My take

I am sure that by now everyone must have seen the scandalizing video from IIT-Roorkee. Those who haven’t are either not on any networking site or they stay away from such stuff on personal discretion. I saw the video and I really felt amusing for the guy who devised the idea of that competition. I mean hats off to his audacity. FYI, as I heard that the competition asked to put the lipstick in an unconventional way. Considering the cheap acts some lunatics are pulling of through the reality show sham these days, this was pretty innocent and innovative in the most sensual way. And to say the least, it needs guts to pull off such an event.

Those who are condemning the event are oblivious and may be they have chose to ignore the fact that the India of “babri mosque demolition” and the India of “Babri mosque verdict” are on 2 different quantum levels. In the same way we, as a youth think on different levels and well ahead of some saffron cynics. I mean if you don’t like don’t yelp, go to your home and stop your young ones from watching it. At least you will be doing something good. Just don’t put on that this-is-not-our-culture thing. I accept that it may have not appealed to the sensitivities of some percentage of elder population, but then there are many things which are worse but they just don’t come out. It is a proof that the portion of media which was targeted in Peepli Live has evidently remained unchanged. I was very happy with the comments which some of my friends posted in response.

The people who are vociferously claiming to be the keepers of our culture are the same who ensured that Mr. MF Hussain doesn’t ever come back, who ensured that Ms.Tasleema Nasreen is out of the country, who scandalized and beat an art student a year back and who were responsible for the Bangalore pub fiasco.

That’s that. An institution should be a safe haven. And so even if the events of the past may have violated the basic tenets or sanctity the institution proclaims. It should be accepted that violators have become, no matter what, the part of the institution now. Their creativity may have gone wrong somewhere, but it should be acknowledged that they had some creativity and if fostered in right direction it can work wonders. In any case, I am proud of my alma mater. No justification for what is coming up. So, just think of those two words. Carpe Diem. Those who are clueless, please watch a Robin Wiliams’ Dead Poet’s Society.

The naked king

My mother told me this story when I was a kid. I never knew at that time this simple funny story was not just the story of the naked king but had some truly greater significance. This write-up is simply an expression of acceptance of that significance. Before I start the story I request all of my fellow readers to skip it at once if they know it and read what follows the story.

There was very rich king of some country. He was very fond of trying new clothes. He had satiated himself with all kind of different style of clothing oriental to occidental, north to south. He was really in search of some kind of clothes which were truly exceptional. He told his desire to everyone and soon 2 clever guys appeared in his court. They said that they would design special clothes for him. So special that only knowledgeable could see them. King was suddenly in a soup. If he rejects the idea, suspicion may arise on his mental prowess. So he happily agreed and asked the treasurer to help the guys with the money.

After taking 6 months of time and consuming half of the treasury, the 2 guys arrived in the court with their arms stretched in front as if they were holding something. They told King that the clothes had been done and they were in their hands. The king bound by the “knowledgeable” clause acted as if he was very happy to see the amazing clothes. The 2 guys were clever with a sinister sense of humor. So they asked the king to dress up in those special clothes and take a round of his country. By that time everyone around knew about the special clothes. As soon as the king, fully stripped of his clothes, stepped out of his palace all his subjects and people started shouting praises and accolades for his new clothes. He turned a corner where a boy of 3-4 years of age was standing with his mother and he was really oblivious to all this hype and hoopla of the clothes as he himself was in bare minimum of clothes. As soon as he saw the king he shouted “the king is naked, the king is naked”. There was the briefest of silence before the whole country burst up with laughter, slogans, sarcastic comments and what not. The king wound up his procession and sent for the 2 guys but obviously they were nowhere to be found.

THE END

I am sure many of you have come across the situations where fallacy is visible and still we have to praise it with full voice. The question comes that what is next? I think it is never wrong to praise the loophole on full voice when your own ass in going to be in trouble. But it would be most ethical to develop a system or say a pocket of excellence in your own small group or office where you take care of that loophole in a methodical way. That is success. And so as you grow up and traverse through the organization you keep creating many such pockets of excellence. And suppose you become the king you ensure that at least your immediate subordinates are like the child in the story, who would always tell you the truth on face.

One of the things that should be encouraged in the subordinates is candidness. It is quite obvious that as we grow up in organization this candidness gets lost. Majority of us eventually become the king’s subject and that childlike thinking is lost somewhere. If you are able to impart your subordinate courage to come up and speak to you about the state of affairs and also give his own set of ideas, then I think you have solved almost half of the problems. Most of the times it happens that he may have a better grasp of the situation and he may have faced it before as well. But your high headedness is not giving him enough strength and talk to you.

Candidness and cockiness should be perfectly differentiated as the former may easily turn into latter which is disastrous in equal measure. You should always ensure that while giving any idea objectivity of the cause is not lost. It should also be made clear to everyone.

I just felt that I should share the story as well as the analogy.

This was long due

The average speed at which I ride on my bike has gone down from about 50 Kmph to something 35 Kmph during past 2 years. Obviously my bike’s performance has deteriorated as compared to what it was 2 years back but I feel that I have become increasingly cautious as well. Let me put the fact very straight. The driving sense of Indians (all of us) sucks big time. We are a mass with most ill sense of road safety and with least civic sense when we are on road. I am not going to castigate us further. If you have lived in India for considerably long time, you know what a massive challenge it is come back home safely.

Defensive driving:
It just means that don’t be happy just by driving according to rules. You may get killed because someone else is breaking all the rules and averaging you out. While on road always be at your cynical best. Impossible is nothing.

Beware of dogs:
If you are at high speed and a stray dog comes in your way, kill him. Put your benign side aside and I say override him. The possibility of getting yourself killed in order to save a dog is huge. If you still have a doubt I want to tell you that it is quite possible that you may be substituting for that dog moments later. If still you are doubtful, just compare the worthiness of the life of a stray dog with that of yours. Still the doubt persists? I suggest you to join Menaka Gandhi.

Respect buffaloes:
Dogs and buffaloes are obviously not comparable and so just keep watch on some stray buffalo or a cow getting into your path. These benevolent looking creatures may suddenly become death angel for you.

Tie your seat belts every time you drive or sit in the front seat. You don’t have to be told that every time by a sexy air hostess.

Know that many people around are biggest fools and the first place they go after coming out of their hideouts is road. A car with one head light damaged, a rickshaw with a head light as small as torch bulb are common occurrences.

We all are in constant hurry. We are in hurry for everything. We rush to our offices, back to our home and everywhere we go we are in hurry. It is altogether a different matter that the same hurry has just now started reflecting in our growth stats in 50 years of independent existence. And so respect the fact that we all have very less time, factually and philosophically.

Have you ever gone to a gaming arcade? Don’t worry if you haven’t. You get it live on our roads. The difficulty levels go up and down. You win if you reach back to your desired destination unharmed.

I must say that I have tried my best to put everything in a lighter manner. But believe me that I am dead serious when I say that you may die someday just because you behaved like a rash idiot on road. May be there are many things which I have left aside.

This article comes after one my good friends met an accident, after I heard the fact that about 2000 people died last year in jaipur and adjoining areas. I think our lives are far more worthy to be taken away in a road accident. Suppose after reading this article you become cautious and just escape a near death experience I suggest you read one of my previous posts called “Acknowledgement”. Best of luck.

The sailor's side

When has the calm sea made a good sailor? Every person going through the torrid time is told this by a preacher. There are only two outcomes in the case of storm stricken sailor. Either he comes out alive or he dies fighting. In both the cases he is a hero in my view. That is fine with me. What makes me uneasy is the fact that his heroics are so situation dependent. I mean, what if there is no storm at all? Won’t there be any hero in that case? Never does a calm sea produce a good sailor?

I think it does. Rather I strongly believe it. Though in that case the sailor has pivotal role to play which is so obvious that the sailor himself plays the major role in his own success. I always feel that when a capable sailor takes his ship into the sea, he implants a fear into the sea. Every act of the sailor exudes confidence and he has an aura which has been built by years of hardship. The resultant storm is an act of sea but the root cause is the same fear which the sailor has instilled. The storm comes this time around not to test the sailor, because his caliber doesn’t need any proofs, but to suppress him, to quell his lofty ideas.

I won’t try to fiddle with the end. In this case too, either he comes out alive or he dies fighting. In both cases the calm would be restored. But both the calms will have a valley of difference. In the first case, the calm would be of submission, not to power but to potential. In the latter one the calm would be that of a sadistic victory mixed with the fear of another such sailor.

We assign too much importance to the state of the sea. The sailors keep coming till the day there is a hero who comes out alive. And this keeps repeating. Just look around yourself.

Stuck

Two years and counting, I am still “stuck” at the same place. Friends and people around me have been visiting places. At least they pretend doing so. Well-wishers have stopped asking me whether I plan to switch or take MBA exam. I am an incorrigible case to them. I have succeeded in pacifying them and making them believe that I have finally made peace with the bureaucratic system of my present organization. Well this is what many of them feel. I am really thankful if they feel contrary to what I proclaim. I am here to give all my well-wishers a feel good factor, a write-up which would possibly make them feel that I am not getting wasted, a notion which even I had once in mind.

Lets start with the fact that I had never visited a steel plant in my life. I could only imagine any such entity, that too partially during occasional distraction from the mischief and sleep during the class. So when I came here it just captured my imagination. I realized that its far bigger than the reach of the hands of our professor, a man with a penchant of saying “huge blast furnace” with 2 hands held parallel over the head, who taught a course on iron and steel-making to us. The sight of red-hot iron flowing out, crude steel getting formed into slabs, red hot slab coming out for rolling, mesmerized me for an instant. The things in the theory made some real sense. But this is very hygienic version of a steel plant. A crude version is far more exciting. Read on.

How can production go on unabated for 24x7x365? It seems just amazing that while we are sleeping, eating, talking all the time there is iron flowing out of furnace and sheets coming out of mills. And to make it possible a colossal human effort required. Its not easy to control these beast of machines to run according to you. It requires some thinking on the part of engineers who are constantly slogging to run the plant. To whom the dirt and sweat on the shirt at the end of the day just mean the Medal of Honor. And believe me when I say it, because this has been going on for past 100 years, unabated and unhindered.

It is imperative in my job that I develop a same rapport with a down-the-line worker as with a high level officer. The real HR professional are made on the shop floor. This place gives me an opportunity, for an ephemeral second, to be a hero of Ayn Rand. Because when you are responsible behind that flow of iron, or making of the sheet or in short, the formation of the world, you can at least once in a while feel that you are the Atlas, bearing the burden to support the world on his shoulders. The rush of adrenaline is unparalleled. And hence I am “stuck” at this place. Someday I will move on but that day is not coming in near future. I am yet to absorb the whole thrill.

This write-up, in spirit, is dedicated to all those workers of steel industry who are stuck there on their own will, to few of my colleagues working with me and to all those good people who have mentored me constantly.

Acknowledgement

What do you feel when you see the ragged beggar? Sympathetic, Pitiful or something else? I feel lucky. I am sure I will have support on this answer too, though I may sound pretty unsympathetic. But to me the thought which follows is much more important. We should feel lucky and should immediately make a mental note about our luck so that whenever we crib next time about the worsening situations or about our helplessness, this mental note would come to the rescue. Believe me when I say that it has absolutely nothing to do with complacency. The thought would knock on the door of consciousness reminding us of the fact that since we are not in place of that beggar, we should acknowledge it and work harder to justify our luck. Personally I feel that I have spent a considerably chunk of time in my life cribbing about situations on which I have no control.

To make it more clear imagine two scenarios, a soldiers dies in the battle field and man walking on the road is suddenly hit by a truck, both die in an instant. But both had different price tag on their lives. I know the families of both will be equally bereft but then, dying for a purpose will always be superior than dying for nothing. And so if in case the person just misses getting hit by the truck, not only he should feel lucky but he should realize that his life is much more important than to be wasted in a fraction of a second. It has a higher price tag attached to it. And after that he should work to justify the price tag. If you still do not understand what I am saying just imagine the situation when anyone of Mahatma Gandhi or Nelson Mandela would have died in an accident in their early age. Many would say that someone else would have taken their place. But the fact remains that every such “someone” has the realization of the “price-tag” on them.

I would say that just don’t continue with the course of life after an incident which shook you to the core. Acknowledge the course changing capacity of the incidence in your life. Remember that we are simply lucky to be here and we should always acknowledge it.

Unspent time

Summers to a young child typically means mangoes and vacations. Obviously school results and heat waves do not feature here since I am talking of all things pleasant. Summer vacations form the core of the childhood memories. Playing cricket in scorching heat, video games in afternoon, reading loads of comics and the list just doesn’t end here. One activity, which I still miss some time, is hurling stones at tamarind and mango trees just to taste some of those sweet and sour fruits of hard work. And I am always in search of someone who would accompany me in these acts.

During my last semester I discovered that one of my friends also didn’t give up such quirky ideas, quirky since logically we had passed the appropriate age. I was surprised to discover it so late since he was my good friend then also and still is.

Since our hostel was near to the Profs residential area, which had a lot of mango trees, we both, in the obscurity of the night, at about 2-3 in the morning used to walk till there. Then I used to sit on his shoulder and used to pick some of these keris(unripe mangoes) from the tree. We used to walk back and then savor the fruit of our expedition with a bit of salt. With every walk we also discovered the trees which had the easy accessibility and which had sweeter mangoes than the rest. This continued for many days and eventually stopped.

Why am I writing about the quirkiness after 2 years? Firstly, it is very rare in life that you get to live your childhood days once again. Secondly and importantly, it is rarest that you spend these moments with a friend, who you would have loved to have in childhood. I felt, in hindsight that I was just making up for the time which we could not spend together as children by just doing one of the silly activities during oddest time of the day.