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Showing posts from 2009

So Where Are You From? !!

The other day I was at the eye clinic , waiting for my turn to see the doctor. There was this old lady sitting beside me and we striked converstaion. She asked where am I from? Ummmm , lets see. I was born in Gaya , brought up in Motihari (Both in Bihar). Then in Narsinghragh , a remote village in south Jharkhand. Then next 8 years I was in Jamshedpur , where currently my parents are settled. Then I moved out to Warangal, in Andhra Pradesh , for my graduation. After which I have been working in Hyderabad close to 8 years now. So where do I belong to? Bihar . where I was born. Or Jharakhand , where I was brought up. Or Andhra Pradesh , where I studied and then currently working? Am I a Jamshedpurian , where my parents are settled now and where I frequently visit. Or am I a Hyderabadi , where I stay to earn my living? Or am I an Indian?

Anything That Can Go Wrong Will Go Wrong !!

Who is the Murphy anyway? Who ever he is, he makes his presence felt when you are least likely expecting him. Sometime he acts as spanner in the wheel and other just a deflated tyre. But for sure you , me and others are affected by him day-in , day-out. Him affecting us can be minimized but the thought of altogether removing his presence would be a foolhardy one. However we can be better prepared to tackle anything and everything which may, potentially, go wrong. By paying attention to detail . Even before you start executing, a well thought out plan should be in place. This is the " well thought out " part of the planning I am stressing at. Proper care should be taken in initial planning so as to capture all necessary activities needed to complete the task. While listing down activities you would know what could possibly go wrong while executing the task. And that's where you need to have your contingency management in place. Which can be arrived at by "what i

I want my money back!!

When was the last time you saw a movie almost entirely shoot on sets? And foreign locations for songs? That is very 80s man. Add to that childish situational comedy and sub standard acting by the male protagonist. You have Gazab Kahani of Ajab Prem. How many Indian Christian you know who speaks Hindi with forced English accent, the female protagonist and her family does so in the movie.And oh, add to that Atif Asalam’s voice for Ranbir Kapoor.A full two and half hours of atyachar. Not even a month back RK gave appreciable performance in Wake Up Sid and in APGK he was almost pathetic. A director’s actor?

So you can’t speak Bihari!!

No, I can’t. And wait a minute there is no language as Bihari. It is the way we speak Hindi out there sounds like altogether different language, aka Bihari or perhaps a new dialect. Well it is not a dialect either. It is Hindi with regional flavor and some accent to it. You find many dialects of Hindi being spoken in Bihar, one such dialect Magahi (Magahi paan, beetle, is famous all over India) is what my folks speak. And I don’t know Magahi as well. In fact hardly many in my generation speak Magahi. That is sad. Essentially languages are very integral part of any culture and with most of us confining ourselves to English lately its matter of merely a decade when not many languages would be around. In face I read somewhere that every year 400 languages are getting extinct every year (?). Can something be done about it?

Technology, Entertainment, Design!!

So TED was here, here in India for three days. TED talks going for three whole days in Mysore. But I could not attend those sessions. Reason: money honey!! It was too costly for me to attend. Well never mind, there is always next time. But there is addition to the To Do list and someday I don’t only want to be in the audience at one of those TED sessions but I want to speak at one. Hopefully on the topic related to technology and design.

I can motivate people !!

Not really -- they have to motivate themselves. You can't motivate people anymore than you can empower them. Employees have to motivate and empower themselves.I can motivate only myself. If I have to motivate my people to deliver result then perhaps they are in wrong job. Having said that, an environment, however, can be set up where they best motivate and empower themselves. The key is knowing how to set up the environment for your people. Essentially you can be enablers for others to be motivated[self]. I am exploring the ways to do so for my team. Obviously organizational level parameters like money, career growth and skill development , recognition etc are already in place. What I am looking for is team level local enablers.

The Strange Relation !!

We had recently joined the college and were under the process of “getting introduced to seniors”. For R Basu, my classmate who was from West Bengal, the usual question asked was if he and Jyoti Basu, the then chief minister of West Bengal, were related in some way? Obviously that was not the case. And that’s what R Basu used to tell. But you know seniors; they were never giving up on the question. Fed up one day R Basu said yes there was a very strange relationship between him and Jyoti Basu. Strange relationship? As in? He replied “ We are strangers!!”

Eats, Shoots and Leaves !!

That's about the red Panda you find in the Himalayan mountains. And sure enough they don't go around shooting as the title suggests. Its about red Panda's food habit and I intend to say that they eats shoots (mostly bamboo) and tree leaves. An unintended comma distorts whole intended meaning of the sentence. Which could have been avoided had attention to detail been paid. Paying attention to detail does help. Be it professional front or personal life. You put clothes in the washing machine , put required detergent , let in the water and switch on the machine. But did you put the water outlet at proper place? Missing to pay attention to detail on the process of getting your cloths clean using washing machine can flood your entire house. I did that twice :-O. Shipping application/delivering product/concluding project on the deadline promised looks to be a wishful thinking. But I know this is very much possible had attention to detail is paid at various stages of developme

वसुधैव कुटुम्बकम !!

Watch Kenya sing for India :)

I Am Too Busy !!

....to attend this meeting!! Well one of the most common trait of being Indian in India is not being punctual (Incidentally same Indian when in other countries on business becomes very punctual, huh!!). We, at office, have this daily status update meeting. And sure enough apart from usual issues like not sticking to the agenda of the meeting, late start and hence later finish of the meeting was norm . We tried many things (like some games, yes games!! and monetary fines etc.) but in vain. Then some time back we hit upon this idea of a ball with " I am too busy too attend this meeting" written on it. And anybody coming late will be made to hold this ball for entire duration of the meeting. And guess what? It worked. Now within the grace period of two minutes everybody is in :). Not a nice way to make respect time but effective nevertheless!!