The other day I wrote the phrase “handful of people” and a few hours later, it struck me that the phrase does not make sense? How can one count people by handfuls or fistfuls 
But you know what? The phrase is quite commonplace. Search google and you will find a large number of pages using the same phrase (I was tempted to write “tons of usage” ). Worse, webster uses the same phrase as an example.
Related reading: Checkout criticism of Friedman’s writing style
I can’t find a word for it in english - kakaavikalam is the word in telugu to describe my state as I watched terror unfold as horrifically as it did in mumbai last night. Senselessness and recklessness of terrorists shook me to the core. A part of me died as I saw dead bodies lying on the roads, people shot in chests getting shoved into vans, a cop pulling up the head of a dead terrorist so that media can photograph a face that’s dripping in blood, a man whose hand is dripping with blood - possibly from the grazing of a bullet - trying to get into a van hoping to reach a hospital but getting pushed out so that more critically wounded can be taken first, shocked commandos getting ferried in a van and staring puzzled at cameras and lights, foreigners who escaped from oberoi talking in frightened voices and wondering what else their india trip has in store for them, journalists getting shot themselves and not knowing what to reveal and what not as their live news reports may get used by the terrorists, hotel staff trying their best to still serve their guests even as terrorists shoot randomly in the hotels, and finally, terrorists - young people with sophisticated weapons behaving as if they are on a party with water guns - shooting people at random and using their brains to cause the maximum suffering - it was as if mumbai became what bagdhad has been for the last year or beirut for a long time.
How could this happen? It’s the result of a large number of system break downs - break downs like the one I experienced just yesterday morning - getting a photo voter id without being asked for any evidence what so ever - correcting my last name and date of birth without being asked for any proof there either and knowing that I can use a voter id obtained like that as proof enough to get a cell phone sim card and may be even gun licenses.
I left America about four years ago because I doubted its ability to look at itself, see the horrible things it’s really doing - the kind of horrors commonly described on Democracy Now!, hold itself accountable and reform.
I know - Obama seems like a guy who can change it - and I know - it’s not a good idea to doubt when someone says he stands for change, but then, I am now past 30 and those past 30 don’t believe others who are above 30! I’m serious. I remember how Obama distanced himself from his Pastor’s comments - comments that referred to the horrors in America, the horrors created by America and the lies America tells itself and the world. I thought back then Obama was no different.
I am hoping there’s a small difference though. For some reason, I feel he knows the truth - he may have been afraid to say it when he’s up for an election but now that he got elected, I hope he’ll be lot more upfront. He has a tough job but I hope he’s up to it. Equally importantly, if he’s up to it, I hope the rest of America has the capacity to understand him and do the right thing - not the “right thing”, i mean the right thing.
Obama’s refrain in his acceptance speech yesterday was “Yes we can!” I hope, “he can” and “they can”.
I completed reading Go Kiss The World and enjoyed the second half much more than the first. Here are excerpts from the parts I really liked in the second half.
Joining a large organization with its own distinctive culture midway in the life of the organization is always fraught with uncertainty for any outsider. It requires an unusual amount of involvement by senior management to help the person succeed in the new environment. … you see many stars brought into an organization in positions of importance unable to perform after a while and no one quite knows why. … In part, the incumbents bring the problem with themselves. When people make mid-career changes, I always hear them ask for a job that impacts corporate strategy, … and hair-splitting on the exact nature of the job. No one says, ‘Give me the challenge of a tough, dirty and strategic role that no one is willing to take, something that may be keeping the CEO awake at night.’ But when your outlook changes from ‘What is good for me’ to ‘Where is the organization hurting and how can I make a difference’, your professional landscape changes.
Many of us excel as first-rate line managers. Then comes an assignment that calls not just for functional expertise; it requires the capability to make an impact without necessarily having the authority. Such assignments require bringing about change in people’s ways of doing things; to achieve this you need someone with a sense of history. Only such a person who understands the existential issues, the challenges, and the larger purpose for the changes being made. These are individuals who create a vision for their people and move them out of their zone of comfort to try new things. Only those who have a sense of history can create future. This, as a key job requirement, is seldom understood by people who choose staff for assignments that need large-scale change management.
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A great leader has the capability to attract and retain talent that is better than him in many aspects.
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When we we look to hire people, we invariably look for sameness. It is so much more comfortable. But progress requires intelligent friction, push back, points and healthy counterpoints. The job of leaders is to build high personal comfort with contrarians who think differently, create alternative points of view and have the power to question the state of things.
Faced with a crisis, the job of a leader is to take charge and broadcast his or her intent. … In the middle of adversity, a leader must see what can be saved and what must be given up. Everything during such a period is negotiable.
… consequence of our choices are indeed our own responsibility.
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In nature, you work until it is time to say goodbye. In life, too many people look at work as a burden, some consider it a curse. If we do not work, what would we do with our able body and mind?…We do not realize how lucky we are to be able to get up in the morning and go some place where work awaits us.
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In the journey called life, as we are engulfed in the everyday grind, chasing our own successes and trying to survive the failures, we constantly look for the golden formula. There is, in reality, no golden formula, just a set of lessons.”
… everything begins in the mind as an idea, a dream. If we believe in the idea strongly enough and are willing to give it our very best, everything is possible. It is our conviction that breathes life into an idea and makes it a living thing.
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The power to receive is far more important than the power to give. … The input from the two parents remaining the same, the output can be vastly different.
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We need to develop an expansive view of life; we need to believe that there is more in it for everyone if everyone is involved and benefits. Leaders must develop a mindset of abundance, not scarcity, as they build their organizational vision.
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…nothing is a given, there is no such thing as a status quo. … Leaders must look at things as they are, not as we wish they should have been. While a leader’s job is to alter the reality, he cannot begin by looking at life with an altered reality.
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…over achievement comes with a price tag. If not handled well, there is a danger that things will spin out of control at the very height of your professional career for reasons that often beat common sense.
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Focus on the issues that that fall in the overlap of your zone of concern and zone of influence. Concern without influence is of no use.
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Passion to me is what passion does. Too many people know what is wrong with the world. Their knowledge and intensity do not matter. What matters is making a small but real difference. That is why the Mahatma said, ‘Be the change you want to see’.
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Remember the day in your life when you received a hefty and unexpected pay rise? How long did that pleasurable feeling last? What happened after that? Money is important in life but the not the source of any lasting happiness.
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There will be moments when you feel you are at crossroads; times when you question the very meaning of life and the existence of god. You are not the only one to feel this way. It is a rite of passage. People who create great impact suffer from moments of great soul-searching. In itself, it is a good sign …
… making it in life is not about material benefits and carving individual success; it is about moving from brightness to greater brightness, while taking people along.
I’m only through 2/3rds of the recent “Go kiss the world” book (link to video intro) by Subroto Bagchi, Mindtree’s founder. The book is basically an auto-biography but what made it interesting for me is the abstraction at the end of each chapter where the author tries to reflect on what that part of his life can teach every young professional. I really liked some of these sections and wanted to share them with you. Here are a few - I will share more later.
At the source of a river, we have no idea of the path it will take to reach its confluence. Yet, I meet countless young professionals anxious about picking the right job and the right company, overplanning their careers. Their usual refrain is: … “What will I be, what will I be?”. They overlook the importance of the smallest of jobs and forget that in our early lives, the job in itself is immaterial. What is material is the work ethic we build. Your first, the second, and even perhaps the third job will not build or define your career; the respect, patience, affection and gratitude with which you treat them will.
… more than just living your life, the capacity to behold it is even more beautiful.
… quite often displacement is the key to progress, and we need to develop comfort with it. …
… Many professionals shudder at the thought of physical displacement, yet crave rapid mobility and growth in their careers. …
When you are continuously displaced, you make friends easily. You have low expectations from the unfamiliar; hence you are more pleasantly surprised than frustrated when faced with life’s many ups and downs.
There are inevitable times in every life when we all must step on a thorn. It is never a pleasurable feeling, it is not meant to be. … “Why me?” question. In the larger scheme of things, that question is as irrelevant as the pain itself. All of us realize this sooner or later. What many of us do not comprehend is the futility of carrying the baggage of that pain into our future. … if I begin to blame the thorn, the pain has a tendency to linger; sometimes the pain expands as time passes, its memory holding centre stage, colouring how we view and feel about our lives. In life, we cannot avoid pain. What we can do is learn from the pain and move on.
I count my blessings for the early-life influences …
… As we get on with the concrete business of life, we lose our capacity to receive from people. The capacity to receive asks for humility. Humility makes the mind an empty vessel that then can receive. The capacity to receive expands when there is the willingness to give back - only when we return what we receive, are we blessed to receive even more.
… Living things are characterized by their capacity to remember. … few understand that we are not only capable of creating memories of our past, we can actually create memories of the future. … even when we are faced with seemingly unfamiliar situations in life and make choices that seem to come from nowhere, in reality, they stem from memories of future.
[My take: I read “memories of the future” as the “vision we see for ourselves”]
I began to realize the importance of writing in my regular work as well. Communication is a key requirement to be an effective leader in a large organization. Those who write well, learn to synthesize their ideas better; it makes them better thinkers. Leaders who generate content even as they perform their work, help their organizations learn. They are able to create alignment with larger groups of people within and inclusion with the world outside. Affection for content helps to build and disseminate points of view effectively. Like a sport, writing requires cultivation over a long period of time and can become a fulfilling occupation.
[My take: While this is my favorite idea/talking point
… my360-degree feedback … upset me greatly and I went to see Dr Mitta about it. … he told me that we live in a world where perception is reality. And that it takes time for perception to build up. So, the solution for me was to go back and do my work but be aware of my actions and what I said.
I took his advice to heart, and did all that he had advised with care. Next year, I received the same feedback from some peers. This time I was devastated. Once again I expressed my frustration to Dr Mitta. … told me, ‘While it takes time to build perceptions, it takes even longer for perceptions to change.’ … we should not expect people to change what they think of us overnight. This should not cause us to lose spirit - …
Hmm…attacks on churches continue. Either the BJP government is out of its mind - it deserves to be dismissed if that is the case - or, there is a conspiracy by Deva Gowda and/or Congress to make it seem as if the BJP government cannot be trusted to protect minorities. BSY would be foolish to not come down strictly against his own home minister and bajrang dal. There’s no way he can stay in power if he uses the same old shameless explanations of last few days.
I loved the movie, and all the performances. I, of course, loved the scene where Amitabh forces Preity to shout her guts out and get her sorrows out of her system. The movie isn’t perfect though - as the reviewers in ToI and Rediff pointed out to differing degrees but you know what - I loved it because I think it focused on a very real, and touching topic - imperfections in life. All the characters in the movie have something or the other to regret about.
I’ve not read Shakespere - the nearest I’ve come to is reading an abridged version of “Comedy of errors” - so, I don’t really understand the character of King Lear. I read up wikipedia’s summary and that didn’t help me connect the theme I pointed out above and the title, “The Last Lear”. If you see the connection, do let me know
Kashmir is often referred to as “heaven on earth”. I’ve never been there - so, didn’t know how justified this hype was but after seeing Tahaan, I am not sure Kashmir is a heaven for its inhabitants. No, I am not saying this because there’s a war or war like condition in kashmir. I’m saying this because I know how cold it can get in the mountains and how much infrastructure is needed to live comfortably in cold climates. I was in upstate new york and believe me, it wouldn’t be fun living there in winter without heaters in your home. Average kashmiri houses, at least as shown in the films, seemed to be too ill-equipped to protect their inhabitants in the winter from the cold outside. Add to that the fact that there aren’t cars with heaters you can drive in - only open buses you can take to go from place A to B, I’m not sure it’s not cruel to tell an ordinary kashmiri that kashmir is heaven on earth.
As I was driving to work last week, I was listening to a recording of R K Srikhantan’s concert at CMANA in 2002. I remembered that I really enjoyed the concert back then but didn’t recall that he had sung “nagumOmu ganalEni” in that concert. I was pleasantly surprised once that keertana started playing. As I heard the lines, “khaga raaju nee aanati vini vEga canalEdO! gaganaaniki, ilakU bahu dUraM baninADO!”, I was all smiles - I was chuckling so much that an auto driver looked suspiciously at me wondering why I am so happy even as I was driving on a narrow road, competing with all kinds of vehicles on the road for space to go ahead. Here’s why I was all smiles. In this keertana, Tyagaraja wanted to tell the big guy - Rama - that he isn’t showing up at work , er, I mean showing up before his devotees to take care of them. And how does he tell him that? He wonders if Rama’s driver - Garuda - is being lazy and not responding even though Rama himself may have wanted to show up After all, Garuda might have looked up the distance between heaven and earth and said it’s too far to go
Thankfully, the dialog in modern workplaces doesn’t have to be this indirect
I’ve always loved Rafael Nadal from the first time I have seen him - that was years ago when he first won french open. I vividly remember him jumping with clinched fists to celebrate every single win - his exuberance just bowled me over. The way he ran down every ball was just incredible. But this blog is not about him - it’s rather about his opponent - Roger Federer - who captured my imagination as he lost in the wimbledon final today after he literally “tried everything” to stop Nadal.
As I saw Nadal lose opportunity after opportunity to close the match against Federer, I realized why Federer is so tough to beat. Every single time he faced a couple of break points against him, he won the next couple of points with such ease and swiftness that it almost seemed as if he plays his best tennis only when he is down. The first break point would almost always be saved with an ace; and the next one would be finished with a wide serve - one that pulls Nadal to one extreme part of the court - and a decisive volley at the net.
In hindsight, I realize that I respected and backed Nadal because he always put in the maximum effort. Federer, in contrast, always seemed to win with ease and hence, my heart did not really go out to him. But then, if I put my emotions aside and think objectively, shouldn’t effectiveness win over effort any day? I have a suspicion that humanity can be divided into two - those that are emotional and back “effort” and those that are objective and respect “effectiveness”. Where do you fall?
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