A prayer

for the initiated

....i want to break-free from the bondage of freedom.

A Room with a View

The current blog is all about serious stuff. But, then what about the world of crass entertainment, politicians, masala-cricket, idiot box, spoofs & other nonsense in general. Please follow this link for my ode to this wonderful-wonderful world of quixotic happenings.
http://theinaneshow.blogspot.com/

Rock on

The year has started on a different note; suddenly I’m spending time with my first love. It's difficult to pin-point the exact time or event when it bugged me like millions of other Indians, but the earliest of memories comprise of uncle taking me to a pandal in Burrabazar where a television set was placed on a high platform and hundreds were watching an India-Australia series, of balcony cricket played with a wooden plank and a ball the core of which was made from newspaper, wrapped by Mother Dairy packets neatly held together with half a dozen rubber bands, of Sushil Doshi requesting people with heart problems to switch of their radios in that big run chase against the ...(i don't remember), of the first day at nets in the cricket coaching camp and the sight of the best batsman from our locality getting bowled out 13 times, of my selections for the district under-19 team, of my college matches which gave us free passes to Eden gardens, and of a few heart-breaks in between. I used to keep wickets and open the innings (SG was my idol), but then life took over.

So this year in January when one of my friends came up with the proposal of playing for a cricket team christened 'Shekhawati XI' after the area to which we belong in Rajasthan, I just couldn't refuse. The tournament was super exclusive in the sense that it was only for the Marwari community and that too only for 'Mali-kshatriyas' within that. I was shocked to hear that 14 teams had registered for this tournament. India is well and truly cricket crazy.

We prepared for the tournament in all earnest and our performance was reasonable enough as we managed to reach the semi-finals. I had a good run with some 30's and 40's and the most important thing was that I had delivered on my role as a sheet anchor. The sound of the willow as the ball reaches the cover boundary and that quick removal of the bails on a ball that bisects the batsman into two. It was really heady stuff.

Now the setbacks. The ongoing corporate cricket tournament has been a complete disaster; we've lost two out of two. Lack of practice, team-effort are some of the probable reasons. But, for my kids it was plain and simple, "Papa you are not a good captain".

Desperately looking for redemption.

Dissolving Drishya

A sage who had retired to the hills since many decades was once cajoled by his disciples to come down and experience the plains. One of the disciples was the probing kind; he was well read, intelligent, and full of rationale. When Swamiji reached the city, the disciple managed to convince him for an outing to a multiplex, very reluctantly though. The movie was a typical bollywood potboiler filled with every conceivable emotion on earth. Swamiji sat through the entire movie unflinchingly. At the end of the movie, as every one tried to make way towards the exit, the disciple asked, “What was the experience like, Swamiji?”

Swamiji replied, “As long as there was darkness there was love, hate, sadness, laughter, violence, and lust, but all of it dissolved the moment there was light." That was all he saw.

Count the threads

Multi-tasking as a skill set has fallen out of favor with the higher echelon of HR Gurus. Suddenly with all the Zen teachings floating around we have figured it out that the human brain is not wired for multi-tasking, hence all activities done in this mode may not contribute positively to the final goal.

Obviously what’s good for the CPU is not good for humans.

Creativity is supposed to be at its maximum when we are immersed into something to such an extent that nothing else can interrupt us. We must be totally aware of the situation, of the act, and every moment of that act to ensure flow of creativity.

But, CEOs/Managers all over the world have at least a dozen threads running every moment, and they are expected to respond to any situation in minimum possible time whereas take a trip to any of the Sarkari offices or facility counters- the babus/clerks across the table are ‘Vedanti’ in their approach to work, they remain totally engrossed in their work like stamping, putting glue, making an entry into the register, sipping tea, reading newspaper, talking back home or any other such great activity which has the potential of changing the world order, but the fact remains that you just can’t get their attention unless they are finished with what they are doing. You feel like crying out – For heavens sake why can’t you multi-task a little?

So now that we know who is the most creative person in the hierarchy there is another controversial issue I’d like to discuss. Some years back it was found that women are better managers because they can multi-task.

Any update on that?

Are we learning?

It’s exam time once again and various education boards have established counseling centers for students who are almost on the verge of splitting vertically.
We live in very strange times and stranger still are our total acceptability of the ills and apathy towards them.

The failure of a student indicates the following

1) The failure of the framework which considers X amount of learning to be done in Y amount of time as success.
2) The failure of content developers who are not able to put forward knowledge in a form which is all inclusive.
3) The failure of the delivery mechanism wherein the actors involved are unable to inspire and motivate learners towards learning
4) The failure of parents who are not ready to work together with the child towards identification of their special gifts and aptitude.

….in fact everything except the failure of the student. While all of us are amidst this gold rush for seats in engineering, medicine and finance what we tend to forget is that these positions merely apply existing knowledge and are at best resource exploiters; history has shown us that the true masters of Science, Arts and Business are people who had been rejected by the traditional schooling methods. As to why we are not ready to work towards that big change which can create an environment fostering creativity is an unknown factor. Do you have any clue?

see oh...

The Principal was shocked, 33 students had failed in Mathematics and out of them 20 had failed in Science too in the pre-board examination. She had conducted a meeting before the pre-boards and based on the past performance the teachers had pointed out there were only 3 or 4 slow learners. Suddenly she was facing an uphill task of ensuring a cent per cent result for the school and to top it all this was her first year as the principal.

The CEO of another company had just thrown out the GM from one of the facilities, and in his first meeting with the new GM, he mentioned that they were facing too many client rejections in the last quarter. The new GM went back and conducted a test to check the quality and production efficiency among his production staff, and to his big surprise found that more than 50% were croppers. All of them were thrown out.

Two different stories, but the lessons learned from them are similar. Too much dependence on MIS has reduced heads of units and organizations to just monitors of dashboards. It needs to be understood that people will show their reporting authorities only what is palatable while the dark and murkier side will always be under eclipse. In both the above cases the responsibility of ensuring that the reports truly represented the ground situation lied with the unit heads. Most unit heads are comfortable with whatever information is provided by their managers because they don’t want to dirty their hands. Another excuse is apprehension regarding micro-management. In the above two cases it’s clear that implementation of proper checks and balances could have prevented the sudden catastrophe. And yes, having a mechanism to corroborate information is not micro-management.

A color called Black

The video clip of Martin Luther King juxtaposed with images of Barack Obama stream in and i'm witness to a very historic moment. That was a dream, here right now there is conviction. There are experts and more experts all dissecting- why he would succeed and why he might fail. But to me, Obama will deliver simply because it's an idea that was waiting to take shape, it is deliverance waiting to be served, it's a healing without which the celestial bodies will loose motion.

Truth will prevail, so say the scriptures, and i firmly believe it.

As i hear Martin's call for freedom for every nook and corner of the Americas and equality in every sphere of life, there is a lump in my throat. Suddenly i remember something i wrote when the issue of apartheid was on the front page all the time and South Africa was gearing for that big transition. I need to publish this today with a wish that never again would be a man judged by his color in the civilized world and never again would we need reasons....reasons to love a color called black.

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This flesh of yours
is an obstacle
to our hopes and aspirations
it makes fraternity an utopian dream

Do you find hallowed
the white your mirror reflects
else why mock providence
why manipulate destinies

Red gushes from the wounds
you have inflicted
red drips from the cross
that adorns your chest

that your heart enshrines
Yet you look for reasons
reasons to love
a color called black.

Serendipity

Sand particles
in my fist
trying to escape
into eternity

Every particle
left behind
is my love, my breath,
and my existence

Still in my grasp
while you wait
for me to let go
can you be the slice

Can you be that-
though not in destiny
but by serendipity
the extra slice of life.