Smile Please.. Click Click..

I have been thinking of writing about this, and here I am doing it when I am supposed to work on my Research Project. Whenever, I swift through the photos, I have always wondered why does it not capture the true moments. The story depicted by the photos most of the time would be a different one than the actual one. I hardly get to see the key people in my photos. I hardly have snaps with the people who made a difference. I hardly have snaps with those who I care for.  I don’t have a single snap of the person who saved me from a disaster. I don’t have a single picture of the person who helped me do my assignment in my school days. I don’t have the picture of my best-friend cum competitor in school. I hardly have snaps with my best buddies in office.

If these were the saddest part, here comes the sadder ones – At the outset, most of the photos are with those people who are not there to stay. I hardly see the friends in the photos today and I hardly see the photos with friends who are still in touch. I hardly have any photos with the family which cares for me.

Here is the sad part - I don’t have  the snap of a friend who resisted celebrating her birthday, just because I wasn’t there. I don’t have a snap of the friend who shared the most idiotic stuff and most irrelevant ones, but literally exploited my patience. I don’t have a snap of the friend who cried more than I laughed. I don’t have the snap of the girl who used to call me and ask why I am not like my dad… Hahaha

I know this is not the usual me, but just that this thing has been eating me from many years.. and I wanted to put it down…. 

Looking Back...

This year 5th of April, it would be 3 years that our project article was published in Deccan Herald. Every year, this day brings mixed feelings in me. As the year passes by, the good news is that we are still great friends – the bad news is we are running in different directions. I may or may not attend any meet of my college - AMC Engineering College for what so ever reasons, but I can never forget the valuable assets that it has given me – Friends for a lifetime.

It was during one of our sixth semester days, when Mohan, Vishnu & I sat on the stoned parapet wall discussing how different or innovative our project should be. At a time, when none of our peers even thought of a project, we were thinking of many things which could be done. While Vishnu n Mohan were telling this idea of traffic signal stuff, I was constantly thinking how big projects could be accomplished at our engineering level. Infact, we almost thought of having a project of 16 members – 4 in each team, each team working on a module and finally integrating each module to get one spectacular thing. Even today, those thoughts invoke weird emotions in me. Today, as I look back, I regret so much that I couldn’t nurture that courage I had in those days. None of us thought of subjects or marks – we knew how to pull through them.  There were teams which people had formed based on their convenience. We had to see how best we could squeeze in some better talents of the class. Then we had Venky coming in, making our team of 4 boys. Now the lookout was for a girls team :)

Having Shravan in a team was definitely a hindrance for any other girls to join (atleast during the engineering days). No point in discussing those reasons. Going ahead, we found a group having Swathi and 3 others (not all were girls) in that group. We started off with a target of 16 members, ended up having atleast 8 members. Our first meet was at my home – I think, mom had prepared Pulav and payasam for lunch and we discussed around 2 major ideas.  After some more rounds of meetings in the next few days, we were all looking for an external mentor, who could assist us in implementing our ideas. One day, it started off with a bad fight, and I almost made up my mind to break-off with the team, and then joined back, followed by a car accident and finally a long session from dad.

Later, we proceeded with the planned stuff. One morning, a team member – calls and tells that her family is not confident of our idea pulling through successfully. This is what I would call a loss of security. It takes guts to think and be different. Anyways, as usual one more meet to decide the future.  We could not let her go alone and she had to be accompanied by someone else. So after a lot of confrontation with everyone in the team, it was decided 3 people would be kicked out.  So from 16 to 8 to 5, here comes the final team – Mohan, Venky, Vishnu, Swathi & Shravan.  Reduction of members didn’t lead to reduction of work, because 5 could not be accommodated in one team, and we had to do 2 projects, but with just 5 members. Effectively, each person had to do extra 3/5th of their normal work.

This is the best filtering process, which any team could have undergone. We, five of us had the end result in mind, and others became secondary. It was like a baby for all of us, but everyone still had his/her style of nurturing it. Great teams are known for great co-ordination and co-operation amongst team members – but I think my team was great, for not having those. There were hardly any meetings which went without a fight or which went without disagreements. And if any meeting went smooth, there is all probability that either Vishnu or I would not be present in the meeting.

Finally we ended up finding a mentor, and our project started full-fledged. We had to travel every weekend for the project work, as our mentor was a bit far-off. Saturdays became very hectic, as we all had to leave by 8 and by the time we reached back, it would be around 10 or sometimes 11 pm. I still remember the day, where we were working on a particular module and it was just not working, and none of us had lunch till the time, it worked – and finally it worked around 5pm, and only then we went for lunch. Venky was literally shouting out of hunger. I think Vishnu was not present on that day. We all ate like hell at the bakery. That was a true team spirit – I don’t think we, ourselves could show that level of commitment if such a situation comes now. This doesn’t mean that people had no vested interests. Every one of us had vested interests, but ultimately this project facilitated those interests.

Ours was one of the first projects to be completed in our college. Finally on 5th of April, 2007 we could make it to one of the reputed newspaper in Bangalore. I don’t consider our project a success or a great one because it was recognized or published. But it was not a joke to pull this off. If I go back and look into my diary, I do recall that each day was an issue by itself. At a personal level, this project has been an eye-opener in many ways. Not every student gets to work in a team like ours. I don’t say this because it is luck – it is just because not everyone can pass the litmus tests which we passed; not everyone can survive the filtering process, which we survived. We all had literally put our relations at stake at many stages of the project. This project had everything – emotions, stress, strains, technicality, relations, love story, separation anxiety, midnight counselling sessions, all types of misunderstandings, EGO clashes, etc...

In every stage of my life, it has been a challenge to choose friends, and I have always failed in doing so. When I look back, as a bystander, I realize that I hardly have friends, but the ones I have are the best I could have ever got.  Henry Kissinger once said – “A diamond is a chunk of coal that is made good under pressure”.  I met my friends as a chunk of coal, the pressure of time and circumstances polished us, and what came out were diamonds. These are the diamonds, which time has gifted to me.

However, there is still one thing which pricks me continuously, we didn’t pursue our dreams, we changed directions, we changed priorities & got trapped in unnecessary things. The dream is still a dream, and I won’t let it die. I still have hopes to re-create the magic on a bigger scale!!!

So,

Mohan - hold on to your land;

Vishnu – hold on with your ideas;

Venky – don’t spend too much on your bike;

Swathi – build your network;

&

Shravan – will continue to sleep more – to dream more. Hahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!

But wait... Some more diamonds are on the way…!!!!

What’s your problem??

My close friend Charlie spoke to me the other day, regarding his marriage with his long-time girlfriend Rosy. He was seemingly happy and contended. His story has been a tough one, and credit goes to both for pulling this off after such a long time. Being one of his old friends, he used to share some of his feelings with me (the reason for which I have still not recognized). I clearly remember one night, when he spoke for almost 20 min, regarding his day.

That was the day when Charlie had taken his girlfriend out for lunch followed by a movie. Later, these people went to a botanical garden, and the serene skies made it more pleasant for them to spend time. Charlie generally describes such moments as the most dangerous ones, because – these are the times when girls become cozy and you never know what is there at the other end of the tunnel. As expected, Rosy started to share her inane feelings, about some topic which Charlie could hardly connect himself with. However, just running out of choice, he listened to her and started giving some suggestions regarding the issues which she was sharing. After some time, they started to walk down the beautiful lanes of the garden. By that time, Rosy was a bit floundering, and Charlie knew that he had told something wrong and screwed up somewhere. Charlie asked Rosy to walk properly, and the immediate response was – "What's your problem?". Charlie had little choice but to shut his mouth. Later, even the skies lost its serenity and they both went to their respective places.

That night Charlie was a somewhat more upset than normal and called me, to share this experience. As he shared his experience, I hardly found any reason for anyone to get upset. Since Charlie was accessible at that time, I asked him what made him upset. Charlie told - "What's your problem?" is the last thing he would like to hear from Rosy. He mentioned that, almost every alternate meeting, he gets to hear that from Rosy, which turns him off. He is hurt, when the person he cares so much, gets to say – "What's your problem?" without giving heed to the concerns, based on which he would have said something.

As a novice in such sentimental matters, the best I generally do is to give a patient hearing – but my greatest fear is the question he generally asks me – "What do you think I should do?". But this time, I think he was convinced that I am a bit apathetic (thanks to some overly logical analysis, I had given before), and didn't ask me anything.

However, this time, interestingly I was a bit puzzled about the problem of "What's your problem?" with both the guy and the gal. I discussed this with some of my confidants, and tried to understand what makes girls say such things whenever they are upset. I must admit that none could give me a convincing answer. Technically, one of my psychiatrist friend told about the play of hormones in the female's brain, which generally lead to impulsive reactions, during certain times. That was pretty logical ones, but not strong enough.

However, in totality, I tried to connect the dots (brought out by my friends) and draw a considerably clear picture of it. I could make out one thing pretty clear – The culprit is not the gender but the way nature has imposed their respective duties.

The biggest challenge here is when roles created by nature are reversed. I am not sure about the reason, but as days pass by, the events have generally re-instated the belief that nature wins over nurture. Love stories generally have these elements of role reversal and considerable clashes are prone to occur. Thanks to creativity, that nature possesses - the combination of genes for a female or male need not necessarily instill their respective hard-core qualities. This adds to the complex equation.

One of my close friends admitted that when girls share their concern, they require everything, but a solution. And that's where Charlie flunked – he tried to solve, when it is not required to. On the other hand, Charlie hardly shared anything, even in situations where it was expected. He generally used to swallow such things and tried to start afresh, eventually accumulating unwanted stuff in his mind. My friend mentioned this type of mentality is called cave-syndrome.

I am personally not sure, if this is the case in every story or not, but somewhere in some form, most of us would have an analogous encounter with our various partners (may be work/ study/ confidant/ friend etc). This brings about one more important aspect for me again and again – Learn from others experience also... But we all realize that it is a tough task...!!

Let's see how Charlie n Rosy cope with "What's your problem?" syndrome post marriage… Offcourse there isn't much option then... :) 

Hike n Learn!!

Fastest finger – A concept which I saw for the first time in KBC – Kaun Banega Crorepati , the Indian version of Who wants to become a millionaire ?

No doubt – being an ardent fan of Big B, I was always eager to see the way he would introduce the fastest finger to the 10 contestants every episode.

The next time I came across this fastest finger was when I received a mail from Dawn Dekle – Dean, Center for Leadership – back here at Singapore campus. She had indicated that there were 3 tickets for a show (don't remember exactly which one) and who ever replied to the mail first would be getting the free tickets. By the time, I checked this mail, the three people were already selected and that mail was also in my mailbox. It happened similarly for 3 times. Finally I shot out a mail to Dawn indicating my disapproval for the process. However, it was very kind of her to reply stating that she would make sure that everyone would get a chance to go out.

Then on a particular day she again sent out a mail, which told she would take 3 people for hiking to Mac Ritchie. It was already 45 min from the time she had sent the mail. I thought there is no use in replying, thinking that there are far more dynamic people than me. However, I observed there wasn't any selection mail from her – Hence I just replied indicating my interest. After around 20 min, I got a mail which told that Hrishi, Amey and myself would be going with her for the hike on 3^rd Jan – Sunday. Then I felt that – "Good Shravan... You aren't so bad; you can still win a fastest fingerJ"

Later in the evening I found out that our 1^st Term Exams were starting on 4^th Jan. I then realized why many had not replied. This is human psychology – I had mixed feeling – Feeling bad because my assumption that I was good at fastest finger was proved falseL; Feeling better because I wasn't alone, there were 2 moreJ.

On 3^rd Jan, I woke up at 6am for the first time in Singapore. Got ready and we were all down at the reception by 6:45am. Dawn was on time, exactly by 6:45am at the reception. We requested her to cut short the hike, owing to our exams, next day.

We entered the Mac Ritchie Reservoir, and it was like a blend of artificial beauty and natural ambience. We hiked through the forests and there were many people who were jogging and few were doing some kind of Chinese exercise. We came across a big tortoise, few peculiar types of fish and lots of monkeys.

The best part of the hike was Dawn – Her company added so much value to our hike that we hardly realized that we had hiked for 3hrs 15 min and covered almost 9.5 kms. She shared a lot of her experience, it may be teaching in IIMs or working in McKinsey or discussing the critical areas for Management Schools. Albert Einstein once said – "Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school." I am sure even if I forget the statistics/Economics/Quants, I would not forget this trip and the experience.

Thanks a lot Dawn, I am sure everyone would be eager to spend more and more time with you, as we have a lot to share and learn from you. We did take a lot of snaps – thanks to Hrishi and Amey, the slide show of which is embedded.

Finally we came back in Merc, to college by 10:30am. And the story continues – the part which we would forget, Managerial Economics Exam, the next day…….

Perception Matters!!!

Avatar –

One of the most successful movies of all time!

James Cameroon – Next only to God!

Most amazing movie of the year!

Must see – or Die!!



I must say Prof Solomon Asch's work on social pressure is an exceptional one. His did experiments on the how most people succumb to social pressure and might end up accepting the wrong thing even after being known what is right. Well after all human perception is all important.



It was night 11:25 show – I went for Avatar, with a lot of excitement, not because I am going for Avatar, but I am going for a movie, having a break from my regular routine. Well, it was the 3D version. The movie was everything but a feature film. The visual retreat was the best part that I adored about the movie. I went to the movie theater and realized that nothing much was going fast in the first 40-60 min, and as usually dosed off, with the glasses on, atleast let me dreams be 3D . However it was short nap. I realized that the story was going on with amazing cinematography, loved the hanging mountains, and all the nature which was splendidly shown across. Well, but I wanted to watch a movie and not an artificial creative forest.



The movie tested my patience, and the long screenplay made it a more painful. I did rather watch Deewar, Muttinahaara (one of my all time Kannada movies), or any typical South Indian movie where we see the hero fighting for the poor/ saving someone's life/ losing his family and he takes revenge in an anti-climax. The movie was finally over and I came out with my friends, and saw everybody so ecstatic and told profound comments. As I was about to open my mouth, I realized that I would be spoiling the aura around.



Next day I came to class and everyone were using adjectives which I even didn't know till that time. The perception so worked that I literally didn't tell many that I didn't like, but for my close aides. I was seeing amazing reviews popping up through various net sources and strong one-liners in the chat-messages. I almost made up my mind that I had actually missed out some major part during my nap in the 3D movie and decided that I would watch it again. But my exams started and I got busy with them. The day of the last exam, we had our group going to the movie, and I got going with them. This time I made sure I don't dose off, and frankly the pain was a bit more this time. But thanks to my group, it somehow was memorable, as we were mocking at many of the practices and was relating to many of our experiences.



People who have heard me giving light hearted comments about the movie, would consider me a hypocrite, but putting it in white and black, trust me I didn't like the movie the way I liked some of Cameroon's previous work. He deserves a lot of appreciation for putting across a simple concept of saving nature, in a complicated manner. But most of my heartfelt appreciation would go to the creative technocrats (it is not an oxymoron) who have worked behind the scenes for bringing out such magnificent scenery and its 3D effects.

Now what has Prof Solomon Asch got to do with this..?

It's been almost 2 days that I have seen it the second time, and this time with full conviction, I state my reviews, and surprisingly, considerable (not majority) people backed my opinion. Infact with the group when with whom I went the second time, most of them were pragmatic and enjoyed the movie as more of a comic style, than for what the movie was meant for.



I realized the impact of opinions which had sucked me into watching it for the second time, even though I had clearly realized that I didn't like it the first time. This is social pressure. After watching it for the second time, I realized that many were pulled into the majority opinion, the way I was. This realization did cost me an extra ticket & precious time (off course, I would have slept otherwise).



It is worthwhile to have a glimpse of Solomon Asch's psychological experiment –

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Asch


 

Wake Up !!!

It was around 4:00 am, on a Tuesday. I was reading a case study for the morning session. Let me also confess that I wasn't doing just that - I was checking out some interesting websites for some information about financial crisis, along with chatting, etc. To hit the nail on the head - not all the time till 4:00 am was spent in a fruitful manner. Finally I made up my mind to sleep by 4.15 am. I set the alarm for 8:00 am and slept. I must say my crazy dreams were a bit more berserk, than normal. 


I opened my eyes in trouble and saw that my roomie - Chetan was still asleep, and so I again went back to sleep. Next time, I opened my eyes and out of sheer desperation, I took the mobile to check out the time. And it was 9:07 ................!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


The worst part was Chetan was also still sleeping - even though he had slept by midnight 12. I literally shouted - "Shiiiiittttttttt... 9........ 7......." and within seconds we both had to be in the class. The lift time was utilized in combing and finally for the first time ever in my life - I entered the class in slippers. The attire was mediocre and face was clearly indicating that I was totally sleep -deprived. Adding insult to injury, my program coordinator(This person is responsible for the smooth running of the class - She was also responsible for taking attendance and seldom sits in the class to check if the learning experience is really happening - Infact this is one of the good things that I like here. ) was sitting in the class. This is what I called destiny - She was on leave for the past 2 weeks and I had been punctual all through, but all of a sudden, she is sitting inside the class. Either ways, I didn't have time to talk to her and just ran to my place like a bull in a competition. The class was that of the Business Strategy - and I had actually prepared for the case-study that we would be discussing in  the class.  But what is the point in having prepared, when you are not in a position to know what was happening in the class, and whether your preparation is relevant to the class. 


Having already known for sleeping in the class, it was a bit difficult for me to digest this extra embarrassment.. Anyways, what is study if not for this..??!!!! That too for an engineer...!!


However, if this wasn't sufficient, destiny had a few more surprises lined up for me. During one of the case -study discussions, I had prepared myself for a particular question, and I desperately wanted to complete my turn that day itself, because, I was skeptical if I missed the chance that day, I had to prepare another case for the next day. Thanks to few irritating (pun definitely not intended) characters in the class, the number of nonsense questions were a bit a more and ate up everybody's air-time. Just in the last 5 min, i finally got the mike and I had my answer prepared on my laptop screen, destiny had a different story - Now our dearest professor had to leave a bit early and disbursed the class 5 min before time. The happy part however was that the prof told that he would continue with the same case n with me, the next day. So I didn't have to read another case- relieved :))


One more similar incidence, with my friend - Amey, it was a similar case-study discussion - and the question- answer session was to start with him and he was prepared to present his view on the first question. Now again, few unknown sources wanted a different climax - the professor started to ask from second question - His face was a mixture of emotions, which were waiting to flow out but he was holding on. Now this is what I say engineers, not everyone would find a strategy the way he found out - he said that the mike was not working and asked for another, there by gaining another 3-4 min, through which he could just push-through the question. 


A person's intelligence is actually tested in such situation handling and is more ridiculed in examinations...


Hail Engineers!!!!!!

Learn, Unlearn and Relearn

Let me start off with an incidence - In Singapore, I wanted to cross the road – I just looked across and observed that there were no vehicles coming in my way and I crossed it. Later, I was told that there would be a fine if anyone crossed the road when the signal is red (STOP), irrespective of whether the vehicles were plying or not. The next day I went again to the road, my legs started to cross again, just when I realized that we are not supposed to pass until the signal is green (GO). I had learnt a particular way to cross the road in India, now I had to unlearn and relearn a new way of doing the same thing.

This is a typical example of being able to learn, unlearn and relearn. Recently I was reading a book – “Why men can’t listen and women can’t read maps?” in which a small part debated on Nature v/s Nurture. It reflected the clash of the qualities that was developed by nature and those which were developed by nurture. It was indicating that the power of nature was stronger than that of nurture, based on some of the findings in genetics. It indirectly suggested that most of the information regarding the individual would be encrypted in set of proteins called DNA, and chances of altering this would be very rare.

Does that mean if we have learnt anything by nature/by genes, we cannot unlearn and relearn it? No, because we need to know that unlearning doesn’t mean to lose out everything that you have accumulated through your experience, but it is the quality of being open to outside ideas that can be analyzed and pursued. As long as you pursue this virtue of openness and thinking out of the box, the unlearning should not be a tough task. This is one of those qualities that make capable and dynamic leaders. Every person who is aiming to scale the heights of Level 5 executives should inculcate this character. They need to nurture this quality, gifted by nature and develop them to make themselves better.

This is important even in the context of a company. As globalization had changed itself to glocalization, adaptability became the attribute of expansion of companies to other developing countries.  As Jeffrey R. Immelt, CEO of GE puts it – “With glocalization, companies develop great products at home and then distribute them worldwide, with some adaptations to local conditions.”

But now, the companies need to advance from glocalization to the next level – create products truly suiting the needs of the economy/demands of a particular country. This requires more than adaptation. They is a need to unlearn the way the things were done in the home country and relearn to do the same things in a different way, keeping the local customs and demands in mind.  Hence this mantra holds water in this era of rapid expansion and information exchange. This transformation at a macro level is neither simple nor an easy process. It is always easy to learn a new stuff than unlearning something and later relearning the same thing, in a different manner. Sometimes it could be a painful one. However this is a continuous process for any company or individual to progress.

When this process of unlearning does becomes very important? – When you know what you were doing previously was tested and gave very good results, but is not working to the current day requirements. It is at this stage that you need to unlearn the old ways and become open to new, rather innovative ways.  We need to be open enough to accept this process as a continuous one and not a one-time change.

We need to believe that we can unlearn the non-working stuff and relearn the new methodologies of doing things or getting things done. So let’s all make a list of the things which we feel is not working in the present day and make an effort to unlearn them for the benefit of all.