I can't feel anything

The girl has died and I can't feel anything. I say that with a lot of guilt and shame in my heart. I should feel something, like million others who are expressing their grief in the ways they can. Some are posting status messages, some are discussing it with their friends, and some are just feeling sad and trying to overcome the despair.

But I don't feel anything, not even an iota of sadness or regret. I will go ahead and confess that I felt sadder by hearing about the death of Tony Greig than the death of the girl. I wish I knew precisely why I feel that way, but I doubt I do. Make no mistake, my unreasonable feelings have again put me in an embarrassing situation and I am acutely aware of my shame in admitting my guilt.  I know that I should feel something; in fact I should feel a lot more than something, considering the sheer gruesomeness of the incident which led to the death of the girl. She fought hard but eventually she succumbed to the ultimate eventuality. Somewhere deep within we all knew that this would happen, some were aware of it, some weren't. Some had accepted it and were asking for bigger changes, some were denying it and were baying for the blood of criminals who did this to her. Some like me (and I am sure there would not be so many) didn't really care and wondered what the fuss was about.

I am sure I wasn't born this way, it was easy for me to get disturbed by seeing or hearing about someone's pain. In fact, as a child, I would have cried if my brother or sister got hurt. But then I was asked to grow up by my friends, relatives and parents. Since I was a boy, I was told not to cry when I got hurt because that's what guys do, they don't cry, simple enough. Now I shout or yell when I get hurt, I don't cry. Then I grew up a little more and started caring about the world around me, I saw so many dreadful things happening in our country and around the world. I got to know about it from the newspaper, TV and now through internet. My world had truly expanded and so my exposure to unfortunate events of unimaginable cruelty and size. Initially I read about the Ayodhya riots, I felt disturbed and felt like murdering every politician who made people kill each other. Then when I got interested about history, I read about partition riots and riots in 1984. When I read the details of the heinous acts committed by people in those riots, when I met someone who has lost his father and brother in 1984 and moving on, my faith in humanity was lost to a great extent. Those days, I used to feel bad about such things and I did. But then I looked around and I saw people rather unaffected by such things. I was at a loss to understand how they could do that, know about something like this and still not feel anything. Then I heard and read about things which happen in Jammu & Kashmir and the Eastern states. I met someone who was sent away from his home by his father so that he will not be kidnapped, killed by militants or worse by the military. I again felt something, but now that I know that worse may happen, the intensity of my feelings were rather subdued but I did felt something.

After that I got to know about terrorism and naxalism in our country and worldwide. Since I have seen poverty and destitution, I was able to understand to some extent why people take up arms and become ready to die.Bomb blasts were not new but then they became a regular feature of our country news items. One was never sure where would the next bomb explode, I felt terrible when I heard about those, felt lucky to be alive and about not losing any loved one of mine and moved on like many others. By then, I was working; feeling something and being upset was a luxury which I didn't had. More so, it wasn't “professional” and hence I have to put away my already not so intense feelings.

6000 people have died in Mumbai local in last 3 years while travelling between their home and workplace. Now I don't feel much about them. Around 22000 women are raped every year in India (As per National Crime Records Bureau) and 40 thousands women are molested every year. I do not feel much for them as well. I can feel once, I can feel twice but how do I feel 22000 times a year and remain sane.

Ours is not a country for people with feelings. Feelings are a luxury that only privileged people can afford to have. The common people should not feel too much, it will only drive them crazy. My feelings have been reserved exclusively for people who either are my friends or are related by blood to me. This is not something that I have done willingly. It has happened to me over a period of time and I wonder if that is not the case with a lot of people around me. This rather callous attitude towards things that happen around you is a necessity to live in today's world.

I envy people who can still feel so strongly about these incidents, they vent out their feelings through FB, twitter or by talking to their friends and sometimes even writing or talking to a government officials. Some would go to the extent that feelings are important for the change we want and I would like to desperately believe them but considering all that has happened in the past, it’s only a leap of faith and till then I doubt I will feel anything for the girl.

 

#Talaash, #Aamir

Let me clarify from the word go, though this article talks about the movie Talaash, it is not a review. Simply because to review a movie one needs to be fair unbiased and being an Aamir Khan fan I am definitely biased towards most of what he does.

I watched Talaash this friday, at the unearthly show timing of 8:10 AM (First Day, First Show :)).I found Talaash everything that I expected it to be or more precisely everything that I expect from Aamir.

I became an Aamir fan when I saw Sarfarosh and have never been disappointed since. He keeps on surprising me with this consistently outlandish choices and equally consistent great quality work he does with everything he takes up.

The thing that I like with him, is that he can see beyond bollywood formulas, sample these one line summaries of his previous body of work:

Sarfarosh: Young IPS officer working to curb cross-border terrorism

Dil Chahta Hai: Stories of 3 friends discovering themselves

Lagaan: Village plays a cricket match with English rulers to get a tax (lagaan) waiver

Mangal Pandey: Story of the first indian freedom fighter

Taare Zameen Par: Story of a dyslexic chid

Rang De Basanti: 5 people fighting against corrupt politicians

Ghazni: Revenge story

3 Idiots: Life and times of 3 engineering students in India

I guess you would realize that except Ghazni, none of Aamir's movie would fit a prevalent bollywood formula. He did it because someone wrote a beautiful script and he liked it. With the onslaught of inane movies that I see so often, I guess a movie where a script has been written before going on floor, is promising from the word go.Talaash is no different, it is nothing like what would supposedly work at box office, but it is definitely well written. Apart from that you can clearly see that this movie is a labour of love, where people have taken great pains to deliver what they believed in. The sheer visual appeal of mumbai's dark underbelly, the finely etched characters, the brilliant acting, it's all there.I don't expect Aamir to do what I think would entertain me, I expect Aamir to do what he believes in. It is for the simple reason that there are many "entertainers", but there is only one Aamir.

His singleminded focus means that every time we go to see his movie, we are assured of one thing: Quality. You can safely assume that everything that could have been done to make a movie better would be done. You would know that Aamir would do the best job he could do.He doesn't care that much about "typical" audience, which every director/producer claim to know so much about (case in point: the Golmaal franchise, Son of Sardaar, Ra.One, Don2 and last but not the least Jab Tak Hain Jaan). These people know that lots of cars should be blown up and it should be painted in gaudy colours, item numbers are a must, the angle of SRK head tilt which is just enough to make ladies swoon, the dance step which will just click and the funny gags which will make people laugh. Whether you admit it or not, you would agree that in the above list of movies,except Golmaal part 1, it needed someone to write a script before starting to film them.

I agree that movies are for entertainment and hence these movies have their takers, they may not be discerning viewers but are enough in numbers to make the cash registers ringing. However, movies are also about telling a tale, a tale you would not listen to otherwise, of people who you will never come across, of locations you will never go to and of emotions you may never feel on your own. In this mayhem of entertainment focused movies, Talaash is a movie with a story to tell. Is this story particularly entertaining ? No. Is this story makes financial sense for mainstream cinema ? No. However, it is an interesting tale which have been told competently by the Director. It is about grief and mourning, it is about regret and remorse, it is about people without identity hoping for dignity, it is about two people in love who are too burdened by their own pain to help the other, it is about their catharsis and eventually coming back together.

Talaash is brilliantly written and despite of its somewhat outlandish ending, works for me. More importantly, it brings the real star of a movie into focus, the script. Remaining true to its core, it spends plenty of time in building up the characters so that you understand them and hence feel their emotions.

There is no other mainstream star who would dare to star as a cop in a movie who cries more than he fights. Surjan Sekhawat is another addition to Aamir already impressive repertoire of memorable characters.

In an interview Aamir had said that for him to do a Taare Zameen Pe, he has to do a Ghazni once in a while. I guess now we know why he is doing a Dhoom 3 :).

Overrated Reality : A writer's take

I am a writer at heart, I may not be great at it, but as someone has put it, "hearts knows reasons what reason knows nothing of". So that being settled, here is an excerpt from the movie " Atonement" (based on the book of the same name by Ian McEwan). To cut a long story rather short, this movie is about an little girl whose action damages the lives of many people and she harbors a strong guilt in her heart for her action till the day she dies. She becomes a famous author and her last novel (which is she reckons as her first) is autobiographical in nature where she actually attempts to tell the truth.

What I like about this particular dialogue is how deftly the biggest of a writer's dilemma is captured. To decide between telling the whole truth or add embellishments to the reality. It is a temptation / problem we all face (even those of us who don't write). Even when we are narrating a story / event / incident  we unknowingly add or modify the truth to suit ourselves. That temptation is a great one and I guess one of the reasons, writers become what they are, is to have a world which they can control.

Briony (the little girl who is a big time author now) is talking to a tv show anchor. Here is the beautiful piece of writing:

BRIONY : "I had, for a very long time, decided to tell the absolute truth.
No rhymes, no embellishments.
And I think, You've read the book, you'll understand why.

I got first-hand accounts of all the events. I didn't personally witness, the conditions in prison, the evacuation to Dunkirk, everything. But the effect of all this honesty was rather pitiless.

You see, I couIdn't any Ionger imagine what purpose would be served by it."

TV Show Anchor : "By what? Sorry. Served by honesty?"

BRIONY: "By honesty. Or reaIity."

I know this one is a peculiar post (and rather indulgent), but watch the movie atonement and you will come to understand this post much better.

-Stay Beautiful
Amitabh

No Title

Roughly Four Years. It was and not it is or it will be. Period.

Prologue

With unspeakable mirth for the world around, something short of a book and more than a rant came out through his guts, via his stomach and eventually through his hands. One would want the heart and the mind to have something to do with it, but it wasn't. The sick feeling which one gets at the pit of their stomach where something is not right, was the only source responsible for what was to come. Words don't take up any space, but at times they make you so full of them that you have to spit them out otherwise you will have to retch. He always wanted to write a book, he knew that since he stared reading, even before he wrote his proper first sentence. But, he never knew that it would come like this. But it did and he didn't had a choice.

He was not so pleased to write it as he should have been, he was writing it because that was the only way for him to move any further. It was like a holy cross he has been cursed to carry for eternity, which he had been carrying since the time he knew guilt, since he began to make sense of ways of the world. He wasn't born a believer, not that he can remember, but he always wanted to believe in what is good, right, pure and true. The ideas of Love, Freedom, Honour and Kindness appealed to him. Nonetheless, he knew quickly that such ideas are called and dismissed as lofty by the ones who have been marred by disappointment and reality of life. At the end of it all what really mattered was the utility and convenience.He was quick to know of it and smart enough to remember it. But as overrated intelligence is, this awareness didn't make him feel any better or any calmer.

It is rather hard to fight with your upbringing. He was taught and reminded more often than anything else to be a good guy, a gentleman. And what else being a gentleman means if not believing in the lofty ideals and persisting even when failure is certain. The way people around him made decisions because of utility and convenience and provided convoluted justifications perturbed him. He was smart enough to relate to these people. Heck, he was one of them, he nonetheless believed that humans owe it to themselves to protect atleast a part of their lives where heart takes the decisions, however small that part is is irrelevalent. What matters is that you should know what is it and then stick to it. This part of your life is governed by high values, the very best thing men should aspire for and there is no scope of corruption or compromise. He felt rather odd knowing that even that is too much to ask from people around him. He could not hold someone from taking their decisions, but atleast he can pour out what he felt, hence he started writing ....hopefully for long...

To you from me

Do you want my words or my silence ?
Do you want my love or my assurance ?
Do you want my honesty or my niceties ?
Do you want my dreams or my realities ?
Do you want my tears or my laughter ?
Do you want my past or my future ?
Do you want my anger or my tolerance ?
Do you want my heart or my mind ?

I wish I knew the answers,
I wish you knew the answers,
I wish you believe it to be,
I wish you just let me be,
I wish you yourself be,
I wish together we could be

I know we will not never know for sure
I know that we deserve a little more

But we would be, what we could be
And that is all, it is meant to be.

A not so open letter

Recently a KPMG senior partner has written an open letter to all the recent passouts and MBA grads from his personal experience as an employer. Here is the link for the same:

One of my FB friend has written a wonderful reply to this open letter which completely deserved to go viral. Here is the link for the same. This was inspired by a similar post from the famous Great Bong

Here is what I think of this issue, and definitely this is not an open letter, this is only for people who know me a little and happened to stumble across my blog / FB page.

First of all, let this be loud and clear: THE WORLD HAS CHANGED, and so have the employers and employees.

So here goes nothing:

Dear Employer,

Kindly note the following important things which need your immediate attention:

1. No matter what rocket sciency stuff you think you are doing, most likely you are not. People have made money with much simpler business models and if you are one of them, no shame in it. Consultant can come, make the jazzy presentation for introducing your organization to the starry eyed MBAs, but you must always know the truth. It is one thing to lie, completely another to start believing it. What does all this boil downs to ? Simple, not every organization need to hire MBAs. Before you take that decision , think whether it makes sense to your organization. Please don't go by what a fancy consultant has told you or what your golf-buddies are doing. Hiring MBA is the easiest thing for any organization. Keeping them and utilizing them is the most difficult part. If you haven't been hiring MBA so far, nothing drastic will happen. if you still don't. Why don't you groom your internal employees for these position ? Answer, because it is damn too long a  process and requires patience and effort which like us MBAs no one has. This explains the choc-a-bloc placement weeks at all the premiere b-schools where employers like you make a bee-line to lap up the top talent.

2.So in spite of all my warnings, you still think that hiring MBAs (or CAs for some peculiar organization) is the right thing for you, go right ahead. But there is a catch, these Yum-Bee-Yays you are hiring, won't be like your regular employees. They will come with charmed credentials (because nothing less will do for you), and yes they will treat you as an equal and not some demi-God. They would work hard, deliver quality and expect meaty work profiles, growth opportunity, great freedom at workplace and  not to mention,  competitive salary. Why ? Because if you don't do that, some other employer who could, will happily lap them up. This is the reality of new age talent (and not labour) market. Market as usual, is always right. Remember that.

3. You hired these self-righteous bastards, paid them well, created niche job roles and gave them quality work, still they didn't stay with you. Why ?

Well... first of all, they are young and just like you once were, not sure what they want from their life, those kind will leave you, don't fret over it, move on. Focus on those who chose to stay, they very well might be your future, they are smart, hard working and like working with you.

Second and more important reason could be that your middle managers are just not ready. They are not equipped to mentor / groom / coach these young guns. Sometimes reason could be the fear of being replaced or jealousy. Other times, the reason could be that these manager don't know that providing feedback on performance, coaching them to deliver value for company is the way to deal with these kind. They would not ask for you to handhold them or spoon feed them. They would love to deliver more than what you have asked them. But in return they would expect feedback and coaching for them to become better professional. You see, loyalty lies with their careers / professions and not with the organizations they are working for.Great companies build great culture of performance review and feedback. Just making them do things is not enough, help them do it better. Remember that similar to your other employee, these kinds also leave their bosses and not organizations.

4.Kindly get over the idea of loyalty of any kind from these kind. If you divide last 30 years into blocks of 5 years and take 50 CV each, you would be able to see a marked decrease in the average tenure spent in an organization by an average employee. The pace of work has increased manifold, no longer you have to write that proposal on paper, then get typed by secretary and send it to your boss. These days you make that proposal on your laptop, send that to your boss over e-mail and work done. Result, new age employees are achieving results much faster and hence learning much faster. Future focused organization will need to be aware of it and act accordingly. Every single MBA who has spent 2 years with you and has not seen a marked increased in his responsibility or work profile is a definite attrition threat.In 2 years, he has done what an average employee would have done in 5 years 15-20 years back. Be aware of it and deal with it. And since you would also not hesitate to fire your employees if all is not well, it is only fair. The days when employer was master and employee was servant are over. So grow up (if you haven't already)


Dear Employees (mostly MBAs / CAs),

Kindly note the following important things which need your immediate attention:

1. Though, you may feel that employers in general are not happy about the communication skills (or English skills) of these new age employees, they may not specifically mean you. So don't take it personal. It is a fact that a lot of us (at least in India) come for non-public school backgrounds and fluency in English may not be our strong suit. Though rightly so, it is one of the requirements to survive in today's globally connected world. Nevertheless, most of us do find the kind of job we are good at (because current MBA selection process ensures that anyone who enters the b-school is at least very good at one thing e.g quantitative aptitude and decent in all others). Bottom line, if we have good communication skills, no harm, but if we don't, time we take a cue and get better at it.

2.To begin you will do some amount of clerical work in one way or the other. It is up to you to add value even to that random work. You owe it to your charmed credentials. There has to be a difference in the way you deliver work and a person without that fancy degree of yours does it. That is the only way we can differentiate ourselves. You will not get to do strategic work right away because firstly, organization don't know you well enough and secondly they themselves are not doing much strategically. Strategy in recent times have become a much abused word like friendship or love. Economical cycles have become so rapid that no organization have the luxury of making long term choices (which strategy is) and hence strategy has become outdated concept. I doubt if even the senior leadership of major organizations are doing strategic stuff. Case in point, even after 2 decades of excellence in Indian IT industry, we have not seen a single IT product worth mention from any Indian IT major. When it is difficult enough surviving and holding up as is, who has time for strategy. So no strategy, don't worry, worry when you haven't done anything new in your job for long time.

3.You are the proverbial go-getter, no mountain is high enough for you, EOD deadline, night out for work, working for the whole month without taking breaks on weekends, you can do it all. But what for ? and for how long, do you want to die at 40-45 or become a diabetic / heart patient in your early 30s. If not, then learn to take it slow, saying no and avoid taking things personally. Not every deadline has to be EOD, not every thing needs to be done by you, not every friend / relative is your competitor. Work is important and you have made your point, but you have just started working and you will continue to do so for another 25-30 years, so work accordingly. In fairly cliched words, when in marathon, do as other marathoners do.


4. Now let me tell you something completely opposite to what I just said, in spite of all tall claims of India Shining and being the next superpower, we still are a developing country. What does that mean for us? It simply means that we can not compare ourselves to regulations in France where people work for 35 hours per week (yes they do and any more will mean overtimes wages ...cool, eh ?). Hence despite of all our dreams of achieving a perfect work life balance, it will continue to be elusive, at least for our generation. Work will definitely be a priority. We can not afford to be lazy, being in a country like ours.
This is our time on the world map and to claim our fame, we would need to work hard. But and a big but at that, remember working hard doesn't mean being a workaholic, a fine line between the two. Decide yours and stick with it.

5.MBA gives us a great way to launch our careers but also robs us of many opportunities may be equally exciting or even better. These opportunities may not be as great paying or as stable as the jobs which lands in your lap, but they may be crucial part of our future. We are different from our parents and our seniors. In the famous words of Arthur C Clarke, " The future is not what is used to be". To actually make a mark, we may have to make different choices (in terms of job profiles,industries we choose to work in ). Since MBA with its high status symbol, may make us blind to these opportunities and trends, it is important for us to look at that as well. Imagine if Nandan Nilekani had chosen to take up PSU job (like the trend of times) where would he be, definitely not at rank of a cabinet minister :P.

And I am done sermonizing... well at least for the time being :)

Stay Beautiful

Farewell my Hero

I started playing cricket in 1996, same year when Rahul Dravid made his test debut in England. This was also the year when I started to follow cricket, first like a newbee and then like a fanatic, devouring edition of 'Cricket Samrat (or any similar magazine I could get hold of) from cover to cover. At a point of time, I remember all the batsmen who scored 199 in a test match, bottomline: those were crazy and heady days. Despite of being a new bee, I noticed a quiet batsman who missed his century at Lords' while another more fluent one, got 2 in a row and that too on debut. Since I was also learning the game, I related closely to that guy who always tried to play the perfect shot, whose effort was obvious for anyone to see, he to begin with was no genius, no maestro or if I may add no PRINCE. He was a common man, much like us, who had to work hard to get anything in life, boundaries didn't flow from his bat, he batted quietly and meticulously to build an inning to get himself noticed. I don't know about others, but I sure did, he was an inspiration, he was my "proof of concept" that if one works hard enough one can overcome his limitations.

Since those days, I followed him closely. He was, is and will be my favorite cricketer ever. I defended him ardently when the whole world blamed him for playing boring and slow cricket and declaring him unfit for One Day  cricket. I admired the fact that he was a team man, not just in words but in action, when Saeed Anwar plundered 194 against India, it was he who led the India's reply by scoring his first ODI century, sadly that was not enough. I admired his discipline, commitment and immense hard work he put into his game to become a world class player. He was a hope for a person like me who without being bestowed any particular talent wanted to make it big in this world. 

We learnt our cricket (as it happens in small towns) by watching the Greats play on tv. The pinnacles of our  short lived (and much cherished) cricket careers were the time we struck a ball which closely imitated either Dravid's cover drive or Sachin loft for a six off a leg spinner, and hence we watched them closely and obsessed over every ball they played. I was heartbroken when Dravid was dropped from the ODI team, and ecstatic when he made that rare run-a-ball century against New Zealand in New Zealand.

His dream run in 1999 world cup settled any doubts over his fitness for ODIs and by the time he hung his boots he amassed 10,000 ODI runs. I guess my faith wasn't in vain.I will always remember his outburst in Australia when we won a test match, though he almost won that match single-handedly (233 and 73* ) his celebration was for the team and for our nation.

There are many other things that I remember about Rahul Dravid, but then it is a memoir not mine to write, but as any other cricket fan in this country, we believe that we have lived the lives of our heroes. A hero who deserve an standing ovation for his farewell walk from everyone. May the WALL stand tall, as always.

Of decisions of their own

Growing up is a difficult thing. The first and foremost thing that bugs us is the sudden barrage of responsibility. This means, I have to take a decision without being told by someone (or rather scolded) regarding important things in my life. I will have to decide what kind of career I want, I will have to decide what kind of friends I should have, I even have to decide what vegetables to buy so that the Bai can cook a decent meal for me.

This seems to be the first phase of the growing up, it takes time but one gets used to it. Though, there is not much to like (it seemed a nice thing to have as a kid, your own money and your own decision, utterly overrated stuff, now I know :|), one gets by.

The next phase and probably the more difficult one, seems the phase when you have to learn to let others make their own decisions. It would not have been much of an issue if these others were truly others. But the decisions that you worry (or fuss ) over are the ones, being taken by the people who you care about. It is tempting and in fact feels downright moral (at least in our culture) to go ahead and help them make these decisions (by one mean or the other). However, the truth is, that like us, these dear ones of ours, also need to make decisions of there own, mostly for their own good. They do get hurt at times, but if the decisions are their own, they learn from it. The perils of being the surrogate decision maker are not clear upfront and hence it takes a huge amount of maturity (or growing up :)) to resist its temptation. 

It is fairly similar to when a baby first learns to walk.On their wobbly feet, they rise up, their hands and head shaking, they take their first step (only after so many trial runs ), they fall down and it hurts their soft / cute bottoms, sometimes they cry as well, and if you care enough (which you do), your heart is in your throat the whole time, almost ready to come out. But you stop yourself from running to them and taking them in your arms, because you know it is important for them to learn to walk themselves.

But such clarity of purpose is a rare thing in life, and when it comes to letting your loved ones, take their own decisions, one would never know, if it is alright to be a moot (and hopefully supporting) spectator, while they  are taking the most important decisions of their lives. The only thing we can do is to stay with them and not leave, even when they make a decision not to your liking.

As in Maths and so in life, First Principles are the only important things, rest are derivatives :)

Stay Beautiful,

Amitabh