Relationships - Conversations = NULL

There are two types of conversations - Memorable ones and the others. Memorable ones needn't necessarily be the ones in which you laughed your lungs out, they might also be the ones in which you cried, the ones in which you felt 'one' with the other person - essentially the ones which weren't bound by space nor time.

How often do we come across conversations like these? A brief conversation with a stranger, a conversation between long lost friends, conversations which gave you a new dimension about your thought process, silent conversations, violent conversations and so on and so forth - each one of them highly significant, each one a brick to build something. There are other conversations which counted little in terms of spoken matter, but counted a lot in terms of the value it built into a relationship. For that matter, how do wonderful relationships develop? Don't they develop by conversing from sweet nothings to profound thoughts all in the same breath? Doesn't a relationship base its foundations on some of the memorable conversations - on the phone, in a bus, during a walk, on the beach, on the Net or during lunch/dinner. Conversations interspersed between lots of talk and long moments of silence - silence which conveys infinitely more messages than lots of talk.

Some of my best conversations have happened at places least expected - On the ground (in my Engg days-some crisis as we would call it), in the middle of heavy traffic, at 3 in the morning while working on a paper, in an auto (where nothing was said and everything was communicated), on the beach (invariably philosophical), during the early hours of some event. There are infinitely many more - at various instances, at various places and various times. Each conversation - postive and negative - has been a brick into making the foundation stronger and its memories extremely fond.

Play to Play OR Play to Win??

Interesting proposition! I was conversing with one of my friends yesterday and the conversation veered towards whether we have to Play to Play or Play to Win! This topic set me thinking for quite some time for the simple reason that it is contradictory and yet convincing.

To begin with, in any game, everyone is not a pro - each one of us has a learning phase and then you mature at how the game is played. To bring in the argument at this juncture, Playing to play the game - I believe, we will never learn. Only when you have the desire to win the game, however small the desire, only then something can be learnt. I did hear some of them say, 'I just play for playing sake'. Well, I don't believe it. If you are in the game, you are always trying to win it - that is when the adrenaline can flow, that is when you get the kind of excitement in learning the game. Playing to play will evoke no interest to participate in the game. I can say with my own personal experience, when I play to play - the result is often disastrous, losing is just the start - your opponent would lose any further interest to play with you.

Looking at the larger issue of life(as a game itself), I believe you need to play to win everyday. You win some, you lose some - but at the end of the day, you learn. Learning is the key to any aspect of life. When you play just to play everyday, you drift along in life, eventually getting monotonous. Life is a challenge, tackle it - the only way to do it is to be prepared all the time, to develop the instinct to win all the time. Life is a dream, realise it - dreams into reality will require courage and a willingness to challenge, action on it and win it.

However, there is one subtle issue to be looked at here. Not getting too philosophical, disappointment is bound to follow if after putting all the efforts you dont get to win. It is, but natural. But it depends on your character as to whether you allow the disappointment to get better of you or you take that disappointment as a stepping stone to a new level of learning and experience. Once again, when you play to play - there is bound to be little disappointment, and a lost chance of inculcating a new experience, a learning chance gone a begging.

People and their Opinions!?

I often wonder why am I not able to seperate people from their opinions? One of the more challenging tasks I face in discussions, meetings or interactions is to look at someone's opinion objectively. More often than not, we make a sweeping assumption that people are defined(and are represented) by their opinions and not otherwise. How do we keep the discussion restricted to issues on hand rather than dragging the personalities involved is a difficult task, deftly handled by a few.

The best debates(and often the most passionate ones) happen when two people can argue on one issue in diametrically opposite directions without any risk that personal equations might get affected. Let me take this issue in a more broader sense. In a team of four, if all the four tend to think alike, then that group is wasted. If people start thinking in different directions, that is when creative ideas sprout. Creative solutions to problems are often not without conflict with other's ideas but the ability to cope up with this conflict and build upon it.

We are all trying to arrive at creative solutions. But then why do we find getting to such a situation so difficult? The answer lies in the fact that we personalize an opinion rather than evaluating the merit of the opinion. We often tend to look at who is making an opinion rather than the opinion itself, and therein we miss the wood from the trees.

To achieve balance is very difficult - something I have to grapple with all the time. However I have come across people like S, H, P, C, O...with whom I can have exactly the type of conversation mentioned above and needless to say, these have been my most memorable discussions so far.

I will strive to the level where I can perfectly insulate the opinion or argument from the person...a typical case of shoot the message and not the messenger!! If this requires practice and reflection, so be it...will find time for it!!

Unpredictability and Epsilon

What is one thing that you fear the most? Most of us would answer - the future, in other words something unpredictable. How many of us are comfortable with the idea that there is a remote possibility that we would not be alive tomorrow or the guy/girl you marry wouldn't suit you or for that simple matter, we would not get tickets for a movie at a theater. Not many and I would even say that each one of us is trying to manage(should I say,mitigate) this unpredictability in some or the other way, everyday all the time.

Statistics has a word called noise/error factor given to it, and has ‘epsilon’ representing this factor. Any model can be created to explain various phenomena in life, but an epsilon is always tagged to it, just to say that there are certain things, which are unexplainable and cannot be captured by these models and this is precisely what I am getting at.

I see attempts being made by people to rationalize life, to explain everything, to put blame on luck or God, etc. Life cannot be explained. There are too many events, which just happen and have no correlation or association per se with our scheme of things. No astrology, not palmistry, not zodiac signs will help these. The maturity lies in accepting these things as being purely random and completely uncontrollable (in spite of my passion for ‘free will’ as a driver of decision making). The only way to control these is by learning to control our responses to these events, rather than by trying to control these events themselves.

Despite all the best efforts, not getting what you want could be the work of epsilon factor. The best response here is to control the response to such event and think about ways to diversify/reduce risk such epsilon factor can bring...unpredictability is uncontrollable but mitigation of it is!!

The Power of Context...

I have reached the pinnacle of 'busyness'. No one asked me to start a blog. Having started it, it was only reasonable to expect regular posts. From the feeback I get, I realize that the readers have got tired, if not vexed, of visiting the site and finding the same old post for more than a month. While a long hiatus is unexplainable as well as unpardonable, I hope the readership will pardon this and excuse me this time.

____________________________________________________________________________________________


I was wondering about the power of context as well as perspective. Sultan of Brunei has his aeroplane fitted with lots of gold...How much do I care? However, if my neighbour purchases a new car, it begins to hurt me. Bill Gates riches don't inspire me for a better performance but if my colleague wins a lottery or gets a promotion...a sudden rush of blood question, 'why not me?' is asked.

People crave for particular things at various stages in life. During childhood, its winning a game; youth is about winning the hand of a particular guy/girl; a career is about a specific job profile and the list goes on and on. Coming to think of it, how does it matter? For example, consider a MBA grad looking for a consulting job...at present, this is the only job that he would ever consider. However, if that doesnt happen, will he brood about the same thing 10 years later?...I think not. His priorities will be to benchmark against the 'best guy' around and surpass him, which will engage his thoughts all the time, consulting being the least on his priorities.

Such is the power of context...a drastic terrorist activity a few years back seemed horrendous while it is commonplace now. Globalisation was opposed by the Chinese back in the '80s while they are the frontrunners at present. There was a time when people used to respect people who stood for morals. Nowadays, technical ineptitude is a greater sin than moral turpitude. The world was not the same before as it is now nor will it ever be the same again. The same holds good for people and their thoughts.

So how do we rule ourselves out of this 'context' and hence be unbiased. Distance gives perspective. It is very important to distance oneself from the context to be able to make the right decision. Another of the easier said than done types!!!

Vanity...!!!

Why does man relish vanity?? This question has been troubling me for sometime. A feeling of excessive pride in oneself, self-importance imposed on self and a craving to be recognised by one and all present around is something each one of us have percieved and felt too. I am surprised at situations where people work themselves to be the center of a conversation or an issue. Some people even go to the extent of holding back knowledge impressing(or is it depressing?)upon others implicitly that they are important, while others make it very explicit.

As a writer, I take pride in writing this article...is this vanity? How do you differentiate confidence and self-belief and vanity and excessive pride? Each one of us wants to be appreciated for the work we have done - however meagre or big. Does man really need appreciation from others to sustain himself and in case he doesnt get the expected, does he really have to go extents to boast about himself? How often have we come across people who put up an impression of a be-all and know-all? How often have we come across people who are self-centered and any conversation other than him/her is utter nonsense? How often have we come across people who can fake at will and convince you whatever they say is the truth? and How often have we come across people who actually make people listen how important they are and why we should strive to become like them, although that would be difficult!! Questions and questions galore, but each one of us know and can relate to each of these situations, as a culprit or as a victim.

Now to the question of why man thinks he is the center of the universe or rather the microcosm in which he is present? One reason is out of purely psychological reasons - low self-esteem. Although every other reason boils down to this, there might be a variety of experiences throughout a person's life which might have forced them to take this route. The other plausible reason might be that people take life too seriously and end up being self-centered and therefore the vanity factor comes in...although the reasons by themselves don't seem to convince the author.

How do we get out of this disease of vanity which seems to affect even the best of people? Humor might be one but then can everyone humor themselves? The other person might think that he is making a fool of himself...again the vanity cycle?!! Even people who think that they don't care what people think about them also come under this umbrella of vanity since they too want others to recognise them as people who think they don't care about others - got my point?? I am in need of some answers as urs truly too, at some point or other has been a victim of this deadly disease called Vanity.

Inspiration...

Is there anything called Inspiration and if yes,where do we draw inspiration from and from whom? Does inspiration really mean working harder which eventually would result in more perspiration or is there something more to it. Such a good word to use in every sphere of life - college, work or family. People overuse it or may I say misuse it to such an extent that it becomes such a cliched word that everyone is turned off by a mere mention of it.

To ascertain whether anything like Inspiration exists or do we tend to draw inspiration from others, it is necessary to define what inspiration is or means? Inspiration according to the Oxford Dictionary means three things -

1.arousal of the mind to special unusual activity or creativity
2.a product of your creative thinking and work;
3.a sudden intuition as part of solving a problem

According to the above, inspiration is related more to creativity and less concerning relating it to another person. If creativity is related to an individual entirely - as is usually believed , then why do we often associate inspiration to some person or a third entity? We have speakers who claim to inspire others, various mind management programmes to derive inspiration from, we tend to 'draw' inspiration from famous personalities - how many times do we hear statements like the above. How much of truth is contained in those statements needs to be enquired to bring the dilemma to a conclusion?

Man as a homosapien evolves over time. However, the process of evolution is exponential rather than linear - which does mean that there is some reason which makes him grow faster than usual in this chaotic world. A pillar of support he can rely on anytime, someone from whom he can learn ways of the world or someone who has already been successful at something. I for one, am inspired by people with knowledge - any knowledge powerhouse, one of my friends is inspired by songs of MLTR, another friend of mine is inspired by the books he reads - different people, different ways of getting inspired. Research has proved that when we do hear some 'Inspirational' talk, the effect is directly on the right side of the brain. No wonder many people get inspired but cannot explain the feeling of it - just like creativity and that is where the two ends meet.

All people in this world are inspired by someone or the other. Some people tell it out and some won't. However, in the process of continous improvement, every humanbeing is goaded by some or the other Inspirational factor or should I say Creative factor..??

Expectations...

What's wrong with expectation? Mankind survives on this sole word of 'expectation'. We expect to be happy in the future (ignoring the present of course), we expect to earn a great deal of money, we expect to travel around the world and many many more. We not only expect something out of ourselves but expect something from others also. But most people forget that some others are also expecting something from them and I feel here is the weakest link for relationships.

Say, you(A) are close to someone(B) and you expect something out of them. But, they dont meet your expectation not once but many times over a period of time. Then, you lower your expectation and still 'B' doesnt meet yours. This cycle would continue till you end up with little expectation from 'B'. 'B' brags on and on with his/her own stories least bothered about what 'A' is feeling/thinking amd whats more, shrugs off whatever 'A' is saying. At this particular point of time, you(A) really feel that the relationship is not worth the time, effort and resources. Then there are other people in your life who go great lengths at making you happy, make you feel that you have been with them for years and yet you don't give the required credit. They are excited about meeting you, talking to you or for that matter, just spend some time with you and yet we tend to ignore.
The problem seems to be not with 'B' fundamentally, but with 'A'. 'A' has simply not allocated the right kind of effort towards the right kind of people.'B'is some other person who is interested in something else than 'A' seems to think...a classic case of misunderstanding the extent and depth of a relationship. Well, to say the least, when 'A' is not clear of his priorities, his relationships...does he really have the right to expect something out of somebody? Can't he just take a step back and look at the various relationships he has and allocate the right(let me say, optimum) effort to the right kind of people? Is 'A' looking only at part of the conversation and not the total (or the essence of) communication between him/herself and 'B' and jumping to some kind of conclusion about expectations and the outcomes or is it something else?

Haven't we all gone through this? We can place ourselves at places 'A' as well as 'B' because they are literally two sides of same coin. Can we just take a step back and look at everything else afresh again??

Recently I read this poem by Betty Midlers and it struck me as a poem written for the present times that we are in. I will quote one of the paragraphs here...

From a distance, we all have enough
And noone is in need
There're no guns, bombs nor disease
No hungry mouths to feed
From a distance, we're instruments marching in a common band
Playing songs of hope
Playing songs of peace
They're songs of every man.

Quite profound are the thoughts, but how many people would actually sit back and think about them. We are at war perenially, whether it is a proxy one or real. The whole world is in turmoil, millions of people die everyday due to war and yet we have the guts to say that the Tsunami was an international disaster when just over a million had passed away.

I shudder to think of people who do not have access to a square meal, of people who are perenially worried of an explosion, of people who suffer from diseases and yet do not have access to medicines due to their poor economic condition. Yet, what gets publicized in the media are the gangster wars, expansive coverage of lavish weddings, the frequent change in political conditions and coverage on some stupid case going against some individual.

And we have people who are the very cause of destruction being named Person of the year, getting a Nobel Peace prize and we have people who are not recognized just because they are from a Third World country. Here, I am reminded of a quote by Mark Twain who said"It is better to deserve an honour and not recieve it, than to recieve one and not deserve it".

Oliver Holmes had said "The great thing in the world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving" and I sincerely feel that it will not be long before people begin to find their direction and go back to the fundamentals which are beyond money, power and evaluate as to what gives them happiness.

Celebrity - How? Really??

I have always wondered what makes a celebrity?? With all these shows like Channel V popstars and some other channel's Indian Idol, can anyone become a celebrity or does it take something really special to become a celebrity?

For too long, celebrities were an alchemic creation, taking a mystical combination of ability, timing and blind luck to suddenly pop into our midst. We marvel at these Godpeople, who seemed to be one of us while being so utterly celestial. It was never clear how exactly one turned from flailing duckling to cruising swan and that was part of the mystique surrounding celebrities.

A consumer society needs two opposite powerful forces to pull against each other. We must believe that celebrities are impossibly distant and yet know that anyone can become one. Just like fashion, which makes us feel uniquely individual while making us conform rigidly to the current notion of what's in. This tension between apparent inapproachability and the manifest accessibility propels us in an ascending spiral of desire. We want more because there are things we cannot have, but people just like us have managed to get.

Be that as it may, as a country we have certainly made progress. We are now our own hypnotists - we have found a way to publicly collaborate in manufacturing a god-like being through all the shows possible and still retain some belief in this God of our own making.

Advertising Adversity!

Hurrah! Tests are over and I am going to slog sleep today…haven’t had a good night sleep for the past week. That aside, as promised the article on advertising is up on the blog…Enjoy it and don’t forget, comments are always welcome!

“Freedom without opportunity is a devil’s gift and the refusal to provide such opportunities is criminal” – Anonymous.

I beg to differ with the above statement if it concerns advertising of today. Just take a look at these figures and you will know why. Basic education for all in this world would cost $ 6 billion, while the expenses on cosmetics in the US cost $ 8 billion. Water and sanitation costs for the world would come to around $ 9 billion while ice-cream costs in Europe costs $ 11 billion. Basic health and nutrition for all would cost $13 billion while expenses on pet foods in US and Europe cost $17 billion.

Hankering ‘after more’ has left the society in a constant state of chasing a mirage! In US, a sixth of its total GDP is spent on marketing and advertising. Most of it is tax-exempted – which implies that people pay for the privilege of being subjected to manipulation of their attitudes and behavior. To support the advertisers are the various laws of economics. One such law is the Law of diminishing Marginal utility – which states that the satisfaction you would derive out of using a product would diminish over time or repeated usage. Advertisers are known (or meant) to accelerate the pace of this law. This essentially means that you get satisfaction only for a short period of time. For example, you buy a Skoda Octavia. The utility you derive is only for a period of time. In a short time, you will come across another ad regarding the advanced version of Skoda Octavia – Skoda Octavia SX. Then, you will feel dissatisfied at your car and would aspire to buy a new car. A satisfied man is an advertiser’s nightmare – but you can rarely find a satisfied man in a capitalistic society and hence you can understand why ad agency revenues run into millions. The ideology of capitalism makes us all into connoisseurs of liberty – of the indefinite expansion of possibilities, but have we taken it too far.

The world’s headlong rush towards crass commercialism, meretricious materialism and mindless consumerism can only be stopped by a tsunamic effort. What will allow us to unleash our venom at the sheer fluff of empty-headed hedonism that consumerism creates?

I conclude with the hope that atleast India’s cultural a.ka. advertising producers will preserve their tactical gift of revelation-by-surprise, eluding both commodifiers and the regimenters, the color-blind ecclesiarchs and the color-drunk publicists.

---the article ends here.

Go ahead and rate it!!!

Nation and Nationalism….what’s wrong with you??

I wrote this article for one of the newspapers. I do not have any idea whether it is going to be published or not. Just read on…and rate my chances of this being published….anyway, u guys are lucky to read this before it is published…J

Today’s nationalism is not about a large entity called the ‘Nation’. Rather, it is nothing but a “pathological sense of inflammation”, a grievance about the real and imaginary wounds inflicted on people and a sense of not being able to choose one’s own destiny.

Otherwise, who could explain the uproar over the usage of the word ‘Sindh’ in our National anthem disputing whether such a word can be used hence. Even more shocking is the serious consideration the Supreme Court is giving to this issue when there are other very important matters to look into. The English sing “God Save the Queen”. Since this is not relevant to our times, will they think of changing it to say - “God Save Tony Blair”. The Singaporean National anthem is in the Malay language, which is not even one of the recognized languages of Singapore. Yet, do they raise an upheaval about it??

Another important issue is that of the match-fixing scandal, which we have brushed down the carpet but are never sure when it would raise its dirty hoods again. Dirty?? Did I say Dirty?? In a nation where corruption is touching a billion lives on a daily basis, where the majority of us are involved in some corrupt practice or other, why should we expect just those eleven cricketers to be honest? And why should it be front-page news for weeks when it is of no consequence to the lives of majority in our country? Why doesn’t the media talk about how the corrupt politicians are letting down a billion people every moment instead of igniting our passions about a few cricketers?

We live in times of guided missiles and misguided men. Caught between the prophets of imminent apocalypse and peddlers of optimism, we expend little effort towards self-criticism and consequently on a movement towards self-possession. Can we dream of a Nation which ingrains Gandhian philosophy for real and not as hogwash? A philosophy where the issue is not about trivial usage of words or money, but about ‘Nationalism’ in the true sense. ‘A man’s reach should exceed his grasp or what’s a heaven for’, said Rudyard Kipling. Let us so live life, that when we come to die…atleast we can have the glimpse of light at the end of the tunnel.

Where am I and What am I doing?

Or is it We?? I think this is one thought that troubles most of us. Where am I, What am I doing and do I really love what I am doing?? I think these are the questions to which every MBA or a post-graduate student would like to have an answer to.

I came in here to a reputed B-school hoping to find my unique purpose in life – unique as we all are, or so I thought. Let me generalize the tone of speech and shift to We. Once in I don’t think most of us have managed to resist the charm of being one among the crowd, being accepted by one and all. Isn’t it amazing how all of a sudden all our dreams, all our aspirations seem the same – different as we all claim to be? And what is more amazing is how predictable a life we’re all set to lead – busy, cash rich, with no time to spare for anything but work.

We’ve turned into disinterested youngsters who treat the classroom as though it were personal rooms. We treat the professors as though we’re doing them a favor by listening to them. We treat attendance as the be all and end all of existence. Lectures hold as much meaning for us as an advertisement that we zap through disinterestedly. Better still; lectures are where we catch up on our sleep – the busy all important souls that we are, its impossible to catch sleep back in our rooms. And of course the great communicators and thought-leaders that we all are, we never miss a chance to criticize a lecturer for his flow of thoughts or the matter/manner which he speaks.

What is really sad is that not all of us were like this when we walked in here. But to be accepted as one of the crowd it is important to blend in – to do what the majority does. The few of us who do want to stand by what we believe in end up being ridiculed by the rest. After all being conscientious is so uncool! And staying awake in class – you have got to be kidding! What kind of loser are you if you stay up through class – and god help you if your reason happens to be sheer respect for the elderly individual who is teaching you (Talk about Moral dilemmas!!).

And what have we learnt by making lots of presentations, project, assignments?? How to put in header and footer, insert bullet points, make a colorful power-point presentation and never mention the help that Prof. Google does for you. Google is compared to God for copying and pasting information, Microsoft an Angel to make presentations and talk about real Stuff – u got to be joking, who is going to listen to us anyway.

So how do I evaluate myself and move from this situation to a much better one which I love. I am looking for some serious answers. I just hope I would answer them before I finish my MBA….Think!!