You are currently browsing the category archive for the 'Uncategorized' category.
has come… and apart from putting on tricolor at every conceivable place, and putting on blaring music featuring some quasi patriotic songs, no one is in a mood to to something different. The scene is same as last year, or years before that.
What we need is not rhetoric about change and improvement or comparisons which are as empty as the water reservoirs in the summer. We need discussions that are action oriented and implementation focused.
India is lagging. We are losing out on the gifts which we have received one way or the other. Instead of having a structured agenda that is party independent, the autocratic rule still persists as different levels. The oldest democratic party in the country still is ruled by a dictatorial style, the head treated as empress. Even in school, the principal is god+king, and the participants ( students) have absolutely no say in any of the policy decisions.The ministers are treated not as public servants by any stretch of imagination, but as modern day rulers.
This has to change.
One way to start is to focus on what concerns me and millions more. In mumbai, people are alien to the concept of comfortable traveling. Trains are impossibly crowded, and instead of finding solutions to create other channels of public traveling, we laud the tolerance of people. Some weird thoughts are they not ?
The roads are filled with potholes, and no one gives a shit. People who can make a difference are busy feeding stray dogs.
By the time I reach office, I have already traveled in one of the worst crowded public transport system for more than an hour, and what ever energy I had in the morning is almost done with just stay alive at the end of the journey. I can easily predict my effectiveness and amount of value add done in the office. Specially when I know I need equal amount of energy to return home.
By my calculations, I lose four hours every day in traveling. Add eight hours of sleep and eight hours of work, and I am left with two free hours for myself. too less to be creative or to work out after getting tired so much just by traveling. People have gone through similar grind for decades. By the time they are retired, they are hardly left humans i guess.
The quickest way to increase productivity is to provide comfort while traveling. A/C trains would go a long way to conserve energy, specially in the hot and humid climate of mumbai. The gains would be then immediately visible. People are paying five to ten times the normal ticket for the first class, and the situation remains exactly the same.
My point is the mentality has never been to expect luxury. If it is working, its a miracle, because we have never been exposed to anything better. I guess this needs a fundamental shift in the thinking.
No longer is the world okay with anything less than best, and neither should be we.
Expect the best, demand the best, starting from yourself, and spreading to everyone who is a service provider.
I guess the rewards would be late, but enough to take our beloved country to new levels.
Happy Independence day.
Take care…
and I am writing in at a weird time of the night as well. Not entirely alien to me though, but my life has taken a turn for the routine i guess.
Life fluctuates, and the problem I am thinking about is the future, and my mood swings. I am at cross roads now, and I need to choose. Whether to take the route which will lead me to a happy, satiated life with a cute, caring wife with a kid or two. A cozy, comfy job and a routine, planned life. Or I can take inordinate risks, change career track, do the weird stuff and gather experiences and memories.
Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing bad about any of these paths, and both are equally tempting for me, but the second one calls my dark side out. The lure of the unknown, the temptation of the exotic, the charm of variance.
I really don’t know whether I can gather the courage and shake those responsibilities and reach out for my true destiny. It remains to be seen as and when it will unfold.
All I need is belief in myself, and my knowledge of myself. Rest can be learnt on the way.
Take care…
I think it’s in the name. “SUNDAY’. I feel lazy just by hearing that word. Sleep late, wake up later, don’t do anything worthwhile basically just waste these precious free hours which I get out of the week’s busy schedule and work. Then evening comes, and I feel guilty about all the waste. Never missed this routine for many sundays now.
Simple solution is to have targets for the day. Just do this and do that, rest is free for you to waste! This will work for me definitely. As long as this and that does not involve investing too much time. Sunday is all about having time for me, time to hang out with the friends I grew up with, friends i critisize, friends I will not be able to ever live without ( okay, thats way too much) but still, I have had and continue having massive fun with them.
I watched “Forest Gump” just yesterday. I am shocked. Shocked that I had this movie with me all this time, and I just didn’t see it. Made a great impact on me. It told me :
- Listen to your momma, but interpret in your own way.
- Find and keep great friends, specially friends who are thinking different.
- Siting will not solve any problem, you have to run for it.
- Fall in love, stay in love.
- Try new things. Buy a boat if your friend comes up with a great business plan!
- Think simple.Stay simple.
- A great pair of shoes is one of the best gift.
- To get back the one you love, you have to let him/her go first.
- Respect choices made by other people.
- ” If god wanted to make everyone equal, everyone would have got braces”. Feel sorry for others who lack those gifts you have. So go and help them.
- Say yes, especially for giving a speech, to a large audience. you might find the one you are looking for.
- Feel proud of you kid. Specially if he is not like you.
- Whenever you make your own decision, people will follow you.
- Do what you like. Make a run for it.
- Whenever you are tired of whatever you are doing, get back home for rest.
- Stupid is as stupid does.
I am sure there are many learnings I have not realized yet, but these are enough to last me for several lifetimes, or several marathons….
BTW, that first paragraph was basically to say that I did not exercise today. Just had dinner as well, so no more opportunity. Tomorrow is another day they say….
Take care.
of exercise.
PU 17 and AC 10.
Attended a con call today. Was alone for most of the time in the office today.
I think I am on the right track as goes the type of thinking or the direction of thinking. I focus on solutions most of the times and make good progress because of that. These days I am noticing one more layer to the conversations or more so the interactions between my colleagues. That of power struggle and of personal traits reflecting in the behaviour. I think this incremental observation is stemming from my current readings in behavioral finance and other things. I think the learnings have sunk in somewhere and are now reflected in the general thinking style.
One thing I have noticed about the last few years is that the number of good books that I have read has come down drastically. Either due to the fact that I have stopped reading fiction, news papers and such distracting stuff; and secondly because I find some greatly tauted books to be utterly simplistic and just full of too many words deployed to explain such small a concept. Got to make a target list of books and work on that.
