First Step : Blog # 164

First Step

Don’t you remember the first time you balanced a cycle? Have you forgotten the day you drove a car with the steering wheel steady? Can you relive the euphoria your first lap across the swimming pool gave you?

The first step is always the toughest one to make and yet, we find it the most enjoyable. Achieving something for the first time is a charm. We all remember it for quite a long period. One of the reasons might be the fact that we do it with a lot of effort. Also, there is a sense of a newfound accomplishment to which we were a stranger till that very first time.

Recently, I came to know that one of my uncles who retired from BARC has took to learning Sanskrit and Music – Violin to be specific. My sister who visited him said his earnestness towards learning was truly inspiring.

As much a pleasure it is to enjoy the success of the first time; the sad part is that it is at the flag off point where we spend too much of time. We refuse to make the first attempt for varied reasons. One of the most common reasons is laziness. We just do not want to change the status quo. The curiosity to do something new goes for a hike. Then there is the equally popular fear. Because we do not know what it will feel like to get in to something that is new, we stop ourselves from taking the plunge.

The greater concern is when a sense of complacence sets in. It is interesting to note that the first times that we have in life begin to cease as we grow older. For instance, we give up learning new things the moment we step out of college. Think about it. The last time you would have learned something new or at least made an attempt to would have been in college or worst, in school.

We begin to spend time and effort in persuading others to take the first step forgetting we ourselves haven’t taken an initiative in a long time. It shouldn’t so happen that in the efforts to make others get started and running, we ourselves forget to put forward the first step.

The best thing about venturing in to a totally new area is that one feels young all over again. The curiosity comes alive; the ability to grasp come calling and creativity gets a second life. It’s as close we can get to being a child yet again J.

Arun Babu

Urge to Emerge : Blog #163

Urge to Emerge

                        I have always wondered as to how to break out of the prisons of our urges. By urges, I mean the most innate of things like wanting to stay in one’s home town to an addiction of some sort. At times, these preferences that we form for ourselves quite early in life limit us from growing in to our destiny. Many a time, they turn out to be the unwanted pit stops which slows down the lap of Life.

              Some urges change with time and others with circumstances. For instance, as we grow up we become less fuzzy about our preferences. As regards to circumstances, our preferences become less rigid the moment we start staying away from the comfort of our homes. One who used to think beginning a day without tea would be next to impossible begins to think the tea can wait till one reaches the office food court and at times, not to have it at all.

            If I remember right it was Buddha who implored people to embrace their urges to their highest levels so as to break free of the enslavement towards those urges. I think it’s a great way to get over a preference. Satiate your urge so much that there is no further liking for that urge. This is an easier way out. It allows you to go in to the depths of the urges so much that you see the pinnacle of it or the nadir of it, depending on how you look at it.

            Recently, I got to listen to a very different take on this matter from a friend. His take was to enforce an abrupt disenchantment. In one breath, decide to give it up and not turn back. He said that he used to have huge cravings for fish when he first stayed away from home. This went on for a while and one fine day, he just stopped having them. It was difficult initially but as time passed, it became more and more easy. And now, he no more has the urge to have fish. I must say, this approach is not for the faint hearted. It can turn out to be quite a test of one’s resolve. But if one is able to do it once, it can be replicated. Imagine a state where you have a reasonable control over your urges, if not complete!

            So the question is whether to walk along with one’s urges so long till one feel like walking alone or to abandon them and start sprinting back to a place where the urge to rein in one self is greater than the urge itself!

Arun Babu

Fight it out! : Blog # 162

Fight it out!

                Many of us dislike Arnab Goswamy and his TV show. For most of us, it is the high decibel shrill that evokes the dislike. Is that all or is there something more to it? I think there is an underlying reason too. His way of questioning! His questioning style is intended at creating a conflict and many of us aren't comfortable with that.        

            Some how, there is a general notion that any kind of conflict is bad. That is not the case. Conflicts are a part of life and we need to accept it and very rarely do we do that. Let me elaborate. Generally, there are two ways we respond to conflicts. Either we flare up or we avoid it. When one flares up, then there is no room for discussion. Then there is place only for egos. Even worse is when one avoids conflict. This means that the discussion ends even before it begins.  For instance, the conflicts that happen at a personal level, say between two friends. If one flares up at every conflict, the other person tend to be very cautious about whatever he/she says and the honesty of the discussion goes out of the window. And when one avoids conflict, it tends to get bottled up and eventually results in a situation where one explodes and the other stands shell shocked.

         Small conflicts take away the awkwardness in a relationship. If you have noticed, it is after the first fight that people become closer. One reason is that one knows how the other person will react in a situation of stress - to what intensity and how long it takes one to comeback to the normal state.This translates to a better understanding of the person.

What we become, is a sum total of the interactions that we have with people, don’t you think? There is a lot of comfort in interacting with the same kind of people as one’s own. This might explain our preferences to look out for people coming from backgrounds similar to ours – be it region, religion or race. There are minimal chances of conflict here. But there is a catch here. If all through life, we have come across only one kind of people; our thought process tends to have only one dimension to it. There is no room for evolving one’s thoughts. If one reached out to only those people who always agreed with one’s school of thought, one eventually tend to think that nothing else can be true other than that school of thought.

            However hard we try to avoid conflicts, there come times in life when one has to face conflicts within. What better way to conquer them than preparing oneself by fighting it out with the world outside? J

Arun Babu

The IT Factor! : Blog # 161

The IT Factor!

        The impact that the field of Information Technology has on our lives is unparalleled. It hasn’t left untouched any field of our society.  It has an impact on all our strata of existence ranging from societal to economical.

            Statistics show that about 30 Lakhs is the number of people who are employed in the field of IT in India. Apart from the obvious positive impact that it has on employment, if not for IT, our education space wouldn’t have emerged as much. Which other industry could have absorbed as many engineers? Engineering in itself wouldn’t have found so many applicants.

            IT has had a huge role to play in the emerging middle class and its purchasing power too. For a nation which boasts of a majority of youth population, a large chunk of it is employed in this industry. If there is a reason why the global brands jostle for some space in the great bazaar that is India, it has much to do with this employed class. As much an enabler industry it is, the kind of disposable income it provides its mostly young employees gifts a windfall to other industries too.

          There might not be many work places which take as good care of its employees as does an IT firm. Far and few industries have such infrastructure and amenities. How many industries can boast of a work environment that is free of pollution – be it of noise or air or water? Almost every other industry demands 6 days of a week from its employees. Most of them cannot afford to provide facilities which will take care of its employees’ areas of interest outside of work.

           The social impact that this industry has is also tremendous. No more do people have to live in god forsaken places because of the presence of industries is so far away from the civilization. IT firms’ offices are mostly within city limits. This means a person can choose to make a living and at the same time live close to his friends and family.This is one among those very few industries which do not put up an Ad saying “Female candidates need not apply!”.The kind of opportunities that this industry provides is unequivocally equal. The industry has also benefited immensely from a large talent pool that would have otherwise gone untapped.

              Not very long ago, the cities of India which could provide employment used to be mostly in the Central states and upwards. This was beginning to exert a considerable pressure on the urban infrastructure. Enter IT and comes a reverse migration of sorts to the southern cities and their emergence. Also, IT has limited the brain drain that used to happen to an extent. People prefer staying put in India although we still look for small stints abroad. Again, which other industry would have provided stints abroad for such a large population is such a small time?

 In the last two decades of our great Nation’s existence and emergence as a force to be reckoned with on the global arena, IT is undoubtedly the it factorJ.

                                                                                                Arun Babu

Losing yourself? : Blog#160

Losing yourself?

There comes a time in everyone’s life when you realize you are changing. It is the smallest of things that begin to change. Some food that you liked to gorge on begins to look less appealing. A television program that used to have you glued to your seats doesn’t interest you anymore. A magazine that you used to find a page turner doesn’t intrigue you anymore!

It is a bit unsettling. These are habits which used to make you happy. Now, they don’t. You are amused as to what has changed. You wonder if something else will make you as much happy. You are concerned if you will find habits which will lend you the same emotions which they did. You are left thinking if there are more changes coming your way.

The most recurring thought is whether one is losing oneself. We tend to attach our preferences to our identity. This might be the reason why we hang on to those preferences. For instance, there is a friend of mine who like tea. Whenever he gets a chance, he has a cup of tea. These days he is beginning to notice that he doesn’t like tea as much and he is trying to cut down. But his friends and those who know him have already associated this beverage to him. He finds it difficult to refuse tea because of this reason. If at all he does, people say “But you have always liked tea! What Happened?”.

May be, people who have lived their life long enough have seen many a metamorphosis of this sort. Their ability to acknowledge and accept another person’s viewpoint might have its origin in having gone through such changes in preferences and perceptions over the years. May be, this is how one finally attains maturity J.  This might exactly be the reason why youngsters hold on to their opinions so fiercely. One, they think there is never going to be a change in their attitude and approach towards a particular issue and secondly, they might not have gone through such a change in perceptions in their lives thus far.

The interesting aspect is that this happens mostly at that time when you think you have finally found yourself.  For many of us, it takes a long time to understand oneself. It takes a while to understand who we really are! And just when we think we have figured it all out, we begin to change, yet again!

Arun Babu

Let’s Talk! : Blog # 159

Let’s Talk!

        These are times when we don’t talk enough. If we want to buy something, we click a couple of buttons on a website. If we want to communicate with someone, we do it through pings. If we want to know something, we type it out and find the information. Even though all this is the way forward and part of our advancement, why should we leave a great conventional medium behind?

            Recently, one of my senior colleagues lamented that it is easier to reach out to his son through ‘whats app’ than calling out to him when both of them are at their own home. Leave alone discussions, there is not even chit chat happening at dining tables. Look at the coffee tables these days at those uber looking cafes. People are looking down at their tech gadgets while having their cup of coffee. There is no conversation happening there either.

            It is said that a Language and thereby its use for communication is one of the indicators of the advancements that we have made as a race. For instance, if you look at a tribal language, it will not have as many scripts and syllables as the languages that we use. This evolution happens over a prolonged period of sustained usage of a language. This might be the reason why there is an inherent tendency for people of different linguistic groups to sustain their own language. Losing one’s language means losing a community’s hard earned footprint in the higher evolved bracket. Language is also a strong thread of the fabric of identity. Each community derives its persona heavily from its language. This is due to the simple reason that it is the single biggest differentiating factor for a community to stand out from the larger crowd.

            For languages to sustain and then to evolve, they need to stay relevant. This relevance comes from it being used for day to day interactions. When the interactions in itself become minimal, where is the hope for a language to evolve? Moreover, it is important that we exchange viewpoints. We need to express, understand and evolve our perceptions. That, I think is the easiest way to broaden ones thought process and grow as an individual.

            Also, in this day and age of maddening rush to nowhere and clutter that the comforts of Life bring along, the best reassurance that you can get and give is by indulging  in a heart to heart conversation.

Let’s talk enough so that we ensure there doesn’t come a time when we are at a loss of words and we fall in to an abyss of silence.

Arun Babu

What an MBA does to You! : Blog # 158

What an MBA does to You!

There aren't many academic courses that have the ability to alter one’s perception about the happenings that occur around us. MBA is one such course which does this in a very short span of time.

Primarily, it lends objectivity. It enables us to look at a decision without clouding it with emotions. One might argue that it takes the heart out of the purpose. But when it concerns business, there come times which demand some generous dosage of tough love. For instance, reduction in work force. Unless one belongs to a family that has done or is doing business, it is very difficult to look at it objectively. Yes, people have mortgages to pay and mouths to feed. But, so does an organization and that too, on a much larger scale. The objectivity stems from an understanding of the larger picture.

The best thing about the course is the fact that it incorporates pluralism in its curriculum – Pluralism of ideologies of different departments that makes an organization work.  Instead of confining one to an area of expertise, it gives an insight in to the dynamics of how the various subsystems of a large system work. An outcome of this is the ability to switch roles within one’s career span. One need not spend one’s lifetime in a particular field. It equips one with enough knowledge to explore various field of work. 

        Of the many interesting aspects that make an MBA classroom unique, is the mix of people. One will have people with as varied educational backgrounds as an architect to a doctor to an art graduate. There will be people as young as your youngest cousin and as old as your uncle. Same is the case with areas of work people have been exposed to.

Essentially an MBA widens ones outlook. This understanding is not only confined to the field of business. The exposure to various thought processes and best practices translates in to a better semblance of how the world works. There comes an understanding that all transactions are interlinked. Everything that happens is impacted and has an implication.

The reason why this course of study has become so popular is because of the career boost that it gifts one with. It acts like a Spring board which gives one the escape velocity to get out of the overcrowded bottom of the pyramid and there by, a higher pay package.

The part that is my personal favorite is the autonomy that it lends; the liberty to choose an area of study half way through the course. For once, we get to learn what we like and not what the course mandates.

Arun Babu.

Hi, I am Rude : Blog # 157

Hi,I am Rude

When was the last time someone made a rude comment and people just laughed it off instead of raising a protest? More often than not, your answer would be “Quite Often”. If you pay enough attention, you will realize being rude has become quite common these days. It has reached such an extent that people who still retain their Ps & Qs are looked at as people pleasers.

I think it has a lot to do with the kind of media that we get exposed to. All the channels of popular culture have become immensely influential these days. Earlier popular culture was mostly defined by movies and television. And then arrived internet and its new found form of communication. There is an absolute absence of pleasantries on this medium. Knowingly or unknowingly, our real world interactions are getting influenced by the virtual ones.

There are a few classes of people who are always subjected to rudeness. For instance, waiters at hotels. For some strange reason, people get overtly rude when they talk to waiters. May be they are taking the ‘ordering’ food a bit too seriously.

I can think of two sides to it. One is about being ‘frank’. We are being more brazen these days labeling it as speaking our minds. I think that is just seeking convenience.  Speaking one’s mind and being inconsiderate of others feelings are two different things.

The second is the fun aspect. Being rude is fun. The fun comes out of the fact that being rude gives one a sense of false power. When someone acts or talks in a rude way, the person at the receiving end cowers momentarily. This is where from the sense of power is derived.   

There are a group of people who are not aware that they are being rude.  By virtue of their upbringing and the kind of people of they have interacted with, they become used to speaking and behaving in a certain way. The one group with whom I can’t make peace with are those who say that is the way they are and hence they are being rude! You can be all that you want but that doesn't give anyone the liberty to antagonize the other person.

Conversation demands some effort. If expressing ones idea is the only intent, then how different are we from what we were ages ago?

Arun Babu.

In Love with 20’s : Blog # 156

In Love with 20’s

The twenties is a fantastic age bracket to be in. This is when you are not too young to be dismissed and not too old to be entrusted. You can look down on teenagers as immature and still not be called an uncle. At the same time, you don’t shy away from nagging the 30 pluses by calling them, uncles and aunts J.

We spend the early twenties in universities which gifts us with the best memories of a life time. This time of the life will be always remembered very fondly. A little later, we land our first job. There is a heady sense of achievement for that job would have been the first thing most of us would have achieved on our own.  This is when we taste financial independence and the realization sinks in that nothing liberates you like self earned money!

A little while in to the first job, begins the new found introspection. For many of us, this will be the first time in Life when we actually face an identity crisis. One might be good at the job or not at all. It doesn't matter. For the first time in Life, we are faced with no milestone to achieve. Let me be more specific. There is no milestone set by parents or society for us. We are presented with a real choice. All through it, is a struggle to find out who we really are? We are struggling to figure out as to what will make us happy in the true sense of the word.

Job begins to become a constant in Life. This is when all the “Studying was fun” train of thought chugs in and some of us begin to think of a higher education.  Some of us go back to college and some of us get married. Both are good distractions.

By now, we would have crossed the half mark of the twenties. This is when we begin to get comfortable in our own skin. We are still open to ideas. Age has not managed to make us so arrogant that we turn in to a “I have seen life enough” mode. But by then, we are completely free of the insecurities of the teenage and have begun to accept one self. Give it two more years, and you will understand who you really are. You will forgive yourself for your vices and would have identified your virtues.

This is a time when you live life with some sense of curiosity of a child still intact yet with a self assurance that only age can lend.

Arun Babu.

The Great Indian Hypocrisy : Blog # 155

The Great Indian Hypocrisy

I do not know if there is any other culture which demands as much reading between the lines as ours. Quite often, it so happens that there is a stark difference between what we preach and what we do.

We call the love stories which are depicted in films as old fashioned. But we refuse to accept live in relationships as a reality. We label the tele-serials as regressive and yet do not stop ourselves from accepting dowry.

We condemn red tape and corruption. But we get our things done faster by paying a bribe. Also, we do not have any qualms in praising a government official who became rich at the expense of the government, if he/she is a relative.

We marvel at the infrastructure and advancements that the nations of the world have made. But we blatantly refuse to pay income tax. More so, we use all our grey cells in ensuring we do not pay the state its due even if it is while buying a property or building a house.

We resent the way industrialists indulge in lavish weddings. If you look at a correlation between their income and the kind of money they spend on such occasions, it will be surprising to see that it is we the middle class who spend much higher as a percentage of our sustainable income.

We look down up on well-known people who publicize their charity work where as we ourselves haven’t contributed anything at all for the benefit of the underprivileged.

All parents advise their friends to let the children chart out their destiny. They ask them to emulate the reporters and the likes who risk their lives for the cause of the nation. Yet when it comes to one’s own, they want their sons and daughters to be only Engineers or Doctors.

The business leaders are revered beyond measure. But the moment someone who is a friend or family talks about starting a business, we just can’t stop ranting about the risks involved.

          We marvel at the carvings in Khajuraho and own up to Vatsyayana. Sunny Leone turns out to be one of the most Googled figures in our country. Yet we refrain from talking openly about sex! 

And we wonder why it is difficult for the world to get a semblance of what we Indians are all about!

**Inspired from 'I support Anna Hazare, Do you?' , a poem by my friend, Abhishek Kumar Jha. Link :http://frostedfalls.wordpress.com/2012/03/31/i-support-anna-hazare-do-you-friday-april-8-2011-at-826pm/

Arun Babu.

Tea stall of the dead! : Blog # 154

Tea stall of the dead!

           This time around, work took me to the city of Ahmedabad. I had never been to that part of our country. Adding to the excitement was the fact that I will get to meet some of my friends whom I hadn’t met for the past 5 years.

   I fell in love with the city. The infrastructure is quite impressive. The roads are well maintained and they aren’t clogged by traffic. There is a lane dedicated for the Government run buses alone! How many cities in our country can boast of this? The time of the year that I visited had Ahmedabad at its most pleasant weather.

              The first day, I went for an evening walk from the hotel where I was staying. River Sabarmati was quite close to where I was staying. To my pleasant surprise, the river was a sight to behold. The water was perfectly clean. It was the beginning of winter in Ahmedabad. The evening zephyr was quite soothing. I joined a bunch of people who were out on their evening walks. There is a beautiful walkway on the banks of the river. A little late in to the evening, the tall lamp posts came alive lending the vastness of the river, a reflected glory.  

              The next day, one of my friends suggested a nearby tea stall called Lucky tea stall. He said there is something quite unique about it. But nothing prepared me for what it had in store for me. When I walked in, my first reaction was one of shock. The tea stall is built around a grave! It was quite spooky. More surprising was the fact that no one sipping their cup of tea there were least bothered about the graves right next to their feet! The waiters just walked past the graves and served the tea and people were indulging themselves in the usual small talks.

             The restaurant’s wall proudly dons a painting by the acclaimed artist, late M.F. Husain. Apparently he was quite fond of this quirky hangout in the city. The belief in this part of the world is that luck favours you if you share food with the dead! From what I could see, luck has clearly favoured the owner of the tea stall. There is never a moment of dullness for the business here!

          It was surprising to see how we accept certain customs with time. Had this restaurant been anywhere else, people will not go to that restaurant. Who would want to have food sitting in a grave will be the rational. Worse, there will be protests forcing the restaurant to close down citing “cultural and religious” reasons! Just because this one was around for quite some time, people have accepted it for what it is.

 Likewise, all the things that we object or resent today gradually become acceptable. Does that mean we are being foolishly myopic by resisting the emerging cultural changes of the times that we live in?

Arun Babu.

Sleep tight : Blog # 153

Sleep tight

        Isn’t sleep the biggest blessing of all to us humans? If not for sleep, how will we find peace so effortlessly? I think of sleep as meditation manifested in layman’s avatar J

            If there is something more refreshing than a soulful musical note, it is a good night’s sleep. Sleep is something we take too lightly. It is so closely associated with ones state of mind as well. One of the tell-tale signs of worry is losing sleep. This in turn aggravates the worry itself. That’s how closely linked sleep and peace of mind is!

            I have heard from someone that what sleep does is that it keeps in order the happenings of the bygone day. It is kind of a ‘setting things in order‘  practice for the brain. This might be the reason why most of us are so lost and fuzzy for we sleep so less.

            Sleep means different things to us in different stages of Life. It is interesting to observe as to how the sleep pattern changes with age. Childhood was a time when we used to sleep for a definite time duration. Can anyone of you recall a time in childhood when you felt tired? And then later on in life, we start compromising on sleep and thus start the downward spiral of tiredness.

Childhood brings back the memories of nap time when we were forced to sleep in the noon time. Many of us take this so seriously that we can’t stay awake during that time when we reach college too ;).

            Then comes a time when we fight with parents asking them not to force us to sleep during the afternoon. All we want to do is play with our friends. Then we go to college and sleep takes the place of play but again with friends or rather special friends ;).

            When we start working, there isn’t much time left in the day. All we get for ourselves is sometime in the evening. So we stretch the evening a bit in to our nights and the sleep gets compromised. This in turn translates in to stress. Sleep also has a huge impact on our appearance. It shows if we over sleep and it also show if we don’t sleep enough.     

   

            If not for sleep, there won’t be any dreams in our lives and if not for dreams, there won’t be any life left in these lives of ours J.

Arun Babu

Keep it cool : Blog # 152

Keep it cool

In today’s day and age, being cool is important for the existence of anything. An entity will survive the test of time if it is perceived to be ‘cool’. What exactly is ’cool’? I think at the core of it, it is about acceptance. There are various aspects which make an entity cool.

Look at Coffee for instance. I do not think there is any other beverage around which is perceived to be as cool as coffee and I am not talking about its temperature ;). Here, the coolness is lent by its association with other accepted entities. From film stars to life coaches to students, everyone endorses coffee. That is the reason why you see many coffee stores around. I love tea but it is not a beverage which is perceived to be cool. If it were, there would have been as many branded tea shops as there are coffee shops!

Now let us look at various professions. There are certain professions which people want to get in to – Architect, Author, Painter, Actor et al. All these are cool by definition. This is the reason why they are aspirational and hence much sought after.

What about Nationalities? There are nations which are considered to be cool. For instance, being a Latin American. Being someone from a non- descript south Asian island might not be so. Being someone from a remote middle -eastern country which still relies on stone age rules can be the exact opposite of being cool.

About various products – something known for quality is cool. This is exactly why Brands are so popular and well received. People associate it with goodness.

Uniqueness is quite cool. So is Novelty which explains the mobile phones’ sales hitting roof top. Imitation is totally uncool. This is why people do not want to lay their hands on Chinese goods.  

For all our pseudo unmaterialistic views, a cheap entity is not perceived to be cool. Look at Nano. It wasn’t perceived as cool by anyone. In spite of all its merits, it was looked down up on by people. It was too cheap for a car.

Hindi movies have come to be perceived as cool. Because of this, more number of youngsters visits cinema halls which in turn drive the film industry’s revenue and thus its survival. The day regional cinemas manages to achieve this, they will also thrive.

Arun Babu.