This post is dedicated to the inefficiency at the much celebrated Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International airport .. The airport is named after perhaps the most disciplined and organised of the Indian freedom fighters - but clearly they didnt think beyond the naming.
For those who dont know what this is - its the Kolkata international airport.. not really an airport by itself - essentially an extra door to the right of the domestic terminal that leads to the same runway..
When u first enter - the entire place looks completely empty apart from the people who lurk around smoking a bidi and offering to push ur trolley for 20 bucks.. and then when u approach the twenty odd counters to check in - you realise that they are operating only one counter.. and for some vague reason - there are 6 people peering over the shoulder of some poor new hire who is struggling to figure out what a boarding pass is.
On closer inspection, you notice that the state of the art computers are put to great use - as tea cup holders, filing cabinets and in some places as seats as well - and given that their systems were already overloaded with other things - they had to declare it as a "manual check in" day - which meant that the wait increased from 1 hr to 2.
10 mins before take-off time, I get to the counter and ask for an upgrade to business class (am willing to pay the extra amount of course!) - and am given 6 reasons why business is not worth it - 'sir, the service is the same', 'sir, this is all marketing tactics, sir' , 'sir, the food service today isnt that good' blah blah... man - some1 from SIA should have been there...
finally, it turns out that they had already printed a boarding pass for every1 and so would need to give me another one (which would need one of them to walk 100 m to the closest stack of empty ones..)
thankfully nothing else happened and we took off only 30 mins from planned departure - of course after being forced to fly economy and took 4 security checks of my laptop...
Nett of all, not a very fun experience - something Buddhadev should seriously think - before we starting to tout ourselves as the next big destination - for business and leisure.. giving land to Tata motors and creating SEZs for s/w companies isnt everything ..
ps. No one dare make a sarcy bong commment, or even communist ones.. hmmpf!
Monday, April 30, 2007
Saturday, April 14, 2007
if you read my blog
ppls - i know im erratic in updating my blog - if you want u can leave ur email id (as a comment or on mail to shivchoudhury@gmail.com) and ill email u everytime i update it
more attempts to add value as a blogger :p
cheerios!
more attempts to add value as a blogger :p
cheerios!
Friday, April 13, 2007
A thought provoker - Namesake..
dont know how many of you have seen 'the namesake' - its one of the more thought provoking movies ive seen lately .. which to me automatically classifies a serious movie as good..
The plot overall is pretty simple - and meaningful.. and in patches very relevant to me .. whether it is the guy who goes abroad to work leaving family and frends abroad, to having a partner who doesnt want to leave her country.. to the guy who goes through the cycle of being indifferent to his roots to finally realising that it is in-separable from him..
From a story and direction pov, rarely have I seen any movie give that much space for the granular characterisation of as many as 3 characters - Irfan, Tabu and Kal.. each ones character is sculpted out right through the movie.. and the best thing is none of these were simple 1D views, the characterisation was done in multiple lights... A quick para on each of the characters follows:
Ashima: Tabu turned in a good performance - playing the to-be-wed bengali next door girl with as much grace and elan as the mom of two who has lost everything in life the day her husband died ... i like the way her maturity visibly progresses with the movie and ends with her courageous decision to go back to India :)
What did her character make me think :
- Importance of conditioning and influence: Look at the difference in her reaction to her dads death and then to her husbands.. and how it showed Ashokes influence on her when he says 'uve got to be strong - for ur family and kids...' - she really displays that in the end when Ashoke passes away
- Compromises work - to a degree: Her move to the US was a compromise of sorts - but it worked in the long term.
- One day ill get a chance to do what i really want :) - she got to sing in the end didnt she? one day i will be the manager of the Man U :)
Ashoke: My fav character of the movie.. serious, caring and a thinker - i loved the scene where he comes to gogols room and tells him.. 'one day ull realise - we are all from Gogols overcoat'. In the scene when he calls Ashima from cleaveland - I found myself praying that he doesnt die after that - truly powerful acting to create a really strong link with the viewer..
Key thoughts from his character:
- Gratitude/Rememberance of where it all started from: ive never really thought of what was the turning point in my academic/professional life - and it would be amazing to know and recognise that - just as Ashoke does about the book 'gogol' and that train journey
- Simple is good : self explanatory i think :)
Gogol: Brilliant acting here i think - especially in the transition from ABCD gogol to some1 who understood his roots..and more importantly was comfy with it.. The transformation at his dads funderal is a classic one i think .. in one stroke pulling him from a world of holidaying with his GFs family to his own grieving family ..
Key thoughts from his character:
- Roots are called roots for a reason: blood runs thicker than water :)
- My state of misery cannot be an excuse to hurt some1 else: The way he treated his amrikkan gf was pretty sad - after all that she was doing to integrate in.. the unfairness of that was sidelined in the movie in the face of bigger things - but it was unfair..
- Dont ignore what u dont understand - he didnt understand gogol - and the reason behind it - till his dad told him and blah blah.. makes even more sense in the light of my conversation with spunky yesterday (conversation will not be recounted for relationship maintaining reasons :p)
anyways.. enough bakwaas about the movie.. last thing - loved the authentic bengali accents and not the exagerated crappy ones in a million other movies..
The plot overall is pretty simple - and meaningful.. and in patches very relevant to me .. whether it is the guy who goes abroad to work leaving family and frends abroad, to having a partner who doesnt want to leave her country.. to the guy who goes through the cycle of being indifferent to his roots to finally realising that it is in-separable from him..
From a story and direction pov, rarely have I seen any movie give that much space for the granular characterisation of as many as 3 characters - Irfan, Tabu and Kal.. each ones character is sculpted out right through the movie.. and the best thing is none of these were simple 1D views, the characterisation was done in multiple lights... A quick para on each of the characters follows:
Ashima: Tabu turned in a good performance - playing the to-be-wed bengali next door girl with as much grace and elan as the mom of two who has lost everything in life the day her husband died ... i like the way her maturity visibly progresses with the movie and ends with her courageous decision to go back to India :)
What did her character make me think :
- Importance of conditioning and influence: Look at the difference in her reaction to her dads death and then to her husbands.. and how it showed Ashokes influence on her when he says 'uve got to be strong - for ur family and kids...' - she really displays that in the end when Ashoke passes away
- Compromises work - to a degree: Her move to the US was a compromise of sorts - but it worked in the long term.
- One day ill get a chance to do what i really want :) - she got to sing in the end didnt she? one day i will be the manager of the Man U :)
Ashoke: My fav character of the movie.. serious, caring and a thinker - i loved the scene where he comes to gogols room and tells him.. 'one day ull realise - we are all from Gogols overcoat'. In the scene when he calls Ashima from cleaveland - I found myself praying that he doesnt die after that - truly powerful acting to create a really strong link with the viewer..
Key thoughts from his character:
- Gratitude/Rememberance of where it all started from: ive never really thought of what was the turning point in my academic/professional life - and it would be amazing to know and recognise that - just as Ashoke does about the book 'gogol' and that train journey
- Simple is good : self explanatory i think :)
Gogol: Brilliant acting here i think - especially in the transition from ABCD gogol to some1 who understood his roots..and more importantly was comfy with it.. The transformation at his dads funderal is a classic one i think .. in one stroke pulling him from a world of holidaying with his GFs family to his own grieving family ..
Key thoughts from his character:
- Roots are called roots for a reason: blood runs thicker than water :)
- My state of misery cannot be an excuse to hurt some1 else: The way he treated his amrikkan gf was pretty sad - after all that she was doing to integrate in.. the unfairness of that was sidelined in the movie in the face of bigger things - but it was unfair..
- Dont ignore what u dont understand - he didnt understand gogol - and the reason behind it - till his dad told him and blah blah.. makes even more sense in the light of my conversation with spunky yesterday (conversation will not be recounted for relationship maintaining reasons :p)
anyways.. enough bakwaas about the movie.. last thing - loved the authentic bengali accents and not the exagerated crappy ones in a million other movies..
Saturday, April 7, 2007
tam brams - UGLY
They say that about sardars (within India) and about Indians (outside of India) - but i think it applies much more to a certain tribe called the 'Tam-brams' .. 'You can go to any part of the world but u cant be too far away from one of them' [ Well thats actually a censored down version: the actual one is - 'Indians are like roaches - u can kill as many as u can and there will still be some around - no matter where u are' .. dont judge me - im just passing on what people say about us, if it hurts ur sensibilities - please ignore the bit in parantheses :p]
Upfront, this is the story of the typical tam ive met - its a LCM vs a HCF (if u know what i mean).. so if ur tam and realise that you dont have all the below mentioned characteristics, dont rush to the closest balcony or well.. its all right, no one is ever a perfect tam-bram, just keep working towards it.. ull get there soon - and then u can evolve into a human being..slowly
Anyways, I'll start off with how to identify this curious set of people.. In India (for the fictitious non-indians reading my blog), these kinds are identified having these characteristics:
- Oil drippers: you can see oil flowing down from their heads (an entire blog can be dedicated to the grossness of oil that is streaming down the back of the neck after a 'head bath') - this is said to be the main reason why the oil prices are where they are today!
- Tikka: Not to be confused with heavenly chikkkan/paneer tikkas, this refers to the sacred grey ash on thier head (a minor variant of the term 'black ass' as used by our afro american frends).. there are fashion variants amongst these too - the 3 X horizontal line - a testament to the holy trinity (not the Matrix waali!) a complete 'out there' statement ..then there is the other variant - casual and understated - just a careless blob - torn between fitting with the rest of the world and keeping in touch with ur tambram roots.
- Checked shirt, trouser and leather chappal: Well cant really say - this could be characteristic of a bihari also - so will not talk much about this.
- Eating joints: Completely vegetarian, preferably only South Indian food (Udipi restaurants)
- Conversation topics: Couldnt understand most of these, not cos they were in Tam, but cos they were highly maggu nerdy MS/Phd level stuff :p
In Singapore, they are found eating at Sarvana Bhawan and LN (lakshmi Narsimhan) - the appearances are changed so as to not be deported back - but innately they are still the same...
Others:
- Bathing: Typical tam-brams take 45 mins to bathe - the process is long winded and complicated , involving several mins of standing there under the shower ignoring people outside banging on the door cos u are delaying them. They also need to bathe everytime u step out of the house - lest they be ostracized from society
Upfront, this is the story of the typical tam ive met - its a LCM vs a HCF (if u know what i mean).. so if ur tam and realise that you dont have all the below mentioned characteristics, dont rush to the closest balcony or well.. its all right, no one is ever a perfect tam-bram, just keep working towards it.. ull get there soon - and then u can evolve into a human being..slowly
Anyways, I'll start off with how to identify this curious set of people.. In India (for the fictitious non-indians reading my blog), these kinds are identified having these characteristics:
- Oil drippers: you can see oil flowing down from their heads (an entire blog can be dedicated to the grossness of oil that is streaming down the back of the neck after a 'head bath') - this is said to be the main reason why the oil prices are where they are today!
- Tikka: Not to be confused with heavenly chikkkan/paneer tikkas, this refers to the sacred grey ash on thier head (a minor variant of the term 'black ass' as used by our afro american frends).. there are fashion variants amongst these too - the 3 X horizontal line - a testament to the holy trinity (not the Matrix waali!) a complete 'out there' statement ..then there is the other variant - casual and understated - just a careless blob - torn between fitting with the rest of the world and keeping in touch with ur tambram roots.
- Checked shirt, trouser and leather chappal: Well cant really say - this could be characteristic of a bihari also - so will not talk much about this.
- Eating joints: Completely vegetarian, preferably only South Indian food (Udipi restaurants)
- Conversation topics: Couldnt understand most of these, not cos they were in Tam, but cos they were highly maggu nerdy MS/Phd level stuff :p
In Singapore, they are found eating at Sarvana Bhawan and LN (lakshmi Narsimhan) - the appearances are changed so as to not be deported back - but innately they are still the same...
Others:
- Bathing: Typical tam-brams take 45 mins to bathe - the process is long winded and complicated , involving several mins of standing there under the shower ignoring people outside banging on the door cos u are delaying them. They also need to bathe everytime u step out of the house - lest they be ostracized from society
- Rajnikanth: Just when you had decided that this was a bunch of sedentary boring people, u see the crazy following for Rajnikanth - there are hazaar jokes on this topic on the web - please read them for more info..
anyway - nayak has promised to give me inputs on this one, so this is just a draft.. will come back with more info on this.. (see how tough it is to write a blog! need to research and all too)
Also, Interesting fact-byte : Tam brams constitute only 2-3% of the total TN population -which is very weird cos ive never met a non-bram tam!
Friday, April 6, 2007
The oil crisis
okay - this is not a normal blog - its a cry of distress, an appeal for help - in anyway possible (money is preferred, but words of sympathy will also do for now)..
This is the story of the hair drippers.. Nayak and Bharat.. Nayak more than Bharat.. Our man Nayak isnt called the 'Blurr' for nothing.. his speed on the football field is matched only by his speed of hairloss...(they say send nayak to the amazonian rain forests and he will make the sahara out of it..).. So Nayak in the interest of Shahana not having to marry a bald guy, decides that he needs to step up his hair care regime..
Now a normal person would do a lot of research and then finally choose from several of the Shampoos, conditioners, treatments blah blah or even go to specialist clinics, but our man decided by a combination of intuition & plain stupidity that he needed to step up his 'hair oil' regime.. So now.. instead of the once a week that ud see him with hair oil all over his glistening (and rather large) forehead, we get to see him almost 3 times a week... rivulets of oil down the back of his neck and down the sides of face... as if he stood under the shower and it rained oil on him.. and thats just the way it looks, the smell is like you took a rotten egg, and sprayed it with tons of Jovan Musk in an attempt to make it smell good - but completely failed at it..
And now imagine.. having to sleep in the same room as a person wearing this! and as Bharat just told me imagine going outside like this - Nayak supposedly went to office like this one day .. ewww..
Talking of Bharat, here is a closet dripper.. he oils his hair 4 days a week but does it in the confines of his room after all have slept and washes it off next morning 1st thing.. cant really complain can I - but can feel bad for Deepthi for sure ;)
So there is my problem.. need some solutions, have considered a variety of options, including throwing the bottles to killing them .. but happy to hear of any new solns..
btw.. price of petrol may come down a cpl of bucks if these guys stop oiling their hair .. so there .. now u have a reason to help me!
This is the story of the hair drippers.. Nayak and Bharat.. Nayak more than Bharat.. Our man Nayak isnt called the 'Blurr' for nothing.. his speed on the football field is matched only by his speed of hairloss...(they say send nayak to the amazonian rain forests and he will make the sahara out of it..).. So Nayak in the interest of Shahana not having to marry a bald guy, decides that he needs to step up his hair care regime..
Now a normal person would do a lot of research and then finally choose from several of the Shampoos, conditioners, treatments blah blah or even go to specialist clinics, but our man decided by a combination of intuition & plain stupidity that he needed to step up his 'hair oil' regime.. So now.. instead of the once a week that ud see him with
And now imagine.. having to sleep in the same room as a person wearing this! and as Bharat just told me imagine going outside like this - Nayak supposedly went to office like this one day .. ewww..
Talking of Bharat, here is a closet dripper.. he oils his hair 4 days a week but does it in the confines of his room after all have slept and washes it off next morning 1st thing.. cant really complain can I - but can feel bad for Deepthi for sure ;)
So there is my problem.. need some solutions, have considered a variety of options, including throwing the bottles to killing them .. but happy to hear of any new solns..
btw.. price of petrol may come down a cpl of bucks if these guys stop oiling their hair .. so there .. now u have a reason to help me!
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
the futility of what i do..
I've decided that i'll have quality control on my blog ... so I'll self rate them Good, Bad,Ugly right upfront so if ur looking for good articles u wont waste time.. but since ive put the effort in writing them, ill publish them anyway...
Todays article is in the Ugly section (yeah Spunky/Nayak - bring on the puns on me being ugly..)
Anyways... here goes!
Its an old joke.. told by everyone in P&G as if it happened to them... and considering its not very funny - wonder why..
Q: What is your proffession?
A: I work for P&G in marketing (no guys.. this is not the joke!)
Q: Oh that s0unds cool! So what exactly do you do?
A: Well, umm.. thats a little tough - i do brand management..
Q: Ohh - so u make advertising?
A: Not really - the agency does that..
Q: So you must be selling the product to traders?
A: Umm no.. but i have a team of people who do that - and I lead the team..
Q: ohh - that is awesome.. so u have ppl working under you..
A: Nope..not for another 4 years!
And by this time, the P&G persons considered quitting the job...
Fine, I know the joke was lame, but makes the point..thats exactly what the work is about :)
Its always a crazy see-saw between you believing that selling Shampoo is just better than saving lives to absolute disillusionment at selling 'liquid soap' in a bottle.. and the best part is, the entire cycle happens at least once a day...
There are times when you cant help but look around and marvel at amount of passion and energy that an entire floor of people put into selling Shampoo, each believing to the core of his heart that his brand and product was what can improve a consumers life.. Its like they own the brand, and every buck they make goes into thier product.. And at the most disillusioned times it is bound to hit you - a) U dont own the business and b) U are selling liquid soap to some unseen face in some country that u dont really care about...
To be fair to the other side.. u need to go to a country like thailand where a woman spends 30% of her family income on her looks and then suddenly you start believing in the power of the liquid soap .. how a good hair day can improve productivity and confidence significantly.. and how people know beautycare products that make this difference vs. thers othats dont.. For e.g. in haircare.. the biggest driver to purchase is 'Makes me feel confident'.. and so once in a while one has to admit, the business of selling 'hope' to people isnt that bad (and sounds better than shampoo) - and if you stretch it a little bit one could say that I truly make a difference to their lives... 'Improving lives' ;)
But thats just one discussion angle on the futility of my job.. there are others.. like the fact that Im a strategiser.. not an executer.. at the most executional level, I send visuals of how things look to counterparts and they execute things instore, and while this 'macro strategic thinking' makes me feel like a mini-ceo in the making, it unfortunately means that there is absolutely no understanding of how things work on the ground when u arent looking at XL sheets and PDF documents (note how ive upgraded to pdfs and not Word docs ;)
Anyway - the stream of futility continues with this blog.. he he .. hope u dont regret reading this already ;)
Todays article is in the Ugly section (yeah Spunky/Nayak - bring on the puns on me being ugly..)
Anyways... here goes!
Its an old joke.. told by everyone in P&G as if it happened to them... and considering its not very funny - wonder why..
Q: What is your proffession?
A: I work for P&G in marketing (no guys.. this is not the joke!)
Q: Oh that s0unds cool! So what exactly do you do?
A: Well, umm.. thats a little tough - i do brand management..
Q: Ohh - so u make advertising?
A: Not really - the agency does that..
Q: So you must be selling the product to traders?
A: Umm no.. but i have a team of people who do that - and I lead the team..
Q: ohh - that is awesome.. so u have ppl working under you..
A: Nope..not for another 4 years!
And by this time, the P&G persons considered quitting the job...
Fine, I know the joke was lame, but makes the point..thats exactly what the work is about :)
Its always a crazy see-saw between you believing that selling Shampoo is just better than saving lives to absolute disillusionment at selling 'liquid soap' in a bottle.. and the best part is, the entire cycle happens at least once a day...
There are times when you cant help but look around and marvel at amount of passion and energy that an entire floor of people put into selling Shampoo, each believing to the core of his heart that his brand and product was what can improve a consumers life.. Its like they own the brand, and every buck they make goes into thier product.. And at the most disillusioned times it is bound to hit you - a) U dont own the business and b) U are selling liquid soap to some unseen face in some country that u dont really care about...
To be fair to the other side.. u need to go to a country like thailand where a woman spends 30% of her family income on her looks and then suddenly you start believing in the power of the liquid soap .. how a good hair day can improve productivity and confidence significantly.. and how people know beautycare products that make this difference vs. thers othats dont.. For e.g. in haircare.. the biggest driver to purchase is 'Makes me feel confident'.. and so once in a while one has to admit, the business of selling 'hope' to people isnt that bad (and sounds better than shampoo) - and if you stretch it a little bit one could say that I truly make a difference to their lives... 'Improving lives' ;)
But thats just one discussion angle on the futility of my job.. there are others.. like the fact that Im a strategiser.. not an executer.. at the most executional level, I send visuals of how things look to counterparts and they execute things instore, and while this 'macro strategic thinking' makes me feel like a mini-ceo in the making, it unfortunately means that there is absolutely no understanding of how things work on the ground when u arent looking at XL sheets and PDF documents (note how ive upgraded to pdfs and not Word docs ;)
Anyway - the stream of futility continues with this blog.. he he .. hope u dont regret reading this already ;)
request from Bharat
I think you know that you've arrived when some1 actually requests you to put somthing up on your blog and ask readers for an opinion...
So the deal is : Bharat is jealous after the strong support (read 5 people ) that my blog has recd and so he wants to up me in the one last domain of the intellectual bengali - literature... and wants to stamp his Tam-bram superiority over my race...
So now that he needs a blog.. he needs a name for it - and he obviously wont settle for below par names like 'confusedrambler'.. so need you guys to brainstorm names for him...
As usual wanting too much out of a simple name .. he wants it to include the letter B (cos of B for Bharat stupid!).. and most importantly should have a 'kinda deep meaning' (whatever that means!)
Some ideas that he has rejected (i still think pretty unfairly..) are :
- B-hold (holding ur attention)
- B-queath (ur time)
- B-itch (i love this one.. he he)
and several other unmentionables.. anyway - no point wasting time on competition.. ciao...
btw.. just realised.. this is prolly the simplest way to show that no one reads my blog .. and probably worse.. even if they do .. they dont care :p
So the deal is : Bharat is jealous after the strong support (read 5 people ) that my blog has recd and so he wants to up me in the one last domain of the intellectual bengali - literature... and wants to stamp his Tam-bram superiority over my race...
So now that he needs a blog.. he needs a name for it - and he obviously wont settle for below par names like 'confusedrambler'.. so need you guys to brainstorm names for him...
As usual wanting too much out of a simple name .. he wants it to include the letter B (cos of B for Bharat stupid!).. and most importantly should have a 'kinda deep meaning' (whatever that means!)
Some ideas that he has rejected (i still think pretty unfairly..) are :
- B-hold (holding ur attention)
- B-queath (ur time)
- B-itch (i love this one.. he he)
and several other unmentionables.. anyway - no point wasting time on competition.. ciao...
btw.. just realised.. this is prolly the simplest way to show that no one reads my blog .. and probably worse.. even if they do .. they dont care :p
Monday, April 2, 2007
My day : a mixed bag - with a thought provoking end..
Completely pedestrian normal day at office - the usual running around dousing fires, the same old self promises to do things earlier and in a more planned way, the same money tussles with Mote (Finance guy on our team) and volume tussles with Jonas (CMK) ...
Not having your boss around is a wonderful feeling i tell you, efficiencies automatically dip to levels that you didnt know exist :p, Its not that on a normal day Alissa would come up to me and make me do work but still, as soon as I know that my boss isnt around - the desi gorment office ka babu in me comes through.. Slow paced, lazy and completely untouched by words like timelines, deadlines, efficiency or results.
The back half of the day was decidedly cheerier and looked like it had a purpose - to get out of office at 7:00 pm and go play squash.. Despite my rotund shape and close to a quintal weight, the prospect of sport always energises me - for no real real reason now that I think about it - surely not the prospect of winning (cos I rarely win), not the prospect of thinning down (cos i never do ) and definitely not the competitive streak (which usually takes a beating)..
Anyway, after huffing and puffing to a creditable 2-1 win over a more huffy and puffy shankar, I was not just ready to call it a day - not just for today but for life... As I lay there on the floor and waiting for world to stop spinning and the world to cool down, shankar being shankar started a conversation about 'what are your strengths and weaknesses'.. I say conversation, but it was probably more a monologue - given that my lungs were busy doing something I thought was more important -catching my breath!..
Anyways, the last time i thought of my strengths was the usual campus interview time - where the strengths made u seem like gods and the weaknesses were strengths poorly disguised as a weakness.. 'Im so passionate that I expect others to be like me' or ' I work so hard sometimes that Work-life balance is an issue' or the best.. 'My analyses is usually so in-depth that people around me get insecure'.. So nett.. when shanks asked me this - I was floundering for words and making up something as we talked .. umm - leadership, structured thinking... umm.. people skills.. all global answers from a campus interview..
And then it struck me - like a brett lee bouncer striking a hapless sourav ganguly, it wasnt about what I said and wanted to say... but it was more of what I was.. and thats something i didnt know.. shameful ... and soon the shame turned to an itch - to sit and think about it - and we sat for the next 30 mins IM'ing in sweaty clothes at the squash court about how to identify true strengths and weaknesses and what it takes to fix them...
30 sweaty mins later we decided that the conversation needed to be continued over dinner at Shankhas place.. but as we got there - the 37 inch tv, christinas garam paranthas and sachins discussion of his new case on 'organisational structure to maximise efficiencies' took over and my deepdive into my life took a back seat...
After a fairly forgettable Mustafa trip after that, I was back - and thinking about it again... and as I drifted off to sleep, I remember thinking... need to know my self better.. much better... not my projected self ... but me, myself..
Not having your boss around is a wonderful feeling i tell you, efficiencies automatically dip to levels that you didnt know exist :p, Its not that on a normal day Alissa would come up to me and make me do work but still, as soon as I know that my boss isnt around - the desi gorment office ka babu in me comes through.. Slow paced, lazy and completely untouched by words like timelines, deadlines, efficiency or results.
The back half of the day was decidedly cheerier and looked like it had a purpose - to get out of office at 7:00 pm and go play squash.. Despite my rotund shape and close to a quintal weight, the prospect of sport always energises me - for no real real reason now that I think about it - surely not the prospect of winning (cos I rarely win), not the prospect of thinning down (cos i never do ) and definitely not the competitive streak (which usually takes a beating)..
Anyway, after huffing and puffing to a creditable 2-1 win over a more huffy and puffy shankar, I was not just ready to call it a day - not just for today but for life... As I lay there on the floor and waiting for world to stop spinning and the world to cool down, shankar being shankar started a conversation about 'what are your strengths and weaknesses'.. I say conversation, but it was probably more a monologue - given that my lungs were busy doing something I thought was more important -catching my breath!..
Anyways, the last time i thought of my strengths was the usual campus interview time - where the strengths made u seem like gods and the weaknesses were strengths poorly disguised as a weakness.. 'Im so passionate that I expect others to be like me' or ' I work so hard sometimes that Work-life balance is an issue' or the best.. 'My analyses is usually so in-depth that people around me get insecure'.. So nett.. when shanks asked me this - I was floundering for words and making up something as we talked .. umm - leadership, structured thinking... umm.. people skills.. all global answers from a campus interview..
And then it struck me - like a brett lee bouncer striking a hapless sourav ganguly, it wasnt about what I said and wanted to say... but it was more of what I was.. and thats something i didnt know.. shameful ... and soon the shame turned to an itch - to sit and think about it - and we sat for the next 30 mins IM'ing in sweaty clothes at the squash court about how to identify true strengths and weaknesses and what it takes to fix them...
30 sweaty mins later we decided that the conversation needed to be continued over dinner at Shankhas place.. but as we got there - the 37 inch tv, christinas garam paranthas and sachins discussion of his new case on 'organisational structure to maximise efficiencies' took over and my deepdive into my life took a back seat...
After a fairly forgettable Mustafa trip after that, I was back - and thinking about it again... and as I drifted off to sleep, I remember thinking... need to know my self better.. much better... not my projected self ... but me, myself..
Sunday, April 1, 2007
The second president - Bharat
Famous for his words - 'a bird in hand is best enjoyed with two in the bush' , Bharat 'tam bram' Venugopal arrived to continue the Tam bram legacy in 0803 Elmira Heights..
Soft spoken decent sportsman is what id call Bharat from what I knew of him in IIMB - not something id say about him now (well the sportsman
part is true - he was really good till he decided he was good enough to challenge the great nayak! and was promptly reduced to hobbling on his injured knee)
Bharat is a self proclaimed President of the Harami club of IIM Bangalore - beating notables like daaki,girish, monu and nayak.. and that reflects in almost everything that he says or does..
Be warned, if Bharat asks you something - do not answer, if he suggest something - do not do it!, if he rolls his eyes and tells u something - that is not what he means!
A simple way to get him flare up is to talk about tam-brams and how long they take to bathe (more details soon on a blog about tambrams)...
More on bharat soon once we meet Deepti - who we need to actually see to validate his stories about his stories about them :p
Soft spoken decent sportsman is what id call Bharat from what I knew of him in IIMB - not something id say about him now (well the sportsman
part is true - he was really good till he decided he was good enough to challenge the great nayak! and was promptly reduced to hobbling on his injured knee)Bharat is a self proclaimed President of the Harami club of IIM Bangalore - beating notables like daaki,girish, monu and nayak.. and that reflects in almost everything that he says or does..
Be warned, if Bharat asks you something - do not answer, if he suggest something - do not do it!, if he rolls his eyes and tells u something - that is not what he means!
A simple way to get him flare up is to talk about tam-brams and how long they take to bathe (more details soon on a blog about tambrams)...
More on bharat soon once we meet Deepti - who we need to actually see to validate his stories about his stories about them :p
the one and only Oli
The risk that I run when I write about Oli is that the words can show him to be overly non-human .. but lemme try anyways..
This ex-Hostel secy of IIMB has continued to be the hostel secy of our house.. which by the way is not an easy job if you have people like Nayak and Bharat staying there!
Transparent to the core, polite and quieter than the rest of us (vs. us is the key parameter mind you!), Oli is the quintessential CMK guy.. No opinion is offered till he is absolutely sure and backed by data, Discussions are dispassionately approached so as to not bias the thinking and most importantly its all about kicking some marketing ass!
Ive always wondered whether it would be easier to get Raja or Oli to do something they did not want to do and despite the lack of data, Oli seems to be the marginal winner - which for those who dont know Raja - IS BIG! - 'Nahi bhai! mujhe toh nahi karna hai' to 'u guys continue on - ill skip' are oft heard in the house.. but the icing on the cake was when we found that he has as SMS template that says 'u guys continue' that he sends out to us when we ask him to join us!!
Recently we found out that Oli has a 2nd family in singapore(assuming that we are the first) - It took Shahanas superior investigative skills to figure it out but once she did it all fell in place.. His in-explicable absences from home, missing ipods and kids stuff lying around at home - and to cap it all - pictures of kids on his phone..
So heres to oli - the rational mind in the house, a fighter to the core and the truest honest person in these 4 walls!
This ex-Hostel secy of IIMB has continued to be the hostel secy of our house.. which by the way is not an easy job if you have people like Nayak and Bharat staying there!
Transparent to the core, polite and quieter than the rest of us (vs. us is the key parameter mind you!), Oli is the quintessential CMK guy.. No opinion is offered till he is absolutely sure and backed by data, Discussions are dispassionately approached so as to not bias the thinking and most importantly its all about kicking some marketing ass!
Ive always wondered whether it would be easier to get Raja or Oli to do something they did not want to do and despite the lack of data, Oli seems to be the marginal winner - which for those who dont know Raja - IS BIG! - 'Nahi bhai! mujhe toh nahi karna hai' to 'u guys continue on - ill skip' are oft heard in the house.. but the icing on the cake was when we found that he has as SMS template that says 'u guys continue' that he sends out to us when we ask him to join us!!
Recently we found out that Oli has a 2nd family in singapore(assuming that we are the first) - It took Shahanas superior investigative skills to figure it out but once she did it all fell in place.. His in-explicable absences from home, missing ipods and kids stuff lying around at home - and to cap it all - pictures of kids on his phone..
So heres to oli - the rational mind in the house, a fighter to the core and the truest honest person in these 4 walls!
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