Good Bye 2016

In all likelihood, this post is going to be my last in 2016. With only a day and a few hours left for 1st Jan, 2017 is pretty close. However, I am more worried about the 2nd of Jan which is the first working day of the new year, and which comes with loads of new work, especially in companies like mine which is an IT outsourcing provider and primarily caters to American and European clients who chill too much in this chilling period. Can't help the seasonality of this business. In any case, ever since I've started working, I've learnt that it's best to look at the present and live life one day at a time, as looking too far into an extrapolation of the present is often very stressful in professional context. And even in the most stressful of the days, living the present helps you get a relaxed sleep at night by letting you defocus from work and relax until the next day arrives, which if you fail to do would screw both your today and tomorrow.

I missed the target of completing 250 posts this year; this one's 242nd. Never mind, hope I stay alive to get there... and it's just a number anyway, significant only because we humans have agreed to use the decimal system of numbering. I don't remember having made any serious resolutions at the beginning of 2016. Or if I did, I wasn't serious enough about them so I could remember. But I am told it is very good to have goals in life - goals that totally drive one's thoughts, ideas and actions. Most people are only constantly searching for such goals all their lives. Perhaps it can be said that finding a goal for their life is the goal of most people. The rest are sure of what they want - a property which can also be a psychological aberration, given that it's only manifested in a few people. But such people change the world in bigger ways than normal people do. They are precious.

Even if one is unsure about goals of life, one can set smaller goals and strive to achieve them. It does require a resolve from a person to pursue goals just for the heck of it, or perhaps in search of some meaning of the time spent living. And little random things can often get together and lead to something big. Big enough to make everything look wise in hindsight.

Lemme set some goals for myself and see where I reach. Wish me luck.

No-Tax Economy

A very fundamental question has been lingering in my mind for quite some time now, especially after this demonetization move by the government and RBI - why should there be tax?

I am trying to put forth my point through this post, but please be aware that being technically accurate or complete in coverage and definitions is not the intent here, as I'm sure the relevance of my point is not lost because of that. Please bring forth if this post comes with any obvious or severe misunderstanding of our systems that would make my point meaningless.

The prime rationale for government pushing for a cashless economy is to ensure nobody escapes from paying taxes. All the so called black money became black coz the money went through a transaction that was entitled to certain tax which someone didn't pay, coz the transaction didn't have a record. This may be too simplistic a definition of black money, but let's say it covers some of it.

Technically, Tax is meant for all the government spending, including salaries of all government officials, spend on infrastructure development, all the welfare schemes and incentives, and maintenance of everything the government is responsible for. I am sure there are lots of other areas the money is spent, so let's just be aware of that and move on, without trying to define tax 100%. It is important to add, however, that one of the key goals of tax is income/wealth redistribution - which broadly means making rich less rich and poor less poor.

Now the fun begins. You have tax. And then you have ways to save tax. And the ways are supposed to help government acquire funds indirectly either through reserves of locked-in funds at individual levels or increased business growth at corporate levels and so on, which will lead to win-win for both parties - the government and the tax payer - in the long term. I don't exactly know the rationale behind offering such options to tax-payers, but I guess it must be to create an illusion of saving partially on what one is giving away and thereby to offer the prospects of additional well-being owing to one's extra application of wisdom in managing one's finances.

Now, the issue here is that people are smart. And those who see loopholes take advantage of them if they can manage to amass a little courage, and if the consequences are not that grave vis-a-vis the rewards. Why pay anything at all when you can not pay anything at all? - this question inevitably comes to everyone's mind when there is a way to escape paying taxes. A government would never like such people, and more importantly such practices. Given that people are what they are, one can only curb the practice - by plugging all the loopholes. Cashlessness is one such measure. But it doesn't guarantee that other creative practices won't emerge, coz still - people are what they are. In any case, especially in the Indian context at the moment, going cashless should be driven by convenience and not by lack of options. It's debatable whether convenience can bring a faster transition or brute force. My observation says the latter may be quick but short lived and temporary.

Doing away with the concept of Tax

Why have taxes at all? Suppose the total income of the economy for a year is x. And the government needs t amount to manage its expenses for the year. In the current model, we take away t from x so that x-t is what remains with all the working and tax-paying entities of the economy. Now imagine a model where the t is allocated by the central bank to the government. With the inflationary, money supply and demand-supply adjustments, the income of the economy will have to adjust to x-t. Or may be it won't, let's say it becomes y. The government spends like it does currently, may be budgeting for slightly more than t. This gap, called the fiscal deficit now, will have to be borrowed from the bank, and returned over time through the profits the government makes from the public sector undertakings, auctions of public property and natural resources, etc. The income redistribution part can be taken care of through direct cash disbursal, which comes from the t amount to be spent. I am sure there would be lot of econometrics involved in calibrating these parameters, including the money supply, to make it work efficiently. And I believe it is workable. It will definitely curb tax-evasion, as there is nothing to be evaded. In a way the government has already reserved its part and would be working with it for whatever it has to do. There still is scope for corruption at various levels, but that has to be modeled and dealt with as required. The needless hassle of creating and the resulting behavior of understanding complicated and funny income structures, benefits and investments would end and people will take what they make. And nobody would have any reason not to declare what they have. The entire money will circulate freely. Getting cashless will be convenient and will be embraced without a sales pitch.

The key challenge would be to transition to a new model like this. The world is so used to working with the tax model over centuries that anything else often seems inconceivable. However, I think there is scope for other models, much more simple and logical. The one I proposed has to be thoroughly modeled with all economic and financial considerations, and piloted very well so as to fine tune. And should definitely be rejected if it is not workable.

Does it have a chance? Please do let me know your views on this.

15-min post: working from home

It is 11.45 PM and I have to post this before 00.00 AM. This would perhaps qualify as my fastest post till date, made in exactly 15 minutes. I am still thinking what the next 14 minutes have to be about. For one, I don't want this post to be crap. I want to still do justice to this post with some genuine content, although it's only 13 mins left now. 12 now - 1 minute lost in typing random stuff and erasing it with backspace.

Working from home is becoming increasingly common in India too these days, particularly in the IT industry. My new job offers complete freedom to do so. For my easily distracted mind, a closed room at home is an ideal setting to concentrate, except for the sleep it induces at the same time, and with an option to crash, it requires tremendous will power to keep going on the table-chair. It's therefore easier to work from home when the work-load is very high and times are very stressful, as then the mind is totally occupied and in such a shitty state that sleep is the last thing crossing it.

8 more mins. In any case, for jobs that can afford, working from home is a really good option, if one can train himself to it. Besides obvious advantages like not having to drive to office and back in extreme traffic nowadays and not occupying office space while most of  the work is done buried in laptops and phones, it also gives an opportunity to an employee to plan his work better in the comfort of the surroundings of his choice, which he can even design the way that suits him (or her... masculine used just for simplicity), and all this can have a less stressful impact on the mind and also generates possibility of more productive employees, thereby offering better outcome for the company.

There are disadvantages of course of people free-riding and not really engaging well. So the companies have to rethink employee engagement and ways of working that suit work-from-home better, as that's the need of the hour.

It's 00.00 AM. I've to post this thing now.

Bass yoon hi...

Although I am tempted to write about demonetization, I will refrain from doing that. One - there is plenty of content and analyses already done on it, most of it claiming things without much of bases. And two - I am not much of a fan of this move, and don't feel the stated motives would be achieved by the move. I can't help being an agnostic in all aspects of life. So, I'll wait until the results start showing up. So far, it's not clear. And I don't want to express reservations as offending the easily offended supporters of Mr. Modi is not worth it at this point.

I am sitting right now in a lake-side restaurant in Kadagwaasla. I got a table right beside the lake, and I am sure it would be a great view in the day time. Right now, I can see the lights far away, and their reflection in the waters. On the other side of the resort, of which this restaurant is a part, my wife's office party is going on. I can hear loud music and cheers. Seems like quite an engaged workforce.

Of all the companies I've worked for, and I've worked for quite a number, the best parties were in Geometric, where I worked from 2004 to 2007, which I guess were the better times for the company. There used to be an annual bash, which was a terrific event with great food and unlimited booze, along with a pick and drop in company buses. The only better parties I had were the insti-parties at IIML, which were more fun and uninhibited, although with plastic disposable cups for booze and onion pakodas for snack, and for food you had to head to the mess. The music was loud and lights were dim, and after a few drinks, I danced like Hritik. And every party ended up with some misadventure by someone - makeouts, fights, etc. etc., and there'd be enough to gossip about until the next party.

It's getting pretty cold here, as I am sitting in the open. One more hour to go, I guess. I've had a cup of tea and cup of soup so far. Tea is drunk and soup is eaten - in linguistic terms. I ordered another soup now. Chalo then. See you later.

let's have panipuri

Trump got elected, Indian Government banned 1000 and 500 Rupee notes and the world that I am a part of became slightly more complex over night - the night of 8th November. But these are minor blips in the time-curve of the world. People move on, life goes on, stuff keeps happening, we live, we die.

I have had to cut down on my regular dose of panipuri since the cash crunch. It's brutal - my denying panipuri to myself. My love for panipuri started in the year 2000, when I moved to Mumbai for studies. Before that, i.e, during all my life before, which was in Bilaspur, I never liked the concept of the thing - it was called gupchup there. (I was more a chaat and samosa lover.) I did try a few times, but never liked it. But when I tasted the Mumbai version, I became a fan. During my 4 years at IIT Bombay, one of my favorite time-killers was to walk to the Main Gate, get on and cross the road outside, walk towards the Y-Point Gate, and eat a plate at every panipuri wala. There were various varieties, each good in its own way. There was a chaat shop right opposite Y-Point Gate that had a particularly exquisite variety and that used to be my last plate. After that I entered back into the campus from the Y-Point Gate and walked back to my hostel or any other of my time-killer hotspots. I did that every 1-2 days. As anyone can tell, this is not the kind of activity for which you can expect to get company very often. Jeetu, Ravi, Anshu - they came along at times. On most times, I went alone.

My love for panipuri continued even after I left Mumbai in 2004. It even grew - so much that I used to search for it and eat strange varieties in Chennai during my 6 months there. Then I moved to Pune, where it's different from the Mumbai versions, not as good even, but still one of the better versions in India. I have lived and traveled to a lot of places in India since then, across its length and breadth, and I make it a point to try panipuri or whatever it's called there. I still find the Mumbai version the best.

A lot of people passionately claim chaat and samosa are the best in their hometowns. I too do that. So lemme tell you Bilaspur has the best chaat and samosa. Period.

There have been lots of interesting experiences around having panipuri. Conversations with the guys making them turn quite interesting; quite similar to talking to cab drivers - you get a picture of what's going on and what really matters - and it sometimes shakes you up. Although I'm shy and not much of a chatter, I do try to gossip sometimes, starting with some funny comment, but only when I am the only one being served.

My love for the thing has intrigued many. My friend Manis often used to wonder how it is even possible someone like me exists. But in fact, a lot of guys are in awe of me as this is how they also want to be, but they are in some kind of a closet. And many ladies find this amusing too, and perhaps think the same as Manis. Some call it a girly trait, but I am convinced it is not from the fact that majority or all in the crowd eating with me on any occasion are usually guys. Girls probably eat in nicer hygienic places, and not so often. I prefer roadside. It tastes best. And every day... or so.

I would have written more, but I must go now - it's evening and I can stop no more. More on this some other time. I have to rush... Some decisions to be made - ragada or aalu? 'Medium' - of course. Kaanda along would be good. And masala-puri in the end, obviously!

Targets

I am 14 posts away from 250 all-time (~11 years, since I started blogging), and I've set that as my target for the remaining 2016. It's not a lot, considering that there are still 53 days remaining in this year, although when I set the target a few days back, there were more than 60. Also consider the fact that I've done only 16 posts in 2016 so far, in about 10 months and a few days. At the end of 2015, my average was 22 posts per year, with the highest of 54 in 2007 - the year I traveled to the US first time, and did some sort of an experience sharing series of posts - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.

At this point of time, my target seems achievable, just that it requires me to do a little more than what I generate at my regular pace, with the stretch that is quite significant by my performance standards so far, but not humanly too adventurous. This is not how most companies set their targets - for themselves, for their people. There is an unsaid rule that the targets have to be crazy and overwhelming, demonstrating optimism and hope to shareholders and employees, and pushing the executive leadership - pushing them hard - so hard that they fail, to think of creative ways of achieving the numbers, not otherwise achievable if the company continues on its course. The executive leadership push the guys below them who further pass the pressure downwards and soon the whole company is under tremendous pressure. One of the reasons why this is considered wise may also be the oft advised funda to aim high, dream big, so big that you even need courage for the dreaming. One funda doesn't fit all, especially for targets. What kind of targets motivate someone is totally dependent on his/her personality. And companies have personalities too.

A company's personality is a complex summation of the personalities of all its stakeholders, some carrying higher weightage because of their position and personality. Just like humans, some companies are more suited to focus on limited set of offerings for limited set of customers, and make them best in class. Some companies are more suited for diversity - in products, services, cultures, locations and people. Some companies are more suited to compete hard and grow. And there are many more kinds of course, most of which can't be described in such simplistic terms. And like people, lot of companies are in wrong businesses - businesses that don't suit their personalities. And that leads to misaligned expectations, unrealistic goals, frustrated leaders, stressed and scared employees, poor commitment from everybody, and a lot of inefficiency. And eventually, missed targets. Such companies set themselves on path to decline and perish, which is very sad.

Just like we have counseling for people, I think there must be counseling made available for companies, or rather any group of people with an overall common goal. But to equip those org-shrinks, there has to be a lot of research work to understand the area, model it and bring a scientific approach to define organizational DNA and personality as concepts, and the best suited paths for organizational success. As organizations grow, they do take decisions very early on in what they choose to be vis-a-vis what they choose to be composed of. Perhaps the misalignment can begin at that very stage, and therefore it may make sense to engage these org-shrinks very early on with a company.

Also, the very notion of aiming unreasonably high should be put an end to, and leaders must take a lesson or two on being realistic. Irrational expectations would only lead to temporary irrational exuberance from the insane leaders and temporary fake excitement from the sane ones, while everyone knows they'll fail, yet commit to the ask just to please the boss. Most of the insanity in companies flows top-down and the highest amount of fixing is generally required in the thinking of the topmost bosses - viz. the CEOs, Chairpersons and/or Promoters. They must understand that a company is not just a geometric progression of numbers year on year. It is a whole organism, much more complex than the humans that it's composed of.

Collective and organized human effort towards a common goal is the smartest and the most beautiful capability human civilization has led to. Unfortunately, we still need to cover some ground in making it the most meaningful and successful for all engaged, along with ensuring every organization's success in achieving its goal - which it has chosen and defined in the best alignment with its personality.

The US Elections

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have together made America look like a dysfunctional democracy. Given both their records of questionable integrity, sadly a 2-party 2-candidate election highlights and magnifies everything about the candidates a little too much. In India you can get away with it by just talking about parties till everything's over and the winning party can choose any Prime Ministerial candidate out of the elected lot, and even non-elected ones who seem qualified enough, the winning bit can be arranged later. Clearly we have different versions of the democratic framework with India focusing more on parties and the parliament, and the US more on the person and the Presidential position.

When politicians in India speak, there is nothing clear and concrete in terms of policy or stands on various things. They dwell more on patriotic and nationalistic hyperbole, poetry and emotional appeal. And then we have commonalities with America with all the weaker sections in society, minorities and divisions like religion and caste - with issues of much greater scale and magnitude in India than in any other nation. But the younger generation in India is smart and filters what matters to them, which is generally nothing of what's talked about. In that madness, Modi offered 'growth', with some demonstrable experience, and he's the PM now.

In the US they pretend to be getting more into depth on policy, but I realized there's hardly any content behind all the blabber. Things are said at a very high level. For example this is what Trump stands for - cut taxes, build a wall, no immigration, ban Muslims, repeal and replace Obamacare with a cheaper alternative, protect right to keep guns, restrict abortion, respect women more than anybody and send Hillary to jail. And there are hours and hours of speeches with just this much info and with lots of crap thrown all over. Hillary stands for the following - no tax cuts, state got no business in abortion decisions, immigration - may be, fix Obamacare, guns - not saying no, and Trump is xenophobic, misogynist, sex-maniac, sexual offender, tax-evader, cheap and idiot. Not sure this is a fair summary, but I don't care - I am sure this post is not going to change the minds of those 'undecided' voters. I am no James Comey, and this is no new info. Blogs have become a part of the media... and media can say anything, including create a fake poll and express biased opinions. (It's unfortunate but the only American news channel we get on Tata Sky is CNN.)

Speaking of 'undecided' voters, while looking at this from a distance - at least 13 hours if it is a direct flight, I find it extremely funny that you pick a bunch of idiots, tag them 'undecided' coz they say so, get polls out of them before and after showing them scary videos of an orange-faced rich molester and a smart/stupid lady, hurling abuses at each other - the former more than the latter, and discuss the results for hours like it really means something. I would hope Americans were less stupid than that... not the undecided voters, of course - they are smart, they know how to come on TV.

I feel guilty and embarrassed at going on and on about the US elections while I have little clue about the current political dynamics in India, in spite of the fact that I am neither in the US nor am I an American, although it's possible I could be affected to slight or significant degree by the outcome of these elections. I fear becoming like those angrez Indians in India who know more about America than they do about India. But then I realize that most of my tastes, likes, preferences and curiosity is strictly Indian and about India, and also that I don't know the names of a lot of States in the US and have not seen many Hollywood movies - and I feel better. I still follow the American elections these days as it entertains me like a reality show, similar to how crap like Big Boss are entertaining. But being part of an increasingly globalized and interconnected world, it also makes sense that we do follow these elections, as America and its policies affect our lives in very direct ways - in our jobs, stock markets, trade, etc. And one of these 2 jokers in competition will be powerful enough to affect a lot of shit going on in the world. Whoever wins, the world is definitely going to be funnier.

Happy Diwali

Diwali 2016, which was yesterday, is still going on, and it's been great fun. My wife made the occasion a lot more special than what it would have otherwise been if I had driven things, and I am thankful to her for her leadership. We even burst crackers - no bombs, just the rockets, anaars, chakrees and phool-jhhadees. Half of our rockets went into random unintended dangerous trajectories - one even went inside the kitchen of a 2BHK in a building under construction. So we decided not to launch the other half. I wish ISRO made these rockets, which then would have followed the path we wanted them to after leaving the beer bottle. I strongly urge government to introduce ISRO certification for rockets from next year.

I often wonder how foreigners, especially the white ones, must feel if they visit any Indian city during Diwali, particularly in the evenings when so many bombs start exploding together. It must sound like a war-zone to them. There is obviously a lot of risk in playing with fire to this extent, but we Indians do it very well. It's similar to our traffic with all the SUVs, sedans, range rowers, bikes, cycles and pedestrians moving ahead like they are playing some road-race video game, and yet making it safely to their destinations - most of them. I could never play such a video game without crashing all over many times, and the overall degree of safeness of our traffic, in spite of the mess it is, amazes me. That's how Diwali is. It works.

The more beautiful aspect of Diwali is all the lights. The jhhalars hanging from nails - whichever you could find, leverage and move on - pretending you made some logical sine or cos waves, are an essential part of Diwali ever since electricity was discovered. When I was a kid there used to be small filament-wala bulbs in jhhalars which were covered with small plastic covers of different colors. Those covers would melt if the bulb inside got too hot. And if any one bulb in the chain was gone (fused) it was just to be taken out and the wire joined there to continue the circuit. It's as if the bulb didn't exist there. So rude, isn't it? It's like life.

But I always used to wonder how many bulbs could you really take out and have the jhhalar still functioning with the remaining bulbs - as certainly very few bulbs can't take that much electricity. I guess I was sure of that coz I once plugged in a single bulb and it burst. And a few thought experiments followed which led me to believe there must be a minimum number of bulbs in a jhhalar. Anyhow, now we have little LEDs, which are more durable, don't heat up and don't complain. They work for years. They must have some minimum number too per chain, but I don't care about such things any more.

As a kid I used to love firing pistols. Before I started using one, we had a strange looking thing made of iron, a contraption from 2-3 generations back, at home to burst dot capes because of which we got into the habit of always buying the dot variety and not the rolled ones. My friend Hitesh bought the rolls, loaded them into his pistol and shot at everything one after the other until the roll got exhausted. It made me very jealous. Not sure exactly when but as I grew up I expressed that I wanted a pistol too, and I got one. But probably coz I had already got one demand fulfilled, I didn't ask for roll capes too to go along. I was like that. I was stupid. We bought dot capes again, because of which I had to load the gun after every shot. I later did switch to roll capes and had my fun. I guess that's life - some people get and do things sooner than others. Some are late. They say you've got to ask and work for what you want. That's correct, but we are not all equal in our capabilities to ask and work. It's an unequal world. But I won't complain.

Another amazing aspect of Diwali, when I was a kid, used to be distributing sweets and namkeen in the mohalla. It was not optional. If someone gave you a plate of meetha-namkeen, you could not not give anything in return. So everyone had to be ready with their version and stock of meetha-namkeen. Could add some fruits like apple and banana here and there too. And since everyone was distributing to everybody else, one was bound take out stuff from what X gave and put some of that in what they're giving to Y and Z. That was just an optimization everyone silently did, but made sure she was not caught for having passed someone else's stuff. Items like bananas and apples obviously qualified as candidates for the crime. Too generic-looking mixtures and sweets could also be picked up. It was all a big pain and an unnecessary formality, of course. But it was symbolic of sharing happiness. And it was painful.

Kids had the job of going around with plates covered with male-handkerchiefs and delivering the stuff. People who didn't have kids either themselves went around reluctantly, or refilled the plate of whichever kid came to deliver and asked him/her to carry it back home. I once tried to add spice to the delivering activity by entering others' homes with the plate and shouting 'Happy Diwali' in Shah Rukh's voice. I remember doing it in Shiva's home, but don't think anyone noticed. But I do remember.

Nowadays Diwali is also a lot about taking pictures - of happy people, decorations, lights, food - and sharing all over. It's like the meetha-namkeen, except that it is optional. But for most, it is not, in their minds. Anyhow, it's good as long as it is fun.

Happy Diwali to everybody.

Leaders

The walk, the talk, the conduct, the air - by dexterously copying the established stereotypes is how most people fit into their professional roles which are of leadership and managerial nature. To play the part, you should first look the part - it is suggested. And that's where quite a few leadership aspirants start their makeover. Many others selectively copy traits of leaders. Resting on your chair with your feet on the table in front of a prospective investor, for example. Steve Jobs may or may not have really done that, but he's certainly inspired a few to want to do so nonetheless. But when it comes to human interactions, every situation is different. One can copy the behavioral content, but the context is totally outside one's control and it can never ever be same as anything else that has happened before or after - assuming past, present and future are all determined.

The redundant yet powerful leaders in organizations today dominate a lot of corporate effort and suck a lot of the generated value. Their redundancy is because of absence of any tangible inputs from them in the organizational functioning towards its stated goals. At best they indulge in hit-and-trial games, which is largely a mess-manufacturing exercise, until there's the next cleanup cycle called 'restructuring' which is a reset button for all practical purposes, so that the games at the top can continue with players having clean pitches to bat on and spoil. However they do sit on top - and continue to rise further for the rest of their professional lives - to claim the biggest share of the generated value, as being at the top of the organizational pyramid entitles them to it by default. The position is still supposedly full of stress, as there are local pyramids and hierarchies - extremely concentrated and heated up - many participants willing to kill to make a killing. The guy at the ultimate top - the owner of the whole organizational ATM machine - is the creator of all stress, that flows top-down, and in different ways at different levels. Somehow, in all this organizational stress, there is thrill alongside heart disease and excitement alongside hypertension. In the end, it's all about making more money, which is strangely seen as a vicious motive even in the most capitalist of cultures, even the US, perhaps coz they're not doing very well. Probably when people turn poor, the rich do induce jealousy. If everyone is having a decent standard of living, not being rich can often be a pretended choice.

My boss in a job a few years back once told me - as you rise higher, you are responsible for fewer things (read tasks / activities), and you are accountable for more and more (read outcomes). And the positions with the highest accountability are also the most powerful, yet most stressful and risky because of the pressure to deliver. Like Spiderman said, or rather his uncle did - with great power comes great responsibility. Responsibility here means the importance of acting responsibly, wisely and in the best interests. It is therefore important for leaders at all levels to understand and appreciate the importance of their positions and to not assume redundant states until the next restructuring or a new job, but act responsibly, wisely, and in the best interests coz they are accountable for something of value, and the well-being of many depends on their delivering that value collectively with those many. And to match the risk they take by holding the accountability, they are indeed rewarded, often disproportionately. And as for the walk, the talk, the conduct, the air - when the moon is right, who can stop the waves?

Dumb and Dumber

The most ironic thing about social media is that people are reading a lot, and yet are becoming dumber day by day. I feel that about myself too. Enormous and ever increasing volumes of crap is generated every day and fed to us through a bunch of channels. We pick and pass crap, and keep doing that until the crap is thoroughly consumed by everyone. And then we move on to other crap, and keep doing that all the time on our mobile devices. Even if we try to take a break from all this madness, we get extremely restless with the feeling of getting left behind. We can't stay away for long and are internally pushed back towards it. It has deeply screwed our minds and our ability to control them. While the creators of crap do that to get more visits and somehow get more ad revenue or plain attention, the readers are going on reading and getting entertained. It's like a whole new medium of entertainment has emerged for all idle times and when on the go - all situations with no brain usage required and when reflexes are enough to manage the physical activity. If TV was once seen as killer of all productive time, mobile and data now are together the modern-day weapons of mass destruction. (Warren Buffett needs to revise his quote in the changing times, but this one's taken now!) And yet, TV has not been displaced. In fact TV has transformed to become a tool in this whole data game.

There are indeed positive aspects in all this. For example, without doubt, the awareness of people has reached a whole new and advanced level. Information travels fast and wide within no time. And when it matters, it's really useful and exciting to have everybody on the same page. But of late I've started seeing this feature getting abused abundantly. Things on social media have a repetitive nature, and the same detail or info or news gets reinforced in our minds as it keeps appearing in front of our eyes as we scroll screens. It has 2 effects. One - agents who want to spread something - a message, some news, or a perception - even totally false - are smartly manipulating people's minds to achieve targeted outcomes. Two - as most of the stuff is on topics of minor intellectual value, we feed ourselves continuously on shit that neither helps us nor adds to our knowledge of the world. Our brain probably dynamically allocates resources for new shit by freeing up some old shit which is sent to some long-term area of the brain that keeps piling up shit but offers very minimal ability to retrieve or recall. And this long-term shitty area is getting loaded with more and more shit - at the fastest pace ever in the history of human species. So much ever increasing load chokes the brain, slows us down and makes us dumb. All this technology was supposed to make us smart, but it's only turning us into idiot boxes which can't think. And that's the irony.

Trump vs Hillary - Presidential debate in a few hours

In a few hours we have the presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. While I am a fan of neither of them, and why would I give a shit about American elections anyway - I watch only for entertainment, I find these direct debates live on camera between candidates competing in elections a very great practice. It needs lot of courage, meticulous preparation and mental strength for a candidate to be able to take that. One can of course blow it up, but it's unlikely after reaching that level after winning many such debates with other competitors in the primaries. Like a good boxing match, there is lot of punching, offence and defense. And it's fun to watch. A lot of questions are quite direct and as the whole world is watching, you can't bullshit your way into the white house, i.e., in a relative sense only. I say relative coz there could be situations where neither of the candidates has really worked out clear stands on issues and policies, and both are just farting random shit. And in that situation, the one that sounds less insane would win - the debate, at least.

While I was writing the last line, I realized how futile these dabates can be from the point of view of deciding the electability of the candidates. One way to look at these is as reality-shows telecast on TV at prime time meant only for TRPs, entertainment and the linked revenue for engaged parties. But then, they do affect viewers' opinions about the candidates and it wouldn't be totally untrue to say a lot of voters may be influenced by the outcome of a presidential debate. Its very nature is quite unique as it brings the candidates side-by-side on the same stage and the viewers see them taking each other head on.

In the last elections if was fun watching the Obama vs Mit Romney debate. Romney never seemed very clear in his economic policy, and like a good consultant - having had a strong BCG foundation - he kept talking stuff that had more volume - both in space and vibration terms - and less sense. I am not sure Obama made much sense either... but that didn't matter coz he spoke so well!

Now we have Trump and Hillary - neither of them good orators, neither has a clean image and neither has the charisma to evoke respect that's irrespective of what they talk. Will Trump call his opponent 'Crooked Hillary' on her face? Will there be some clear talk or random gyaanbaazi? Let's see.

Wish we had these things in India. There was a time a few years back when Arvind Kejriwal invited, rather challenged, even Modi ji for a public debate. And many others too during the IAC fights for Lokpal bill. But nobody ever accepted those challenges. We know some readers may be getting furious at the mention of Kejriwal in a bit of a positive light and Modi in somewhat negative, and many would retort saying Modi has better things to do than to take a challenge from an idiot (his image at the moment, apparently) like Kejriwal who isn't qualified for a debate... bla bla... But that was not the point here... To give another example, just to dilute the hormones of Kejriwal haters and Modi lovers, our Mr. Smartass Arnab Goswami also called for debates between prime ministerial candidates during elections - with he as the moderator of course, asking all the tough questions. But nobody gave a shit. Perhaps, our leaders just don't want to set a precedent that they might later regret having to do these debates in every election thereafter. Besides, our elections are technically between parties, not people. And party stand is published or formally issued when required.

Anyway, it's already 1 am... I've to get up early to watch the debate... It's at 6.30 AM IST today i.e., 27th September 2016. Good night! Sweet Dreams!

Update - 30th Sept 2016:

The debate was one of the worst I've ever seen. Neither candidates had much to say, except some basic stuff like economy and jobs throwing numbers loosely, and a lot of mud-slinging on each other. Neither of the candidates had much concrete to say about what they were offering. Trump said tax cuts will fix everything and Hillary said tax increases will fix everything - this was perhaps the only clear statement either made on their economic policy and points of view. And neither had much of a basis apparently. One can of course argue with sufficient evidence that most economic policies based on gut feel work as good as those worked out scientifically. Perhaps even better at times. The world is fooled by randomness indeed.

So, this debate was an hour and a half of crap talk. And yet one of the candidates was declared a winner - Hillary Clinton to be specific - while it is noteworthy that the basis for her victory was not her eligibility for being the President, but was the fact that she outsmarted and out-spoke Trump quite well and very clearly. Trump, on the other hand was struggling to attack Hillary and kept failing in the absence of strong prepared and rehearsed content.

But one thing is quite clear to me after following the Obama-Romney and Trump-Hillary debates - these are no great debates, and are mostly full of finger pointing and nonsense arguments - much like the Newshour Debates of Arnab Goswami. And the quality of issues which become election game changers are as cheap in the US as they are in India. In many ways we have less pretence and more indulgent bull-shitting in India, and so we don't even bother about things like fact-checking and policy stands. The entertainment bit is handled better in the US in my view. In all this, democracy shows up as a neat hoax, but everyone wants to believe it's all by the people, for the people and of the people. Good if that makes people happy in whatever form it is.

Growth and Inequality

The world is based on an economic model which drives everything that goes on here, including what we do and how we act, and not just from the work standpoint. And it obviously determines the share of the world's resources that each one of us has the right to claim. There is of course the all-powerful thing called "money", and to earn it within the economic boundaries is all there is to life for almost the entire human race of the day. And the model is designed to grow all the time - prices have to rise, people have to keep earning more than before, entities have to increase in size or volume - basically everything is made to behave like a living creature - a human, to be more specific. Even the denial of death is not uncharacteristic. Why should growth be a given in a world which is fixed in size and the resources it has to offer?

Before I go further, I must declare: I've started reading the book - "Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus: How Growth Became the Enemy of Prosperity" by Douglas Rushkoff, and the thoughts above are influenced by the first 70 pages of the book that I've read so far. I couldn't wait till I completed it before expressing my thoughts, so here I am.

There is also a fundamental reason, in my view, behind aspiring growth which is not entirely just about crazy pursuit - it is the gradual uncovering of the mysteries of the universe by us, and which has continuously led to new possibilities for better life for us. And in principle the entire machinery of the world economy is after enabling that better life using whatever resources and knowledge we have, while also constraining its distribution with a parameter called affordability. While it can still be argued that the standard of living has increased even for the lowest of the affordability layers, the benefits increasingly get concentrated at the top. In other words, people grow at different rates.

The dominant economic thought promotes boundary-less pursuit of self-interest by individuals as a way of achieving overall prosperity, and thereby recognizes the fact that there will be unequal achievement by individuals, leading to different classes of human beings, although it claims that every class would experience net improvement in its living standard (or perish?). As even if everyone was brought to an equal level and made to run, there will always be someone winning the race and someone far behind struggling to catch up - as abilities differ, and we're born with pre-decided levels of most of them. There may be more cozy tracks to run now than in the past or better shoes to help the feet - and that's the overall upliftment achieved. But our unfair models still allow the strong to get more food than the weak because of their corresponding inherent ability to compete for food, resulting in the strong getting stronger and the weak getting weaker. We whisper of equality, but we cannot have it in the current economic model. We talk instead of equal opportunity, which is also not really a fair offer as unequal individuals do not have an equal ability to convert an opportunity. In a way we have extended God's 'natural selection' into the way the world is run, so that we can discard individuals competing poorly. If God could do this with every life form, why can't we do it with ourselves? But whoever is playing God in this model we have made for ourselves is one of us, and is also the highest beneficiary of this economic natural selection. And that's the conflict of interest which screws with the world order.

Musical Sunday morning... Gulaabi aankhein...

Sad

9 people died by falling from the top (12th floor) of a building under construction near my home. A few others are critically injured. A slab broke off, apparently. It is extremely sad and unfortunate indeed. Just a few days back, a guy died at the same site in a similar accident. This is a reflection of the poor safety norms in most work places in India. The culture of jugaad leads to too many compromises in safety, quality and accountability. We live with that as the rich/powerful get away without being held responsible, the poor risk their lives as they don't have any other option, and the middle class just accepts without knowing enough and becomes a victim when things go down. And probably, contrary to what we generally believe, we are also somewhat reckless folk, and more adventurous than one in his/her right mind should be. We are like that only!

Oratory

Oratory, especially that at the most watched platforms, in the current times, is a skill that is less of what it used to be once upon a time. Good speeches still generate some euphoria, but it's less the skill of the speaker and more a lot of other factors that make public speaking so easy now, especially at the topmost platforms where the speakers have all kinds of tools which help them deliver content; and in the end all they do is just that - deliver, without putting much of a brain to it. And even the content is not written by the speakers... so basically all they do is stand on stage and act like they mean what they say. And then these news channels analyse that bull-shit for hours, as if it really mattered. A lot of time and energy can be saved if the content is directly made public, and we avoid all the unnecessary drama. Unless, of course, the speech is supposed to have an immediate psychological impact on the audience - like creating some sort of ecstasy about something and they go and do something they otherwise won't in their right minds. I guess Gandhi's and Hitler's speeches had such impacts on people. Perhaps Obama's speeches did too to some extent - in making the people vote for him - and he delivered them well in spite of just reading stuff on teleprompters; stuff written by someone else, of course. And one may say that every speaker would like such an impact if he can manage. And therefore, there is a strong argument in favor of live oratory in any case. And if we separate the content - read or rehearsed - from the delivery, the latter still requires the human and personality element so as to be really impactful... so we can't really replace the person with a robot that blurts out the content in the best possible manner as per the intended impact. But for people to be impacted by a read-out piece even by a human will increasingly get difficult as they become more and more aware of the fact that it is just acted out by the speaker and is not coming from deep down his mind, especially with more technology getting used - and technology has a turn-off effect in speeches. Teleprompters, for example, are designed to give an impression to the audience that they speaker is looking at  them, while he actually isn't. And the moment you discover that first time, you do feel cheated somewhere deep down. Given that, if someone can manage conventional oratory, he can sweep the crowds away still and have a competitive advantage too. Perhaps Donald Trump is managing that to a significant degree.

Brexit and Trump

Like all minds, mine also keeps working and thinking all kinds of crap, which most of the time is worthy of being posted on this blog - given the kind of standards I have set for it - but typing those down in a way that I also sound smart and literate requires a lot of mental preparedness which we call mood, which I get very rarely, although even when it comes, it is debatable whether I really sound all that.

That was a really long British kind of a sentence, which reminds me of the hottest gossip of the world at the moment - Brexit. What a funny term it is - I can launch a biscuit with this name that is also a bread, the brown one, and also has some x - my secret ingredient - to make a delicious yummy and tasty Brexit. I don't know what I need to do to copyright this idea... but like those idiots do on facebook to protect their privacy - I hereby declare the above mentioned idea as mine, and anybody who copies will have to pay me money of the order negotiable based on my mood during negotiation.

They say Brexit will lead to the next recession. And it will be real bad, I hear. And looking at David Cameron's face these days, I can tell he's sitting in an exam he hasn't studied for. The vibes are all negative if you hear world news. I don't know how big a dent one bunch of countries - a 'kingdom' it is called - ruled by a queen who also doesn't seem to have a clue on what's going on - can have on the whole world. But history tells us they are really capable of screwing everyone for their own survival. Anyhow, if I lose my job because of all this shit, I will start calling myself an entrepreneur to sound cool. And tag myself a CEO for some time, so that whoever hires me (after the Brexit is poop) considers me in higher league and makes me top management - a VP or something.

There's another mess waiting to spread all over. It's called Trump. Now although Trump sounds to me like an underwear brand - for males - this is really a guy, whose face resembles those fat dogs who look like they are smiling like humans do, but they are really just trying to spit out all the shit inside coz their ass is so choked and constipated.

This guy - Trump - talks nonsense like it makes sense, and sometimes it does. I am not the one to worry too much about sense, though, as long as I am getting entertained...  I bear Bhalla parivar in ye hain mohabbatein, for example, and never complain. But please don't judge me... I have a right to get entertained by any crap. For your information I did stop watching Sasural Simar ka when it became too meaningless. So I too have some limits you see.

A lot of people say Trump will screw the world. And like Brexit, he will also be chosen by people. How ironic! But if he indeed makes it to the white house, and if the world really gets more messy, especially for Indians in IT like me, I will have some more time as the CEO I plan to become if laid off. I may make it big too if I persist enough. My pani-puri thhela will be my office and assembling plant. And the product shipped right into customers mouths through steel carriers - with onions and sev - in customers' hands. And customer takes over the product logistics after it's shipped to the plate. FOB price of Rs.20 for 6 units. Again - I hereby declare this idea as mine, and anybody who copies will have to pay me money of the order negotiable based on my mood during negotiation.

this moment... is gone

Imagination - an interesting ability that we humans have, that enables a beautiful world to reside within us and also outside. So much so that it is hard to tell which is real. Dreams are another way of enjoying a presence beyond the waking reality. If you never wake up, then in your mind, is the dream all there is? I don't have a strong enough recollection of my dreams to say whether in one sleeping session I have one dream end to end, or a set of smaller independent ones. I think it's the latter, but don't feel confident in telling for sure. Why don't I? Am I lying somewhere with a deeper-than-natural sleep induced somehow, dreaming all this I call my life, like they show in the Matrix movies? While it doesn't seem like we have control over our dreams, we certainly have a handle on our imagination, although it can be argued that at some end of the chain of causality, we don't really know where thoughts and ideas come from. Without going that far, if we choose - like we do - to picture our thoughts in more video-like fashion rather than snapshots, we can take them to an end where scenarios plays in our minds in their finer details. That requires us to have enormous control on our minds, given all the disturbance they're subjected to. An awareness that the situation is imagined, yet living it in the mind like its happening for real - it's closer in nature to virtual reality of the technology world - and dreams in our sleep. And like in a dream, it is sometimes possible to forget the unrealness of it and get so immersed in it that one forgets his/her real identity which is outside the dream or the imagined state. Is someone's illusion someone else's reality? Within layers and layers of imagery, am I just an image? Am I dreaming? Am I imagining? Am I being dreamed? Am I being imagined? - this person that is me at the moment. But wait, the moment's gone...

Digital

Every IT company is talking about focusing on "Digital" these days. I've seen lots of these 50-60 year old leaders in large IT companies saying in one breath that they'll focus on Digital, IoT, AI and Cloud. Even the younger ones talk all this shit but I won't accuse them of stupidity as they are closer to my own generation. Even the older guys are not stupid for sure - I must say - as I am an Indian, and I should respect old people and Gods. I figured that sometimes when they say Digital, they mean and include IoT and AI as well. May be something else also. I am not sure whether Cloud is also implicitly meant. Perhaps it is. Perhaps when they say 'Digital, IoT, AI and Cloud', they actually mean 'Digital - IoT, AI and Cloud'. The hyphen is lost in all Indian English accents.

The first thing that irritates me about Digital of today is that the word 'Digital' is used as a noun, while it is actually an adjective. Remember Digital Watch, Digital Washing Machine? But what the hell does it mean to say - XY% of our revenue will come from Digital; or - we are very upbeat about Digital; or - We will invest in Digital. Digital what?

Here's a definition of digital (adjective) from dictionary.com
...pertaining to, noting, or making use of computers and computerized technologies, including the Internet: 'We are living in an increasingly digital world.' 'Digital activism uses social media to achieve political reform.' 'His blog is a great example of digital journalism.' 'Digital technology has revolutionized the music industry.'

This brings me to the second thing that irritates me - what the hell is this stuff that is newly tagged Digital now? Doesn't everything done through interconnected (is that even necessary?) computers come under Digital technology? What the hell is new here?

Probably newer applications are emerging due to internet becoming more ubiquitous and accessible through means never imagined before, and that has opened a whole new world of applications and possibilities in doing things. That can be seen as an expansion of the whole Digital arena. Why this separate fuckin' term called digital - the way it's used - which doesn't even talk about all things digital and is not even grammatically correctly used?

Or may be it's just me... I need to do some googling to understand if I'm missing something but am feeling too lazy... you can use that to your advantage and call me stupid, I don't mind :)

Note: The image in this post is copied from the internet without noting the source.

Meaninglessness of all we do...

This astounds me. The meaninglessness of it all. So much of crap that we do all the time pretending it's all a big deal, yet none of it is of much consequence. In jobs it does earn us our salaries, so at an individual level official crap still has some monetary value. Even that is all a huge waste at organizational level; created coz someone higher up had to show he was doing something and simply didn't understand what's really to be done. Crap trigger is always top-down. And crap flow is both top-down and bottom-up. Is that personifiably true as well?

But money does not really assign meaning to what we do. For an individual, meaning has to be something beyond money. It's something that justifies the act by leading to an outcome that makes the world a better place in some manner, however small. And that outcome has to be visible enough to be really motivating. Otherwise, it's again no real meaning. It's like those hundreds of slides created every week by millions of managers worldwide to send to their bosses every Friday - stupid status reports - knowing most of them won't be read or understood. But they have to be made, coz someone more powerful wants them, and that's his way of making sure the progress of work is on track. It does meet the purpose for some bosses to some extent.

There is an interesting issue with us which makes the whole concept of meaning look upright and upside-down at the same time. We want meaning yet we want to get crazy and excited. Challenges motivate us, but challenging work is frustrating. We prepare the most rational strategies, yet we don't follow them, coz we are only good at making them. We like to sleep. We like to eat. We also want to be slim. We like privacy, yet we want a social life. We want mobile devices, yet we want work-life balance. We like to drive but we don't like traffic. When on bike we hate cars on the road, when on cars we hate bikes on the road. And everyone hates those walking in between. And walkers hate everyone in return. We like going to expensive places, yet we want them cheap with discounts. We go to malls and not buy anything. We buy things coz everyone does. We wear ties, which serve no purpose at all. We hit humans and love God. We take credit for good job but dump work on others. We take work that can give us recognition. We bully the weak and complain getting bullied by the stronger. We watch TV serials which show routine life, but find our own routine lives boring. We are obsessed about nudity, although we're all the same bodies. We don't like the smell of our own shit. We can kill plants and eat them, but killing certain animals becomes sin. We are okay with killing mice and mosquitoes, though. We enjoy alcohol and drugs that dumb down our minds, yet we take pride at our intelligence. We make strange drawings on our bodies and feel proud about it. White ones want tan. Black ones want to be white. The middle ones want to be white too, and then seem tanned. A woman saying she needs a man only for making babies is awesome. A man saying he needs a woman only for making babies is sick. Well there's a background to it - men have a long legacy of sickness of lot of kinds over ages. Let's pass that. We kill in the name of God, yet we don't have a clue who that is. The winners write histories to show them as good and losers as evil. Everybody dies, history remains. For whom? We can die any moment. Reality is that we will die some day, yet we live like we have forever. We are lazy, yet we want to achieve so much in life, be on top of the world. We push tasks on Friday to Monday as if it would never come. We want promotions in jobs, yet we don't want to be accountable for anything. We get inspired by what rich people say while they are at a place much different from where we are. We admire global Maxima more than local Maxima, yet we talk about setting milestones. We hate our bosses and what they do, yet we want to be promoted while it will only lead us to our bosses' position. We are masters of contradictions, yet we talk about consistency. We admire children, yet we aspire maturity. Do we become nuts when we are screwed?

Such fucked up minds we are, and yet we talk of meaning!

Singing in the Chorus

I love singing. It is an ability that is inborn and instinctive in me. Back in the 80's and 90's when I was a kid and lived in the Railway colony in Bilaspur, I had a secret life of my own where I would instantly pick up any Bollywood number that fell on my ears - the lyrics would be imprinted on my mind which would set it up for me with the tune. I'd sing it out - loudly, when nobody was listening to me, and in my mind, when I didn't want to be heard. I dreamt of going to Mumbai when I grew up and trying my luck in Bollywood. Udit Narayan was my guru, like Dronacharya was of Ekalavya. I learnt all my singing by listening to his songs. His voice mesmerized me, and I tried to copy him.

Fast-forward a few years and I was in IIT Bombay. I was selected - rather volunteered and didn't get rejected - to sing in the chorus for a bunch of songs in the Performance Art Festival (PAF), where hostels 8 (my hostel) and 10 (the UG girls hostel at that time) were together going to perform a play. It was called Asakt, and the team had chosen quite a few nice songs to be included at various points during the play - So gaye hain from the movie Zubeidaa, Hillele jagjor duniya by the band Indian Ocean, Dhuaan dhuaan from the movie Mission Kashmir, O nadiya jahaan teri rukh jaaye - don't know the source of this beautiful song. Except for the first song, the rest of them were to be sung by a male - KK, a 5th year senior was going to sing all of them. I, GP and a few girls from H10 were the chorus-team, and formed part of the overall music team. Being in the music team was a big advantage for a freshie, as now he didn't have to do the prod work, which included carrying long bamboo sticks around for making the sets and all the stuff for the backdrops, etc. - basically slogging all nights doing whatever the seniors asked him to do. But it was seen and, I guess, indeed was a good opportunity to network with the seniors, if you really cared for that.

The music team also had 2 guitarists - Kedar and Srinath, and a lady who played the Synthesizer and also sang the song So gaye hain. Sorry to have forgotten names of all ladies here. I remember the guys' names as they were from my hostel and I had further associations, not so strong, with them during my later years at IITB.

I envied KK as he was the lead singer for so many songs. He sang very well - was probably the best singer in the campus at that time - and was probably a trained singer. He played many instruments too. And in addition, it was his last year at IITB, and his last chance to sing his heart out and be heard at that scale. He truly deserved it. He was the music director for the show.

Being clubbed with a girls hostel, H8 guys had a unique opportunity that year - to work with the girls, and it was supposed to be fun. The girls didn't do much of prod work which involved lifting weights and setting them up. So that part of the job had to be mostly taken up by the guys - who must have cursed the lottery or whatever that led to us getting paired with the girls hostel. But from the perspective of winning in the competition, partnering with girls gave a competitive edge for sure as their contribution in cast, acting, script and music is unmatched otherwise by guys. And when girls are around and watching, guys perform better too.

I was an extremely shy and introverted kind those days, and had a tough time acting cool or talking to guys who seemed cool or whose first language was English. The music team seemed like full of such guys and girls. I didn't have much of a concept of conversation, communication, sense of humor and flirting in English, which for me was purely a language for official purposes, exams, lectures, letters and emails. I am a shade better now, having seen and dealt with more of the world over the years, but I can still be seen replying in Hindi when someone who I know speaks Hindi well but still asks me something in English. And in addition, I don't like mixing languages when talking... so that confuses my blabber even more.

This music team had daily practice sessions for many hours starting after dinner and till late in the night. The venue was a small room at the back of the B-wing of H8 designated as music room. While the lead singers and the guitarists had a lot on their plate having to practice all the songs and the music, the chorus-team was relatively idle. Me and GP used to go on time each day.

GP used to be highly enthusiastic about this. He would look excited, engage well with the seniors and explicitly wish for the success of the show - and looked, and am sure was, quite genuine. I, on the other hand, was always disinterested, bored, indifferent, silent, introverted, disengaged and lost. And I am hardly ever able to successfully express my strong wish of anything becoming successful, coz deep down I am often okay even if things screw up. This would be good for a saint, but for normal humans, wanting something strongly helps one achieve it. And expressing it well helps build the team spirit.

When the chorus-team's turn came to sing during the practice sessions, I'd sing along with GP and a couple of girls... some humming, some lines. I used to pour all the Udit Narayan I had in me into those few lines. But that's not how you sing in the chorus. You have to sing such that your voice blends softly with those of others and you hear one breezy sound. But I found singing in the chorus very boring and unmotivating. It felt like being in a herd where you have no individual identity or scope for recognition. More importantly there's no scope for putting forth your best performance and enjoying that moment. Any attempt at leaving a distinguishing mark for yourself is considered a mistake. And with that, you are expected to still draw some satisfaction in hope that some day you'll have your chance to sing in front.

The hope wasn't without a basis for me, as KK would pass out and a few years later, I was going to be in my final year, and if I was good enough, competitive enough and assertive enough of my seniority, I'd be allowed the lead position too. But I didn't find such a slow progression exciting, and didn't even participate in such events after my 1st year. I know that was stupid, but I did what I felt like. I did an even more conventionally stupid thing - I dropped out of the Surbahaar team (which did an orchestra every year), after getting selected in their auditions when I was in my 1st year at IITB and performing in that year. I did get 1 solo song to sing - Mai nikla gaddi leke from the movie Gadar - an Udit Narayan number - all for myself - along with 2 girls and 2 guys who sang the chorus... KK got 9 songs that year! But even the Surbahaar team did more than a month of practice and I couldn't enjoy all those long hours with that bunch of cool guys and gals for reasons mentioned above. And the thought of doing that every year didn't seem exciting to me. I signed out by not turning up the next year, and the team didn't seem bothered to ask me why. They might have noticed I was missing. Probably I didn't really matter the way I was. May be now I am more the kind of person who'd fit it. But if I stayed on somehow in the team that time, I could have benefited from the progression and got many more solo songs in the later years, and may be my personality would also have got upgraded for good. But I was stupid, lazy and careless - listened to my reluctant side.

Outside IIT, such progression is highly unlikely in the field of art. One doesn't generally see a guy singing in the chorus becoming a lead singer after some time. One doesn't also generally see dancers dancing behind hero or heroine in bollywood numbers becoming heros or heroines themselves. It rarely happens that someone starting his career as a comedian or a villain becomes a hero later on.

But in companies, most people do start their careers by being part of the 'chorus-teams'. However, unlike a musical piece, in offices one does have an incentive and encouragement to create a differentiation and recognition for himself/herself and work out a faster path to the top. And there is place for those who want to hide in the herd - out of choice or compulsion - and be lost without anyone knowing until someone notices a voice missing and to be filled in, or needing replacement.

In any case, chorus is still an important element of a melodious song, even if the singers in it don't get any credit and are left unknown. It's partially about the reference frame. The micro you go, you can identify leads within chorus, although not singing like it's a lead coz the singer also has a reference frame, and in that, he/she's part of a chorus. Go macro and leads may merge to form a chorus, albeit cacophonous coz their reference frame gives them a lead perspective. And of course, going micro and macro does not make much of sense if the listeners are also bound by their reference frame, like we are. So it's on the singer to break out of the choruses of life and be heard... by others and himself... the audience he/she chooses... and the song he/she sings!

SochVichaar 10+

SochVichaar turns 10

This blog became 10 years old last month. During these 10 years, I have written my views on a wide range of topics. Some of the views have evolved over these years, may be quite a bit in a few cases, even after I wrote on the topic. Perhaps if I end up becoming a great man, and then die, this blog will serve as a good tool for analyzing my views and how some of them evolved from 2006. To give a sense of the evolution, I must keep revisiting many of the topics I write about. And since I often don't remember what I wrote last time, and get too lazy to go back and check, I guess the views in an article I write can be good representation of my thought process at that time, without my mind holding itself back to maintain consistency with its past. But if my blog has to really show a true evolutionary picture of my thinking, I should blog more often and on all kinds of topics. So, like before, I'd resolve to write more and write more often. I've often thought about doing a-post-a-day, but then it never worked out, coz I could neither work with such discipline nor get the required support from my mind with a consistent flow of thoughts to create content from... laziness and lack of interest, in other words. Which brings this post to the thought that my mind is already struggling with:

When so much more can be done, why am I doing so little?

The growth mindset
Most, if not all, organizational models are based on a premise that every person wants to grow. And growth has more-or-less the same definition everywhere - growing up the organizational hierarchy: more accountability + more money + more authority. And it is probably assumed that every person wants this kind of growth, would get motivated by it and would see it as an incentive to do his/her job better. As I was writing the last line, another possibility struck me. Perhaps the very model of the current work-world is to pull up people who get motivated by growth as offered by the model. For people who define or understand growth differently, the model only offers them resources to survive, but no opportunities to grow. And it has a way of ruthlessly purging people who don't successfully strive or pretend to strive to grow within its framework. And if growth is really a basic need for even those people, they will be left frustrated and aimless... unless they are creative and fortunate enough to find the path that will lead them towards growth - the way they want it.

In both professional and personal endeavors, I am struggling to find my definition of growth - something that would motivate me to try harder, do more, aim for more, and achieve more... more of what? - that's part of the definition I am seeking, I guess.

May be most of the people are also just seeking, while still playing the game, pretending to be aiming for the victory as per the game's rule-book. Among the rest, a few who are the real players of the game have fun playing. And a few die of inaction. And as in everything, there are shades of gray.

The pleasure mindset
Are we just seeking pleasure in whatever we do? Life doesn't carry a fundamental meaning at an individual level, except for whatever we assign to it to make sense of our lives - just coz our minds are capable of questioning our very existence. And at a very basic level, we have things that make us feel good in various ways and degrees, and things that make us feel bad in various ways and degrees. And it seems we constantly seek what makes us feel good. Some of us are wired to feel good in ways different from others'. And with strength of numbers for all kinds of people in the highly populated world of today, we even have strong movements to establish rights of all kinds of individuals to seek pleasure in their way - as long as nobody else's pleasure is harmed to any significant degree.

One can argue that not all forms of pleasure lead to earning a livelihood. But it can be argued in return that in seeking to maximize pleasure, one actually goes for options that give highest pleasure, and those that can earn for a person would give him/her more pleasure than those that don't. Scientists, for example, do science for the pleasure it brings to them. Sportspersons derive pleasure from the sport. People stuck in boring frustrating jobs, yet not moving out, are only maximizing pleasure as they fear they'd be in a risky and less pleasurable situation if they go for the alternatives they can see. Sometimes there is temporary sacrifice of pleasure in trying to reach a state of higher pleasure later on. So, one is always seeking a local maxima of pleasure and has a global maxima also in mind.

Is growth just another mode of achieving pleasure? It seems so to me to some extent. And the difference in what various people consider as growth may actually be the difference in which act gives maximum pleasure to them, and in how would the degree of pleasure change with variations in the act; and transition to higher pleasure state would be considered growth. Of course growth can be fast or slow here. But having said that, I feel growth has other dimensions to it which are not ultimately pleasure-seeking. Growth is ingrained in us in that we all start small - physically - and grow big, and mature, and ultimately die. It's a way of nature. And to grow is perhaps a natural urge which one can't get rid of, even if it is frustrating or painful. But as thinking individuals, we still differ in what we consider as growth.

The laziness mindset
This applies when one is reasonably well off, such that the next few meals are not at risk. And with that context, a lot of humans carry out an input-output optimization - such that they get maximum returns from minimum investment. Although popular quotes say that something earned by working hard for it gives maximum happiness, in my experience, at an ongoing basis, one is happier when things come easily rather than when they come with a lot of labor - i.e., one always looks for maximum returns from minimum investment - if it can apply and make sense for money, it can very well apply to all forms of investments including time and effort. It is this guiding force that explains large numbers of free-riding lazy employees all over all organizations in this world, drawing salaries - ever demanding more - and doing as least as they can, playing politics, delegating or escaping work, and everything else that you and I very well know. If there are carrots, there are sticks as well, and to ensure the ass also carries you while it walks ahead, you have sit on top and keep showing the carrot, offering occasional bites, while the stick has to sometimes hit where it hurts, so that the ass keeps moving at an acceptable pace.

I think our actions and choices, including how much I blog, are driven by the above 3 mindsets - not all in the same degree of course, and there could be one/two dominant mindset(s) at times. Realizing this is important to make better choices in life and also to feel better about those choices. If nothing, we'd learn not to blame the situations and the world. It's us.

Startup India, Standup India

Startup India, Standup India - seems like India is now promoting both startups and standup comedy in a big way! What if it really did? Firstly, to make a joint pitch for the two - sort of bundling products - there has to be some logical connection. For one, startup founders would make good standup comedians in my view - they all talk a lot, they all take pride in thinking crazy, and most of them are extroverts. And if they are guaranteed good money, they'd definitely jump in. The second connection that might be looked at, is some crazy babu going by this line of thinking - if the government were to act like a VC, and had to entertain these startups for funding or whatever, then it has to be entertained in return. So these entrepreneurs have to perform some standup comedy. It may seem weird the first time you think about it, but it would soon start making sense. Anyone who has seen the program Shark Tank on TV - where entrepreneurs stand in front of investors and make their pitch - would know that the imagery is not very different, although the content and nature of discourse is. But as we can imagine, government officials don't think and act like conventional investors. They'd any day enjoy some standup comedy more than boring and unintelligible discussions on top-lines, bottom-lines, equity and shit like that. And once the comedy session is done, they can discuss some other lines over chai-samosa.

The vision of the government is amazingly supportive of entrepreneurship, and like never before. And, as one of my friends said soon after Modiji announced the incentives for startups, if we are not starting up even now, we probably never will. Although the incentives may not be practically of the kind and scale that would make it a cakewalk for millions of Indians, the positivity of outlook and supportive policies can make all the difference.

I am reading The Lean Startup by Eric Ries. Have finished only 43.9% of it so far in 3 weeks - quite slow by any standards. I don't know how, I've lost my habit of reading. Just like I got it 2004 from nowhere. May be it'll come back. Anyway... The book is about the right approach for building startups - the lean way - avoiding wastage of time, money and other resources. It talks about quickly building MVPs (minimum viable products) out of ideas, testing them out on samples of the target audience, testing alternatives, comparing, trashing, improving, developing, launching, testing more, improving more, and going on like that iteratively. It says - don't just go on to develop the full product thinking you know the customers want it; rather develop pieces of it to try out the concept and get feedback... and do that continuously to reach higher levels of learning and product maturity. This makes a lot of sense in theory. But execution in this manner requires tremendous alignment of thought process with the theory. I have to know more to see if it works. May be I should test this approach and see where it takes me. But there's higher risk the approach would fail for me if I don't "believe" in it at the outset. It's like trying to reach god while being an agnostic deep down. The lack of belief in the goal or the path to it will always prevent you from applying 100% of yourself behind the goal. Anyhow, I have not taken thheka to prove Eric Ries right or wrong. If his method doesn't work for me, I'll figure out what works for me and proceed. More important is that I have to get my startup moving and scaling up.

First things first... I will start practicing standup comedy from today. Wish me luck...

See you soon!