A New Beginning

The clock on his laptop showed 5:12 PM when he returned to his desk after his workout session. He still had a couple of hours before he could call it a day. He opened up his laptop, started checking the agenda for the meeting with the business folks at 5:30. Another window on his laptop showed his Gmail inbox – which had 1 unread email. Now, Aditya Krishnan was a man very particular with his mails and messages. He usually cleared off any pending items as and when they came in. And that’s why he just casually went to his inbox to check out the latest item. Seeing the sender’s name automatically brought a smile on his face. It was an email from a friend he considered very close. It was from Anushree, also the younger sister of Bharath – Adi’s good friend and classmate through school and junior college. Though Bharath went on to get his BTech from the most prestigious institute in the country – the IIT – Adi had done his B.E from Mumbai University. Around the same time, Adi and Anu had gotten to know each other better. Over a series of communication over yahoo chat, gtalk, orkut, and telephone in the period of next 6 years, Anushree and Aditya became close friends. Aditya had always liked Anushree. He used to openly flirt with Anu, and she being the sport always took it in her stride and laughed it off. But despite all those flirtings, there was an element of feeling in Aditya’s heart. He did harbor some ideas regarding Anushree, but he mostly disguised them in his flirtations.

The email had a subject title “Hii”. This perplexed Aditya even more since Anu was not the one to send a lot of personal emails. He still had 15 mins to the next meeting, but he just couldn’t put off reading this mail from Anushree. With a little anxiety, Aditya opened the email. Anu had poured her heart in the email. She had mentioned about her feelings for Aditya in the email. It was not a very lengthy mail, but not a short one either. She had written about the anxiety that she had in composing and sending this mail after saving it as a draft multiple number of times. Aditya read the mail at least three times just to make sure he didn’t misread or misunderstand her email. He had least expected this from Anu. But once he was sure, he immediately hit the reply button to compose an appropriate response.

Adi’s mind was flooded with all of the thoughts about Anu from the last 6 years. Anu’s cheerful face with her brilliant radiating smile, her simplistic nature, the beautiful way in which she carried herself, all came flashing in front of his eyes. He could almost feel a tear welling up in his eyes. He took out his cell to call her up and declare his “yes”. Just then he realized it was 530 and he had to get back to reality and into a meeting for the next couple of hours. The next couple of hours were painfully slow. Time seemed to have come to a standstill. Adi could hardly concentrate on the discussions in his meetings. It was as if he had been transported to a different land, and only his physical presence was left back on earth. A constant smile adorned his face for the remainder of the day.

Somehow, Aditya managed to wind up his meetings for the day and left office. With his smile. He called Anushree. Anu had just reached home and was her usual cheerful self. Both talked for about half hour. Both knew that nothing had changed between them – that they still remained friends. Both also knew that something still changed – that they were now in fact more than close friends, who wanted to share their life and passions and ambitions. Neither spoke about the email exchange, but both knew what it meant. 

Both knew that this was a new beginning for both of them . . .

A Revolutionary Concept

After the political revamp, here's another revolutionising concept to ponder about. Redundantising the concept of Marriages. Before you start forming opinions and start judging the concept, please take a few minutes to read out the script here. Could help.

Let us begin with the basic premise of Marriages. Why do people marry? "People marry for many reasons, including one or more of the following: legal, social, emotional, economical, spiritual, and religious" - says Wikipedia on Marriages. I am not going to dispute or contest any of those. For those who have any of these reasons or any other legitimate reason and a person to justify that reason, please, go ahead and get yourself enrolled in the knot of holy matrimony. However, for the lesser fortunate others, spare a thought. 


Shouldn't there be a Necessary and Sufficient condition to get married???


Allow me to explain the terms in the above statement.


Necessary Condition: Existence of a condition, which may or may not per se justify marriage. For e.g. Love. You are in love with someone. Being in Love could be a necessary condition for someone before getting married. However, not really the prime justification to marry.


Sufficient Condition: Existence of a condition strong enough to marry. For eg., A relationship of deep Love, supplemented by emotional and financial stability - a sureshot justfication to get married immediately :)


Some would like to consider "unexpected emergency conditions" as sufficient condition to get married. As I said, to each his/her own. I am not going to dispute / contest them.


My point here is that unless we have a strong justifying reason, I don't see why one has to enter into the institution of marriage.

Institution. It really is. And very much so here in India, if not so much elsewhere. Marriage in India is a union of not only two people, but of two families. It is a social contract by virtue of which the couple lives together in the society. People getting married should be fully aware of what they are getting into. It is a question of at least two lives and plus the few more that they choose to bring in. 


Every person deciding to get married should be aware and conscious in making this decision. They should get married for the correct reasons. Just because they love each other, doesn't mean they should get married. They might want entirely different things from life. Their priorities might be totally different. Some get married because they want a sense of security. For their senior years of life. What they fail to realize is in this process, they risk their present. And then they bring another life into this world to look after both of them. Again, a wrong decision for the wrong reasons. Raising a child is a whole big exercise in itself. Emotionally, financially, mentally, and many such -allys.


Let's analyze this from an entirely different perspective.


What do you get from a marriage that you cannot legally get otherwise. Coitus. If you leave that aside for a while, for everything else, you have friends and family. If there are some like-minded friends, they can start by living together. All needs, except for the aforementioned, are definitely met. Social - yes. Company - yes. Support system - yes. Old age - yes again. Old age you say? Adopt a child. Give him/her a better life. 


The only question remains is what happens to the anatomical needs. Well, there are outlets for everything !

Staying Motivated - Sandip Warke's notes

1. You are extra-ordinary with unique talents: this is true, whether you believe it or not. 
2. Working hard is not an option. It is necessity.
3. Integrity is non-negotiable. Non-discussable.
4. When you have integrity of purpose, all else will follow. Be sure.
5. how you think impacts your behavior; how you behave impacts your reputation. Work on your thinking. Think straight.
6. How you want to be remembered is a question that you must ask yourself before you decide what you want to become.
7. You are just a speck in the larger cosmic design. Stay humble.
8. Each day, before you sleep, thank in your mind all the people that have made the day memorable for you. People who did good things to you ad people who possible let you down. Just thank them all unconditionally
9. If you are not learning a new skill each week, stop working.
10. Goal clarity is more important than role clarity.
11. Don’t ever ask your boss/superior/department for raise. Work in a manner in which you are given one. If you don’t get one, it only means you have still not done enough. Believe me this is true in all contexts.
12. Quality is not a department. It is way of life.
13. To be qualitative in your work, just STOP DOING less-than-excellent stuff from this moment.
14. Whenever you must voice your opinion, voice it. Don’t pretend to be dumb.
15. The worst case scenario, in almost all cases, never happens.
16. Did you help anyone, just about anyone today? If not, you did not live today. You just existed like so many inanimate objects around you.
17. If you pursue joy, money will follow you. When you pursue money, joy WILL NOT follow you.
18. If you get fired, lose in business, break up in  relationship, thank your stars. It is best thing to have happened to you. It is then an opportunity to restart and do better in the next innings.
19. If what you wish for happens, it is always a great thing. When what you wish for does not happen, it is greater thing. Rejoice.
20. The master(s) plan for you has NO flaws.
21. Whenever you see a problem, choose to be part of the solution. Else you will be part of precipitate
22. The best way to influence people around you is to speak the truth.
23. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL on your career if you are not enjoying it. Reboot.
24. Be audacious with your personal vision, your goals and with your performance.
25. An opportunity of a lifetime must be utilized within the lifetime of the opportunity Never procrastinate.
26. Every single day, thank your parents and your teachers and /or your mentor/guru, for making you who you are today.

You have to make a beginning by choosing to motivate yourself. You will then find the universe conspiring o keep you inspired. 

Power of Indira

The other day I was travelling to Office in the morning. I am a proponent of public transport system and practise what I preach. Thus explaining my fondness to the Bus travel daily. Moreover, since the BEST now offers a daily Rs. 25 pass, it offers me immense flexibility to take any bus, any number of buses, from and to anywhere. Just hop on, flash the ticket and move on. Thats where I am exploiting the BEST undertaking by switching 5 buses a day. But I digress. This was not to be a saga of my love for BEST travel.

This is more about what I heard on one such journey to office. I was standing (much as usual). Buses usually get crowded nearby and after few stops from my stop. We had almost reached the 90% capacity and the gangway was restricted. Speaking of restriction, this is a very good practical example of how Arteriosclerosis works. The gangway is like the arterial path allowing for the flow of blood. Blood being the passengers moving along the gangway. Some impurities in the blood stick on the walls - these being the people who occupy the standing positions by the seats..and well you got the idea now. 

Again. Let me come back. So I was standing (like the impurity). Another impurity was standing behind me sticking to the other arterial wall. More people were sandwiched in between us. Suddenly out of nowhere, this little lady emanated out of the crowd. She gave a sounding to the sandwich group. Apparently she had a hurry to get down at the next stop, and the sandwich wasn't in such a great hurry. So sounded she and pushed her way to the door. One guy in the sandwich got irked and retorted "Swatahala kay Indira Gandhi samajhte ka". To translate it for the linguistically challenged..who does she think she is, Indira Gandhi ?. 

It was spontaneous retort, and not a well thought out rational remark. Just brought a thought to my mind. Even after 25 years, Mrs. Gandhi (Sr) is remembered as the Power wielding woman who wanted to rule the world. Well.. some impressions don't change it seems !

A Critical Appreciation..or not

I like listening to songs.. hindi film songs. I like it more from the yesteryear era. Usually the 'yester' era is limited to pre mid-80s. Thats the point upto which the songs were really good and likeable. Somehow, the songs post this era started breeding shit. I still wonder how the directors, the producers, the actors, singers and for that matter any person with an iota of rationality would come up with such non-sensical lyrics. I happened to have an auditory rape listening to one such song from the early 90s (1991 to be precise). Here goes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixS-nK8cmbw

The song is from the film Bhabhi picturised on Govinda and Juhi Chawla. Now, both are good actors. Actors with whom you'd associate sensibility.. Okay I may've been a bit overboard with Govinda and sensibility, but yet this one takes the cake. Sone ki cycle, Chandi ki seat.. Aao chale darling Chale double seat.

WTH !! Trying to woo the girl by taking her on a double seat ride ?!? Govinda should be thanking his stars (and the directors) that Juhi doesn't kick his ass. Even before that, what a concept. A Bicycle of Silver with a Golden seat. Who comes up with such crap ! So? Its a dream sequence you say. Granted. How many times, just how many times have you ever dreamed of a bicycle? If I had to dream, I'd dream of a Rolls Royce, a BMW, a Merc or at least an Accord (cmon, I'm dreaming man).

We start with a shitty mukhada lyric, move on a shittier antara.. whole two antras.. and supplemented by shittmax acting by Govinda.. deadly facial expressions. My words can't do justice to his facial muscles. You've got to watch them to experience the fun.

I guess this was one of the early bird songs of the 90s which set the demented trend for such songs with equally traumatising lyrics. No doubt absolutely the 90s also gave us hits such as JJWS, Darr, Baazigar, HAHK, KKHH, DTPH, KNPH and many such 4LA (Four letter acronyms), but there were many to the power of (count of the above 4LAs) which showered worsshtmax songs on us. The intensity of worshtness ranged from absolute crap to absolute senseless to absolute cheesy. Its no wonder many music lovers have reported hair loss during the lost decade for music.

Anyways, I go back to my pre-mid 80s era and continue to please auditory senses. Ciao !

Meritocratic Democracy - A Democracy Revamped

Meritocratic Democracy

Introduction

Quite often we’ve heard ourselves cursing the Government, the democracy, and more so cursing the people at the helm of affairs. When was the last time you heard this comment from a colleague at work or a friend on” Mr. A is caught up at the wrong place. He is so not fit for this job”. But then we come back to the premise here, who in the first place elected Mr. A to be in charge of the post he currently holds. Directly or indirectly it comes down to us the common mass. We are responsible for the person running the office there, and handling the affairs. It’s a fair argument here to say that I didn’t vote for Mr. A to be in charge of Portfolio X. I voted for a candidate in my ward, who belongs to Party Y. Y party got the majority and they allotted the portfolio X to A. Not my fault. Agreed. So it would be reasonable to say that the Party Y in its own wisdom and experience, of the different roles required to play in handling the different portfolios, looked among the candidature pool available and decided that X goes to A. The real question hence is, how credible is this Party Y’s wisdom and experience, and hence the leadership.

In this regard, I have an idea which I’d like to propose in this article. Before I arrive on the topic, let me delve a little bit into our history. Let’s analyze the Indian Political scenario at the time of Independence. It was the days of Gandhi and Nehru. People looked up to them. Why? Single word answer. Credibility. They had proved their mettle on the grounds. They had answered the country’s calling and got independence for us. They were accepted as Leaders by the whole country. It was pretty much assumed that the people who led the effort for the country’s freedom, would definitely take up the responsibility of keeping it intact and running the country’s economy, effectively, at the same time. For the 3 decades post independence, we grew at 3.5%. Still wondering where we missed the bus? This is not the place to be discussing India’s growth story, but just to put a simple point – The skills of leadership are different when it comes to running the country’s economy. As much as it is about abilities of a person, it is also about the best person doing the job.

The Idea

Let me come to the topic of this article here. Consider a top business house in India, say Reliance Industries. Mukesh Ambani is the man now. How many of us doubt his abilities. Agreed that he inherited a big deal from his father, but he has taken it to all new heights on his own accord. And there are many more such stories which we can talk about. Why are these companies successful? It’s the people in these companies doing their jobs. A lot depends on the policies and work environment, but we’ll take that up in a little while. What I want to come here is, Democracy should also be by Merit. Why should a party get to decide who runs the affairs of the country. And who certifies the merit of the individual put in charge? Let’s pause and see how we can change this scenario.

A Bottom-Up Approach

The idea in a nutshell is to assign people to their jobs by means of merit. People who want to “Enter into Politics” should show merit in some field in which they want to pursue politics. The point is to start working at the grassroots level and then go upwards. Essentially, a bottom-up approach. To facilitate this, we would need to build institutions which would ‘train’ the interested candidates to work at the ground level. I’ll get to the concept of Institutions in a short while now. The candidates who pass out of these Institutes will be provided an opportunity to work in their trained area in their Area of Candidature. Depending upon the performance of this candidate in his work-area, they’d become eligible for their next assignment, a promotion if you will. The candidate is responsible to transition his responsibilities to an adequately meritorious person before moving to the higher role.

The Institutions

Today, we have different levels of Operations of the Government such as Municipal Corporation, Municipality, Gram Panchayats and so on. We build institutions at as low a level of granularity as feasible. Lets say a few villages would be catered to by an institute. This institute would need to be funded well. It will take up few candidates, give them some basic level training on communication and such soft skills. This would be about 15-20% of the training work. The rest is all about Ground Work. They would be then made to work on the different issues that the villages are currently facing. In view of the existing constraints – social, economic, technological, environmental, legal etc, the participants have to solve these issues. These can be any issue such as getting a road developed where there is none currently, or improving the state of an existing kachha road. It might be electrification, irrigation, water facilities, new initiatives, etc. The candidates are also encouraged to come up with suggestions of their own if they feel something can be done outside the box.

The institute funds the development activities of the candidates. The candidates are responsible to the institutes, which in turn are accountable for their candidates to the Government. The candidates will be scored based on their performance across multiple projects over a span of 2-3 years, which can be the period of the “course”. I am keeping the course period as 2-3 years as it is not really feasible to finish multiple projects in 6 months to 1 year on a quality basis. And it would be unfair to judge somebody’s performance on just one assignment.

Functions of a Democracy

Once more, let’s take a step back and try and understand the basic Functions of Democracy. What are the constituents of a democracy? What is the role of the public? What are the general expectations of the common public from a democracy?

To begin with, Democracy is a system of Government where the people get a say in who will govern the country. As is more commonly known, Government – Of the people, for the people and by the people. In my proposed system, Government is formed (at least a part of it – the candidates passing out from the institutes) by selecting the students from the Institutes in a manner similar to placements in colleges. My intent is to keep the process as simple and transparent as possible. Definitely, the second objective “for the people” holds true since the Projects would be undertaken for the benefit of the society. Similarly, since people from the common society would form the government, the third objective is also kind of fulfilled. I aim to do away with the system of “voting” people into the government. I believe that we the common people are not in-touch with the skillset required of a person to handle the responsibilities. Rather, we the common people are more in touch with “What needs attention and what needs to be resolved”. Therefore, I propose that people should “Vote” the issues for which they seek quick resolution / redressal.

In general in a democracy, we would see that there are political parties, few are holding power and few others are in the opposition. These are, in today’s democracy, essential parts of the democracy. In the proposed system however, if everything has to go according to Merit, there won’t be an “Opposition” party required. I do maintain though that there should be a regulatory body overseeing the activities of the Government. Who would be the regulatory body members. These can be a panel of experts from the current set of credible people. There should be people from different fields viz., an economist, a legal advisor, home affairs, infrastructure (power, transport, etc) and so on. Again not necessary that these should come from today’s political scenario. These can be from any industry. A Domain expert should do well to be in this panel of experts.

Now to come to the general expectations of the public from a democracy. First and foremost, people expect to be heard. Since I vote for a person (or party), I expect that when the person (party) comes to power, I ‘ll get heard and my problems would hopefully get addressed. To note here that the final sense of achievement lies in the fact that “My problems would hopefully get addressed”. This is what I propose in my system of Governance, wherein people get to raise their Concerns / Issues. The government (the selected candidates – as opposed to the elected candidates currently) would see if there are any trends in the Issues seeking redressal. These would be taken up on priority. Since there would be many issues, all of which might not be within the feasible scope of the Government, a good chunk of these Issues would get passed over to the Institutes. The institutes would then draft these as Working Projects for their participants. Thus, the participants get to work on Live Projects, at the grass-roots levels, in touch with the expectations of the people. It is an indirect benefit that with all these projects, the villages should see sustained development.

Recap

So, whats the summary of the entire article.

1. Democracy should prevail, but instead of voting for people, it should be voting for Issues.
2. People should be Selected rather than Elected. This selection should be on the basis of merit. Merit would be proven by the participants in the results of the projects that they undertake as a part of the training in the Institutions
3. Selection to be done in a transparent manner similar to Job Recruitment in Corporate companies. To go a step further, placement should be encouraged in the Institutes.
4. Institutions will take up the Issues out of scope of the government and draft them as Projects for the participants of the course. To begin with, the institutions to be led by accepted leaders who have brought about significant change in the society. Later on, the participants / candidates can come back to teach. Alternatively, 2 year stint could be made mandatory as part of assignment. Although making things mandatory would probably kill the purpose of keeping people motivated about the work.
5. Participants would train in the institutes for 2-3 years working on multiple assignments over the period of the course. Thereafter, depending on their performance (as graded by the trainers in the institutes, and the public satisfaction – a CSat survey if you please), they can avail of placements as and when they happen.
6. After successful performance at the base level, a candidate gets promoted to a higher level. So, maybe from a Gram Panchayat level to a district level, then to a multi-district or State level. Promotions are important part of the job otherwise the candidate could tend to feel stagnated. Also with promotions, added responsibilities could be thought too, thus increasing not only width of scope but also depth of scope.
7. Bad performance should be penalized to maintain the discipline in work.
8. At the head of the system would be the President, who would be like the CEO of the Corporate Companies overseeing the Company and taking strategic calls. Big Business Houses like Tatas can take up this role initially, and later on by meritorious candidates efficient at all levels.

Barriers to successful Functioning

On paper while this might seem to be a successful scheme, some of the existing issues might come back to plague this system of democracy also.

1. The integrity of people is difficult to grade. We cannot give for people’s behavior as money and power come together
2. Money is not the sole motivator, but it definitely is one of the biggest motivators, well at least to a certain level. If the funding for the projects at the institution level is not managed well, it might lead to loss of interest amongst candidates.
3. Difficult to rule out corruption – pretty much related to point 1.

All in all, a very high level proposal. Need opinions and thoughts from people to understand the quirks in the system, to see whether those can be fixed and to know whether we have a system to provide us a better democracy

The Belapur Local and me

A lot can be said about that Belapur local, which came into my life all of a sudden and brought me to a different plane altogether. Not that this local acted as a philosopher or a counsellor of sorts. Just that it was a gentle breeze, which brings a fresh perspective to life. It shows that life is indeed very simple, not to be fretted and frittered upon. Sometimes, the gentle breeze is all it takes to show the implicit simplicity that gets murky due to the negative externalities.

To be frank, this local train didn’t come into my life all of a sudden. I had been seeing this train pass by every day, every morning for the past one year. But that was not the train that I had ever aimed at taking to my destination. I used to take the next Panvel train, which came about 20 mins later. It came, and brought with it the morning rush of all kinds of commuters – college students, office-goers, business people and several others. This was my daily train to take to my destination. I had the second class season pass, and used to travel with the mass aboard the local. I never felt uncomfortable for a moment all of the first year that I took this train religiously. This is the most impressive trait of us humans – adjustability. Amazingly, we come to accommodate and adjust even the most undesirable things in life, once we make up our mind that there is no alternative to it. And so did I. Not that I didn’t have alternatives though. For one, I could have travelled first class, with the so-called “Class” segment of commuters. I could have travelled in the next or the earlier local to save myself some trouble. Or even, I could have broken my journey into two, to have a comfortable travel. But no, I wasn’t the one to do all those antics. This was a challenge posed to the Mumbaikar in me, and I had to face it. So I decided that I will travel in the Panvel local, second class, bearing the troubles, bearing the crowd and accommodating and adjusting with the difficulties.

How often it happens that we don’t realize what is it that we are missing until that thing comes forth to us. And once it comes forth, we can’t imagine a life without it. Something like this happened per chance one day, when I reached much before time for my usual Panvel local. The Belapur local was scheduled to come. I wasn’t really keen on waiting for another 20 mins to get into a train which would take me to the same destination as this Belapur local. So, I decided to take this Belapur Local that day. And boy, did it make my day. I realized what it means to be travelling comfortably. 20 mins is not a heaven’s ask for me, and I could quite easily manage. No extra efforts here. Additionally, I didn’t have to bear the extra burden of “mass” and the “externalities”. No rational person would choose Panvel as the option over Belapur, given all other things remain same. And neither would I, but sense would take over heart over a period of time.

It is at such times that the heart and mind play with each other. But mind finally rules over and I switch to Belapur. Each day the new train shows what simplicity is. Life with her was peaceful, nothing short of heavenly bliss. Additionally, Belapur also made me realize several of my mistakes over the past one year of travelling. I had been bearing the weight unnecessarily. I considered myself able of carrying it, and hence carried, without blaming anyone in particular, but blaming the system in general for the situation. But I came to realize that I was the guiltiest person in that environment. I needn’t carry any load, that’s not what I’m here to do. It does affect my performance somewhere without my realizing how. It also taught me some lessons in self-respect, and the most important lesson of the significance of saying NO when and where required.

It was not that I didn’t know previously that the Belapur local would be much more convenient. But somehow the Panvel local and I had a cordial relationship and I didn’t want to break it. This made it difficult for me to say that NO. But somewhere Belapur made me see and realize, from a neutral third person’s point of view, that I, per se, made no difference in the life of that Panvel Local. It came and went daily at its anointed hour. Yesterday where I stood, somebody else took that place today. And someone else would be there tomorrow. This simple clarity which was missing in my life was brought about to me by the grace of the Belapur local.

For all that I have to say about Belapur, it still is very modest and down-to-earth. I have never seen anyone as spirited, as determined, as enthusiastic, as hard-working as her in the 26 years of my life. Such are her intelligent and smart ways of functioning that I am totally impressed. In her praise, I can go on and on, but doing that wouldn’t really be acceptable to her. She is very wary of all these and has high ambitions and benchmarks for herself. She has, to my knowledge, never missed her 8:53 AM timing ever for the last 2 years I’ve seen her. This is no mean achievement, and she just casually brushes it apart. Being one of the top 10 best running trains is also not an achievement that she considers very great enough. She has this no-nonsense and straight talk attitude. She believes in making her actions speak for her.

This Belapur local, as (un)popular perception goes, is a hard nut to crack. But, I have a different opinion. She indeed is as hard as a coconut on the outside, but she also has an equally sweet potion inside to offer to those who reach her there. I do hope to reach here someday. Waiting for that day ...