The Magic of Being Your Natural Self

This is a rant of an idealist, set in a very specific B-School Context in India.

With the placements season going on in business schools, the general atmosphere in the batch is pretty tense. You have to be at a B-School to experience and understand it. People go around like zombies, from one process to the other, getting rejects. It’s more of a relief, than exhilaration when people get through. The best of people begin to doubt their own credentials and confidence. Even those who aren’t involved in the process feel extremely tense for the ones that are.

And it is a fashion to blast the HR practices of companies and find faults with them Find biases, find inexplicable processes, selection and rejection bloopers and lambast them. After being together for 2 years, you pretty much have an idea who fits where.  But then, do they see things that you dont understand? Anyhow, the point is, you feel a sense of uneasiness gripping you seeing a lot of the artificiality around.  A feeling of being constrained, the walls closing in. Prepared answers, manipulated personalities, canned sales pitches and what not. Admittedly, a lot of that is required to get through the processes that are designed that way. Especially when some processes end with unexpected selections or no selections for hilarious quoted reasons. You may just get mad and reach a point where you begin to question the basics...on where this is headed? Is everything artificial? Is there no semblance of sanity? Having said that, to be fair,in general,mostly it happens that deserving people get though, if not the best. Yes, it is a "Selection" not a "Elimination". Be noteworthy or show a spark or a thoroughness or a fit to get selected.

Q : So does the treasure called capability always require dressing up? An artificial packaging to get it to sell?

That is when some things happen which come as a breath of fresh air. It reaffirms your belief in the goodness of the world and the intrinsic happiness in life, in its purest form. It was exhilaration and joy that had to be seen to be believed, when a colleague got through a company, after thorough five-six rounds of tests and interviews. But the most notable was when I heard the narration of the interview experiences. It was the most hilarious I have ever heard, and probably will ever hear. But it was remarkable in its absence of any artificiality or pretence. Just a simple case of personal characteristics,raw skills, and strengths and weaknesses coming through in the open in the most natural way possible, almost crudely. The success hinging on the most basic of things, raw potential, primal capability and suitability of personality. Nobody dare classify it as mere providence. Me being me, I analysed of course. And analysis clearly showed what went right, logically, behind the scenes. It restores a semblance of sanity after seeing many seemingly crazy (maybe crazy because we dont see the logic) HR processes. Whats more, it is a kind of foolproofing system which greatly enhances the probability that you are really going into your area of interest, and will do what you  like in life. You'll enjoy it, and be good at it.

It surely reaffirms the belief that the world isn’t too bad after all. And it brings a huge smile.

A: No, the treasure of capability can sell on its own in some cases, and be a winner.

Cheers, and here’s wishing all the best to all the fellow B-Schoolers going through this torture right now. It usually works out when we believe in ourselves!

Learnings of Titu the Frog

Titu the frog went to Barabara School in the Amazon rain forests.  Titu had a large transient group of friends but his best friends during the time of the incident were Nunu the tortoise, Ratty the squirrel and Tomco the cat. The four friends used to study in the same class. Mostly they also sat on the same bench and ate together. They also went swimming together.

Titu was good at outdoor sports in general. Being a frog, he was a master high jumper, a good basketball player and a fair long jumper. Nunu, ratty and Tomco were the indoors type and passionate about snooker. They played indoors on most evenings. Titu did not have much interest in it but he would go along with the flow and play snooker with them. They enjoyed and had a good time together. Months went by and Titu kept trying his hand at snooker, occasionally winning a game or two.

One day there was an outdoor sports clinic organised at their school. But Titu had a self concept that he was cool and needed no training. It was shameful to attend such useless clinics, which only very serious animals attended.  He firmly believed other animals would make fun of him if they saw him go for such clinics. He would much rather have a beer party with the snooker group . An interesting thing happened when Nunu and Ratty went to the neighbouring forest to participate in a regional snooker competition. A three member team was required, so Titu tagged along. And for it, he missed his athletics team selection at Barabara. More such instances happened. Most interesting was when succumbing to the strength of the flow, Tutu even attended a snooker clinic on the recommendation of his friends, despite his strong self concept. Snooker clinics are typically much longer than Athletics clinics. Of course he lost interest after a few days, but he spent a lot of time attending a large part of it. Athletics training suffered on account of it. Also, Titu had a healthy physique. But  he often shirked going to the gym and keeping fit.

Then came the Olympics year, the moment of reckoning. Titu was selected to represent Barabara School for high jump at the World Animal Olympics. After the team was announced, Titu became nervous. He had lost his touch and could not even touch 80% of his personal record. It was then that he found his calling. He took a decision to ace the competition. He wanted it badly. He would still hang around with his friends and have a lot of fun  but also began persistent and focused practice. He would get up early in the morning, run ten rounds of the school playground and do strenuous exercises in the gym. He specifically went to a neighbouring forest to attend a high jump clinic. He would spend his evenings bettering his own high jump records. His snooker friends would egg him on at times. The ability was always there, slowly the confidence also came back. His concentration skills, honed by hours spent at the snooker table also helped.

To cut a long fairytale ending short, Titu won the gold medal at the World Animal Olympics and set a new world record anyone is yet to break.

This story came to mind when I was discussing career choices with an Industry person today. After fifteen minutes of nonstop advice, where I could barely get in a word he said “But, please don’t listen to anyone..Err..Listen to everyone but do what your heart feels like. What you intrinsically feel happy about. Irrespective of how popular or sought after or not it is.”

 Pretty clichéd but that reinforces a strong learning over the past two years. The most important is to understand yourself as a person, and do what suits you best. As they say, if you do what you like, you’ll never have to work a single day. He signed off saying, some people like structure and stability while some like a fast paced environment. Some might thrive in making a baby in nine minutes while some would put their foot down and say it will take nine months.

Titu's Learnings

• Leverage your intrinsic competence
• Hone your skills, Practice and Prepare, there’s no substitute for it
• Make your own life decisions, irrespective of the herd or the flow
• Taking a stand doesn't compromise your social relationships, have the best of both the worlds 
• The probabilty of success is mainly limited by how badly you want it
  
• Confidence is a magic pill

Crossroads

Protagonist(s): The typical young Indian woman in her early 20s, well educated, free, with a broad perspective of the world.

Disclaimer: The views are just opinions derived from observations and analysis of a biased male eye across a broad spectrum of females. And of course exaggerations at places to make the point. Each individual is unique and hasty generalisations might be grossly invalid. But food for thought nevertheless.

The other day I was having a conversation with a friend I had come to admire. The discussion moved onto “purpose in life” and i was literally shocked and dumbstuck when she said the purpose was to “have two kids and enjoy on husband’s money”. Not for a moment am I suggesting that it is a bad purpose in life to have. But while it might have been said in jest, the undertones cannot be ignored. Especially when it came from one of the people who talk a lot of independence and freedom of choice. There are a lot of things for which you respect people and certain instances which erode that respect a lot. So how do we resolve this paradox?

For all the talk of progress and women’s liberation and choices for women, it is sometimes sad to note that choices and independence and individuality and freedom is defined very narrowly. As the freedom and choice to select your husband. And that becomes almost the only decision that matters in life. Talking of a decision making process, I was told “I won’t think that much even before my marriage”. The ultimate decision. And then two kids and happily ever after. Then the freedom to wear certain kinds of clothes, or drink or smoke or many small things.. But then is it freedom without responsibility? Like a little tween who rebels to have all the freedom to party and play with an assured supply of pocket money and the assurance that the parent would bail him out if ever he faces a crisis? How often have we accused the “chauvinistic Indian male” of constricting his wife and not allowing her career to blossom? Of course there is also the "clever" male who wants a wife who works but is “homely”. Nobody minds a double income.

Looking at the other extreme of the spectrum, one friend says marriage is the last thing on her mind and she would do it if ever she felt like it. Independence and independence through career is most important. She can’t even imagine how some girl could decide to marry and sacrifice her life. I was shocked again. Is marriage akin to sacrificing her life?. Now isn’t that tough to digest too? Irrespective of her career progress, would’nt she end up feeling “empty” ten years down the line? Does “progress” mean abandoning a family life and going for a mad rush? We know how the western societies have “evolved” in this context. But can “evolution” here be equated to “progress” or “for the better”?

Just to briefly touch on a whole can of worms, add to this the explicit reservations and the not documented but oh-so-explicit “affirmative action” and “equal opportunity” practices followed. Why then make such a big deal of the liberation and freedom?

So, for all the talk of liberation and “progress”, any typical young Indian woman finds herself at the crossroads today. Career decisions on one hand and the family pressure for “marrying and getting settled” on the other. The crisis multiplies manifold if she has a huge set of gosipping and matchmaking relatives on the one hand   and a set of ambitious peers on the other. The differences in response of each woman, the priorities and the behaviour she exhibits and the satisfaction derived from each aspect of her life may be shaped by the sociocultural context of her upbringing. Since India is a vast country of a zillion different languages, dozens of religions and beliefs, swanky metros, upcoming small towns, sleepy. villages. And of course, most importantly, the huge difference in personal characteristics of being a romantic, being dreamy, being ambitious, need for affiliation, need for achievement and so on.

I hope she finds her way and reconciles the discordance. All the best!

Travelling on a Train

Warning : This is not another story about the idiosyncrasies of Indian railways, or about the typically funny things and funny people on trains. You may not end up in fits of laughter or end up cursing the ineptitude of the railways Still it may be funny in a way.

I had to reach college in time for a 11 am class on Monday,7 Dec 2009. The last term of the “Great IIM MBA” was kicking off. I reached the station on Sunday night to catch the late night train from Cochin to Kozhikode.(Both in Kerala) The train arrived on time. It surprisingly happens invariably in these parts of the country. I quickly found the compartment and climbed on.

Indian trains have something called a 3-Tier sleeper coach where people convert the seats to berths at night and sleep at three levels(Lower,Middle,Upper).There I find an elderly gentleman sleeping on my lower berth(Which clever me had deliberately selected for ease of late night ingress and early morning egress).Slightly irritated, I had no choice but to wake him up. Why don’t people sleep on their own berths! He seemed dazed and confused and woke up his son on the upper berth. The son confessed dad couldn’t climb up and hence had  slept on my berth. Intelligent me had already thought of that , since it is a normal practise in Indian trains to swap berths with ladies and elderly people who prefer lower berths. However, there was no other empty berth in sight and hence I had discounted the scenario. It transpired that the middle berth was assigned to the elderly gentleman. The son requested me if i could sleep on the middle berth, and I agreed with a “you-must-say-thank-you-for-my-big-favour” expression. But the middle berth was occupied too. The ticketless culprit was woken up, and sent away with a condescending expression from my side. He obliged easily. I set up my bag and was about to sleep. That’s when he returned with a puzzled TTE. I handed over my ticket with a smug expression of “get done with the ritual quickly and let me sleep”. He called me aside. What the hell? Why won’t they let people sleep peacefully! He asked me what date was the ticket. The horrific thought of having booked ticket for a wrong date crossed my mind. But I soon checked and cleared that in my mind and authoritatively said “6 Dec”. He asked “What date did the train reach your station at 1.30 am?”

Well I am a meticulous and an intelligent guy who plans his activities well you know!

Realisation dawned. The ticketless travel fine amount was duly calculated and communicated.

The next sequence of events generally unfolds like this. Be it a traffic cop or a ticket examiner or millions of other such offices:

“So ab kya karna hai?” (So what do we do now?)

“Aap batao?” (You suggest..)

“Nahi..aap khud hi batao..kaise karein..dekh lo” (Well..no.. you only tell me..how do we proceed..look at the situation)

“Fine dena padega.. itna ” (You'll have to pay so and so fine) (Stresses the hugeness of the amount and the foolhardiness of paying it with his expressions) 

This goes on for a while and ends discreetly with a negotiated settlement, a quick exchange of a fifty or a hundred note. And done. The most recent example being when a shrewd lady ticket examiner happened to catch us for an inadvertent ticket offence on the "famed" Mumbai locals, and tried her best to close the deal making some money for herself. Its a different matter we did not oblige.

Something different happened here.  For one, I am thankful to him for taking me away discreetly before serving me the punchline of the story instead of letting it unfold there in front of 6 pairs of irritated peering eyes woken up by a haughty traveller who boarded in the dead of the night and was staking a claim on their seat. Now, the guy looked at his reservation list and was more concerned about where I can be accommodated. This compartment did not have any empty seats and I was sent to another TTE. I quickly apprised him of the situation and he started evaluating alternatives to accommodate me. Took me around the train, found a seat and promised to give a berth as soon as it is available. And promptly took out the receipt book and wrote out the receipt for the fine. Looked like standard procedure. There seemed to be no other way. No questions asked.

Was quite refreshing and the much maligned Indian Railways have an impressed and satisfied customer now. And maybe they have a point when they talk of high literacy rates and high Human development Index scores for the state.

This was not what I had in mind

Disclaimer : A little bit of personal ranting, may not be of much interest to readers. Except those who might be feeling the same way. And the sad thing is, I know there are many.

In the April of 2008, everything seemed to be closing up and I seemed to have reached a dead end. Those B-School admission results were pouring in and none of them favourable. It was not as if I was disgruntled with my job or frustrated or that I hated my life then. Just that I had made up my mind that I had to move on, chase “higher dreams”, and follow “higher aspirations”. And I did not have the stomach to attempt CAT once more. And in a bout of self righteous ethics, I hadn’t bothered to keep my plans private from my superiors. So no admission meant – “screwed”.

Hence it came as a pleasant surprise, more a relief when I got the news of admission to IIM-K. For, the interview was not the best and realistically my chances were miniscule. I remember I got the news when I was on the shop floor, supervising the pilot production of a new model.

If anybody had asked me then, I could not have detailed out those aspirations. Was a pretty sketchy idea. But in my mind I was sure that it would be good. How could it not be?

All the excitement and euphoria about a new thing followed, especially when it was to be a so called “IIM”. Where I’ll get to meet the best people in the country. And where everyone else is dying to get into. The first term was fun. The novelty and the new people and the challenge of something that was said to be “challenging”. The second term was fun too, infact it was great in more than one way. But it was mostly downhill thereafter. Yes, I met a lot of great people. Yes, got to learn a lot of things, academically and non academically. Yes, I have discovered more of myself. Have broadened my perspective about a lot of things, and life in general. And I have learnt a lot about working with people. Made good friends. Worked in some absolutely great teams. But undeniably the enthusiasm levels kept coming down as the terms progressed. A little bit of rough weather here and there did not help either. So much so that it has set me thinking now, at the end of term 5, with one term to go.

This was not what I had in mind when I started off in June 2008. Look at a single point metric..I' m not sure I'm "happier" now than I was then. Has to be listed down as a failure on my part because clarity of thought is one of the few things I pride myself upon.

Now the thing is I’m not used to it. I’ve never have had to think too much in life. Never have had to be bothered about many things. Or in short, never been really disgruntled or disillusioned. It’s always been a smooth straight road, with an odd speedbreaker at the max. And there have been no crossroads! The closest was when I’d failed to get into an IIT, but that was very short lived, and did not result in too much thought.

I’m hoping it’s just a teeny weeny something-induced transient phase and I get back to my non-thinking-nothing-matters-happy best soon. And I hope the next couple of months bring something good for all of us. And I get to write a great happy-teary farewell blog..the way it is supposed to be!

Embedding a Wave Test

Term break and 2 weeks means lots of time to experiment with things.So I try to embed a Wave into my blog and check realtime edits on the wave from all participants reflect on the Blog

Just meant to test..and play around.And don't mind the viralmarketing effect it creates..they deserve it!

• New application to play around with.
• Debatable whether it is too complex or if it will get into the mainstream usage.
• But this thing sure has the potential to change the way people communicate.
• And with it, huge business implications, to reach the customer, catch eyeballs and do business.
• It is pretty daunting to think of the opportunities and how to capture them!
• Off topic: Been thinking how FB quizzes that people keep taking can be tapped for MR and psychographic profiling
  

One thing is for sure, watching the Google Wave Demo Launch video given by the Product Managers sure brought back memories of my old dream of becoming a software engineer!
At a closer level.. made me wonder if it was the right decision in jumping onto to the business bandwagon..from a product development stream at an automobile major.

P.S : I just figured out the wave itself (embedded below) can only be seen and edited from the blog by people on Google Wave and added onto that wave. Others would just see a blank.(Or a google sign in page).

A Perspective on Diwali Celebrations

A few interesting snippets from Diwali on a B-School campus.

Hostel Decoration Competition

This time on Diwali, an Inter-Hostel decoration competition was held. And you bet a lot of hostels were really decked up..Painstakingly made rangolis, innovations in lighting, bribing judges with sweets (:P), breathtaking designs. Very nice and lots of feel good factor. But all this, when it doesn’t happen usually. One friend raised a very pertinent point. And I agree. So does everything have to hinge on “competition”? Is that the primary motivation to do things? And can it spur a certain segment of people to do anything? Yes, there is the joy in celebrations and the joy in decorating together. But why doesn’t it happen every year? Yes, some hostels do decorate each year, but the motivation again primarily is to show off an attitude “We’re the best decorated hostel”. One poor soul who prides himself on raising conflicting opinions and championing different causes raised his voice.. Why should we spend insanely on ostentatious decorations? (About Rs. 10,000) Why not donate it for charity instead? Very right. The suggestion was quickly shot down. “Good views..But after all it is a competition this year and it is necessary to try and win?” No questions asked.

(Inhaling deeply) “Aah the pollution reminds me of Delhi!..mazza aa gaya! (it's so much fun)"

I overheard that at one place where crackers were being burst. It took me back to thoughts of how the smell of freshly brewed coffee brings back nostalgic memories of childhood. Of course memories and nostalgia are encoded with multi-sensory data. The smoke, light and the sound of crackers did remind me also of the Diwali at Delhi. Let me not get into a clichéd discussion about the pros and cons of the cracker-bursting exercise.

Mass Bunk

By some weird quirk of scheduling, classes were scheduled from 7pm-11pm on Diwali night. The resentment among the students needn’t be overemphasised. “Mass bunk” used to be a favourite exercise during undergraduate days. A teacher fails to turn up for ten minutes, and that was it. The students would disappear. So here, some kind of a mob mentality ensued, coupled with the resentment of classes on Diwali. And cries of “Mass bunk” were raised. It is a different matter that it was never going to be pulled off..And nobody thought of the repercussions either. But the strength of the mob ensured people atleast put up a show of walking out for a while.

"Come Let’s Play Poker"

Some enterprising individuals took up a “social initiative” of teaching Poker to people on campus and having a “Poker Night” on Diwali. Of course more the players, more the stakes. All the more better if a majority of the players are novices.

My Diwali

My second Diwali on campus. I had some fond memories of the first one and did not know what to expect on this one. It proved to be an interesting day, and a thoughtful night. There was an undeniable feel good factor associated with all the celebratory mood around. People decked up in nice clothes, buildings decked up in nice lights and a symbolic Puja. Some of it recreated the magic of the Diwali I’m used to, the Diwali at Delhi. More importantly, I went through the night observing interesting things, realising a few things , taking a few decisions and generating some food for thought. Interesting time overall.

Here’s wishing everyone a Happy Diwali and a great year full of smiles!