An Acknowledgement

Some lessons learnt, some in learning, that I'd like to acknowledge with gratitude today:

1. Whatever you do, do with love. Even the most arduous and difficult tasks, done with love gives it a whole different energy
2. Know your objective, Focus on the objective, Build a robust process, And you can't go wrong
3. Take ownership
4. Choose your battles, you don't always have to be right
5. Listen, listen, listen
6. The more you resist something, the more you will attract of it
7. Learning is a continuous process, when a lesson is well learnt, be sure there will be harder lessons waiting, it's the way to growth.....enjoy the process
8. When you want something,don't let conditioning or mindset stop you
9. When you're taking something on, don't do it conditionally, else you can't give it your all.......and the best can't come out of less
10. True love is that which really sets you free 


They're kind of random I guess, but then...they're mine :)

"Don't touch it, you might break it."

Yet Another from Seth:

"Don't touch it, you might break it."

This is, of course, the opposite of,

"Touch it, you can make it better."

What's the default where you work?

Impact of Negative News

Well, Repetition doesn't spoil the prayer, so yet again, here's an article on Impact of News

Consuming Negative News Can Make You Less Effective at Work

Its a Harvard Business Review article, so backed by research, so definitely added validation points.:

Up until now most people have reacted with skepticism and curiosity, some to the extent of saying, why are you punishing yourself ? (to the no TV). The other day I met someone, and in conversation, was actually asked how, under the circumstances, I spend my spare time.  End of conversation she said she's going to try going off the paper too. I loved the agility of thought.

It's been two months since I stopped the subscription and trust me, I haven't missed the paper, and what's more, I haven't missed any really significant news either. In fact the times I browse online news when I have an msn or yahoo home page open, makes me glad all over. 

It's about a choice. Living out even the details of your life by choice...... you'll see how many habit or conditioned based things actually go out the window.  Including thinking fallacies.

Anyways, to get to the article itself. here's a short excerpt, full article can be read here: 

'We’ve known for some time now that hearing negative news broadcasts can have an immediate effect on your stress level, but new research we just conducted in partnership with Huffington shows how significant these negative effects can be on our workdays. Just a few minutes spent consuming negative news in the morning can affect the entire emotional trajectory of your day.

There is an equally compelling body of research that links optimism to higher performance. In a study in the 1980s, for example, Seligman followed insurance salespeople and found that optimistic salespeople outsold their pessimistic counterparts by 37%. In our previous HBR article, Positive Intelligence, we described how a group of hospitals in Louisiana trained 11,000 doctors, nurses and staff to make eye contact and smile at people who walk down the hospital hallways within 10 feet of them. Just six months later, they observed a significant increase in the number of patients visiting the hospital, an increased likelihood of referring that hospital based on the quality of care received, and elevated engagement levels for the employees.

A one-second free behavioral change taught people a different social script: we are connected and your positive behavior can have a real impact on others.

How Idea Adoption Works

This is an interesting articulation of how Adoption or Adaption at a societal level works. It could be potentially applied to anything, be it an idea, a product, a behavioral change, a belief system....just about anything:

This is a Rogers Product Adoption Model

And this one is a more detailed model of the same idea, from Seth

Different people have different mindsets when encountering various markets. Some people are eager to try new foods, but always rely on proven fashions or cars. Some people live on the edge of popular culture when it comes to lifestyle, but want to be in the back of the room when it comes to their understanding of the latest science...

Every important idea starts out on the fringe. It's not obvious, proven or readily explained. And a tiny group of people, people who like the fringe, engage with it.

Sometimes, that fringe idea begins to resonate with those around the fringe-loving. This might have been what happened to punk music at CBGB. Now it's risky, but there are more people doing it. Again, these are the kind of people who like to seek out things that are risky (but hey, not fringe, they're not crazy.)

Sometimes, more rarely, the risky idea is seen by some culture watchers as a 'new thing'. They alert their audience, the folks that want to be in on the new thing, but can't risk being wrong, so they avoid the risky.

When enough people embrace a new thing, it becomes a hot thing, and then the hot thing might go mass.

The numbers don't lie: There are more people in the mass group! There are people who only buy pop hits, who only go to restaurant chains, who only drive the most popular car. In fact, it's the decision of this group in aggregate that makes the thing they choose the big hit.

Finally, when enough people with the mass worldview accept an idea, they begin to pressure the rest of the people around them, insisting that they accept the new idea as if it's always been the right thing to do, because that's what this group seeks, the certainty of the idea that has always been true.

You can apply this cycle to talking heads, diet ideas, the role of various genders and races in society, precepts of organized religion, political movements, sushi, wedding practices... Things that are accepted now, things that virtually everyone believes in as universal, timeless truths, were fringe practices a century or less ago.

The mistake idea merchants make is that they bring their fringe ideas to people who don't like fringe ideas, instead of taking their time and working their way through the progression.

Melinda and Melinda

It's a Woody Allen, so as with any Woody Allen, it's full of complexity, gut honesty and wit.

It starts with a dinner table discussion between four friends, two of them playwrights, with the entire movie taking off as an imaginary discussion with the typical articulate, intellectual abstractions of Allen. 

One of playwrights believes that a story, to reflect real life, has to be a tragedy and the other believes in needs to be comedy, with a moderator giving a connotation of nothing in life being a definitive tragedy or comedy. The fourth guy narrates a story, which then flows as imagination into parallel stories of a Melinda gate crashing into a dinner party. And the movie is the story of each of those Melindas.

                           

While one was expected to have tragedy and the other the comic element, each seems to cut through both. In both cases Melinda stirs up or rather lets surface marital instabilities and causes upheavals in her friends lives, most of them finding what they want through building other relationships. 

It was super cute when Hobie ( Will Farell) rubs an old Alladin Lamp in a antic shop and he's like trying to articulate his wish and comes up with...I want Melinda, and I want my wife to not get hurt. And it happens that he finds his wife in bed with her producer (she's a director) and he's so thrilled when he comes upon them, that he can't hide his joy. 

The stories themselves are sketchy because there's so many of them, like multiple short stories within a movie, and it's hard to attach oneself to any one character, or feel for any of them. In the comedy Melinda finds love, in the tragedy she's caught on the wrong end of a triangle.

Not a strong recommendation, but if you're a Woody Allen fan, it serves up his usual recipe of witty and hostile one liners.

Wayne Dyer - A Homage

Wayne Dyer passed away on August 30 '2015.

He's been a pretty large influence on my life, there was a phase I'd spend hours watching his videos. A really strong advocate of positive thinking and manifesting of ones own reality. His teachings somewhere did touch the heart.

He himself had a pretty deep and eventful life. Born to an alcoholic father, deserted at a really young age, shifted from foster home to foster home. Then his own two divorces and a separation. 

Yet I guess it all added up in some weird way, maybe it's about being in the flow.  He has forty books to his credit with quite a few of them being runaway bestsellers.

Here's some of what he used to talk about:

Your intentions determine your reality: You create your thoughts. Your thoughts create your intentions. Your intentions create your reality.

You find yourself in solitude: You cannot be lonely if you enjoy the time you spend with yourself

Ignorance is not bliss: Allow yourself to expand your mind a little more day by day, say yes to 'strange' ideas, things, events, people, it's how you will progress, and reach higher levels of consciousness

Rejection makes you stronger: Be grateful to all those people who told you no. It’s because of them that you managed to do it all yourself.

Miracles are right in front of you and happen every day: There is a secret garden where miracles and magic abound, and it’s available to anyone who makes the choice to visit there

Always treat others with kindness: From thoughts to feelings to behaviors, your entire life shifts away from problems when you find your purpose by giving joy away.

"Heaven on earth” is a choice you must make, not a place you must find: Focus on the BAD and that’s all you will see and attract into your life; focus on the GOOD and that’s all you will see and attract into your life.

With Thanks Wayne Dyer, and Enjoy the new adventure !! 

E&Y Removes Degree as Entry Criteria

Another big YAY.......these sure are Trail Blazing Decisions !!

An article from the Huffington Post, UK

Ernst & Young Removes Degree Classification From Entry Criteria As There's 'No Evidence' University Equals Success

Ernst & Young, one of the UK's biggest graduate recruiters, has announced it will be removing the degree classification from its entry criteria, saying there is "no evidence" success at university correlates with achievement in later life.

The accountancy firm is scrapping its policy of requiring a 2:1 and the equivalent of three B grades at A-level in order to open opportunities for talented individuals "regardless of their background".

Maggie Stilwell, EY’s managing partner for talent, said the company would use online assessments to judge the potential of applicants.

"Academic qualifications will still be taken into account and indeed remain an important consideration when assessing candidates as a whole, but will no longer act as a barrier to getting a foot in the door," she said.

"Our own internal research of over 400 graduates found that screening students based on academic performance alone was too blunt an approach to recruitment.

"It found no evidence to conclude that previous success in higher education correlated with future success in subsequent professional qualifications undertaken."

The company offers 200 graduate-level jobs each year, making it the fifth largest recruiter of graduates in the UK. The changes will come into force in 2016.

Earlier this year, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) scrapped using UCAS points as entry criteria for its graduate scheme. The audit firm believes placing too much emphasis on the scores will mean employers may miss out on key talent from disadvantaged backgrounds, who can perform less well at school.

A report published last week revealed wealthy kids are 35% more likely to become high earners than clever, disadvantaged young people, even if they are not academically gifted.

Seth Godin - A Ted Talk

We've been hearing voices raised against the basic system of education for a while now,  and I'm sure a lot of people, including the powers that be would agree on it too. But guess it goes to show just how difficult and long term it is to change a system.

In fact this also aligns with a recent post on Performance ratings being on their way out. The world is moving into a space that's more individualistic than regimentalized.

Seth is powerful in his opinion on it:

And then, can we make the cut at our end? 

I'm not saying we keep a child away from school or college;  no, that's far fetched, as we're yet part of a system.

But when your child comes home and says, I hate school or  I hate college, what do we do? 

Do we try and understand? maybe empathize? or do we just justify and force fit, like even the line of thought? 

Kiwi's B'day

Kiwi would have been fifteen.....had he been here.

It's hard for me to even say what Kiwi meant to us, especially to Dhruva and Diksha.

He was this epitomization of pure love and affection, constant and consistent source of positivity...... just so happy he was part of our lives.

On this day,let me just recall some fond memories from those days

He came when they were really little, and literally grew up with the kids. I remember when Diksha's teacher, in class one, called me to show me this note that diksha had written on family; she'd said, 'I have two brothers, Dhruva Devara and Kiwi Devara'. And there was not one rakshaa bandhan when she didn't tie one for Kiwi too. It's even there in this picture.

And it's not just her, Kiwi himself believed he was one of them. When it was homework time, which was always at the dining table for some reason, inspite of both of them having their own writing desks, kiwi would be on the fourth chair with a book and pencil in front of him. And he'd sit there through the homework time, get his hug along with them and only then get off.

When they played on the slide, he would struggle, but manage to climb the steps and slide down right behind them. It was a mini slide and he'd get stuck in it, but he had to do it...full on sibling competition it was, what they do, I will do too kinds.

We actually played a lot of hide and seek with him and he would play best, he'd actually wait till I counted ten, and then always win, because he could sniff them out.

There was a daily ritual that went on for all of twelve years, every single school day. Back from school, bags dumped, shoes off and Kiwi had to get the socks off, all four of them. So much so, that when we buried him, Diksha put her favorite socks in with him.

Thankful for all those good times, and there were only good times with him.

Happy Birthday Kiwi !!

The Fallacy of a Single Cause - A Corollary

While folks love to find that one single cause for an occurrence or event, if there's something in the vicinity that they don't approve of, you can be sure they'll pick it, and it will grow to almost become a cause for just about anything, typically anything that doesn't fit, anything perceived wrong .

 As example : say 'a career oriented woman' or 'parents divorced'

I've seen either of these  become a cause for all things that the children do which is even a little out of the way, be it getting a tattoo or coloring your hair or a skin piercing. And there are nicely packaged articles with arguments and justifications on why these children will do such stuff, like apparently because they are neglected and need attention.  

What does it take for folks to realize that if these children have parents who have done their own thing, as corollary they might also have known freedom to be themselves, and so they will experiment, will take it that one step further.

Makes me wonder just how limited our thinking is, and how smug we are in our ideas of righteousness. 

This reminds me of a story that Diksha had told me a long while ago. Apparently we carry all our negative attributes in a back pack, and so they are visible more to others than to oneself. True I guess. 

If only we become aware of that, and at least not get into a condescending attitude, might help us focus less on finger pointing and more on our own growth. There's enough and more to do there :)

To Influence....To Manipulate

We've often heard these terms used almost interchangeably. While the purpose and impact in both is similar.....to get the other to think or act in a certain manner, they are really not the same

No, there is a distinct difference, and I was happy to get this sorted in my mind:

To influence is to facilitate or maneuver  a certain desired outcome, with positive intentions, definitely looking at it benefiting all the way round. Taken to the next level it could even be persuasion.

Manipulation on the other hand, is to maneuver with an intent which is a known detrimental to the other. It's a devious ploy to typically only benefit oneself. That taken to next level would be coercion, and these are attributes, or rather tactics you'd want to stay away from.

You Can Make A Difference

This has been one of my favorite stories for a long while, and I chanced upon it yesterday:

Once upon a time, there was an old man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing.He had a habit of walking on the beach every morning before he began his work. Early one morning, he was walking along the shore after a big storm had passed and found the vast beach littered with starfish as far as the eye could see, stretching in both directions. 

Off in the distance, the old man noticed a young boy who seemed to be walking along and doing something with the starfish. As he approached he saw that the boy was picking up starfish and tossing them back in the ocean. The man walked up to the boy and called out, “Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?”

The young boy paused, looked up, and replied “Throwing starfish into the ocean. The tide has washed them up onto the beach and they can’t return to the sea by themselves; When the sun gets high, they will die.”

The old man replied, “But there must be tens of thousands of starfish on this beach. I’m afraid you won’t really be able to make much of a difference.”

The boy bent down, picked up yet another starfish and threw it back into the ocean. Then he turned, smiled and said, “I made a difference to that one!”

The Average

Yet Another from Seth

Everything you do is either going to raise your average or lower it.

The next hire.

The quality of the chickpeas you serve.

The service experience on register 4.

Each interaction is a choice. A choice to raise your average or lower it.

Progress is almost always a series of choices, an inexorable move toward mediocrity, or its opposite.

Lingaraj Mandir - Orissa

This temple visit just had it so right....it was early in the morning, a light drizzle in the air, the trees with a just washed look, an in itself beautiful feel.......... and bonus, because of the rain there was almost no one at the temple.

In that backdrop, an over thousand year old space.  It's not just time from back then, it's a space from back then. A structure within four high walls that's like suspended in time.

                                  

Okay, really speaking......the temple itself is also very imposing in terms of size, expanse and also aesthetics.  The main gopuram is tall, at over 150 feet in height and the carvings and sculpture  so intricate, delicate and detailed that it's simple and straight, jaw dropping awe inspiring. It made me rethink the term scale. Next time I say,' this is good but it's not scalable', I'll think Lingaraj temple :)

The temple is spread within a large courtyard, with the central gopuram housing the sanctum sanctorum,  and a lot of smaller gopurams of varying sizes, 150 of them, some on raised platforms, some at ground level and some which you descend to through steep flights of stairs that seem to go to the very bowels of the earth.  What with the innumerable snake idols around, while tempted, I was too scared to go down those.  

While the temple is 1200 years old, and parts of it date back to the sixth century, what's wonderful is that it feels untouched,  no paints and no varnishes, so the aura of pure timelessness is just there. Thanks there to the archaeology department, as it's more historical than religious I think.

The main deity is unique; it's a hari hara lingam, a half shiva and a half vishnu embodiment. which was interesting, like a woven together sustenance and destruction. The actual lingam is just a few inches off the ground..... a svayambu lingam, ( self originated lingam). 

The temple also has a black granite idol of Shiva as tri bhubaneshwar, lord of the three worlds and is daily bathed with water, milk and .....hold your breath....... marijuana. Shiva needs his chillum in all forms I guess. 

Brought to mind a chat between Swaroop and Diksha; They were talking about Amit Tripati's 'The Immortals of Meluha', and I remember them using words like Rock Star and Cool Dude in talking of Lord Shiva. Not for nothing...who gets bathed in Marijuana :)

The concept of how truth or reality are in essence infinite concepts, and nothing infinite can be grasped by the human mind..... because the mind is still finite, and that effort breaches the spaces between the conscious and the subconscious. Makes your head spin na? My head actually went into a spin as the place provokes all of that, in terms of experience and thought. Brought to mind a plaque I'd read in Tirupathi a long time ago, it explains it best;  a suspended moment of expanded consciousness

It's what made it surreal..... all of that and the energy of the place.

Visit to Bhubaneshwar

Bhubaneswar was first off, a nice and pleasant surprise. I don’t know what I was expecting, Orissa, so bias and all I guess, but to see this nicely laid out, not too crowded, clean and green city was nice. In fact in the airport itself when I asked this guy on advise to decide if I wanted to do office directly or hotel first, it was so nice to hear him say, in Bhubaneshwar, anywhere to anywhere is not more than 15 to 20 minutes. Slight exaggeration I found that, but it was still a nice start.

And then the clean and green just added to it. Wide roads, orderly traffic, was pretty. Apparently, Bhubaneshwar is as planned a city as Chandigarh, and is very similar in style too. Also designed by Charles Correa.

Work was kind of overwhelming. Too much for such a short trip. And I met two really interesting potential entrepreneurs for the fund.

Jeevan, works in Kandhamal district on a project on Sal Leaf plate making, He is helping a whole bunch of village women in the process of collecting and stitching together leaf plates to make products of a high enough quality to be exported to Germany. He has tied up with the German company and now wants Solar light for their homes and work areas to enable higher productivity and quality.

And I had an almost fell off the chair in surprise moment, when Jeevan, introduces his daughter. He’s called her Google.........she’s Arona Google. Really inspired guys I must say.

And then there's Karunakar, who came from Koraput, who talks to me for twenty minutes non stop and then says, "Madam, I show you a presentation. But this is not business madam......This is my dream. You have to understand my dream and then if you can help me madam". He called it EDO...everyday one. He wants to sell one solar system a day, and change the way people in rural Orissa live. Was touching.

That's Chandan, Karunakar, Sanjay, Arun, and Jeevan at our office in Bhubaneshwar

The visit was mostly work, but I managed one temple, Lingraj Mandir, one of the oldest in Bhubaneshwar. Did it at 6 in the morning....actually I'll do another post on that, as it was a unique and surreal experience. 

                                  

I also did an authentic culinary experience. I was trying to be sportive and agreed to a fish thali, but was I in for a surprise when it came like this:

Call me a hypocrite, but I'm used to doing pieces without the head and tail attached. Yet, I tried. I'm struggling with it, and when I ask how to do it because it was so full of fine fish bones, Biswal is like, 'bade khante aise nikaaldijiye, and ye jho chote chote hain, woh chalega'. ( remove the big ones, but the little ones you eat). I was amazed, but I tried......it was tough, Guess I was so scared of them, that they just kept getting stuck everywhere in my mouth, and they were like, next time training dhenge aapko.

Sagar said he had to get a picture of my plate after I was done because no one eats fish like that..very sad that was. :(

Orissa again (as in..like Bihar) has so much history; one word that just catches your attention is Kalinga. It’s everywhere. And Biswal was suggesting I go visit the Shanthi Stupa at Kalinga where Ashoka took to Buddhism after the battle of Kalinga. Would have loved to do that, but this trip was too tightly scheduled. Inshaallah another one.

My sixth, I think, singularly novel and scintillating trip through SELCO (leaving out the Delhi, Mumbai and Goa kinds). Back then, in my whispers to god, my thoughts were ....... Social Sector, Rural India or Education, and God heard it so right. Ever Grateful.

Adaptation - A Movie

Like being inside of a writers mind. Crazy complex.  A paradox you know.....I'd say writers are way up there in clarity.......but then clarity doesn't come from nowhere.....it's just about digging deeper and deeper into the selves, and that's where it gets intense, and as intriguing too. 

It's taken me a week to get down to writing about this. Guess it took that long to let the complexity settle and the theme or rather themes unravel themselves. There's a crazy level of genius and a medley of emotions in there, and it's not easy putting that in simple frame.

Let me actually get to the movie....

The movie happens at multiple levels of reality; it's much inside the head of Charlie Kaufman, a screenplay writer trying to adapt a book from the mind of another equally complex author, Susan Orlean who has in turn written about this eccentric orchid hunter, John Laroche. And within each are their own relationships. Susan is attracted to John and his passions, and then the story of Charlies involvement in her life, and so getting dragged into the murky drug involved love affair between Susan Orleans and John. Underlying all of this is Charlie's relationship with his bother; his identical twin Donald,  a fictional alter ego in constant conversation with Charlie through the movie. 

I know that's crazy complex, but then, I can't help it...so's the movie :)

It messes with your mind, but then it's also eccentric genius I guess, because it walks you through that complexity with skill and ingenuity.

Nicolas Cage is exceptional as Charlie and Donald, himself with his deepest fears, inadequacies, insecurities, anxieties, and dealing with his antithetical self, one that is a nonchalant, ambitious, casual, and fun facet.  Like he's at one time calling himself narcissistic and also pathetic, and how he is more comfortable in his elemental self than the fun self, while yet being both. And it's not funny. On the one hand, he can't seem to keep his own girlfriend, while his fictional self seems to get any girl he desires with just that no effort.

Susan Orleans, played by Meryl Streep, again a simple, classy, dignified author and journalist, with a job with New York times, a happy marriage and then drawn to Jon Laroche a crazy, charismatic, don't care about anything but my passion kind of guy, and how she finds her own protected life pale in comparison and goes in search of her own passions through Jon.

The lives of Charlie, Susan, Jon and Donald get interwoven as each ones search for meaning and passion runs into the others. You move in and out of different realities. In the final call, all adaptations seem to fall off and then everyone merges into this one morbid reality which is symbolically pictured in a swamp, and how it just twists itself around and your mind with it. I like happy endings you see...that's why the week.

Adaptation, I think, is also a huge play on Pun...in fact several times over. It's not just Adaptation of a book to a screenplay, but also Adaptation of people to situations, the orchid symbolically used through Darwin's theory of evolution, how the orchid and the insect adapt to each other, and I guess each one of their minds adapting to evolve, wait evolving to adapt.....whichever :)

It's storytelling at a different level. Don't let this review put you off. It's a worthy watch if you'll admit to the layers within.

Nature or Landscaped?

I loved this story............ I've been chaffed way too many times on the issue of not wanting to sweep off fallen leaves. Notwithstanding literal... metaphorical, it still brought a smile 

A priest was in charge of the garden within a famous Zen temple. He had been given the job because he loved the flowers, shrubs, and trees. Next to the temple there was another, smaller temple where there lived a very old Zen master.

One day, when the priest was expecting some special guests, he took extra care in tending to the garden. He pulled the weeds, trimmed the shrubs, combed the moss, and spent a long time meticulously raking up and carefully arranging all the dry autumn leaves. As he worked, the old master watched him with interest from across the wall that separated the temples.

When he had finished, the priest stood back to admire his work. "Isn't it beautiful," he called out to the old master. "Yes," replied the old man, "but there is something missing. Help me over this wall and I'll put it right for you."

The priest lifted the old fellow over and set him down. Slowly, the master walked to the tree near the center of the garden, grabbed it by the trunk, and shook it. Leaves showered down all over the garden.

"There," said the old man, "you can put me back now."

Performance Ratings Are On Their Way Out - YaY

I almost danced a jig when I read this.

It doesn't relate to me directly any more, but for years it did.

Performance review times were anathema to me. I simply do not believe in a rating system, so to actually spend time rating people's performance, putting them on the performance curve, fitting this into the larger curve at a global level, was all part of a hated exercise. 

Even at a very personal level I do not believe in comparisons or competition. I guess that's why I jumped with joy at reading this Harvard Business Review write up: Why More and More Companies are Ditching Performance Ratings

A synopsis:

It states it started a few years back with a few courageous companies who dumped the performance rating system to adopt an On The Go Assessment Process, and by early 2015 it had reached 30 large companies. 

They state four reasons why the trend is changing:

1. Changing nature of work: It's not as cut and dry and clearly divisible or comparable anymore. 
2. Higher collaboration than competition: More work in teams
3. The need to attract and keep talent: Keep people happy
4. The Need to develop people faster: More focus discussions at an individual growth level

'Companies who have replaced ratings tend to be anxious about it beforehand and enthusiastic about it afterward. Their employees are happier, which encourages more engagement and better performance. It should be no surprise that treating an employee like a human being and not a number is a better approach. Yet it has taken a few bold companies to lead the way and show us that life is better on the other side. Only time will tell how lasting the trend truly is, but I strongly suspect we are at the beginning of something big.'

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

A sweet, charming, heartwarming and different kind of movie. Different in being centered around all older characters; a bunch of 60+ year veterans from England, who come to spend their last years in India, mostly for economic reasons, rather than from any spirit of adventure, but who yet find change and adventure in life.  

                                         

While they make their plan based on a well presented, historic, palace hotel, they arrive in Udaipur to find that it's a run down, decrepit version of the apparently photo shopped picture on the brochure. But then, they have no money and have one way tickets.... it's about how they fit in and grow through the experience.

Dev Patel is the owner of the hotel, totally passionate about making the hotel work, and it's endearing how he believes in his dream and this group enables it to come true.

There's Judi Dench, newly widowed and newly finding herself....realizing that she'd allowed her own self to be completely subservient to her husbands for all of forty years based on a trust he didn't necessarily deserve.....maybe she could think better than him you know

Maggie Smith, extremely racist, who is here for a surgery, and how it takes an uneducated untouchable poor Indian woman to enable her to open up and find herself. 

Tom Wilkinson searching for closure on a gay relationship he had in India during his youth, and which had continued to haunt him ever since... both have lived their respective lives and continued to remain in love

Bill Nighy and Penelope Wilton a couple disillusioned with each other, but together out of a sense of loyalty and respect, and how they see that those are not necessarily good enough foundations for a marriage...how they accept that their marriage was long since over, and so part ways. 

It's about how each of them is at that stage in life when they've seen it all, are more open to honesty, willing to apply the lessons they've learnt..... so there are relationships which get built, which break...... basically about how that's a journey that goes on.

And the breaking of the barriers of age.... it's actually easy to see the whole age bias that society is pretty much caught up in...... to in fact see that possibilities actually get higher as you grow older. Just last week, in the car, was this peppy Bryan Adams number playing.... ..Eighteen till I die. And I was telling Diksha, "that's no way you know....left to me,  I'd want to be forty till I die " :)

Man's Search for Meaning - Viktor E Frankl

Viktor E Frankl is a Psychiatrist, and more significantly, an Auschwitz survivor, three years in concentration camps. He writes as much through this experience, as academic expertise, and his theory in  psychiatry and psychotherapy is said to be the biggest since Freud.

The earlier title of the book was From Death camp to Existentialism, and he divides the book as such. The first half is his experience in the camps and the second the psychiatric theory that he propitiates.

I've kind of stayed away from anything Auschwitz for a long time, and for that reason this book has been on my want-to-read-but-can't list for a few years now. Guess I'm growing up....

It  made me realize one thing yet again..... that what you resist, grows....  and makes it that much more difficult to handle.

In fact he talks of this very thing in the book too. He calls it Paradoxical Intention. It consists of a reversal of attitude, where a fear is to be replaced by a paradoxical wish. Like if you have insomnia, he says keep yourself awake, don't focus on not being able to sleep; that takes the wind out of the sails of the anxiety. Interesting stuff. Tucking it away for use and repeated use. I think it could actually enable a higher awakening of consciousness if you could use it to surface subconscious blockages. Worth a try.

Moving on.....when one talks of something as grandiose sounding as Search for Meaning, it is assumed that there is one universal truth out there, like a 'The Answer'.

But no, he actually fits it in at a very individualistic level, yet with all encompassing possibilities. Each individual to find his own meaning, but that it's possible for anyone to do.

He talks of the widespread existential vacuum today, like almost an offshoot of evolution. For easy understanding look at it as a psychiatric Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Initially meaning came out of survival, when mans animal instincts were dominant. Then it was religion which held sway. Then tradition and societal expectation.

Today it's about Choice. No instinct and no tradition tells man what to do.

In order to fit, man will either wish to do what other people do (conformism) or what other people wish him to do (totalitarianism). But beyond this is where you hit the existential vacuum, where you search for your own meaning.

A statistical survey apparently revealed that amongst Europeans, 25 percent showed a more or less marked degree of existential vacuum, while among Americans, it was not 25, but 60 percent.

"A human being is not one thing among others; things determine each other, but man is ultimately self-determining. What he becomes-within the limits of endowment and environment-he has made out of himself. In the concentration camps, for example, in this living laboratory and on this testing ground, we watched and witnessed some of our comrades behave like swine while others behaved like saints. Man has both potentialities within himself; which one is actualized depends on decisions but not on conditions."

And in this he completely disproves Freud. If a lot of Freud was about generalization of human nature and the belief that at a base level, stripped of higher needs any man would behave the same, Victor states just the opposite. That it's about each ones own attitude.

More specifically and simplistically put, he speaks of three main avenues on which one arrives at meaning in life. The first is by creating a work or by doing a deed which he states is an obvious and basic one.

The second is by experiencing something or encountering someone; in other words, meaning can be found not only in work but also in love. This one brings out how experiencing can be as valuable as achieving because it compensates for the one sided emphasis on the external world of achievement at the expense of the internal world of experience.

The third is significant in that it enables meaning to even the helpless victim of a hopeless situation. He says meaning is possible even through suffering, provided the suffering is unavoidable. He states that if it is avoidable, the meaningful thing to do is to remove it's cause, for unnecessary suffering is masochistic rather than heroic. If on the other hand he cannot change a situation that causes his suffering, he can still choose his attitude.

He says, to be sure, man's search for meaning may arouse inner tension rather than inner equilibrium. However, precisely such tension is an indispensable prerequisite of mental health. He often quotes Nietzsche: '"He who has a why to live can bear almost any how'

It's in that sense highly empowering.

Looking for Change in all the wrong places

Another one from Seth

If you're doing something important, you're working to make change happen.

But change is difficult, often impossible. Are you trying to change your employees? A entire market? The attitude of a user?

The more clear you can be about the specific change you're hoping for (and why the people you're trying to change will respond to your actions) the more likely it is you'll actually achieve it.

Here are two tempting dead ends:

a. Try to change people who are easy to change, because they show up for clickbait, easy come ons, get rich quick schemes, fringe candidates... the problem is that they're not worth changing.

b. Try to change people who aren't going to change, no matter what. The problem is that while they represent a big chunk of humanity, they're merely going to waste your time.

Manhattan - The Movie

Brilliant stuff.....total, undiluted, good movie experience this was. It's what Woody Allen does best, how he manages to weave in the layers and complexities of human relationships, bringing out with gut honesty basic wants, desires, needs, and at other times the frailty and hypocrisy of those as well. 

As story line, Woody Allen as Isaac, is a forty plus writer in the making, involved with a seventeen year old student, who is so in love with him. While he really enjoys her, he's struggling with what she wants, what he wants, what's good for her....and there's no easy fit. He seems to spend more time trying to break them up than anything, while yet wanting her, but uncomfortable with her age. Complex.

And then you have Yale, his best friend who is into an extra marital affair, though with a happy marriage. Of course, makes you wonder what a good marriage is. And to complicate things further, Allen gets attracted to the same woman, an intellectual types with who he can spend hours talking. So it's dealing with all of those layered complexities, including the rigid code of not getting involved with your best friends loves.

The fun element is of course there......while there's the seriousness and empathy it evokes,  the witty single liners are delivered with such casual punch that they hit straight home.  It's hard to define. Somethings are way subtle and some so in your face.

In fact I recently read somewhere that people respond aloud to movies in a theater, when surrounded by others, but not alone. Not true....  I found myself laughing aloud ever so often, sitting and watching on my laptop all by myself. And it comes from deep down, because in that quiet space, you know you're also laughing at yourself.

A SELCO Visit - To Chitradurga

This was a day trip, 5 am to 11 pm, and in terms of kms, around 700 I'd think.  Inspite of my love for road trips, it was crazy strenuous, maybe too much bad roads, too many meetings, one of the heaviest rains I've seen, a bad wheeze thrown in ......... so despite it being a good trip in terms of objective, it made me wonder if I really need to slow down :(

The pictures say it best, they capture the beauty and not the stress:

The day was so packed, that I didn't get even a peep into the fort....not even from the outside

Kyatsandra thate idli is apparently really well known, and Kyatsandra was on our way, so did it.

The SELCO office at Chitradurga

                            Colleagues from Chitradurga; Manjunath, Ajay and Ramesh

In meeting with Deviramma, a potential entrepreneur; she was so interesting

                                       

The luminary had water accumulated, and I really liked how Ramesh immediately opened it out and cleaned it up.

Deviramma's shop is third in these shacks, on the highway near Hiriyur.

It's hard to grasp the economics of these shacks. Most of them are open only at night, while a couple of them work round the clock. Some of them have turnovers as high as 3 lakh a month, yet they are extremely vulnerable on other counts.

For instance, while Deviramma was very keen on adding a solar refrigerator to her shop and felt it would even treble business, she said they would likely be asked to move, as the highway authorities had served notice. And when I asked her when it was likely to happen she was so pragmatic about it...she's like...'government amma, nale bhartaro, ondu maasam hogudo, aaru maasam hogudo, hogudeillanu, gottilla' . And so they not only can't plan on anything like structured growth, but also live with very high levels of uncertainty.

I'm thinking of still going ahead with this refrigerator on a buy back basis, such that the risk at their end is entirely mitigated. Got to wait and see how that goes.

There are these Wind Mills for what seemed like kilometers on end along the way, and it was nice to see Lokeshs (the cab driver) reaction when I very dramatically said...hum jaise sooraj se bijli banathe hain, yeh log hawaa se bijli banathe hain. (the way we generate electricity from the sun, these people generate electricity from wind :)

That's Jayalakshmi and Sreenivas, a tailoring couple in this small village called Obbalapura (which by the way is just 2 kms from the Andhra border, so telugu worked :). This village gets just 4 hours electricity per day, and it's naturally huge impact on their business. We're working on solarizing their sewing machines.

This sight as we left Challikere, was like out of a Bond movie. Those blots on the high tension wires? Those are people......walking around and working up there. Amazing what level of nerves and skill, a task like that would take.

Another eventful and exciting SELCO visit.

Teachers' Day Again

This day, last year.....last teacher's day, I was most pleasantly reminded of it being Teachers Day, with a message that said 'Thank you for teaching me much'. 

This year, I've been conscious of the date for a few days now. And I guess it's because I want the chance to say Thanks in Turn.

I've had some major learnings this year, in fact there are times when I feel a whole new person.....and what's more, I like this person :).......so with deepest thanks

                                

Communication , Yet Another Facet

While it's known fact that communication involves non verbal as also verbal communication, and both co-exist.......one Ahaa realization, was how each is like a mother tongue. Like how each of us has a clear affinity to one language, it's the language we think in, the language we're most comfortable with.

Likewise this...  the one we express best in, is the one we listen best to, too. 

Each of us has our comfort zone, a preferred mode.........and this, notwithstanding the fact that the other individual might be more comfortable with the other mode. This is where the gap between 'what one is saying' and 'what one is hearing' happens.

Just think of it as two different languages, say I speak Telugu better and the other speaks Hindi better, but because I understand Telugu better, that's where I'll focus.......I just listen and grasp better there, and most of my nuances and understandings and conclusions come from there.

To rephrase, or rather, to exemplify, if I am more at home with verbal expression, and the other individual not.....it's possible, in fact probable that she will believe what she's hearing from the non verbal communication, rather than from what I am saying, even, or especially if they appear inconsistent. I can cry myself hoarse verbally, but then, the listening is happening from elsewhere. You get that, right?

So when you have two people who are on either end, that's a lot of scope for 'lost in translation'.

I can vouch for this because I know instances where I've been caught at the wrong end of both, Fell short on listening..... and being heard incorrectly as well. Yet, why the Aha moment was still a pleasure,.........is because you now see the opportunity.

I'm a firm believer of .....'Clear articulation of the problem is 80% of the problem solved'.

So, if you can work around the issue....... understand it, accept it, then resolve it......like actually get to a process that will enable you to bridge that gap coherently, it's opportunity to up level.

This is like that learning from Google. A good crisis is a terrible thing to waste. The crisis is the built in narrative! Use it. 

Evidence apparently suggests that provided both people listen, conflict is more likely to enhance than to destroy a relationship.

A good learning opportunity is always a good thing, let's use it :)

Googles New Logo

I happened upon it yesterday morning, and it really made my day. Such a neat and slick doodle.

For those who might have missed it, (looks like it was live only a day) here it is:

I immediately asked  a few friends to check it out....just to share something beautiful kinds,  and of course, once a Googler, always a Googler remember? One friend wrote back....The Doodle is just brilliant...goes to show what a thinking organization Google is. That says it all.

The one word that comes to mind that gets ingrained and imbibed at Google, is 'Scrappy'. To be flexible, adaptable, malleable....... to situation, to context, to growth......you get the idea.

A highly desirable quality, and one that's looked for not only in the employees ( we were asked to specifically check for it at interviews), but also in the company itself. It's ability to be flexible and change on the go. The way it launches and sunsets products. The way it iterates on processes and products. The number of times it has changed its logo, is representative. 

The core stays. The goal stays. It's the layers that shift to adapt. 

The CANI (Constant and Never Ending Improvement) is an outcome of this, I'd say.

We all know that thing of 'Change is the only Constant', that everything is dynamic, growing, changing. Being scrappy is one way of staying on top of things. A method to CANI. At a company level, at an employee level, and surely at a personal level too ........

Some Trivia

There's this sentence I used in the previous post:

'While I did a FDR ( factory data reset), for good measure, I downloaded this Clean Junk App too'

As I wrote, it had bothered me. When I read, it bothered me.  I knew it had something to do with the article....'a' before FDR, it just wasn't sounding right.

I wanted to take the liberty of putting an 'an' there, but then this whole ...a,e,i,o,u is so ingrained, that I couldn't do that either.

This morning I got up with knowing why..... FDR does warrant 'an'.

The a,e,i,o,u is phonetic you see, it's the phonetic sound of the first letter that decides the 'a' or 'an'

Not that my grammar is perfect, far from it.....in fact Diksha wonders if I even did commas in school....she was once like, you skipped it in choice, or what?

But this is to say how, if you have your question articulated before you go to sleep, more often than not, the answer makes itself known in the morning. Your subconscious mind is at work you see.....

Clean Master

I've been fascinated by this App ever since I started using it.

And I started pretty early........ there's a story there. I got the Nexus from Google, my last gift from Google before I quit, and within the month I lost it ( totally my bad...I put it on the car boot when I was opening the gate, and then drove off). So obviously it fell off somewhere, and there was no searching even possible.

But because it was last gift from Google, and I was really attached to it for that reason, I decided I was not going to let go without a fight. I was determined to put in sincere effort, whatever to takes. I filed an FIR at the police station, and this, though they said they do not allow FIRs for phones, so that itself took like four trips and lots and lots of talking.

Then I went to the police station enough number of times to actually get them to spend time on the case. Not easy, because each time you go, you'll see these petty criminals types sitting around, and you'll get weird looks and all......and even the police guy will give this exasperated look, like...oh, you're back, kinds. :)

But end of story?  They actually traced it out.....they found it in Bangalore ( I lived in Hyderabad then). Faith in the police went from 6 to 10.

Reason I talk of this story in so much detail, is the take away. Another clear instance of, you really believe in something, ........put in all your efforts....... with sincere faith and energy.....there's a darn good chance it'll happen.

And I got back my phone. It had a lot of stuff on it, it was gone over three months you see, and had apparently been well used. While I did an FDR ( factory data reset), for good measure, I downloaded this Clean Junk App too.

And that's when the love story began. We have a wonderful spaced out relationship. It tells me when there's too much junk accumulated.......and then, it'll tell me what I should get rid off, and it'll also tell me what it thinks I would do good to get rid off. 

And as you can see, to date, it has cleaned 16.20 GB of junk. Now that's pretty close to the phones capacity of 20 GB. So, if my phone is now still working at as good as new, I think it's a lot of credit to clean master. How clogged up would it be with 16.20 GB of junk.

Junk accumulates everywhere.....on your phone, in your cupboards, in your house........ in your relationships....and even within you. 

What would enable a clean junk replica everywhere needed. While the cupboards and rooms are easy do's, for relationships and within, it's going to take a level of consciousness. 

I'd say, worth the thought and worth the effort.....