The Insanity of Indifference....

The more one thinks about it, the easier it becomes to realize that insanity and indifference have a very close, perhaps even a symbiotic relationship.

"Pop" psychology would certainly suggest so.

If we don't care for what happens around us, in our society, and expect things to change on account of some magic wand...then that is surely insane.

So, being indifferent to issues like the safety of our citizens, the quality of education, the values being imparted to children, how we treat our women, our preparedness against natural disasters and the list can be endless...and expecting that our system will change overnight, is, at the risk of repetition, surely insane.

The flip side, is its aftermath.

Indifference, which lets people get away when they say there are different social rules for men and women - i.e women who smoke/drink/swear are morally "easy" and men are "cowboys/cool/macho".

Indifference, which doesn't make us question or protest against grossly flawed behaviour - not treating women with respect, swearing / cursing in their presence, even something as basic as littering in public.

And then, one day, in some form or the other, one ends up facing the consequences of that indifference.

Which, depending upon its harshness, makes one temporarily or permanently insane.

Insane enough to ask many futile questions.

The toughest one of them all perhaps being..."Could this have been prevented had I not been indifferent ?"

Must we not stop for a moment, and think this over ?

Must we not make the correct choice - of action over inertia, of slaying this monster of indifference.

I hope that this new year, we ask this question to ourselves, and choose the right answer - one which we are comfortable with, and can live with without the tiniest feeling of remorse or regret.

Let's not be indifferent any more - because we owe it to ourselves.

Wake up now my country, Hell has dawned !

I start this narration with a religious analogy...an attempt to define Hell...and out of sheer convenience, looking up Wikipedia give an interestingly relevant answer...

"In many mythological, folklore and religious traditions, hell is a place of eternal torment in an afterlife, often after resurrection."

I believe this definition is not entirely accurate.

One doesn't need to die and discover hell - one can simply be born as a woman in our country.

Yes, that statement has been dramatized...magnified in impact to create shock.

Because shock is the only recourse to waking up our slumbering, indifferent nation from this brain dead stupor.

Because now, more than ever, we need to rise beyond criticism and cynicism, and change our attitudes and behaviour - so that women in our country don't go through the hell that Shenaz Treasurywalla described in gory detail. Oh and of course, people have taken exception to that too, by finding fault with her death penalty plea and appeal to "powerful men" to save this country's women.

I am not here to argue for or against the points made by Shenaz.

I merely want to share my two cents on this entire debate, which has started to get coverage in public domain simply because Shenaz shared her horror stories.

Because after reading it, I felt disgusted to the core. Sick, Disgusted. Outraged, mad enough to dream up my own ideas of violent retribution against this tribe of sickos.

Because, suddenly, my father's reasons for worrying about my sister's safety do not feel unfounded at all.

Because my wife narrated her own versions of this behaviour that she had seen or had been victim to.

Because in my engineering class, there was a guy who used to do something equally sickening in crowded places, and would narrate those incidents as one would narrate adventure stories.

And I did nothing to stop it - did not shame him publicly, did not confront him for this behaviour, just ignored it because I felt he was sick in some way.

Because I am father to an 18 month old daughter, whose innocent face, laughter and antics make me smile each day - and I would hate to see her in this kind of situation, ever...

Two years ago, when Nirbhaya happened, when she was not yet born, we thought things would change.That was a pretty gruesome and shocking incident if any.
And yet, two years later. it seems Nirbhaya died in vain.

Because it seems that everyone who raged against the system then was driven by their own thirty pieces of silver perhaps ? No one was really bothered about changing things then, like now.

Perhaps, in a country of 1.2 billion people, life really is cheap.

But in this dismal state of affairs, I don't care what the govt does or doesn't do to make things different..I ask myself what is it that I could do ?

And then I realize that I have the answer...

I recall how I stood one day in front of the Godrej office in Vikhroli, nearly four years ago, waiting for a friend to pick me up. It was a busy afternoon.

And one auto rickshaw driver was having a blazing argument with a female passenger on the fare amount.

I stood by indifferently, though surprised that such a violent conversation was happening in Bombay - this was right at home in Delhi, but not quite Bombay stuff.

I kept noticing that tempers on both sides were getting aggravated by the minute, and yet, no one had bothered to intervene.

And then I saw the driver grab the girl's arm - which was the point where I lost it.

I ran up to the driver and screamed my head off, threatening him with a police complaint and what not...and that is when he backed off, and made his way. The poor girl was stunned, and she too went away silently.

I don't know what came over me that day...but I remember feeling bad that no body on that busy street had bothered to intervene...that I should have perhaps interrupted them earlier...but eventually, I felt relieved that perhaps my action possibly averted a mishap.Indifference from me would have been a greater sin, would have made me a party to the crime as well.

And that is what I resolve to continue doing...

I promise to teach my daughter self defence, give her strong female role models to look up to, and never let her be hesitant or under confident.

I promise I will be more alert and aware of the safety of female members in my surroundings - be it family or work.

I promise to raise my voice whenever I see any obscene behaviour on the part of men, especially in public places.

I promise not to be part of any cheap and gender insensitive conversations, not with friends, not colleagues, no one.

In my own small way, I hope to be able to reduce the impact of this hell - make an infinitely small difference to lives around me...and that is my request to everyone out there...

Let us wake up and act NOW - because each one of us CAN make a difference.

Choosing indifference over involvement will only darken this Hell - eventually, we ourselves are responsible for the kind of world that we want to create for ourselves, and Hell is surely not what anybody wants.

The Best Business Phone - Ever !

Today's corporate environment demands 24 x 7 connectivity, and the once humble, now turned "smart" phone has become an indispensable tool for the corporate warrior. 

This piece tries to define the characteristics of a the "model' cell phone, one that would serve as a trusty aide, an able lieutenant and be up to the challenge of both work and life.The scope is not restricted to currently available models, as the idea is to identify what could have been the best.

The commonest utility provided by the cell phone (apart from voice calls and sms) is that of email. 

So, its a no brainer that a great cell phone must give its user access to email. 

But most phones do that, don't they ?

Blackberry pioneered it, but lenient BYOD policies have pretty much leveled the playing field.

Microsoft had always supported Mail for exchange on Symbian Nokias, and now with its own Windows based phones, syncing office mail accounts is  a breeze. 

Ditto for Apple, Samsung and everybody else - all the major brands are at the same level here.

Email is a tricky little animal though - it contains attachments, is usually long (owing to an unending chain of trail mail), and makes little sense peering into a small screen to be able to read it properly.

It may contain jpegs or videos that may need approvals, or any power points that need review.

Hence, phones with small screens are out.

This eliminates BB, Nokia E63-72, E5 - basically all the qwerty phones. 

Which leaves us with - Windows phones, Samsung, Apple, and the new BB range (not too popular) 

Staying with email - one needs to type, and do so rapidly, without any errors. Same for SMS. 

I believe that its far easier to type on a keyboard than on a touch screen. We anyway spend so much time on the keyboard that a high level of comfort has unknowingly developed between the keyboard and us. True, most touch screen phones do have nice, virtual keys - but losing phone access owing to a damaged screen is a pain I have suffered far too many times. So, keyboards ahoy !

Unfortunately, barring BB Q35, none of the phones meet this criteria (call it whim if you may !!) 

Solid battery backup - a common malaise with smartphones today is that they need to be charged at least once during the day. Frequent travelling would mean that cell phone chargers need to be carried, and the phone may not have been charged.

This leads us to my old favourite - Nokia - the only phone capable of providing awesome battery backup.

A large touch screen - to approve artwork, to look at reports better, review presentations...need I say more.

All the ones except BB Q35 fail to make the cut here.

Camera (front and rear), and storage space - mostly used during quick skype calls or reporting from the field. Most phones do a decent job of this, barring BB - haven't used the new one though.

App support - Google maps, social media, news - most phones have them

So, which model of cell phone combines / combined all of these attributes into one solid device. 

Not an iphone, not a BB, Samsung or a Windows phone.

They were the good old Nokia Communicator and its updated avatar, the E7.

or  

I am at a loss to understand why the plug was pulled on these superb models. 

How I wish Microsoft and Nokia bring this back, in a Windows version ! 

A Crisis of Leadership

Browsing through some articles on turn arounds and leadership by corporate honchos on LinkedIn, I realized that while strategy, planning, execution et cetera continue will always be important, it is leadership which will differentiate how a team of individuals responds to a crisis, and fights its way back. This was prompted by the general overall sluggish macro economic scenario, and conversations with friends on how corporate India is responding to stuff around them.

I am no scientist, or thinker - so I'll just say what I feel my leader should say / or what I would say to my team when things are not going well.

1. Admit that the chips are down. : The citizens/employees are not dumb. They are connected to a internet driven, news hungry, content creating world.They read stuff, they discuss stuff. All of this causes a lot of flux and tends to give birth to unsubstantiated "facts". There are a few smart ones who also tend to cook up new theories to add to the confusion.  But a single, clear message from the leader, admitting that we have a challenge on our hands, and that we need to buck up, signals that yes, the leaders are aware of the problem, they are not sitting in an ivory tower, but are energetically thinking ahead on how to come back.

2. Create a positive & healthy environment : Encourage people, let them not be afraid of speaking their minds and ask questions. More often then not, the grand strategies of boardrooms prove ineffective on the ground because the people driving these strategies do not believe / are not convinced by them. An environment which allows them to freely question and understand stuff (especially since they are expected to drive actions that will help convert vision to reality) - will set imaginations free, and help people understand what is really expected of them, and more importantly, how are they expected to do so. Removing fear of reprisals is another critical element to this.

3.Celebrate the small wins : It is an unfortunate human tendency (acquired thru years of evolution) to highlight and pin point failures / misses. It helped us transition from being cave men to farmers, and then on to various other life stages. However, a company in crisis must consciously avoid making criticism its raison d etre and consciously make efforts to celebrate the small successes. This has a short, positive, morale boosting effect, and enhances the confidence levels of the team, which slowly can trigger a virtuous cycle.

4.Guide, coach and mentor: Senior leaders bring with them the wealth of experience - in some cases,  they would have seen similar circumstances and even been part of turnaround stories. Their guidance and coaching to selected team leadership members on how they can do the small, behavioural things right, that would set the larger teams on the road to recovery, can be a crucial input that really differentiates. Its critical to remember that the teams largely know what corrective actions are required - they just need support, guidance and regular monitoring and feedback to help them deliver the required results.

While most of the above sounds cliched and largely theoretical, it is largely true that most of our leaders today, both business and political, are concerned with getting the larger, strategic priorities right, leaving the job of managing the "smaller", softer aspects to the frontline / regular leadership, which is anyway under the regular pressure to manage operating reality on a day to day basis , leaving them with less of precious bandwidth to be able to really act as change agents. Coming to terms with change and the behavioural shifts required to cope with it require patience, maturity and immense self knowledge - and leaders who can exhibit the right mix all of these, while being able to set a consistent tone thru the system, would have lead their teams successfully.

An Attempt To Answer The Most Difficult Question : Why is Sachin Loved By All of Us ??

During Sachin mania yesterday, eminent journalist Mr Rajdeep Sardesai posted : 

Mr Sardesai’s question set off a train of thoughts that is yet to show signs of slowing down…

Why Indeed Is He The Most Loved Sportsman of Our Time ?

I humbly tried :

Brevity may be the Soul of Wit, but I do not think my remark even scratched the surface of what I was trying to say…so here I go again...

What Was It about Sachin that made him so loved, so dear to us  ?

A line comes to mind – “The greatness of this man was his simplicity” – used to describe another similarly built, giant of a man, who strangely as it may seem, may have more in common with ST than what would seem at first glance.

But No. That’s not it.

His “middle class” values, the unaffected, neighbourly manner with which he conducted himself ?

Nah – too simplistic an answer – not well thought of enough.

So, what was it ?

The whole of yesterday passed by in a blur – I do recall some moments though .

Yes, Mr Bhogle, I did have tickets to the match – and no, I do not regret seeing it on TV – because I don’t think I could have handled so much emotion live. TV provided me the opportunity to live, digest, break away, relive and remember. And to listen to you guys !

But this is not about me.

This is about the Great Man.

Watching the Heroes programme on Star provided some clues.

It was interesting, because Sachin was relaxed, his guard was down – and he was at his spontaneous best. I think he was enjoying it because the smile never left his face.

This was not like the Sachin of other interviews - efficient and honest, but with a protective ring, a defence mechanism around him.

This was Sachin, the person, the father - interacting with a group of kids, who were seemingly asking him innocuous, even inane questions like “Which is your favourite song ?” – the answer to that one is also very interesting, by the way.

His replies provided lots of insight - They were consistent with what he said in his farewell speech as well.

He said he got nervous before matches – just like any good student with get nervous before examinations – he also added that since he was never a good student, he would not know the feeling !

No one caught on to the fact that he was probably the best student of the game – and he was modest enough not to say it.

He said that Dedication, Discipline, Determination and Focus were all that one needed to do well.

(My mother has been saying that for the last 30 years)

He said that when he had started playing for India, his father had told him that one day, when all this was over, and he would not play anymore, the only thing he would have left would be his own self. He told him never to stop working towards being a good human being, because that was of utmost importance, even more important than excelling in the game he had chosen to be part of.

Did he not say most of this in his farewell speech ?

I was struck by the sheer consistency and wording of the thoughts.

Which brings me now to why he is special to all of us, and why we love him.

In only 5 years of training, he sharpened, honed and built the foundations of his 24 year old career – remember he went to Shri Achrekar when he was 11.

That speaks to me of passion, in addition to the Dedication, Discipline, Determination and Focus. 

He found an enduring passion, and nurtured it to perfection - extracted the maximum from himself towards it.

Nurtured it to the point where he was confident of facing the West Indies at age 15, and treating it as a learning experience. No arrogance, no braggadocio – just confidence.

Played against the best in the business and earned their respect – became super successful - won all possible accolades while doing it – found and married the woman he loved – overcame physical and mental barriers – did it over and over again – for 24 years – in constant scrutiny – under a billion expectations – and yet never lost his cool – never complained - never stopped being a good human being – and never spoke about all of it when he was playing - Never talked about his pain, his anguish, his frustrations – never said “Why Me?”

Faced his fears – injury, death, scandals – and went on to overcome them.

Was always aware that he was not bigger than the game – respected seniors, supported juniors – His accessibility to juniors would surely have been the single most sign of relief to them, and would have given them freedom to express themselves.

Did I miss something out ?

He’s lived a fairy tale life - Don’t we all dream of doing all of this?

I think I now finally understand why my father says : “Beta, agar kuch ban na hai to Sachin Tendulkar jaise bano”…..

The day ended with a phone call from a friend.

AP : “I can’t believe how the day went. It was so emotional. What a player – why can’t we try to become just 1% like him ?”

Friend : “If I could become 1% of him, I would become a super – rockstar in my career!”

And I believe, so would our nation. In not just our careers. As citizens. As people.

Because he has brought to life all of what our mums and dads knew since forever - what was common wisdom.

What Baba Ranchhod Das said : “ Beta Excellence ke peeche bhaago, kaamyabi jhak maar kar peeche aayegi ”

He’s showed us that it can be done. That it is possible.

He has inspired us, and I think now he’s challenging us – to be better, to be good, to be human, and superhuman at the same time.

And to top it off, he went and did this : 

He gave us happiness, when there was none. He gave us hope, joy and confidence. 

He lived Life like Rudyard Kipling said it should be. 

He's given us the template for excellence, and really defined what that word stands for - not the 2 minute, instant noodle version that the internet and other media have made mediocrity out to be.

He's the real hero, in a sea of photoshopped, steroid pumped, surgically enhanced fakes around. 

Why won’t he be so near, and so dear to all of us ? Why not so loved, indeed ? 

PS : His – and his fathers’ - favourite song is “Main zindagi ka saath nibhata chala gaya..”

Coming Back To Life...

It's been a long time...
Lots of things have changed..
One of them is the need to hide behind a pseudonym..
And the other is acquisition of perspective..this was fun, I used to enjoy it..why did I stop doing it ?

So, starting today..the blog is back up...

Thank you, everybody, who commented on the stuff written earlier.
Sincere apologies for not replying.

Look forward to connecting with you once again...

- Anshul

The truth behind Reality Shows ...or is it ?

5 min ago, a friend and I were discussing reality shows - and he suddenly said that Ms. Palak of MTV Roadies fame, was actually an actress ...who had appeared in Singh is King !

Curiosity got the better of me, and I went to youtube to check this out -

Indeed - he was right !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jRFCfSBtI0

and then of course google threw up the following result -

http://www.mid-day.com/entertainment/2009/apr/020409-Hell-Down-Under-MTV-Roadie-Singh-Is-Kinng-Palak.htm

Funnier reading was the so called great Mr Raghu's statement that it did not make any difference to him or the show...

Isn't that a little weird ?? Shouldn't the participant have been checked for any previous acting experience or appearance on TV ? Why was this conveniently overlooked ?

Perhaps, reality TV is not so real after all - sorry Dezadd !