the cutting edges of the mind.....

A couple of years back during my stint in college I met a couple of friends working for a NGO in Delhi. As we got talking amongst other things a couple of questions popped up regarding the fascinating work they do – this was more to satisfy my curiosity about the same. They seemed to be working with so many kinds of people from different segments in life - working with the common man, politicians, corrupt politicians, film-makers or even sometimes locals goons. Sounded like a fascinating job – interacting with top directors, thought leaders, and even celebrities at times. The “Narmada Bachao Andolan” episodes she mentioned in detail were vivid and realistic – somehow they had a way with words and I and my friends could visualize everything.

Wonderful!! After the realization the basic human characteristic “maya” took over.

How do you get that kind of career? Most of these guys were BA or B-Coms and just “fell into it” by accident. My mind went racing and it actually took me a long time to decide what to make do with my life.

Well I had gone through a similar advice from Scott Adams from “Dilbert’s Blog”, only recently and that probably struck a chord in me. Maybe someone else had earlier discovered something before me but the entire event was one sweet moment for me.

I second the same emotions that were portrayed in that blog:

If you want an average successful life, it doesn’t take much planning. Just stay out of trouble, go to school, and apply for jobs you might like. But if you want something extraordinary, you have two paths:

1. Become the best at one specific thing.

2. Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things.

Well I had believed in this theory for the last 10 years or more. I could have opted for medicine or engineering in grad school (almost) – but I took up engineering possibly studying the number of avenues that would open up instead. I realized that with the kind of mindset I had, it would be difficult for me to be the best scholar in medicine in particular batch – and no way could I settle to be the average physician round the street corner.

Then again I took up chemical technology as my engineering major – computer sciences were passé and mechanical or electrical would prove too technical – although I realized in the later part of my stint that reactor design, process technology or thermodynamics though interesting for the top 25% of class, failed to hold my attention for long, although I could fairly understand and comprehend most of it.

Then my MBA – Finance was the buzz of the day with investment banks being the key driver for students choosing the major. But I opted for marketing as majors & IT+ Strategy as minors – a strange choice that was mirrored by some of my colleagues. I was always a decent speaker in school or college and my people skills were really never in question.

What I lacked (which I had identified earlier was the subject matter and the scope to which I could speak on). Well all my career choices seemed to be right to this point as I am chasing targets speaking to tons of people around the world discussing their business, their pain points, and probable solutions on a daily basis. While travel and interaction with people are probable incentive for my job – what I most admire is the knowledge that I gain every time I speak to a customer discussing his business challenges. I get to see parts of the whole business conglomerates just speaking to these people - whether they be in the engineering, R&D or the CEO’s office. It’s always a rewarding experience.

Well I must say at this point there are so many avenues I want to learn more on. As I delve deeper into the life sciences & health care industry I feel there are so many more things I need to know – building knowledge is like natures way with life. It has got to evolve and shape up better with time. This is one more key factor to success I guess.

Well look around for most of the celebrities & famous people around – they seem to be better than 25% of most people in 3 or more things. It’s a simple concept of evolution that nature has followed every time for survival – if you can’t be the biggest be the fastest or the strongest etc etc or the smartest or maybe a combination or three or all of the above.

There might be 1001 ways to fail in life, but only a handful of ways to be successful. Make it worth - make yourself worth it.

Always remember Einstein’s golden words:

Try not to be a man of success, but rather to be a man of value……….

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friends are forever.....

Well I have shifted to Pune for some time now - 4 months to the calendar. Shifting between jobs, a new city, new people - i guess life was chugging along merrily but somehow i had completely lost track of it. Setting up a new place so that it can at least be called a house instead of a home, getting the essentials in place - somehow I lost track of so many things in my life - one including my friends.

Well I am no the sort of guy who would completely lose track of the good things in life – friends essentially are right there in the top 5 of my hit list. An occasional hi over the phone could never substitute the hours of fun and meaningful (J) conversation we had amongst the 4 of us – somehow I am not mentioning the names here but I am sure they will know its meant for them.

Nothing could substitute the unadulterated threads of friendship between us – the nights that were spent shivering in the cold of the coffee shop in IIT Delhi or under the main building of the complex. Neither the incessant bites of mosquitoes nor the glaring eyes of the sentry’s could deter us from having a hearty laugh while the others toiled away for the semesters. Mind it – somehow we too were appearing for the same semesters – it was either a act of foolishness or the random obscure though or fearlessness backed by self-belief (maybe) that gave us the courage to still enjoy & live life in that serene ambiance.

Well life was never the same as we all duly completed our Post Grad with finesse (well almost) and got jobs – a avenue to probably fight meaningfully to make a life of what was thrown at us. And yes I guess we did well. Two of us in the same company in Delhi, one other in Bangalore (all 3 trying still to make a career out in the IT industry), while the other after some sour-searching found her calling for a PhD from a university in North Dakota. Similar fate was somehow awaiting me as a year later again a couple of friends went their own ways – one pursuing targets in the US, the other trying his hand in a business he had long planned.

Email trails went cold somewhat, calls hardly happened an occasional scrap on facebook or orkut wishing on an eventful occasion was all that was left. We still feel the excitement mutually when we talk once in a blue moon, over the phone probably trying hard to relive the older moments of glory trying to quench the hungry soul of emotions & feelings.

Yes, it is hard to be away from the people who really care for you. But, that is life. Everyone moves on in this journey called life.

Maybe it is because people move on that we finally start to understand the meaning of a true friendship. Maybe if life were to be enacted as a fairytale, we’d probably never be able to appreciate the good things in life….friends, laugher, unadulterated joy, banter.

But, one thing is for certain. Once the paths of life have met and an exchange takes place, there is no need to renew it. Unlike others, with friends life continues at any point in time. You may be engrossed in a big business, a major crisis and yet when a mail, call or a forward arrives, you are transported back to the days and moments you’d spent with this person called friend. And that is enough for this Indian to push on and live life in this world of aliens.

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the board regrets to announce that . . .

. . . that the chief typewriter monkey’s wife has been afflicted by food poisoning after a round of panipuri & vada pao (indian burger) from the vendor down the street corner and it implies that he shall be busy running to & fro between the hospital & home running various errands - this also means that there will be no posts for the next few days.

However, the board recommends the archives for your reading pleasure.

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natural conclusions......

Some people are just endowed with the ability to make the right decisions at the right time (or at least I believe they have). Look around at hundreds of successful investment bankers or industrialists or even an odd common man who has risen to great heights based of this fact alone.

However when it comes to making decisions in my own life, yours truly has often been swamped with trouble. Advice has not helped much either – people say listen to your heart, chose your gut instinct while management gurus preach us to visualize what we want. There are so many ways to make a decision - (yet all assume) that I know, deep down, what's best. The fact is, I don't know what's best, and really, I never will.

Also, I don't trust my "man" inside either; I'm a typical Indian and tend to be on the overly emotional side. Listening to my heart would cause me to fall in love too fast, make too many purchases (my credit card bills would shoot off the roof), eat and drink too much, basically moderation would be out the door (well it has not happened as of now but I live in the constant fear of this fact).

So what do I do? My past experiences in life generally has helped me develop an innovative yet insane (profoundly) methodology - I take the choices I have, and think which choice - having not been chosen, would I regret the most?

It's the polar opposite of what everyone normally suggests, but I've found it helpful because I also have a fear a failure (who doesn't, right?). That fear sometimes causes me to make the safe choice. What if down the road I look back and think about that choice that wasn't so clear? Will I regret not even trying?

My best friend gave me some similar advice, which was basically that you should choose the option with the most unknowns; it'll be a better learning experience.

Making a decision is difficult and whenever I'm feeling stressed out about it, I also try to remember to be thankful that I have the power to make the choice. Some aren't so lucky I guess

I end this post with one more line that existed on my signature in outlook earlier…….something this Indian follows even to this very day.

Before you start some work, always ask yourself three questions - Why am I doing it, what the results might be and will I be successful. Only when you think deeply and find satisfactory answers to these questions, go ahead.

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motto of the day.....

A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort......

Well this happened to be on my outlook signature in my previous company. I really don't know on how many people it may have rubbed off in a negative fashion because of all the wrong reasons. Sometimes I wonder if being too honest & upfront in your work style may affect how people in the workplace actually see you.


Well my philosophy like many others of my generation has been to stick to honest regimen of conducting business dealing whether internally or externally with clients - it has (till date) never put me on a sticky wicket although there have been an odd occurrence at times. (I will have to call up my ex-colleagues and probably get their version on me).


Till then I guess I will live by it.

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coffee: anatomy of the soul....

Horrendous!!!

That’s what could best describe the coffee from the vending machine in office. Well while most people will agree with me on the quality of coffee served out of vending machines in office, I would beg to differ as I have come across perfectly acceptable coffee in many instances in various offices I have visited during my work stint over the last 2 years. Well most people might call me a difficult person to satisfy (most people actually still do) I wasn’t always a coffee snob.

When I started drinking coffee during my MBA days in IIT Delhi (Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi – for the uninitiated), I did so for purely utilitarian reasons. It was part of a desperate plan to improve my plummeting finance grades – the only subject in which I had managed to score a C in my semester. I figured that staying awake during class or maybe 6 hours before the exam, (trying to best leverage many best practices and niche strategies for solving problems at the last minute) would be a key step in this effort. It didn’t help--either with nap-prevention or with my grades. I repeated my performance again in the 3^rd semester (well I was no fool with the subject – just that I hardly had any interest playing with numbers; well my math marks during school and my chemical technology days will vouch for that)

One important thing I did learn during that semester was that there are few beverages more repulsive than nestle blended apple ice-tea, which was available albeit a very short period of 6 months during my 2 years stint in IIT Delhi. To this day, whenever I get a whiff of apple ice-tea I’m hit with a sudden wave of nausea, followed by an odd compulsion to diagram Porters 5 forces model (presumably on the repulsion theory)

After my Business Administration academic years, I began my journey toward a full-fledged Sales & Marketing habit, taking tentative steps toward the grown-up world of real coffee consumption.

A good cup is an absolute must before any business interaction!!!

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enlightenment......

It happened to me as I was returning from a tourist destination with my in-laws in tow - a night long ride on a lousy Volvo with broken seats and hot air (literally) coming from down under my seat which somehow negated the AC "effects" of the bus. My father-in-law happened to be someone of high importance in the telephone exchange back home in Calcutta but for the last decade taken greatly to religion devoting most his time in religious and philosophical pursuits which somehow didn’t go down very well with me.

I was not actually planning a long conversation on this lousy bus that too at wee hours of the night so I was tapping away the buttons on my newly acquired psp wildly when my father-in-law broke the silence and laid the foundation of a communication piece that has somehow taken some mind share off me these days - topic was not arbitrarily chosen, and I feel deliberately taken as religion & philosophy. It started interestingly, when he suddenly asked me, "Are you an atheist?"

Now I AM an atheist-at least according to the dictionary. Basically I don't believe in worshiping God, in religion or idol worship. I do, but, willingly partake in all the social and cultural activities which have a religious inclination. This I do as per the advice of my parents, firstly because these are abundant in India and secondly to avoid antagonizing my parents and stay away from societal controversy and consternation. Considering all this, I DO believe in a power above myself and that the universe is governed by a higher energy force, this I do for my own reasons.


So, getting back, I answered my FIL’s question in the affirmative and explained to him that I believe in the omnipotent energy, of which I have seen proof, and this belief I require for strength when my mind is weak or when I falter.


He then explained his point of view with the help of the Upanishads and the Bhagvad Gita (OMG). Having said that, I must clarify that though a thorough religious person himself, he took a purely philosophical approach while speaking to me.

It would be quite impossible to retrace the exact discussion owing to my rather poor memory and the fact that we digressed a lot in the course of the discussion, which was obvious I guess.

But at the end of it I wished to summarize the conversation. That resulted in the following:

The concept of 'God' is a man-made one. Every different religion is the result of the limitation of the mind of man in the way of 'conceptualizing' God (same old wine in a new bottle concept – but something that I had never given a thought).

For eventually every religion in essence preaches the same thing- 'God is and omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient manifestation of our belief.'

Religion is a tool for initiation into the 'philosophy of life'.

The various contorted consequences and unfortunate abhorrence in the name of religion is a result of the decay and limited cognitive and perceptive abilities of man's mind or a shrewd mind with an ulterior motive.

So I guess in the end, I was enlightened!!!

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