Socially ill-social..

Today... I am very happy primarily for 2 reasons... First - An experiment which was awaiting completion from past 3 yrs completed today... and the results weren’t surprising. Second – A day spent silently, yet remarkably...

Let me explain the first – Few years back when I opened an account in orkut, then leading social networking site in India, I made an observation (which offcourse many would have also made) that remarkably more number of people started wishing on birthdays, thanks to the person’s DOB displayed on his profile. I wanted to check, does this enhance your relationship quotient or decrease... Today, it is interesting to note that inspite of my DOB not displayed on FB, only those people who have wished me offline were the ones who wrote wished on my wall; else it is an absolute zilch. This is not a complaint against anyone, as I don’t really measure one on his/her ability to remember any bday, as I am only weak at it. But it is interesting to know what impact this social media has made on this society. 

Recently when I called one of my MBA mate, he said that I am not active on FB, hence he didn’t mind to contact me. Ideally it should be the other way around – if someone is not active, then you might have to make an effort to find about that person. This brought about an insight that people have started to believe that FB is the universe, but the fact is FB is a subset of the universe around you. But today, if someone is outside FB, he/she is dead virtually.

Few years back, I had attended a seminar of Shiv Khera, and he had mentioned 4 types of friendships:

1. Friendship of Convenience – Convenience goes, friendship goes
2. Friendship of Usefulness – Usefulness goes, friendship goes
3. When you both have common enemy – Common enemy goes, friendship goes
4. Finally, the most sustainable one – Friendship built on mutual respect.

Today, if I am allowed, I would like to add one more thing –

• Friendship of Social Networks – Social Network goes / even one friend goes out of social network, friendship goes

I had this realisation long back, and I was waiting for something to prove my hypothesis.

This is again, not an allegation against those who didn’t wish me, but just an analysis, I am sure few of them would have remembered but due to genuine reasons could not have.

Second reason why I am happy today is – for the first time I applied for a leave on my bday, met few people and spent good time. Though it was very silent, but it was memorable for more than one reason –

1. Realized that marriage is not just about you, but the society around you – especially your friends, true friends. Never ever let them out. Today, I didn’t meet even a single friend, and that makes them all the more special.
2. For the first time, there was someone on this earth who applied leave just to make my birthday memorable. I didn’t even have an idea that this could happen to me.
3. My close family isn’t bad either, they also proved that they can throw a surprise party... again for the first time.

P.S. This is again an impulsive one. I wanted to write a detailed post on the social networks, but this came out first..  :PP

Independence!!! Really???

I am not sure what exactly people think of independence or being independent. Whenever I think about independence, whether it is a country or an individual, it means the same, the definition shouldn’t change at a 50,000 ft level. Till before 2 years, the idea of independence was very abstract for me. However, there has been good amount of clarity in what it actually means, now. But as I was thinking about the long weekend for this Independence Day, it suddenly struck me that India’s independence is hardly different from mine and yours.

There are many definitions about being independent, the most naive one being that people need not depend on others. It is very tough to digest this definition. How many of us would have told – “I am independent, I don’t need his/her help”. How true is that?? Slowly, I have understood the real meaning of that line; it means – “I am independent, I don’t need his/her help, there are others too”. This realisation shook me slightly, but I have accepted it as the truth.

Consider my country India, for instance – What did she achieve post Independence? She never learnt to live on her own; she never learnt to sustain everything by herself; she never learnt to live in isolation. But she got the independence for taking her own decisions, independence to decide her own course of development, independence of spoiling herself too. She would have been almost dead economically, if Dr.Manmohan Singh hadn’t opened the collaboration doors in 1991. Off-course we didn’t make the best use of it, but that step was most probably the only alternative to come out of the debt we were in then.

That’s more or less, what an independent individual also does by being independent. Just think what you can achieve just by yourself in this era of globalisation. Nothing!!! The help you receive might be from your parents, friends, colleagues, etc., but you definitely require it. It is just that you decide whom to ask and whom not to. You can change your preferences based on the situation you are.


So Independence is not living by yourself, but deciding on whom you can depend and whom you cannot. And that’s exactly the reason for which the whole concept of society evolved amongst us. However, being human and independent doesn’t just stop at deciding whom to depend and whom not to, but being thankful for the same, irrespective of whether you chose to ask him/her again or not. After all that’s the core of being human – Gratitude!!! Never lose it.


Happy Real Independence Day!!!

Money Matters...

Good friends and money are rarely coupled. But the best of friends are those who are associated with money too. Money challenges the trust element within friendship between people. Today, long term associates are those who have been able to build and maintain trust by not just words, but also through money matters. Lending and borrowing, need not always be associated with cheating and breach of trust. Nevertheless, such stories make people insecure against borrowing from the closest of friends. They rather chose to borrow from the third party, so that even in the worst scenario, they just lose the trust of the person, who they may not care much.

I had a friend of mine, in my school, with whom I am not in touch with, but he was the first one to come to my mind, when I wanted to  borrow any money. But I chose him, so that I keep things at a transactional level, and I don’t take him for granted. And it paid off. We had good relations, till we parted ways as we chose different education streams later.  But that was an amateurish outlook.

Money actually gives a great opportunity to enhance the trust quotient between friends, it is wise to utilize it with the best of people you are associated with.  But a word of caution, if trust is the reward you get, there is a risk which comes along. It is the risk of losing a good friend, incase you don’t deliver on time, and more importantly, you fail to command any respect from him.

Equally important is to recognize those who helped you at the right time, and appreciate their faith and trust. Returning money, may balance your scores on a financial balance sheet, not on the 'trust' balance sheet.

Don’t think too much!!!

Having emphasized on maintaining relationships along with money issues, I honestly don’t suggest anyone to think every time you ask your friend for money. This was with regard to any major transactions and not for Coffee-level transactions. Else you will be screwing your own happiness….

Good v/s Granted

It is also worthy to have a clear demarcation of friends who are good to have and those whom you can take for granted. The latter category is like the zenith of trust and companionship. So you can afford not to pay your debt only with them. Don’t risk with the former group…

Happy Companionship!!!

Break Ups in the Air

It just seems that if someone doesn’t have a break up, then there is a problem with them. Four break-ups… Appears like it’s a break-up season after all.

It is not surprising at all if someone had a break-up.. rather people talk if they haven’t had one yet. And the very same hypocritical society is taking up the motherly role of consoling the broken hearts through platforms like Facebook (No doubt it is valued at 50 billion USD). What is the point of all this? Is it that we are inspired by the not-so-worthy celebrities who are always on a break-up spree, or do we think we are celebrities ourselves? Or is that one feels insecure that if he/she does not have a break up then he/she is not happening or accepted by one’s peers? Is this the New “Normal”?
 
Last week, I was in IISc (shame on your part, incase you didn’t know it) for some personal work, and eventually ended up with a intriguing discussion with some of the folks, on how engineers are different. There was a clear 75% majority that engineers were different (not in terms of knowledge, but the way their thoughts are shaped/formed), but then there was still a point of view that studying engineering hardly made a difference, and it is all dependent on the person, and not the course.  After solid 4hrs, and realizing that 75% could still not convince the remaining 25%, the discussion came to a close, and we all decided to change gears.

Yesterday, there was a mail sent by this brave guy (who essentially formed the minority 25%), accepting that engineers are different, and I was totally taken aback, by the way this whole episode had shaped up.

First, this was truly an illustration of WIN-WIN situation. Both the sides has so many things to take. I got an opportunity to hear the other points of view, which made me prepare in terms of handling those questions, if asked in another quorum. My brave friend got to realize that the very fact he was questioning every point, proved that he was indeed an engineer as rational as we were stressing on the same point.

Second, your instinct and guts are necessary, but not sufficient to prove any point. You need to garner good amount of rationale and points, to prove it.

Third, you don’t need to be on the opposite side to get noticed.

Fourth, it takes sheer guts to accept the other-side, and always look at things with pragmatic eyes.

Last but the most important - Discussions are not meant to come to conclusions, but to hear out to others, and convince yourself first if you were  right or wrong. None of us took it to our ego, on any of the points and it was amazing that we gave a solid 4hrs time to the discussion. Many times, I myself have cut the discussions just because I was sure that I am right, but it just showed how immature I was not to hear the other side.

How can we relate the above incidence to broken hearts, and / or decide what to expect from any relationship? Treat every interaction in a similar manner, and then just change the numbers. There, it was 3:1, but here it is 1:1. Everything else remain the same.

But I see there is a fundamental over-arching assumption here - that he/she is your lover/partner/(what ever crap you call so). Remove this assumption and treat him/her as your another friend (off-course with a slightly higher priority than others), it should solve a lot of expectation issues. But once u go into a partner level, it is very difficult to come down to a friend's level. Beware of this!!!

No surprise, I have seen the best couples coming out from good friends first who eventually ended up in a nuptial day. Like I generally say - If you are friends before marriage - you have all the love available for post marriage activities, but if you empty the container of love before marriage only, there is hardly anything left after that.

Remember what Friedrich Nietzsche said - "It is not the lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages."

P.S. - I have had only good friends, so this might be in many ways, a novice write-up. Forgive my ignorance and in-experience.

Past 3 weeks…

The last 3 weeks, I must say has been pretty exciting - Exciting because it was a period of confusion, of serious thought indulgence, lots of human insights, emotions crossing all paths.  Not that all these are seldom for me, but this time - there was clarity after all the chaos that had happened.

2 major incidences, which literally took me by a shock -

• Diagnosis of cancer for my very close associate. There has been much noise about cancer cure, but ideally there isn't any till now (atleast for those in the later stage).  Though my association with this friend of mine is around 7 yrs old, we had developed a lot of closeness, and mutual respect for each other. Infact, it is this association which showed a novice engineering student, the real business world for the first-time.   Today, when I look back, those memories are still so alive - the moments when we fought for all the silly reasons, the time when she took me to a paani-puri shop, and made me understand that I had just lost a few thousands, and the days when she guided me about the various people - how politics play around, and how being selfish is not a crime, but necessity. I did later realize that I wasn’t made for such an environment, and kept myself away. But we never lost touch.  When I first got to hear this news, I mocked at her (just preparing myself to face the unwarranted truth), until she uttered a shrill cry. For the first time, she told - "Shravan, please pray for me".

• 2 weeks back, when I was in Chennai, I got a call from one of my school friends, that her marriage is fixed. I casually congratulated her. First few questions in my mind - So what…?? Why is she telling me..?? Should I dance in her marriage…?? After 2-3 min of senseless chit-chatting, she asked me - "Are you happy with this marriage?" and this would be the last question which I would expect from her.

These 2 incidences brings out one main thing about females - They are damn bold, I must say. Its just amazing they face situations, the way they get things out of everything. I actually didn’t know how to react in both the situations. In the first-one, she knew very clearly, where she was heading, and what best can be done at that stage. In the second one, she was sassy. I could never imagine myself, asking such a question, in such situation. It was sheer silence, for the first 10 seconds after she asked that question. Later, I skirted the question, by asking more about the groom n stuff. She got the answer.

These are the trying times for me. I only hope I don’t lose much in coming weeks. 

Of tears n travel..

2 days back, my friend from my previous company, called me up and told that he had finally received the UK visa, and he would be travelling next week. He asked to me to accompany me for shopping, as he was not familiar with the stuff to carry and other overseas travel  nuances. I met him on the next evening and took him for some shoes, and casuals shopping (though I, myself hardly shop).

During dinner, he shared how his parents almost instantly had tears in their eyes, when they heard that he was going abroad. Apparently, he was the first person to go abroad in this whole family. His father being a police head-constable, and mother being a house-wife, I could realize the hardship they would have gone though. With the death of other two children, there couldn’t have been better news  for those parents. Isn't it amazing that there is so much happiness in every thing, it is just relative to what you have and what you aspire to have?

Lets stop being emotional, for sometime.  Now what is so special in my friend, that he is travelling abroad? What is his achievement that he is going abroad? Is he really worth all these comforts and travel? These questions were continuously ringing in my head, all through the night.

Eventually, if we go few decades back to our parent's generation, foreign travel was primarily considered for esoteric people, and for a handful of wealthy guys. But today, foreign travel has been eased out so much, that almost anyone and every one in IT industry goes out.  That’s the magic which this industry has created. It made a common man, an extraordinary one.  This is probably, the biggest contribution, which IT industry has provided to our Indian community.

Today, I also found that only 3% of the world's outsourcing comes to Indian players. I cant imagine the impact, if outsourcing to Indian players increases by even 1 more percent. Not far away, that we would not be exporting HR, but importing them.. !!!

Non-blood brotherhood - Reel or Real ..?

If you are thinking, this is another story of a soul crying brother-sister relationship, sorry to disappoint you!!

South India has not been too keen onraksha bandhanfestival historically. But still it was more of a fashion statement, for people to tie rakhis (or not to tie), primarily at school level. I remember my high school days, where we were 9 boys and 18 girls. It was a very good value proposition for girls to tie rakhis, as they brought only 9 rakhis, but boys had to buy chocolates/sweets for 18 girls. We hardly realized the value of brotherhood, and wore rakhis just like that. Thanks to my huge hands, I escaped from those small sized rakhis, though it hardly mattered to me (as I was pretty much sure, that there weren't any potential sister candidates for me.. haha.. ).

Solving this mystery of building relationships just by tying rakhis, has been a challenge, since my high school days, and it still continues to remain so, especially when I see incidences where, in the first year of engineering, a girl calls one as a bhaiyya and the next year they are in an affair.

In my personal opinion, nothing can beat blood. The brotherhood build out of blood relationship is the strongest raksha bandhan between a boy and girl. The most versatile relationship which I have come across, not bonded by blood is that of good friendship. The most fragile relationship which is again not bonded by blood is that with your spouse. Post my matriculation, I have not rejected any rakhi requests from my friends, but made it a point to say that - it doesn’t matter to me at all, and she better not expect any sort of brotherliness from me, and then she never tied it to me.

I don’t need a title of being a brother, to help / care for people. I don’t need a title of brother to serve my friend. I don’t need a title of brother, to guide a girl on a right path. Friendship has given me all the things that I want, for being a responsible and caring person. At the time, when counselors say that siblings should be like best friends, why should anyone tie a rakhi to his / her best friend and complicate things?

Finally, some food for thought -

How ironical things could become when a girl ties a rakhi and can afford spending a night with him, when people are debating whether brother-sisters really can't marry ?

Good Night!!!

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…!!!!