jabdakhata

This week marked the 20th anniversary of Berlin wall fall which tore asunder the iron curtain. Ironically the same week saw the communists in India seeing their last bastions crumbling and falling. The communists lost in all elections in West Bengal and Kerala, considered as their fortresses. The top brass of Indian communists were busy holidaying in Europe and Brazil, travelling in business class and sipping cognac ('course all in the name of poor and underprivileged, they were drinking the health of poor peasants who just booted them out). In West Bengal they have managed to wrest one seat from poor Congress, other wise the TMC juggernaut seems invinsible and Mamata is going from triumph to triumph and she is wisely consolidating her gains. Atta girl! Therefore communists are finally restricted to a small territory called Tripura, and there is still North Korea. China has ceased to be a communist state 30 years back and they are retaining the name only to keep democracy at bay. C

I was going through letters of Swami Vivekananda and was pleasantly surprised to see the depth of his thought process in management principles. We need to understand that we are talking about 19th century end, when scientific management principles were still at the stage of infancy. And nobody in India was aware of principles of modern management, let alone practice them. Here are some exerpts from Vivekananda's letter to Swami Brahmanand written on 1st August 1898 from Srinagar- No job can be learnt without practical experience, theory itself is not sufficient ->we all know how important practical experience is nowadays There should always be backups, if somebody goes away, others should be ready to take his work up -> its a perfect example of risk management Nobody works unless there is interest and motivation. Everybody should be given work which would interest him/her. With interest comes dedication.->This is the cornerstone of Herzberg's theory of motivation which

No, I am not talking about the dictionery definition. I am simply talking about the inability to accpet a different point of view - be it in religion, politics or in any sphere of life. Intolerance is a great divider, it creates an insurmountable barrier. A greater degree of intolerance is called fanaticism, whereby human beings forget all rational logical thoughts and call it ego or brainwash, that takes over senses completely. Under such a circumstance man can kill, steal or do anything to establish his idea's superiority over others. We are all intolerant, to a greater or lesser extent, racism is a form of intolerance. Come to think of it, even marital discords are nothing but intolerance. We create enemies because we are intolerant. Office politics is nothing but intolerance - of perhaps the success of a colleague. Now what is tolerance? Tolerance is the ability to see other points of view, to accept facts as facts and discard dogmas, to acquire the wisdom to understand that

One girl stood steadfastly against her assailants, dreaded Lashkar e Taiba militants who are either revered or feared by most in India, more so in Jammu and Kashmir. Her name is Rukshana and she is only 18 years old. She attacked the AK47 totting terrorists (atleast three of them including their commander, a notorious terrorist), with an axe. She and her brother together managed to snatch away the guns and kill one of the terrorists, and injuring others. No human rights organization (who so painstakingly defend any terrorist killed), came to her aid. No so called Kashmiri organization came forward in her support. She is now living in constant fear, away from her home and village, of brutal revenge, and her home was attacked only yesterday. LeT, grow up, we are not afraid of bastards like you. We know that deep down you guys are nothing but a bunch of cowards who just rely on bombs and AK47 to get their "heaven". And Indian Government, learn from this teeage girl how to combat

Alfred Nobel must be turning in his grave. The Nobel peace prize is gotten by who? The president of a country which is engaged in warfare in many corners of the world, who talks about disarmament for other countries but holds a huge stockpile of nuclear himself, who has so far only tall talks and nice speeches to offer to the world. Ok, the justification is, unlike his predecessor, he has offered possibilities of peace in some corners of the world whose names his average countrymen cannot even pronounce properly. Big Deal! May be I am judging this person too harshly, may be he has willingness and ability and also sincerity, but shouldn't a person first deliver and then get recognition? Well, lets not forget his humanitarian gesture of 3 billion USD aid to a country which is the epicentre of terrorism and which has a history of proliferation as well as well known for its treachery and duplicity, not to say about using the external funds to forment terror attacks against its neighbou

The second story goes like this - In a town there lived a small time businessman who was doing poorly in business and therefore was in dire financial strait. That businessman prayed to the God and that night he had a dream that a monk had come to visit his house, but instead of entertaining his guest, he took a stick and hit the monk on the head. Immediately the monk fell down and got converted to a heap of gold. In the morning when he woke up he was still deliberating on the significance of his dream when his barber came for his daily shave. Just then there was a knock on the door and when the person opened the door, a monk came inside. Just then he remembered about his dream, took a rod and hit the monk on head. The monk fell flat and immediately there was a heap of gold coins in his place. The businessman gave his barber some gold and sworn him to secrecy. But this incident dishevelled the barber. He too went hom and began thinking, if by hitting a monk he gets so many gold coins, I

In this series I am going to tell a story from ancient literature and draw the learnings in our professional and personal lives from the same. These stories are mostly taken from Panchatantra or "5 lessons" and Hitopadesha or "Good Advices". The first story (from Panchatantra) goes like this- In a large pond there used to live four fishes among others. These four fishes had some peculiarities. The first one was capable of sniffing, scanning and monitoring the environment and forecast and analyze trends based on changes in the environment. We will call this fish the "Astute Observer". The second one lacked the talent of scanning and forecasting, but he had a wonderful ability to scurry into action whenever a need arose. He used to devise a strategic plan and immediately acted on the plan. We will call him the "Intelligent Actor". The third one was neither an analyst like the first nor as intelligent and active as the second. However, he was extrem

The rebranding exercise at the cost of tax payers for department of post is going on for quite some times. They have revamped some of their post offices from dilapidated shacks to decent looking outposts in association with Deutsche Post. But more things change, more they remain same. Has anything changed at the service level? simply nothing. Indian bureaucracy is one of the most inefficient and most corrupt, esp. at the lower levels and India Post is a very symbol of the same. I had speed posted one RTI application to income tax department twice, based on pin codes given for their Hyderabad office in their associated websites. Every Tom Dick and Harry knows the location of Income tax office, but not India post. The speed posts came back twice, after roaming around the city for a few days, the reason cited was "insufficient address". The post offices whose stamp was marked on the envelope were stones throw away from the Income Tax office and yet they did not know the address.

Does anybody remember who Nevil Chamberlain was? Oh yes! He is synonymous with a foreign policy of appeasement and weakness. To the uninitiated Chamberlain was a former British priminister, who signed the Munich agreement in Germany in 1938 conceding Sudetenland to Hitler, overlooking and overruling the concerns of Czechoslovakia republic. He praised Hitler and Musolini and was too anxious to buy peace with Germany, even at the expense of Czechs and Austrians. Probably he was handicapped by his domestic problems, probably he had a wishful thinking that by placating Germany and Hitler a war could be avoided, or probably he truly believed that Hitler and Musolini were gentlemen who did break agreements and Sudetenland would be the end to Germany's ambitions in Europe. Well, history shows that whatever his intentions were, however good a man he was, he was wrong. Similarly we have a good man at our helm, who is anxious to buy peace with Pakistan and China, to placate the "wounded

You think Feudalism was in vogue only in Europe during the dark ages and in the early medieval period? well, you are mistaken. Feudalism is back with a vengeance in today's India, the modern India, an India which competes with China and other tiger economies and aspire to become a world leader. This feudlism does not have explicit feudal lords and serfs, but have a class of patricians and plebians like that of ancient Rome. The patricians are the privileged classes, while plebians are not so privileged. Now who are these patricians? In modern Indian context they are the politicians in power, the ministers, the bureaucrats or the adminstrative services guys, the big businessmen and corporate honchos, the big media men and of course, the celebrities - film actors, cricket gods etc. These feudal lords, though they belong to diverse sections of the society and may have different backgrounds and circumstances, share a common thread, their disdain for the prosaic, mundane common men and

Tagore had traveled all around Europe, middle East, America, Russia, Japan, South America, in short, almost the whole world in the 20s, and 30s of last century. He has written lucid accounts of his travels and perspectives. We need to remember that during this time Europe was going through a major crisis. Communism was taking its root and Stalin's iron hand was almost established in East Europe. First world war was just over and Europe was still struggling to get out of the mess. In Italy and Germany fascists were fast gaining grounds. Persecution of Jews had taken legitimacy in many parts of Europe. British Empire was getting increasingly shaken, esp. in India by a thin, lean shrewd ascetic called Gandhi. Middle East was probably flourishing, Palestine crisis not yet created fully, Shahs were ruling Persia with a mighty fist and secularism was at its height there. Turkey had newly tasted democracy with Ottoman empire lying in pieces and Mustafa Kemal having established his authori

It is the worst of time, an epoch of incredulity, age of foolishness, season of darkness, winter of despair...as far as new LPG connection is concerned. I always thought that getting a gas connection would be a cakewalk. That was my expereince in 2003, when I walked into the nearby Hindustan Petroleum dealership which had opened recently in Madhapur, and got a connection. The mistake I did was returning this connection before I went abroad. After coming back to India in 2007, well, it proved to be a herculean effort to get a new connection. Almot all dealers I approached - HP, Indane, BPCL, told me that the minimum wait period to get a new connection is 1 year after enlisting. Some even refused to enlist my name saying plainly that its of no use. I had to take up a private connetion from Shakti gas at a much higher price, but the service proved to be unreliable. So I finally gave it up. Private gas players are mostly out of business owing to absence of any level playing field. Therefor

Universal education is a concept fairly close to my heart. Of late, there has been a lot of deliberation from various quarters on universal education access. The major problem is the access to quality education. Not every institute or school has great faculty or infrastructure. Second thing to ponder upon is whether we are doing it right. Education in today's world is career oriented which creates competition and when the demand for few lucrative careers outstrips supply there is bound to be a fierce competition at various levels, resulting in rat race. These factors, competition, fear of failure, lack of proper education and of course the affordability part of it results in large scale school dropout, suicidal tendencies and building up of stress in the society. Also a large number of people do not have proper access to education. I think the access problem is easier to solve than anything else, leveraging technology. Esp. since mobile phones are now ubiquitous, once 3G comes thro

I would dare say that Bengal poll results has surprised me, although I hasten to add, thats its a pleasant surprise. There was an undercurrent of change, but that the undercurrent would soon convert itself into tidal wave was beyond my wildest dream. Honestly I had almost given up on ever being able to witness a West Bengal without leftist regime in my life, since the better part of my 32 years had been under their rule. Why is it a pleasant surprise? Reasons are multiple. First, vindication of my own stance. While most educated middle class was busy villifying Mamata and her so called politics of driving out Nano and anti industrialization stance, I had a subtle feeling that what she was doing was absolutely correct in the long run. She was playing straight from her heart. You may ask, what did the communists do wrong? They wanted industrialization and a prosperous Bengal. My answer, what were they doing for 30 years? Let me put down in bullet points what wrong they did, and why th

Remembering Tagore's poem - Keno cheye accho go Ma Mukhopane Era chahena tomare chahena je Era apono Ma yere nahi jane Era tomay kichhu debena debena mitthya kobe sudhu hino porane Tumi to ditechho Ma ja achhe tomari Shorno shoshyo tabo Janhobi bari gyano dharmo kato punno kahini Era tomay kichhu debena debena mitthya kobe sudhu kato ki bhane monero bedona rakho ma mone nayano bari nibaro nayane mukho lukao ma dhuli shayane bhule thako jato hino santane shunno pane cheye prahoro gono goni dekho katekina dirgho rajani dukhho janaye ki hobe janani nirmomo chetanahino pashane Translating this beautiful poem in English retaining its sense is next to impossible. However here is a feeble attempt. Why are you staring at our face mother, they don't want you, they don't know you, their own mother. They won't give you anything except for lies and more lies and pretension. You have given us all you have - golden harvests, pure water, knowledge, religion, virtue. But they don'

I was really enjoying my stay at Heinzelinweg, even though I hardly stayed there. Almost every week I was away travelling to Utrecht, waking up at 4 Am, booking a taxi the n ight before, rushing to catch a flight at 5.30 AM. The picture is of my one room in Heinzelinweg. The major attraction was a water bed, which comfortably suited me as it was fun sleeping on it. Even then I could manage weekend gateaways to Zugspitze, to Strasbourg in Alsace region etc. I also managed another trip to Paderborn to meet my friend Seshadri who worked with SAP labs and had come to Walldorf near Heidelberg, and we had a rendezvous in Sujoyda's place. It was a memorable trip, culminating in our visit to Koeln and seeing some exotic villages in Northern Germany. The photo below shows our pose in front of Cologne Dom across the Rhine river. Prior to that Sujoyda along with family and friends had visited me in Stuttgart. They had come to tour Southern Germany and enroute they took rest in my cottage. So

Heinzelinweg is memorable for a variety of reasons. I settled down here peceafully for a much longer time and there was no need to worry about cleanliness and relocation. The area itself was very peaceful, far removed from cacophonies of busy city streets. Not far from it were several great lush green meadows,and forested regions.I often used to take long evening strolls in the afternoon which used to take me past the meadows with horses grazing, past a small locality with neat shopping areas and bus stops, towards the railway tracks, or towards the forest. You could walk miles along the railway track. However for the first few months I had so little time to myself owing to incessant travelling. From my place, it hardly took 10 min and 10 euros to go to Echterdingen airport. And return could have been using a S Bahn, only if the time was suitable, number of S Bahns being very few on that route. In October Stuttgart holds what is fondly called as Oktoberfest or Volksfest - a kind of fe

Its now last week of April and I should have to search for a new house. Next month two more of my colleagues were coming, so I decided to share an accomodation for a change and got a pointer from an agency called Schwaben Stern, promoted by Frau Carmen Maier. The house was in Echterdingen Leinfelden, in the suburbs, near Stuttgart Flughafen or airport, the address being Goldaecker strasse no. 1. It was with some difficulty that I finally located the Goldaecker strasse. The bus no. 72 from Echterdingen station dropped me at the bus stop from where it was another quarter of a mile walk. The landlord was Signor Franko Pala, an Italian working in Lufthansa. He was fluent in English, with a goati and specs and we hit on instantly. The rooms were nice, clean and tidy and there was no problem in signing off a 6 months contract. However once myself and my colleagues Shailendu and later Ashish Malik settled down, we had the first signs of troubles. The landlord often use to come to apartment in

By this time I had to start travelling, to Netherlands, Utrecht to be more precise, where our project was going on. It was not a very engaging thought to wake up in the morning at 4 AM in biting cold, take a bath (esp. when hot water does'nt run continuously), pack your bags and hop on to a taxi at 5.30 AM to catch a plane at 6 AM. But precisely those were the things that I had to do. And then for the whole day you sit with a bunch of clients who are still not very warm with you for various reasons. In the afternoon you sometimes have a rather tasteless lunch and yearn for that rice and curry which you miss. And then evening after everybody else in the office goes home, you call yourelf a taxi and go and check in at the hotel, take a shower and even though you are too tired to go out, drag yourself along to a nearby restaurant to have dinner, or else opt for the room service, and then blissfully go to sleep thinking what is awaiting you the next day. The days when I was in Stuttgar

The next few days went away like hurricane. The next day I had to get up and join office. I gave a miss to the breakfast thinking that it would cost me when all the time it was just free (an information which I got later from other colleagues), took a taxi and landed at Am Wallgraben 129, the DaimlerChrysler (erstwhile, now it is only Daimler) ITM office address. Our team was sitting in the ground floor on the right hand side and since it was befor 9 AM, very few had bothered to turn up, one of them being Paparao Venkata. An intelligent and extremely helpful chap, he soon provided me with basic ingredients of information for my survival, including a 5 Euro calling card for which he atfirst refused to take the price but upon my insistence relented. Then slowly came the others and I met them one by one, all the voices that I had heard over telephone or all the names that I saw on the emails now became a full blown person. "Oh my god, she looks like this!" or "Well, this gu

Let me see if I can remember a major chapter of my life, the eventful stay in Germany, those memorable three years which I would cherish for ever because of a multitude of events that were associated with that stay. I was working as an SAP consultant in Infosys at that time. I still remember that when my greencard came for the CESAR project in Stuttgart, my passport was not ready. It had expired just then. So I had to first renew it with Dada's help, from Kolkata RPO. It took a month and more than 1000 bucks and atleast one agent for my passport to get renewed (even under the so called Tatkal or instanteneous scheme). Finally when it came my German green card (three months duration) was about to expire in 15 days. So I hastily raised a Payana and booked my flight tickets, got approval from Sushil Tiwari (project manager at offshore), got the forex (around 4600 Euro with travel advance) and booked a taxi from my home to airport on 13th March, 2004. The Jet Airways flight to Chennai