji.. aap dhanya ho. Nahin nahin…App Dhaniya ho..