Change and the burden of reluctance - own it!!!

'Change' such a simple word to spell and pronounce, is indeed the toughest thing to practice. I have heard a lot of people talking about change and saying 'Change is the only constant in life'. True, but the funny thing is god has made the entire universe to be change averse. Inertia is in built in nature. This is indeed the Newton's first law. So fundamental and so powerful law of physics.

When lifeless articles are inert to the change, you can easily assume how humans react to the change. Consider a month old baby, if the baby is accustomed to a room and the ambiance of it, it is only a small move away from the room, is sufficient to make the baby cry. And she sleeps only when she is brought to the regular place. Examine it little deeper, the baby doesn’t know whether or not we are her care takers, nor she knows our intention is good or bad in moving her. She only knows there is something happening against the set of things she believes is the world, where she finds comfort. This is Change for her.... My definition of change is this, 'moving away from the comfort' zone and play with the uncertainty. So it is like this, we hate change but we are taken through the change. God's creation is so cryptic yet so simple.

But why are we so reluctant? And is this reluctance true for all the changes? Hmmm… consider a student who is aspiring to go to higher education. He is so excited to go to college on the first day. Is it not the change? But what is making him to feel happy and excited about the change!!! Simple, the colorful and vibrant future which is sensible. Meaning to say the uncertainty of our definition is absent/minimal here or taking the rear seat over the sensible future. Aspiration is Change in the positive direction, which often drives a person to be passionate and excel.

Indeed the term RISK of finance and CHANGE of the subject matter hold similar meaning and implications. And often they associate with each other to complement any scenario or transaction. Unless one accepts risk, return will be minimal/null. So is change for life. Unless one accepts change, growth will be minimal/null. It is only and only when one accepts the change, he or she gets to know about the opportunities in that particular area. Irrespective whether or not he will be successful in his attempt, he will certainly come to know a lot of things which are otherwise gray areas when he looks from the bank. Exploration is a divine task, result is in the hands of time. So he is the one, who accepts change with a smiling face will be the winner – no matter whether he is actually are or not.

Turning the Page Number 27

This is a moment of pride for my mother…I am sure, being a mother - she is exceedingly successful in her role of upbringing both of us (Me and My Brother). There is nothing to credit to our end. Let me acquaint you with the story, why is she so proud for it...

We were a small and a traditional family from a small village in Warangal district. My father was a small businessman and also the bread winner for the family. On one unfortunate summer noon he had sustained a massive heart stroke and lost his life. We both were small kids when he demised. I was 3 and my brother was 5. I hardly remember his face. We were also not an affluent family to run the show in the absence of the food feeder. Small village, even smaller help from the relatives, my mother stood up. And she stood up tall with the sole objective to protect the kids and make them worthy citizens. This was the vision. At least to protect both of us for 20 years. In fact this is the only reason for her to live. I still remember she saying those “tough lines of my life” to one of my neighbors who was also a village head “Please adopt my kids – I don’t want to live any more”

Few days from then, she realized that - if not she, there is no one to protect her kids. She assumed the savior role. She took up the task so selflessly that she used to find the meaning of her life in our lives all along. It was so tough for a traditionally brought up lady to go to the society and fight for that bread. Every small penny used to matter and every small expense used to be monitored. Her day used to begin somewhere at 4 in the morning and end at 11 in the night. Hardly could she find a gap of 30 min to take a breath in between. She is the strongest and the boldest lady I have seen in my life.

She always used to insist on education and used to say that everyone should study at least till graduation. She also used to say this “I can feed you till you complete your graduation and make sure you are not deprived of any of the necessities” Honestly, she DID every bit to stand by her words. Just not to the graduation, but till the post graduation that too from one of the best institutes of the nation. She is surely a proud mother when she speaks about us with her friends in the vicinity.

Having crossed 27 years, if I look back – I see my mother’s victory all along the journey so far. Fighting against the odds, Rock solid determination, Undisturbed focus, Understanding the meaning of life and staying simple - for all these things if you ask me I don’t even take that second milli second to refer her name as an example. I am sure it is my fortune beyond million tons to have this lady as my mother. Every one loves his/her mother – I am no special, but she is still special. She taught me what protecting means, she taught me what parenting is all about.

As I am crossing the page number 27, she put her palm on my head and blessed me that I will surely get a girl who can understand me and be with me to support in every aspect of my life. I am seeing nothing but the never ending mother’s love. As she always says - I hope and wish she will be the second most admired lady of my life.

Turning the page number 27 she advised me not to turn the page number 28 alone…

ETCH THROUGH THE BRAIN

I am writing this blog based on my experience during my visit to a school for visually challenged students. To be frank while going I had no greater interest than spending some time with the kids of this nature. But while leaving the school i am addled to the bottom of my heart. Not because I found them pity, but the other way round. I found the other section of the society handicapped. Strange, but true. I found myself handicapped amidst the level of synchronization that these kids have shown.

I went there with couple of my friends who are regular visitors of this place. And the kids are very familiar to them. They just touch your hand and say who you are. Each kid is a maverick there with their unique expertise. One kid, hardly 4 to 5 years old, gave me the shock of life time by chanting the movie dialogues of aged movies. Not just dialogues, with the perfect voice modulation of that particular movie character. I was totally bowled over by this kid’s ability to remember those complex dialogues of the movie, that he just LISTENED to. I SAW the movie thrice, I know the characters, I can recognise them if I face them on the road, and I am 27. But still I just can’t do that. He even remembers the commercial breaks of the movie played on the TV. Now tell me what should I call this kid? Is he not the prodigy of our motherland? He is just not he only special kid there. Every one of them actually made me to feel ashamed of myself.

I should tell you one more incident which just made me go agape. There were a group of these kids playing cricket. With a specially designed ball which makes sound while it is in action. Apart from that it’s the normal cricket game. Being a diehard fan of the game, I went to WATCH it. I had to double my eyes to realize the level of synchronization that they have displayed. And the game played was so damn ferocious. It just can’t be expressed in words. They can bowl better than us. They can bat better than us. They can field better than us. And they can also hit the stumps without fail….Only based on the sounds…not only the sound of the ball, but also the sound of the wind it carries with it. The game was at its best and I envied every bit of it on the above ground axis. I somehow felt that I am the odd man in the middle with more equipment and less potential.

Many a times I am surprised and admired by the mechanics of human body and the design of it. It’s a perfect machine. We just don’t realise the power of it. Sometimes we do it with curiosity but most of the times it comes with necessity. As we all know “Necessity is the mother of Invention” but surprisingly "Necessity is also the mother of Discovery".

It is indeed the necessity which drove these kids to be that special. You and me are also gifted with these abilities. But we do not have the necessity in other words we don’t have the opportunity to realise(discover) the ability of the organs that we are born with. Hence we do underutilize them. So we function at a lesser risk basis so we enjoy a lesser return from the organ….and the sad part is we are HAPPY with it. But these kids play them at an elevated level. Hence they get an equal amount of output with the limited organs which we are yielding with all the organs. Is it not simply great?

All I want to say is, with all the organs alive and functioning, we should be thankful to the almighty for making us to be so luxurious. Failing to realise this, we all crib about many a things….that we are not rich, we don’t get to watch a good movie, we don’t have an LCD TV, we are deprived of fancy cars….what not? Dear realise what you have before starting about what you don’t.

Swig of Truth

Talking about the teaming, Narayana Murthy of Infosys keeps saying, 1+1 is always greater than 2. Having seen the corporate culture for 4 years now, I somehow, do not agree with him and tend to hold a contradicting opinion. I am not bluntly saying that he is wrong, but the probability of him being right is only close to 20%. But for the rest 80% of the opportunities I feel 1+1 is always much lower than 1.5. And as the number of people keeps increasing the marginal increment in the value added is going down, may not be considerably but yes, it does. Things which can influence this function are largely - Leadership, Culture, Kind Of Job, Maturity Level of People and the Governance System.

When the organization is small, when the visibility for each person is very high, when the roles are clearly defined, when the responsibilities were shared with a human touch, when the leadership has a clear Vision and the same is shared among all other people, when employees work for the Organisation but not for any Individual, when one is not just one…Narayana Murthy is right in his Statement. But in reality, I get to see none of the mentioned characteristics is prevalent. What all I see are - vague bond between people, road blocks for the Information/Vision/Objective at each layer of the hierarchy-leaving leaving the completely distorted information when it reaches the ground, Individual objectives taking the driver seat instead of the organization goals, escaping from all the duties and work only when it is extremely needed, involving personal relationships at work place, measuring people’s performance on the wrong Indices or just on the personal relationship and what not…creating all odds for that individual who comes with an intention of serving the Organisation with true spirits and prove himself.

Why an Organisation, when small performs well and the same gets tumbled down as the size crosses the critical mass. And how can one actually say that this is the critical mass for the Organisation. If we dwell in to it, In general when an Organisation is formed, the founder(s) has the clear Vision and makes sure that it is shared with the people who work for it. What part of the information is to be shared and what is to be hidden are clear in his/her understanding. He/She doesn’t need to lay down a rule book/process to function the given job. Most of the times the job is given and accepted with clear understanding of the impact of the job on the other stakeholders of the Organisation. This is the reason responsibility & accountability are instilled without saying. This is the reason you can derive higher average work (Value) from an Organisation of 5 people than that of from the organisation of 500 people.

If 1+1 has to be more than 2 –It asks for, each one complementing the other person in the work, extending the support beyond the set job description, zeal to stretch that extra mile and encourage him or her to achieve that. This is possible only and only when there is perfect coherent set of objectives for the individuals and teams. If these intangible and cultural aspects are absent, the marginal VALUE that each person brings to the table is clearly less than 1. Meaning to say, if he asked to function independently he would add more value (in absolute terms). If my observation is correct - if there are 100 people working on a job, the value derived out of this entire group would be somewhere between 30 to 40. But why do we need teams??? Answer is simple; one can’t be more than ONE. But 10 can be more than 5….got me?

PSS of Life

I present this as the leached extract of few incidents i had gone through for the past few years of my life. In a nutshell i feel these are the Prime factors which i feel stand as the factors for each vertical of life. And the beauty of it is, they are independant of each other and are equally adoptable to each and every one of us.

I am here taking those three verticals of life which are of the obvious importance to everyone. Education, Financial well being and the Joy of living. My objective here is not to make you understand how important each one of them is in life.....but to discuss what is that one factor(Of course one for each) which determines these verticals of life to the highest level possible. Request the reader to understand that, this is not the ONLY factor which influences the Vertical mentioned but this is THE factor which influences the vertical the most. Let me deal them one after the other.


Education - This is of Prime importance for everyone...reasons are many to enumerate..to be valued in the market place...to be more good...to be more prudent...to be more ethical...to be more wise...to be more understanding..on and on and on. The biggest factor on which the vertical depends is the amount of PERSEVERANCE one holds in him or her. This single factor makes the difference between On and Off in this vertical. No matter what else you have or you don't have.....if one has this single factor embedded in the deepest root of his or her heart, i am dead sure that the person will get the Success in this vertical. Ambedker is the finest example to accost this argument. The Society abominated him...poverty shown him the worst ever state of it...friends didn't entertained him to be with them...no teacher hugged him...no tree became the school for him..no roll number...no books...YET this chap made it....and he made it to the highest level possible.....Nothing else but the perseverance he had is the KEY for it.......honestly this is abysmal in nature.....toughest of all to crack...i bow him a million times and rest my head on his feet for it.....and worth noticing is this. "Amount of perseverance needed is a very sensitive function of two things. One-what do you want to do in life and the second one-where do you want see yourself few years down the line?" if one has these things clear in his/her thoughts, Perseverance is the Natural Baby of it. In fact they are inter dependant and mutual complements.


Financial Well Being: The term RICH is indeed a relative one. No one is absolutely Rich and No One is Absolutely Poor. We are poor or rich only with respect to the other person in focus. But as the time passes how one becomes richer or poorer with respect to the same person depends on his or her ability to SAVE. And what fraction of his or her income is being SAVED is the key factor here. No matter how much ever one earns, if there is no Saving, then there is no growth in this vertical. Your cash flows are just like a perforated vessel ....sees a heavy/less flow depends on your income. Unless one saves something out of the flow... he or she does not grow up the value chain in this vertical. There are couple of us who are blessed with the ancestral assets....but again as i said, if you don't save..you will stay where you are but the growth is almost Zero. I here, urge the reader to understand the word SAVE. Pl do not go by the literal meaning of it, that is retaining the money away from spending but also two other things. "The amount of money one can hold and put it back in the upstream of the flow. The other one is one's ability to reduce the time each cash flow demands..not to forget the Time Value of Money and the age old adage "Time is Money"". If one can SAVE (Save, Re-Invest or Reduce the time of the flow) a little fraction of it, growth is certainly awarded and accorded by the Goddess Lakshmi.


Joy of living: I am talking about the post married life of an individual here but not the life before it. In fact the life before marriage depends on highly fragmented factors than the life after.This is the primary reason i chose the later. And this part of the life is indeed where you become productive in all terms...growing your tribe, reaching your true ambition and also to lay the road to reach the Maslow's acme i.e. Self Actualisation. The biggest parameter influences this vertical is your SPOUSE. Trust me when i say that more than 90% of your life depends on this ONE person. In some cases the damage because of the presence of SPOUSE is million times more than the loss (loss of many things....u must know them) because of the Absence of that person. This is the very reason i feel, a lot of our well known people (To name a few, Kalam, Vajpai, Mother Theressa, Vivekananda etc..) abstained themselves from getting married and hedged their life for a better purpose. And in some other cases, they frequently changed the spouse, expecting a better one every next time...this culture is more prevalent in western. In India i get to see the same tribe of people staying Bachelor/Spinster for the entire life. Now coming to the presence of him/her. Its a disaster if one makes this call wrong. End up choosing the wrong Person. This one mistake is more than sufficient to up side down everything of your life. But if....if one makes the correct choice, this indeed the best booster one can ever find in any of the DOPEs. You make miracle because of him or her and you stand tall in life because of him/her.



I am here again insisting that these are not the only factors which can influence the respective Vertical, but these are THE parameters have the greatest Influence on that part of the life. And the beauty of it is, as i said in the beginning of this blog, these are all independant of each other....that is...the presence or absence of any one of them does not influence the other vertical. For example, one can be Rich and Lead an unsatisfactory life, one can be highly qualified yet be a pauper....and so on. He/She will be the person who understands all these controlling levers we are gifted to the highest level will be the most successful person in life. "An alrounder" is the one who is needed - the Essenes of it.

Dejected and Stayed Back

I wonder why any two people (Who know each other**) in this world do not have the same amount or considerably the same amount of feeling towards each other. The feeling may be like, dislike, love or any other. I am not saying this statement just out of some random thought...but after giving a profound understanding towards it.  

Except for the few best Couples i have seen, this phenomenon is clearly visible. Indeed at this point in time i would like to ask you one question......Can you tell me the names of 10 people whom you like most? and can you also give me the names of 10 people who like you most? I am cent percent sure both the lists do not match more than 50%. And the matching percentage goes down inversely with the number of people you take into consideration. Even this 50% is with a difference in priority of ranking. If there is a better match, i am almost certain that you are biased in your judgement. But there is a chance. 

In fact this ranking is done by everyone.....even a layman does that. If you dont trust me ask your grandma....who on the earth dear to you? She answers without thinking back. 

This is the very reason you expect right things from Wrong people and vice-versa. Because you expect someone to be more transparent to you that in turn because you feel he or she is more important to you. But the fact is ..."the same" is not true from the other end. So you end up landing dejected for something which you feel is close to your heart.  Each time it happens you have a lesson to catch. The lesson should ideally make you rearrange the list that you have in your backyard. If the general inertia you have is stopping you to do that, get ready for the next incident and the following lesson. I am not here trying to say "Go Away" from people.....but all i want to say is give the rational judgement. 

It is not only immoral but also injustice to give wrong rankings......because of which you are dejected and sometimes you cause someone getting dejected. ....

Hyderabad Blasts - Time to retroscope

This is the most gruesome act one can adapt to demoralize the truly cosmopolitan city there by the entire nation. Two days back we found fake notes of 2.3 crore rupees and the next day we sustained two major blasts causing 40 innocent souls and injuring 100 odd people.

What is the major advantage that these people are having over the police department, ANONYMITY status? Even the intelligence is anonymous. One small clue will enable the intelligence department to go to the roots of terrorist plots. But still we are facing so many terrorist attacks. We are only next to Iraq, when it comes terrorist deaths in the last year with almost 3400 deaths. I call it sheer intelligence failure. Isn’t it?

When we are spending 4% of our GDP on arm forces, navy and air force, they found it next to impossible to face India directly. But the desire to disturb the country is undying in the hearts few Nations.

There are articles in various news papers saying even a common man can go to Bihar and buy RDX which is imported from Bangladesh, why is India still aiding millions of rupees to Bangladesh for various development programs that too at the cost of keeping its own people hungry and unemployed? When it is evident from the facts that these people are trying to disturb the entire nation financially as well as morally, I don’t see any point in aiding such nations. Bangladesh’s foreign affairs minister did not even take 10 hours to reject the AP Chief Ministers allegations that Bangladesh Terrorists are there behind these blasts.

A system of zero tolerance is very much needed for a country like India to save its innocent people. Fear should be instilled by killing anti social elements in the public without reading and rereading the penal codes. A revised POTA has to be resumed that would become a major setback to all the terrorists across the world.

I hope the nation will long live without any such disturbances.