Pipes of shame.....

I have been crossing these pipes for last 1 year or more. If I were to put a camera which would capture the images on what purpose the pipe it will be called just that "Pipes of Shame....". These are huge pipes laid just next to a huge open drain pipe near Airport Rd Bangalore for last year my BBMP - that is Bangalore Muncipalty.

I cross these pipes everyday morning around 9 and come back around 6pm. Why? because I walk to office and these are lying there for all of us to see. You might cringe (if anybody reads this that is....) but I have seen youngsters looking here and there and using these pipes as urinals, there was a day when I saw a mother breast feeding her child in these same pipes and one day I saw a father sitting and counselling her daughter probably for an interview and so on and so forth.

I stay in a nearby appartment and since these pipes were not laid out but digging was done, the entire basement was flooded and some 25/30 cars including mine was submerged under water and yes there was no water / electricity for 2 days.

We spoke to BBMP / MLA et al. And we were promised that all car bills will be paid up and within 21 days walls would be built so that the same would not happen again. Well the answer or action for the same is a foregone conclusion.....nothing happened.

But every time, I look at these pipes the picture of the mother comes infront of me and I start hating the word development.

The Social Network…

I saw the social Network with awe, intrigue and lot of excitement. It’s rare that you get a glimpse of what goes on inside a geniuses mind. The impact when the idea hits the world, and the politics, machinations of the industry, the battle between the idealism of an idea and the reality of a commercial world.

Don’t we all have all ideas? Don’t we all want to see it grow roots, blossom, bear fruits which are enjoyed by others. I am no different, everyday my head buzzes with ideas which I want to plant. But because of the security & trappings of my current life I push the idea out of my mind. But, I do not want to discuss my ideas…..I was more keen (as I am always is, these days) to understand “how can I help ideas to germinates in my kids mind”. Some say I am obsessed with my kids…well then I am. Don’t mind.

A lot of people especially people who have read abroad and come back (although I do not want to generalize that) have rubbished our education system and I am no different. But whenever I read this I only question myself. OK. Great! So, what’s going to happen to my babies I can’t wait for the system to change I want my kids to invent the next “Social network, maybe artificial network – where u do not need ipads / touch system, I am sure by then PC’s will cease to exist. I can also see lot of correlation with the corporate world – we need to innovate today and generate results for next quarter, not wait for the IT systems to get in place.. which might take yrs. I know it’s a long journey…so I need to start NOW!!!

I also read a very interesting article a few days back (and I have been reading a lots of them in last few years)on how fresher’s out of MBA courses have started doing things on their own – a lot is on the technology front and how solves our life although I feel we are just complicating or life more n more by giving us too many choices. But what I like about this article was these kids had the audacity and courage to create things for the society in large – well let me say it, for villagers. Now a days we have started defining society as 200 kms / 500 km’s around your office but most products / innovation are for the top end of the pyramid. These fresher’s have created purifiers costing 300/- which can be afforded by villagers and few other products in the same line.

I kept thinking – The social network was launched because it was cool for boys to rate girls in the campus and what every boys & girls aspired for in that age. And I said “Do I want that to be starting thought before they discover / invent something.” It looked too silly and shallow as a thought. I know the same got evolved in a larger need for the populance to stay connected. And, I guess I will be equally proud if my kids can do that as compared to a product / idea which serve as the social need of the country.

What I am scared of is something which Mark mentions in the movie. “It was cool to hang out in the canteens / pubs but now it will be cool to hang out on the net.” Millions of young Indians are doing just that, resulting in ideas / thoughts breakthroughs in that sphere. In a way it’s a parallel world, cocooned in the comforts provided by us – the parents. Many of our kids have actually not seen India in which we grew up.

The touch-feel-see-experience-learn cycle is something which we as parents should never lose sight of, because that is what will define their thoughts / imaginations and probably the next new big discovery. We have the responsibility to make them sensitive to the environment and explain the real India and it’s value.

http://changents.com/trina-talukdar. Earier on today I was reading an article in DNA which spoke about Trina who runs a small NGO called Kranti from her rented house had been asked to vacate because they preferred married women. Read about her to understand what I mean about being aware of the world and taking action.

To Let Go & To Not Let Go…..

There are times in all our life when we just cannot let go of things. There are things at job, new questions for which either you do not have an answer or you feel there is no point in asking for an answer – but the voices keep coming back at you, pounding your head giving you sleepless nights. All of us have gone thru this including me.

This is especially true when 1000’s of people across organizations stand outside their department head’s room and wait for the verdict to pass. Will I get an A or a B or a C? Because, that will decide the amount of variable pay I will get. I know the feeling – the rush of blood, racing heart beats, cold n sweaty hands, because I go thru the same and I know many of my team members will go thru the same. More importantly in today’s high inflation market for many middle employees the variable pay will just about tide them over and maybe buy that LCD TV or plan for that holiday which they have been discussing with their better half or parents/brothers.

For many of us this is a make or break point in their relationship with their organization. Because that day or moment when the “verdict” is made, the company makes a statement of how valuable he/she is. It’s a statement which is the outcome of last 364 days spent in hard work and a noble intent of taking the company or a project forward. For all those people who do not have direct subordinate a “B” is a downright insult. Most “C” feel / know the verdict and would have planned an exit. But for those who have people reporting in to them “they start appreciating the bell curve” and realize that all cannot be A or C so most of them will be B.

But over a period of time I realized these are really the small things to sweat for. Ultimately life is not about to hold on to the grade / rating. Yes that is important but there are so many other things – like the learning’s which you would have had over last one year, the amount of knowledge you would have imparted to people below and above, the time you would have spent with your family because your boss & company was understanding enough, the time when the organization and your boss stood behind you when you screwed up on the artwork, the time when the organization listened to you and told you. “Go ahead. We are with you on that. Let’s take the plunge.”

Compare this with your children, what’s important – the grades she gets or the smile on her face when she says she is singing in the choir or when her poem got selected for the school magazine, or her teacher came home and dropped your daughter because the school van did not turn up. Do you grade your relationships with your family, friends, and relation and keep upgrading it every year. No, you do not let go of such relationships, on the contrary you work hard to fulfill small promises made to your family, treasure the small moments as your children grow up.

“Letting Go” as a core principle of life and has been the key premise for “satisfaction n fulfillment” by many spiritual leaders (especially in today’s materialistic world)….but I always debated the same and my contra argument was “Life is not always about letting go but it’s about making the right choice of what to let go and what not to let go. We are often forced to make this choice on a daily basis. It’s better we be wiser now or regret later”.

Every time I see birds in a cage, I want to free them I want them to fly and soar. Be free, now & forever. I clicked this beautiful snap....even inside the cage when they are trapped and caged for life they share a moment of togetherness unaware (& not bothered) about the surrounding. Yes we all feel caged once in a while - at home, at workplace but then this is our place our little world & we have to be sensitive to each other to make this place (& life)worthwhile place to be in.

Common Purpose – Adieu’

I guess I was a bit ambitious or maybe it was a sudden burst of inspiration on meeting Devi Shetty in the second session of Common Purpose that I thought I will write one pager on every single “Common Purpose” session which I attend. I had kept all the notes I had made in a file thinking one day I will just write … that was end of Jan and this is end June, unfortunately time is still a scarce commodity. With 2 kids at home & 2 unfinished projects at office some ball had to drop and the easiest one was obviously my writing – common purpose was subset of my overall ambit of my writing – something I am most passionate about.

The paragraph above symbolizes a similar pang which many of us felt on our ride back from the common purpose sessions. Although I am generalizing at this point, if the remaining 49 participants’ did not then “God Bless” because then all of you are able to put your hand – feet – mouth – mind where your soul is.

What did common purpose journey mean to me? Did it make any difference? Yes, It did. There are many training programs I attend and many I conduct and the only measure for any programme is the lasting impact the program can have on someone’s mind. Common Purpose is a program whose impact in my mind will be everlasting – I can relate it to the 5000+ saplings & around 4000+ DVD’s of “Inconvenient Truth” we distributed across India on the environment Day & the 20 odd young minds that assembled in my balcony to see the same movie, discuss it and make a resolution and make their entire family live by it.

Will the tree be planted? Will the tree survive? Will it bear fruits? Will the 20 kids remember their resolution? Will it make the world a better place to live in? I do not know & I never will but I know I could do something and I did….I think that has been my biggest learning across all common purpose sessions.

Believe in the purpose – Means will follow.

Historical Fiction

I started the year with Kiran Nagarkar’s “Cuckold” and last month I finished “Raider’s from the North” by Alex Rutherford. Both of them were fictionalized history. I have never enjoyed reading history so much.

Growing up I hated history and kept it away from me till 2 days before the exam. History was equal to until the bell stuck for the exam to start and your teacher warned “If you do not put the put the book down we will not allow you inside the exam room”. It was also about dividing the portion between us or hiding the “nandlal dayaram kunji” – those small books which can disappear between folds of school dress (especially girls) or hidden in the bathrooms or passed around the exam room. God bless the publishers we managed to pass Xth and after that I never looked back literally at the past. Yes, It’s funny but the kind of pressure which we kids used to go through was traumatic.

But reading these books and few others which I read some time back gave a new dimension to history. If I could turn back the clock I would have dropped Science and chosen History. The past always appeared to be a mystery to me and as I grew up there were so many bubbling questions in my mind – How did the civilizations form? Where did the kings & queens disappear? Why do we have war? Even today the various cultural and historical aspect of various countries fascinate me and I love seeing movies from across the world or reading books by authors across the world because they unravel the mystery.

Reading these 2 books, made me realize how fascinating Indian history can be and how interesting it can be made for our children. Although teaching is my wife’s department – for a change I looked at my 6^th graders history book and saw 5 to 7 pages devoted to each civilization – starting from mesopatamian Civilization and ending with South Indian Kingdoms….On enquiring I was told that we will do only Harappan Culture (skipping Mesopatamian & Egyptian) this term and I could see scribbles & open and close brackets across the chapter with no’s written against each of them – which means only one thing that they are the answers of some specific questions. I guess that’s the only take away for my daughter.

Which makes me realize that things haven’t changed much since 19 81 = almost 30 yrs back, but then there are so many other things which have got added in their plate – Shiamak Davar classes, games in ipod, swimming (we never had a pool), Farmville, movies & TV time …….Will Harappan Culture hold forth…Sigh! Let me give it a shot.

Is Progress equal to 8% growth in GDP?

I just finished reading “A fine Balance” by Rohinston Mistry. It has been in my “to read” list for a long time. Thanks to my frequent travel I could finish the book in 4/5 sittings. It was a book of shocking human endurance and to borrow from Obama an audacity of hope.

3 thoughts came to my mind.

One as someone who loves to write – “how can someone describe the scenes in so much vivid detail”. Especially, if the author has left the city and stays in some other country. I have stayed in Mumbai, so I could relive the city through the pages of the book. As I read the book it was more like screen play – because I could literally pick the characters from my Mumbai stay and visualize them. It’s an art, I am still quite at a loss. Maybe I will give it a shot by writing a scene from my college.

Second as someone who loves India - “we know/appreciate so little about our past/history/heritage”. I do not know if it’s an Indian phenomenon or it’s just about me being dumb but reading through the travails of Om & Ishvar during emergency days I felt the events described in the book were not very different from what we have read and seen about Nazi ghetto camps. But while tons of books / movies have been made about Nazi but Emergency which I guess played an important role in Indian politics is not something we have read much about. Emergency is just an example but even our history is taught in the LIFO principle – last in first out. The relevance is limited to passing the exams or maybe at another extreme is the politicization of our ideals which leads to an unfortunate event like Babri Masjid demolition.

Third as someone who is part of the new India – on our so called “great Indian growth story”. “A fine Balance” is story of 4/5 characters during the time of emergency that is 1971. We are in 2011 that’s 40 years from the time when the story was written but I am quite sure that we can change the names and the entire story could be happening now. If I walk down Dharavi or any other slum I am sure I can find beggar-master who maims child so that they can beg, migrant workers who have left everything and keep doing odd jobs to survive, public toilet / station as their home etc etc.

I was also reading somewhere that 45% of India does not have electricity, clear drinking water and does not get basic health & education. If we think realistically I can explain that yes India has progressed to – create Infosys, Metro in all metros, commonwealth games, CEO’s, best Institutes where people from all over the world come and study.

It makes me feel proud being an Indian but it also forces me to question whether we have really progressed if half of our population is still living 50 yrs behind.

Devi Shetty – Hand of God!

I have not seen “God”& for a large part of my growing up life I was also a non believer. But, standing outside the “neo natal ward” when I saw “25 new born babies” (just few days old)lying in bed with wires coming out - going in, oxygen mask on their face and their chest heaving in and out - there was only one thought which came to my mind “This must be hand of God”.

So, when you sit down to listen to Devi Shetty on “how all this happened” you literally feel like you are listening to a fairy tale. And it looked like that as he recounted his journey from London to Kolkata to Bangalore and finally setting up of “Narayan Hrudayalaya” (NH) hospital in the outskirts of Bangalore.

What makes NH different?

There are lot of case studies (Harvard) / BBC interviews & articles which I heard and read on the net. Most of it was rational – the scale of operations, an excellent “to do – passionate – caring culture, innovation etc etc”

My biggest learning in the entire session was that “If you believe in a cause and truly believe in it, help will come – financially or otherwise ….”. But you cannot let go of the belief or passion and it can be a completely irrational belief but it has to have the power of doing good or a sense of service to society / mankind it will happen.

I know it sound similar to what we read in “Alchemist by Paulo Coelho” or “Secret by Rhonda Byrne”. Reading it one would take me for an eternal optimist….and maybe a dose of experiential learning has hit my head….so be it…but looking back at least in my life I could relate to quite a few incidents where in we got what I really – really wanted.

Problem is – we chase what we cannot get & what we want we give up the chase even before we start.

On the left a painting drawn by an elephant. A similar picture is framed and kept in his room.

The Common Purpose Journey

It was with a mixed bag of optimism and skepticism that I joined the Common Purpose journey in January. Today, after attending 5 out of 8 sessions I look forward to these Friday sessions as half a day which pushes me to question my “sense of purpose”. And most of the weekends I am tormented till Monday Job List takes over like a giant wave which pulls me in and keeps me engulfed till the next session.

Do we have a purpose in life? For most of us who are nudging 40, our sense of purpose is limited to our jobs, our family (especially our growing up children) and of course our own self. Many of us grew up in lower middle class, got our engineering degree followed by an MBA and landed ourselves a good job which lets us indulge in our aspirations.

The corporate journey which most of us have embarked upon is a journey toward a milestone which keeps shifting every year. But we are happy running because there is a very well defined “sense of purpose instilled in us”. Most importantly you have a feeling that you are in control and there are enough metrics / parameters which defines – measures your purpose.

Every news bulletin on corruption / scam / judiciary have made us cynical and turn a blind eye to what’s happening around. We read, see, hear, discuss vociferously, but making us take an action is like climbing the Everest. Our “chalta hain” altitude or “what impact will this one action lead to” prevails in most of us including me. So, Can I have a sense of purpose for my society, people around me when I cannot have a control? The answer is a definitive “NO”

Some of us feel for the outside world, want to do something – something serious, impactful but the daily workload – office and family is so immense that we end up looking at doing things which will come easy literally at our doorstep. The last action I can remember taking is donating cloths which I do not need and felt very good that I have fulfilled a “common purpose of the society”. Looking back that’s a tokenism which I don’t think I can repeat once more and be proud of.

Most of us are happy to be in this cocoon like feeling of moving, progressing, learning…completely untouched by outside world.

Common Purpose shakes that belief ….It gives you that irrational feeling of jumping out of this comfortable groovy train, break out of this cocoon and make an attempt to fly.

For most of us “having a purpose” is to “make a rational choice or being objective or being result oriented”. I think Common Purpose turns that thought upside down - Purpose is all about “belief-passion-doing good” without expecting a result.

Following these are impressions of my meeting with few leaders who made a more lasting impression in my mind than all business books I have read till now.

Back Again - After a 11 month layoff

Maybe it's a sheer coincidence or maybe there is a sign of destiny, that the last entry I uploaded was exactly 11 month's back.

The rationale was to focus my effort more constructively towards a book and few short stories. Ya, I moved ahead a bit on that, tried to collaborate with a friend ...but let's just say it's work in progress.

If I look back, at my past 1 yr of lay off and almost 5 yrs of blogging - "Creative Writing always come from heart it helps you to express your emotions/thoughts/views and it gives you a sense of accomplishment. It's a feeling which is difficult to explain - At one extreme it's a feeling which I got when Nikita was born to another extreme of baking my first cake. But the process of writing or "to make that effort to write" comes from sheer will power / discipline".

Without both these coming together the BOOK will always be a "work in progress".

During the past yr I kept jotting notes, thoughts, lines all over the place .....but as I mentioned it is all over the place. After a while it dawned on me - "when there is an existing blog, which costs nothing why not upload it here. So here goes!!!

On the right "Pic taken from my room in FAGU around 10 km from Kufri". I like the composition (my family hates that word..but what the heck...they are not gonna read this : - )