Omar Abdullah's Speech

Hi everyone. I just want you all to listen to this speech once. So I'm just pasting the link here as a means to spread this message.

http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=-mr2Fjw5A0A

I seriously doubt the future of our country if this is the way the biggest boardroom of the country is run. When will the ministers of our country realise the gravity of tasks at their hand? When will they rise above realpolitik & stand up to bring forth reforms that will march our country to the path of a developed one. 

I seek some answers

I am a taxpayer. I pay taxes assuming they would be employed to improve the overall infrastructure of the country. But to my dismay, I see the condition of my nation worsening day by day. There are a few eye-catching architectural feats which the Government does boast with extreme vigor but why don’t I see the conditions around my surroundings improve.

I live in Bangalore which is highly regarded as the IT hub of the country. The local government collects considerable amount of taxes but the situation on the ground is worsening. I spend approximately 90 minutes in commuting to my workplace. Ideally it should take a mere 30 minutes. This way I lose an hour of productivity on daily basis. It’s not difficult to calculate the national loss in man-hours if you consider this across all the major Indian cities. At the same time commuting in such coarse traffic is too sapping. You really need to maintain your patience to bear it on a daily basis.

The world is highly competitive place and these issues, howsoever trivial we may consider them, work against our competitive edge. I still believe that India’s major competitive edge is it’s the cost-arbitrage that big multinationals gain by establishing their shops here. I don’t believe in the tremendous talent pool that we Indians often boast off. This will become manifest if you just look at the quality of education in our colleges. Also with the growing salaries of the Indian professional, the cost-arbitrage seems to be diminishing with every passing day.

The Indian markets are attracting lots of foreign & domestic players with an alluring and expanding middle-income group. But I have my own apprehensions regarding the growing incomes of the Indian Professional. Trees never grow to the skies and so will our salaries. If we ever surpass the Global salary standards then we need to surpass the quality of our contribution too at the global level. That again comes back to the quality of our skills as a nation & the fundamentals we put into making that happen. Rising real-estate prices may augur a home-grown subprime crisis of our own. I really get horrified of the day these prices may fall steeply. The day the price of the loans on our houses becomes greater than the house itself, I doubt the readiness of the person to honor his mortgages.

Some people put forth an argument that we are a young (58 years old) democratic nation and these issues shall remain with us. I challenge the notion of our youth by comparing us with countries like Israel, Japan, China and Singapore. We as a nation need to arise & take up the challenge. Let’s ask our Government to provide their annual Balance Sheets. Let there be transparency and accountability in the annual outlays of the Government expenditures. Let me know as a citizen the granular distribution of my taxes to these initiatives.

I just want to take pride in making building my nation. So I seek some answers.

Am I asking too much?

An Inconvenient Truth

I saw "An Inconvenient Truth" by AlGore just 2 days back. AlGore received a Nobel in peace for his initiatives in spreading environmental awareness towards global warming. And I must say that the Nobel was one of the major influences for me to watch this presentation by Mr. AlGore.

I've been largely a skeptic of man as the primary causal agent of Global Warming. I'd read about environmental fundamentalists , magnetic tilt of the planet and other similar theories suggesting that man and his actions are just another brick in the lane. But having seen this presentation by AlGore, I must say that I've changed sides. I would suggest all of you to at least have a look at it.

His primary message to all of us is to be cognizant of the facts related to Global Warming and the dire repercussions it may trigger. What's at stake here? The answer is planet Earth, our “pale blue dot” in the vastness of the universe which encapsulates all our history, victories, philosophies, tragedies and accomplishments. We have an obligation to leave it intact, if not more beautiful, to our future generations.

Another vital message he leaves is that it doesn't require monumental programs to combat the threat, but simple initiatives at human level which can spark a revolution to save our planet. Some of these are:

1. Changing our lights to compact fluorescent ones to conserve energy.
2. Driving less and car-pooling to minimize our usage of fossil fuels.
3. Recycling more and more and more. Using less paper. Taking lesser prints.
4. Checking air pressure in out tires.
5. Using less hot water. It takes a lot of energy to heat water.
6. Avoiding products with lots of packaging, especially with plastics.
7. Adjusting you air-conditioners and thermostats.
8. Planting a tree. A single tree will absorb one ton of CO2 over its lifetime.
9. Turning off electronic devices when you're not using them.
10. Being a part of the solution.

You can find more information on the subject matter at www.ClimateCrisis.net.

Have a beautiful day.

Writing...

After a long time I'm trying to pen down some thoughts today. I always love writing as it brings me closer to myself, my inner being. It’s tough to lie to yourself and even tougher to window dress your own perceptions. But then that's what effective fiction writing is all about. One needs to get in the psyche of the characters who he is trying to bring to life with words.

I aspire to write with such panache someday. I hope I do. Life has gotten very busy lately, and for good too. Work has been really occupying all this time and learning has been extremely good. But I sometime miss connecting back to my conscience the way I used to do. I'm not a prolific writer or an artist. I have always needed ample amount of time to create any of my compositions or my simple posts here on Thought Garden.

This post is just a reminder to me and my little audience out there that this log is still alive and I'll be back shortly and with much more to offer.

Thanks.

Seeds...

Your work is your only means to immortality.

My greatest learning at work so far....

Well it's been more than six months that I've been working. It still comes as a surprise to people who know me closely coz of my legendary laze. But trust me the experience has been an extremely enthralling one. There have been times when you feel like utterly underutilized and bored. But everyone said that enjoy your honeymoon, your time will come. And guess what, it has arrived with a bang.

I'm kinda flooded with projects that consume me both physically & mentally. And that's the best part of a good job, that it challenges your mental faculties with unforeseen problems & issues. So in order to get a grip on things that were driving me crazy, I came up with my simple rules of engagement at work. I just wanted to pen them down, more so to keep reminding me of my tactics to tackle complexity.

Firstly, the most important attribute you should have at the back of your mind is that its not the knowledge that counts, its your ability to learn & apply what you've learnt that counts. Learnability is more important than what you know.

Secondly, always challenge existing ways of work. Don't just work if anything is assigned to you. Understand it, dig the technology, get the perspective and streamline the process. Remember there are no sacred cows. Be very candid with your observation & always never hesitate to "ask". Stay hungry, stay foolish.

Thirdly, work is a verb. Let it be a verb. Its good to strategize, but at the end of the day execution is the best strategy. Action is Salvation. Wow that has some Zen like aesthetics to it too.

Lastly always think whether your deliverables are directly usable & applicable to the senior management. Be it your manager or clients, just ask yourself, "Is my work gonna be useful to them? Will it help them to simplify their work? Can they reuse it with minimal changes?" Results matter, but the presentation & simplicity of your work is paramount too. Reusablity is the basis of effective delegation.

So that's my first dip into the management theory for mere mortals. Do drop in your comments so that you could see more of Drucker & Omhae synthesized for you. Have a challenging day...

What makes a great society?

Today I would like to write about my perceptions on Science, Business & Art. To me, they form the three most important pillars of the cultural acropolis. I’ve always had this belief that science & business are the vanguards of mankind. They take the entire mankind a step ahead every single day. Art, on the other hand, provides pleasure necessary to keep our senses stimulated for any form of significant accomplishment. After all being human entails a heightened emotional existence.

Science envisions & unravels the future through technology, which I regard as its applied arm. By exploring the uncharted realms, it not only adds significant value to our existing way of life but also nurtures our understanding of our very existence. I really have a very strong belief that humans carve the very landscape of this planet, and science has been our toolbox. Science continuously defies the basic tenet of economics that “resources are scarce” by coming with innovative ideas to generate more wealth & prosperity.

Business on the other hand is the true wealth (value) creation mechanism and harnesses available resources in imaginative ways make a prosperous world. And this wealth in turn fosters further research & scientific pursuits. Throughout history, men of nerve and vision have revolutionized our lives and them simpler and better. Some people challenge this perception, but just peek into history and ask, “When did we have an ear of such welfare when we could earn our livelihood through mere mental work?”

Art is mere concretization of one’s beliefs, value systems and perceptions on a canvas. Art directly provides respite, pleasure & stimulation to our senses by pampering to our emotional state. And so I feel it symbolizes the depth of any culture or a society.

Together they form the three critical triads of the society. And any society which ignores any one of these cannot expect an eternal or holistic development. That’s one of the reasons you’ll witness maximum scientific enquiries & works of art during times of great prosperity. Prosperity alleviates man of his basic needs to indulge into the luxuries of his desires.

Oooph… That was deep. Who has time for all this crap? But I just wanted to write about it all. Hope you guys enjoyed it. Do add anything you feel I've missed in my simplistic picture. Have a good day.

What do I live for?

Let’s start with some of the simplest questions that keep haunting us, perhaps only me, days and nights. Indeed it’s these simple questions which are toughest to answer.

What gives me eternal happiness? What keeps me going? Why do I work where I work? What do I want to become? What’s my greatest passion? What’s my most cherished dream … What do I live for?

Sometimes in our quest for our dreams, we lose sense of what we started this chase for, in the first place. We get entangled in the daily chores of our lives so much that we lose sense of our very existence. We start missing the whole picture, trying to figure out our role in this mosaic of life. The other day I too was facing all these dilemmas. And I just scribbled these lines to challenge my deepest desires. I admit that sometimes I take myself too seriously. But in the course of my small life I’ve learnt one of my biggest lessons, "One shouldn't take oneself too seriously, sometimes." Trust me, it helps.

So here are a few replies from my conscience to the questions I posed. I don’t claim to have a panacea here for all the world’s troubles. These are neither complete nor exhaustive. After all, I’m still a work in progress. So I welcome all of you to add to the "Thought Garden" with your seeds too. But don’t forget to keep it simple.

Mann’s simple rules for a happy life:

- to have someone to love you back with the same intensity that you do & to see her happy
- to see your children admire & love you and regard you as your first heroes in life
- to see your parents contented in your growth and taking pride in you
- to see your siblings loving you without any bias & caring for you
- to see your friends trusting you & confiding in you
- to see your partners & colleagues believing in you & challenging you regularly

I hope these words touched a chord. Now its your turn to seed some thoughts back to the garden. Stay beautiful. Auvoir…

Love Revisited

It’s been such a long time I have contributed anything to the blog, and so I’ll write again on the topic that got me maximum comments. Let’s talk about love gain. I’m not writing this to brew more comments at the blog, but to express my feelings on love, specially now, and for someone really special. As usual I won’t trade in names and I’ll say this again, I write for myself. If you enjoy or seek literary or any form of artistic pleasure out of this, I’ll take that as a compliment on my sincerity of expression. Because we all share same instinctive feelings and can relate to them. Don’t we do that in books & movies?

I’m in love & gladly with someone who shares the same passion & intensity as I do. How did this all happen? It all looks like a mirage now. It just happened. We talk & talk & talk. And then sometimes I feel how we could understand each other so intuitively. It feels as if we are meeting after a long break, “Where have you been?” that’s what I asked her too. And she in her typical coquettish manner replies, “I was here waiting for you naa”. Is it her childlike innocence or is it her happy-go-lucky attitude or is it her simplicity or is it her thoughts which reinvigorate all my senses or is it just her smile. I don’t know what I fell for. But I feel blessed.

Sometimes I wonder, will things remain as charming as now between us forever. But then I feel like going with the flow. Its like river-tubing, you just flow with the river & then after some time you don’t seek to challenge the river’s course but start enjoying the scenes it brings to you. I wish this river keeps flowing like this forever & brings to us more & more beautiful vistas.
For the first time, I’ve also started to feel more responsible in life. It feels that your decisions ricochet her life too and hers yours. But the real beauty is in the fact that it doesn’t feel like yielding yourself to someone else. It feels like having someone for whom you were building all the time, building your aspirations, your dreams and your life. Didn’t I say you don't love a woman because she is beautiful; she is beautiful because you love her.

I’m glad I never love with my mind. And I hope I never do. So welcome back to the thought garden. And today I’ve again sown some more romantic seeds. After all what’s this world without love. Love makes a house a home, and it makes this planet our world. Keep me inspired…

Memoirs of a SCITian…

The last days of our college life have approached. The campus looks deserted as if life has been sapped from it. We’ve seen this place flooded with activity and people & now it looks like an empty place waiting for new blood to enliven it again. That’s the trend of the world. Our two years in this campus are almost over & its “goodbye” time. Seeing off people is really tough. So today I’ll walk down the memory lane and shall pen down some events out of these memorable two years.

It was June 2005 when I came to SCIT. I certainly had my expectations; Expectations about everything. How would the people be? What’s gonna be the pressure like (Yes I did expect that when I came here)? How will I be able to survive with people sharing my room? And of course how will the gals be? Well looking back I guess I was too naïve. Living in hostel with people hailing from varied parts of the country is some experience. I feel you can’t feign at 2’o clock at night while boozing around and stripped to your minimum possible attire. That’s when you witness the real person inside. And perhaps that’s when you realize that we’re all too same. We share similar ambitions, similar pleasures and of course passion for women. That’s the greatest leveler. Booze & sutta come to a very close second place.

After striking initial chords, the party animals inside us came out. And I truly feel our drunken revelries shall be deeply inscribed in the very psyche of the college & the restaurants around. I never thought people could drink so much, esp. from the background I hail where I had seen some grand liquor parties… but ya I was in for a huge surprise. Somebody Beat us at it…. The network guys suck(only Booze pls literally) it all. Then came our indecent yet noble birthday bashes. You gotta pad up your asses buddy else you’ll regret sitting in proper posture for days to come. I can specially recollect the great Zulu dance we guys performed at Chacha’s & DK’s birthday last year. I hope it doesn't become another MMS scandal for others to savour.

Ya I wrote Chacha & DK. Believe that’s the name they’ll never wanna forget ever in their lives. We all had names. Some real cool ones. Trust you have to earn one. A proper sobriquet does bring out your grandest attribute. So Abhishek journeyed from being Bhatija to Kukhi, Ajay aka Gym for his typical accent, Tiku remained a Tiku.. I guess the name has it all.. u can’t just add to it, Gupte aka Chhava for his eagerness to solicit gal’s townships( R U frm Chinchpokli?), Anni became Cadet for his military like rectitude, of course our loveliest Ankur who ventured from being a Tourist to Dhinchak and what not, Ashish aka Chinta( I prefer PG — The chint with a hole), Charles who ultimately got baptized as a Sheikh, Dhawal too had his share ultimately settling for his heroic antics to DK BHOSE, Manish aka Baniya Babu for being true to his culture, Piyush became PPiyuuuuuuuush the Bomber Man…. Do u know what Piyush has eaten…and ya later on Pujari & the best of all Casa****, PK became R**** for the lovely face he makes… he’s the batch’s darling. Pradeep aka Parry…. suits his stride Maan, Pranab aka CHIKARI for a reason I can’t trace, Priyankur aka Takki… he truly achieved it man… he became the highest paid Techie from the batch, Rajat remained Rajat… trust me he didn’t want any.. Otherwise he would have been showered with our creativity, Rajiv aka Teddy… aka Teddy BEER.. mind the E’s, Ritesh became Body to Dead Body( SIC Strongman)… but man he played it all… generations at SIC will wait for someone with similar determination to play it all, Sabarinath aka Sabu for his literal towering height… hey is it cool in there? Samir became Maru to Kaua… man he has some musical talent… what a lovely voice.. it can raise dead bodied from their graveyard slumber, Sanjiv the Bengali and ya don’t tell anyone but he’s got the real *ornvita… he’s our *onnoisseur, Saurabh aka Gabbar… can u find anything else for him… they say all paths lead to one & so does his sobriquet, next comes The SIC strongman…. Shreyansh Saroha… well he became Choudhary **** Singh…. But Choudhary stuck, now comes Soumya, The Master… well our master has some severe itch & so he was honored with the nomination of ths Sarpanch of the T-Choupal, ahh we’ve saved the best for the last.. here comes Kalyat Kalyat Kalyat(with an echo of f***in ) ….. well he’s the grand old man with the youngest heart amongst us… I call him Anna too and we had some real cooool discussions over booze…. Man he’s got some knowledge, then we’ve our quality guy Vikas, the Chindi… well you know in hostels prudence gets baptized as stinginess… and so he got this name, and at last our beloved Chacha, ie Gaurav… well we started with Bhatija & we’re ending with Chacha jaan… So these are our priceless pen-names that we shall call each other with even when we’ll have become respectable members of our society, as if we’re not. If any of you is p***ed off with this names then try being a little honest & transparent to the two years of your existence in here. Man you earned it. By The way the .COM aka Kaadi is always here to get some heated comments & mails.

Well why I am not mentioning the 7-layers of our Networking Batch Stack. That’s our gals. I guess I’ll tread it safe here for it’s a damn tight rope walk. Haven’t we had our share in these two years? Anyway I guess after these 2 years don’t we know each other beyond our skins. If you gals still insist on your leg pulling you can mail me personally for a long discourse.

So guys, there is so much that I’m taking from these two years. Beautiful moments of present times become fondest memories in the future. The album of my life has been populated to the fondest memories of all time. And it’s all because of all your little little nuances. We shall remember those trifles more than anything else each other. I know all of you are going places in life. It’s been an honor to be a part of all your lives. I’ll miss our T-choupal, Shivaji’s vada-pav, POC nights, Sports week with its obscenities esp. from gals, strolls around the campus, Wipro’s thela, CS’s strategic maps, our immense movie collection, D-Hostel’s café at late nights, our birthday bashes, and of course our drunken revelries at Dhanshree. And ya I’ll take back a few memories of someone special. I guess the British coined this word exactly for me,” smitten”. But then as Kalyat said what’s a college life without some such bravado. I’m going back very rich with a huge surplus in the album of my life.

I hope you must be getting this creepy feeling that why I didn’t ever mention about the acads as a part of our college lives. Well now don’t act here buddy. Did we have acads? Let your conscience (con-science) give you an honest reply. All I’ll treasure forever will be Anajali Mam and of course Hariharan. Ravindra Sir too did his best to aloe for a smooth sail.

So all of you SCITians… I’m dying to see ya all once again in one campus one last time at the convo. Let’s make it a day to remember forever. Let’s party one last time like no one has ever imagined.

And lastly let’s rock the industry…… We’re the best.

The whole universe is in a glass of wine

A poet once said "The whole universe is in a glass of wine". We will probably never know in what sense he meant that, for poets do not write to be understood. But it is true that if we look at a glass closely enough we see the entire universe. There are the things of physics: the twisting liquid which evaporates depending on the wind and weather, the reflections in the glass, and our imaginations adds the atoms. The glass is a distillation of the Earth's rocks, and in its composition we see the secret of the universe's age, and the evolution of the stars. What strange array of chemicals is there in the wine? How did they come to be? There are the ferments, the enzymes, the substrates, and the products. There in wine is found the great generalization: all life is fermentation. Nobody can discover the chemistry of wine without discovering, as did Louis Pasteur, the cause of much disease. How vivid is the claret, pressing its existence into the consciousness that watches it! If our small minds, for some convenience, divide this glass of wine, this universe, into parts - physics, biology, geology, astronomy, psychology, and so on - remember that Nature does not know it! So let us put it all back together, not forgetting ultimately what it is for. Let it give us one more final pleasure: drink it and forget it all!

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I just came across this beautiful piece of work & felt like sharing. Enjoy the stimulus...

Money follows skills ....

It’s been some time that I've put up something valuable to the blog. So I'll pick something & just try to generate ideas. Well I’ve been gorging on information for last few days and so ideally I should synthesize a little of it for your consumption. Trust me, I hate being an indoctrinator, but thought garden is all about sowing some seeds & then waiting others to contribute to the thought process.

So I'll talk about this simple idea that I came up with in recent days. I know most of the ideas are often similar to something someone has said before. But then the good part is that you too have started to reach similar conclusions. specially when you find that these ideas are expressed in similar vein by some real prominent figures. I often say that its a great experience to relate with a great mind but greatness still has to be achieved.

So here is one such thought....

Money follows skills...
Money follows meaning...
Money follows value...

Now the first part is mine... the second is almost derived from Guy Kawasaki's (MD of Garage... a seed capital VC firm in Silicon Valley) speech, "The art of the start" ... quiet a man I must say... then the third line is derived from Richard Feynman (Nobel laureate in Physics and one of the most interesting scientists of all time).

I told u I've been gorging some information & the names suggest that I've been in some good company. Also perhaps it corroborates my ambition to be a scientrepreneur. So let me interlace these thoughts from different spectrum of work & find a common thread between them.

Now the matter... I feel loads of people are just bandwagon followers... they follow a particular trend & then expect to harvest a fortune out of it... most of the times when u get to know about a particular trend happening the curve is almost on a its maximum incline and is now going to become kinda static due to more supply pouring in(just like u getting in the flow now)... so its damn difficult to catch a trend during its formative years... we used to say that IT is hot... then BPO became hot ... and now retail is scorching... we should rather ask what keeps u hot... what ignites u & your passions... rest is a consequence....

Guy Kawasaki says the same regarding forming a company... the company u form shall be formed with the ambition of making a meaning & not to make money... Making money is corollary to the magnitude of your success on the first front of making meaning... adding value to your customer's lives or businesses...

Similarly Feynman says that Nobel doesn't bother him for it was a consequence of what he achieved... the real prize being the achievement itself... that is to have made the discovery of quantum electrodynamics... now don’t expect me to explain that. But ya u can’t design or create to please your contemporaries and everybody. Be your best critique & harshest judge. As I mentioned in my previous post that when u got to create future u can't seek its expectations & answers in the present.

So I'll leave with u these thoughts... munch on them... and do contribute with your suggestions to the forum ... don’t forget thoughts are the atomic units of pleasure.

Dreamcatcher....

It all starts with a dream. Every monumental accomplishment; every act of greatness; every significant achievement in life. I don’t believe in diminishing our dreams. Rather let’s elevate ourselves to them. We all have a cause that drives our lives. But then in our process of growing up we tend to accept life. In reality we succumb to our existing limitations. And we don’t want to leave our comfort zone for the unprecedented. Perhaps the unprecedented is the realization of our dreams.

Within all of us there is a latent desire to achieve greatness. But then why do we hesitate to practice the traits of being great. And I believe we all know deep inside the attributes we associate with our version of heroism. I feel the biggest and perhaps the single-most factor for our acceding to the norm is societal acceptance of our actions. All I can remind you is that the society lives in present tense and if you bring future right in front of them, they will balk at it. They’ll never be ready for leaving the cocoon of status quo.

I believe all the wisdom in this world lies within all of us. We all perhaps name it differently. And formal education helps in avoiding us reinventing the wheel by providing such knowledge a nomenclature. But then it stops there. The future is still always unexplored. The future is a territory of dreams. So keep chasing your dreams. And ya never forget – It all starts with a dream.

Hero

A term we all have listened all throughout our lives. A term that impassioned our first dreams in childhood; when we all aspired to be like a film star – “My Hero”. A term that stands for a person who encapsulates all that is “Right” and the one who has the courage to defend it against all odds. We all want to be Heroes, don’t we?

Perhaps not. In our lives we all grow with our own dreams, dreams that were woven during our childhood, dreams which were not limited in their flight. And then, as we’re growing, we see them getting belittled every once in a while. We see our first “Heroes” getting soiled. We see our heroes failing us. And sometimes we fail our heroes.

It hurts when some of our heroes fail us. We elevated them to the status of divinity & then their fallibility becomes unacceptable to us. Most of us find our first “HERO” in our DAD and MOM. And then there are occasions when you couldn’t just grasp the reason of their failing you. As you grow you’re made to understand that life demands compromises. And these are the first inklings of our dreams getting shrunk. We start accepting life. We get complacent. We lose the ascent of our flights.

As we grow we find more heroes in art, be it cinema or books or music. Art, to me, is mere concretization of one’s value systems and aesthetics. They are mere expressions of their creator’s understanding of its surroundings based on his moods & temperament. To me real artists are the romanticists who still seek divinity in man, who still find references and provide us with beacons where a man is exalted to the status of God.

A hero to me then is just a vanguard of morality in any sphere; like Chomsky in Polity, Achilles in immortality, Ayn Rand in Philosophy, Ramajnujam in Mathematics, Leonardo in sculpting, Arundhati Roy & Michael Moore in media and so many more. They’ve all been loners. They’re like fighters with small troops fighting a large army. They’re active fighters and so far I’ve been just a spectator. It’s often said that if it’s not your battle; don’t spoil yourself in somebody’s battle. But I find honor in the mud that covers their faces, for their cause is just and their chase pure. Their glory is fleeting. But its legend follows. They are the real seekers of immortality in the minds of people who’ll read about them, who’ll see them being portrayed on the silver screen perhaps centuries later.

The strangest & also the worst thing that I’ve felt in the society is that many a virtues that we applause on the screen, when being practiced in reality, are subdued & looked down. Aren’t we cheating a real time hero at that time? Perhaps we’ve all grown so conceited that the virtues we appreciate on screens & in books become so hard for us to even stand by. We’ve been blinded by the society’s sheen of hypocrisy. I can say all this because I’ve seen a hero being crushed. How can you face yourself in the mirror when you’ve failed yourself…we’re all capable of being heroes in our own rights… our conscience embodies our truths…and all we need is to follow our conscience… how did you feel when you stood against the heroic ideals you cherish inside but didn’t have the guts to practice & endorse them in the society?

Discretion may be the better part of valor but valor is the foremost attribute required to fight wars that have never been fought before. And don’t forget the greatest of the battles are always fought in the minds of people & not on the battlefields. Let us all be a hero and more importantly we shall never be a hero-crusher.

Life on Autopilot

I wake up… undertake my daily chores… have my breakfast( not always coz I’m too lazy to wake up in time)… go to office… do my job… come back… frolic around for some time… and then I go to sleep. Ok I’ve missed a lot of details, but then they are not too consequential with regard to the matter at hand. Life has been too kind to me with all the people around me who love me, care for my well being. Often I get bogged down in scrutinizing the meaning & significance of my life. I find a kind of satisfaction in ascribing an epistemological implication to my existence.

Today I just want to express the most beautiful things I’ve discovered in my life without any grand philosophical justifications. We’ve been attuned to live our lives on autopilot…without paying much attention to the small things that make the fabric of our lives. Well in our pursuit of glory (relative to your aspirations) we often miss the most important moments of our lives. These subtle things, like the words of your Mom & Dad, talks with your brothers & sisters, those long strolls with your friends, and those inane charming talks with your beloved one (or ones), at the end of the day( or life) will be most remembered & cherished. So start collecting them or you’ll be left bankrupt at the dusk of your life. Express gratitude to all the people around you. Don’t carry such a huge ego that a simple smile feels like costing a fortune. Spend quality time with all the people who matter. Don’t economize your relationships.

Live Every Moment, I know it sounds like a cliché
Life just goes on & then you’re part of this cliché.
So what do I do to be one with me?
Just be yourself & love the ones who matter….

So what are you waiting for, just start filling the album of your life….with snaps that you can cherish forever & ever.

The Corporation: A pathological pursuit of profit & power.

“The earth is not dying, it is being killed. And those that are killing it have names and addresses.” --- Utah Phillips.

I’ve just finished a 3 hour documentary on the Corporations by Michael Moore. It’s based on the book by Joel Bakan named “The Corporation: A pathological pursuit of profit & power”. And this documentary has truly stirred me deep inside to re-question some of my beliefs in Laizze-Faire capitalism, of which I’ve been a strong votary. This blog shall be slightly longer for it deals with a topic of utmost gravity and so I elicit your preparedness and patience for going through it.

There have been numerous cases put forth by this documentary exhibiting blind pursuit of power & profit by big corporations throughout the world weighing over their moral duties & responsibilities towards the society of which they are a part. Having seen this, I feel there should be a sense of moral responsibility for the corporations to place ethics & accountability towards our planet and humanity above profitability. Law has often been used as an aide with sophist measures employed by some of the best lawyers of the world immolating their conscience for monetary gains. We all, along with these organizations, owe an immense civic responsibility towards this planet Earth. The issue of sustainable industry appeals the most from this discussion but is it just a chimera or can we really bring it to reality? Well that’s a question which we all need to ponder upon. Alike me, most of you either are already a part of one such large corporate or aspire to be very soon. Let’s re-question our capacity to be an agent of change. Let’s not just remain oblivious about these issues. We’re all accountable to our planet Earth.

There are so many take-homes from this documentary that it’s hard for me to recollect all of them & put for you in the right perspective. So I’ll try to narrate a few more touching issues. The one that I find really disturbing is the concept of “Perception Management” being employed by these corporations to mask themselves with the help of popular media. Some of the most creative minds in the world with a whopping budget of around $12bn are slogging day in & out to make us a dormant member of this popular culture. Small children are being targeted as potential consumers & so are being worked upon during their infantile age to become a subscriber of such corporate culture. Is there a way we can filter the quality & intent of advertising and marketing targeting our children? Will they be bereft of an environment wherein they could think freely without any hidden propaganda?

Another crucial incident that it narrates is the case wherein Bechtel Corporation buys the right to Water, even rain water, in Bolivia & how the Bolivian government crushed the people movement against this corporatization of life’s essential element. In an another example the concept of sweatshops being employed by some of the most prestigious brands like Nike, GAP, Adidas, VanHeusen, Jockey etc has been manifested in its starkest form. Children are being left devoid of more essential elements like schooling for the need of working at such sweatshops at abysmal pays. Another fact for you--- US patent office decrees that you can patent any living organism except a full human being. It’s like giving the fabric of your life to someone else who may at some stage charge you for curing your own body because it owns patents for those organisms. Within less than 10 years a handful of global companies will own directly or through license the actual genes that make up the evolution of our species & have now begun to patent genomes of every other species on this planet.

By minding their core businesses, organizations often create a lot of “externalities”. That is they leave a lot of non-core operations to other organizations. This helps the organization to be lean & mean and minding just their business and outsourcing the rest. India and other developing nations stand to gain a lot from this proposition. But then this leads us to another epistemological question - “Why shall I leave my garbage to someone else to clean?” Some may say its helps others to grow. It gives them bread and butter to survive. After all you can't talk sense to a hungry man. So it kinda obviates the responsibilities from the big corporations. They can be completely negligent of the way these things are run managed and can save their skin.

The documentary names some of the greatest organizations like Exxon, GE, Chevron, Mitsubishi, IBM, Pfizer, Kodak, Sears, and on and on and on being fined in millions for breaking regulations. Fine, sometimes these bureaucratic red-tapisms may seem too silly to follow but then some cases the documentary shows are too gross. For example IBM machines were being used to maintain databases for the Nazi Concentration camps. IBM was not only aware of their products' utilization, but even after knowing the Nazi intentions; they helped them in maintaining these devices for facilitating their cause. For these organization and some of the people driving them “Devastation is an opportunity” and wars to them are profit centers.

Corporation with pan-global presence are beyond any nation state's aegis of control & therefore are far more powerful. Problem is that people working for an organization don't fell such strong fealty for their organizations. And so there is a complete apathy between these new “Imperial emperors” and their subjects. And now these corporations are expanding to new horizons ranging from outer space to our innermost body cells.

Another disturbing trend that is growing is existence & growth of many unproductive industries, like Public Relations, Undercover Marketing, Corporate Spies, Consultancies implementing regulations & standards. They don't add any direct value but just help them to adhere to some or other governmental statutes which again were constituted due to some malevolence from one such corporation. It's a vicious cycle.

I feel now that some of the very tenets of Economics are flawed. It measures certain things while leaves others. Every time a tree falls, the GNP (Gross national product) goes up. With every oil spill, GNP goes up. Every time a cancer patient is diagnosed, GNP goes up. Economics must learn to subtract. If we feel pride in challenging the frontiers of natural sciences, why are we so conceited to challenge the frontiers of man-made sciences?

Commerce & Government are not the primary but secondary institutions and they are derivative of the primary institution which is the culture where people live their lives. We can begin to reestablish our civilization with culture as the epicenter, where people's power is, and then there is a role for government and corporations and these roles should be attended to and not dominated over by these corporations.

Why am I writing this blog, well to put forth something that we shall all be aware of. I am a romanticist at heart and have full belief in the resurgence of an Utopian world. Its mostly a blind pursuit of bottom-line that leaves these corporations oblivious to other competing interests with regard to the society. I am an objectivist & place human endeavor above societal interests but then to me “Means are the ends”. And therefore I feel all organizations shall be sustainable in the end, both with respect to ecological & human environment as ecology provides an enterprise with the bare raw materials & humans a market.

So I'll leave you with these musings....hope you'll give them a consideration and perhaps will help our race to exist in harmony with other species & our planet Earth. Start making decisions else someone else will on your behalf.

Good luck for living an informed life....

Still waiting for you....

Well this time I’ve been left bereft of any topic worth writing and so I’m putting up a song of mine. Actually I’m too lazy to grope for a fitting topic but I sincerely hope all of you will like this composition equally well. After all it’s just another means to an end, the end being expression.

Still waiting for you…

How can I, just deny,
In my heart it’s still your love gal;
I can ne’er forget your face,
It’s still fresh as ever;
I thought I would my life all alone,
But your memories never quit my soul,
And I’m still waiting, still waiting,
Still waiting for you.

Those days are gone & time is lost,
But why do memories still haunt us;
You’ve always needed me as I’ve needed you,
But why are we still so away gal;
Why are you trying to hide what’s inside,
I can see it all through your eyes.
And I’m still waiting, still waiting
Still waiting for you.

I can ne’er ever leave
You’re the way I see this world,
I will ne’er ever lie
That without you I’ll die gal,
Come to me, hold me,
Baby it’s now or never
You & me. Me & you,
We’re made for each other.
And I’m still waiting, still waiting
Still waiting for you.
And I’m still waiting, still waiting
Still waiting for you.

An Orkutized Life of ours….

“Where have you been recently? Haven’t seen you in some time?” a friend asked me the other day.
I replied, ‘’same here, haven’t seen you too in some time?”
Ironically we both hail from the same college sharing the same hostel & the same campus.

We meet each other now more on Orkut than in real life. This virtual life has substantially overtaken our real lives. We find it far more convenient to scrap someone then to ask “how have you been lately?” Perhaps it’s easier not to face people these days coz you can hide your façade behind the distance of words. Scrapping, which used to have a negative connotation till recently, has been attributed to the way we communicate between ourselves. I hope at least we shall find a better & an elevated term to replace this “scrap”.

Why do we all find it more difficult to approach our friends & acquaintances with simple conversations? The virtual global village, ie the Internet, which happens to be my likely source of livelihood, has really taken a central place in our lives. Most of our professions have reduced to “google” down certain piece of information from this myriad cloud of information. I extend kudos to Sergey Brin & Larry Page for revolutionizing our way of work & life. Is talking to a fiend better off on Orkut? Is googling the information the only way to add value? Whither creativity & originality? I don’t have answers to these questions, so I’ll leave with them. Well that’s some thoughts to chew upon.

But why do I feel that this virtual village has virtualized our relationships too. I can feel such a void in relationships these days. Indeed that takes me to the epistemological question of “Why do we need a relationship?”, “What do we seek in a relationship?” I don’t write this blog to find answers. I write merely to key down my thoughts. So if you are seeking these answers too, welcome aboard.

Keep thinking for thoughts are the atomic units of pleasure. Ain’t they?

Mann.
July14-2006.

My first week in Mumbai --- July 2006

Mumbai, the city of dreams, has ultimately made me a part of its myriad populace of anonymity. The first day to my office I'd to commute for 4 hours. This really sucks as it completely soaks all your energy. Then u reach ur office to face the usual humdrum. That's my definition of perfect treadmill life. Well that's my dream city..... On my way back I'd to commute by hopping atleast 3 different buses and to add to the agony I was already partially drenched due to incessant rain which seems to drown this city.

Next two days I couldn't report to the office as rains had flooded the streets & Mumbai seemed to have stopped breathing at its regular pace. Then after being bugged for 2 days & seeing my favorite team losing out to not so deserving Italians, I ultimately resolved to add to my quiver of adventurous experiences by commuting by train.

Now that's an experience worth writing. I landed at the station & got a first class pass assuming naively, almost childishly, to expect a lavish( try comfortable) ride. So I missed my first train because I was observing how people board this whistling barrage of people somehow clinging to this mechanical anaconda....ya that's the word -- "Anaconda". So I thought next time i shall be able to able to board another such anaconda but I was denied this experience by the pushes of mass courtesy...This town really makes u learn the virtue of selfishness( read indifference) pretty soon. With an even stronger resolve & lesser amount of public in the ensuing train I was honored this opportunity to board the Mumbai Local Train.

I had never got so close to such a large amount of men in my entire life...ya another learning this town preponderates practicality over sexuality & therefore u'll witness explicit manifestations of individual sexuality through their eccentric albeit occasionally soothing( some gals really dress scantily well) dressing style. You can also hav live music by some or the other performing artist throughout your ride. The songs were again expression of amorous love exhibiting its various shade. Luckily love has still not adapted prejudice based on financial well being. Atleast these poor people have had a similar feeling reminiscent of the big screen.

Mumbai not only saps ur energy whicle you are commuting to ur office but also saps ur emotions with utter pragmatism & indifference of the people around you. Everyone seems to be too dubious of his neighbor's character & profession( perhaps he's the popular Mumbai thag I've heard of)...Anger is at their tiptoes. An uncle almost scolded me because my umbrella kept touching his shoulders....I didn't know how to react for a moment...I was both furious & and was feeling pity for him....Ultimately this anaconda dropped me to the nearest station from my office , wherefrom I caught a taxi to reach my daily final destination.

So hello mumbai...Here I am...Being moulded but with a resolve to mould you as per my wish. Hope we'll have a fruitful engagement....keep me enthused.

July 6.2006
Mann.

The Beginning

Well this is my first step to express myself on a medium with which I'm deeply assosiated. The web & its intricacies are the means to my professional end and enlightenment. I'll use this space to share, comment, critique and express my opinions on variegated topics that touch my life. Without much ado, I'll be coming up with some topic to form an interesting read pretty soon.

Mann.