Celebrating team work

Hi,

Musing#30

At the outset " A very Happy Diwali to all of you ". Diwali traditionally is celebrated as the "festival of lights". This is because Diwali is always celebrated on a New moon day when there is total darkness. By the lighting of all the diyas, the darkness is dispelled and there is lights galore for every one to enjoy the festival of lights. But New moon comes every month, so what is so great about this New moon. Diwali according to me is the festival to celebrate the spirit of team work. Because on this New moon day as part of team work every body is expected to light their house with diyas and the collective brightness of all the diyas put together is so bright that it exhibits the beauty of team work and that is the out come of the festival of lights. That is why as part of team work all close relatives where ever they are ,they try to come together and celebrate this festival of joy,being together. Also friends who might not have been in touch with each other, make it a point to get in touch with each other if not physically at least through other means by sending wishes through greetings on earlier days and now by SMS and e-greetings.

Like how all the diyas burning together can dispel all the darkness same way if all of us come together for a cause we can dispel all the darkness called despair,doom and distrust and be the cause for all the happiness and joy for us and all our near and near ones.

Let's hence celebrate this festival of lights in the true spirits.

Happy diwali!

mentor mohan

Sons of the soil and the soiled sons

Hi,

Musing #29

Once again life in Mumbai is paralysed....................

I think we are paying a heavy price for the blunder of dividing the country on linguistic basis and formation of regional states.A country which was already divided due to prevailing caste ism and religion, this further division on linguistic basis has only further weakened the fabric of our country. It has completed the vote bank politics suite, for the opportunistic politicians. The much acclaimed slogan of "Unity in diversity" is sounding very hollow with the attacks by,

A rrogant Upper caste on backward class,

A cerbic religious fanatics on religious minorities and

A ntipathetic linguistic fanatics on the other linguistic minorities.

With the above three Aces up their sleeves, the opportunistic politicians are gambling with the lives and properties of hard working and honest citizens.

Coming to the "Sons of the soil" theory advocated by these politicians citing unemployment in their state, the moot question is why don't they motivate these unemployed youths to join the defence services where according to a recent report thousands of vacancies are existing and they are having dearth of people to fill up these vacancies right from ranks to officer's level. They won't do it because then who will do their street fights ,get injured and killed to become losing martyrs rather than fighting the real enemy in the frontiers and become true heroes.

The only remedy for this is every patriotic Indian should value his vote and exercise his/her franchise in the election taking care to shun these opportunistic politicians and their parties.With this affirmative action these pathogenic politicians will become non-entities politically and are purged out of our political system.

To quote the well made awareness advt. of A tea brand shown in the TV regularly in this regard JAGOzzzzzzzzzzzz INDIAzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz JAGO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

mentor mohan

Kick the butt or kicks in the butt?

Hi,

Musing#28

Our health minister's campaign against smoking which was confined to reel life for a long time has got into real life also, with the ban on smoking in public places. This has literally thrown the smokers to the street, as other than his home in all other places he will be kicked out if he lights a cigarette. But what about those smokers who smoke on the sly with out the knowledge of their near and dear ones, like youngsters without the knowledge of their parents and yes some of those husbands without the knowledge of their wives. They have to be compulsorily on the streets for their quota of puffs. Some activist sooner or later is going to file a PIL and request the courts to pass an order declaring that streets are also public places and hence the smoking ban to be enforced in the streets also, and if that happens there won't be any place left for the smokers other than their own houses ,and who knows the maid servants may also complain that it is their place of work and hence smoking to be banned at their work place also. The only salvation for the smoker is to KTB(Kick the butt).

After having been a smoker for 36yrs, at the right time I've KTB and saved myself not only all these humiliations and botheration's but also started saving a bit of money. Having been a long time smoker, I understand the difficulty in quitting smoking, but the rewards are King size for KTB.

I'm listing 'The Eight Steps to KTB mission"(Adopted by me and am patenting the same with this blog) for all those smokers who are serious about KTB.

Step 1: Make a commitment to yourself about your mission KTB and also rope in your near and dear ones , by making a commitment to them about your seriousness in KTB and seek their full support to put up with your initial mood swings.

Step2: Create a change of enviornment by taking a break and go to a resort or health spa where you will stay for a minimum period of 15 days, where you will not have access to tobacco and also alcohol as many smokers who also drink find it very difficult to refrain from smoking while having drinks.

Step3:Go for brisk walk everyday morning minimum for 30mts. and also in the evening one hour work out in a gym.

Step4: Do not go for substitutes like nicotine patch or gum or even mints and supari. Because nothing will come near to the Nicotine queen and you will feel frustrated and depressed. On the contrary go into mourning for the death of your nicotine queen and like any mourning you get over it after 10 days. You can also as a diversion do other activities which you enjoy most like playing games either indoor or outdoor, watching your favourite movies, reading those novels you wanted to read or the gardening you were enjoying but due to work pressure had given it up or even cooking if you enjoy the heat of kitchen like the heat of burning butt.

Step 5: After having successfully KTB during this period, when you return back to your old enviornment keep on telling every Tom, Dick and Harry proudly that you have KTB and you also feel proud that you have achieved something great in your life, like having won the KBC. This reinforcement is very much necessary for the next 15 days as then only the important threshold of one month will be crossed over and any habit which is not carried out for a period of one month invariably ceases to be a habit. Mind you even medically speaking smoking is just a habit formation and not an addiction like drugs etc. Hence the so called withdrawal symptoms are more psychological than physiological.

Step 6: You open a RD account in your bank and whatever was your monthly spend on cigarettes the same amount you put in your RD every month and as the savings swells up month after month your will power also will swell up and the wills power will diminish and vanish ultimately.

Step 7 :Post the following slogan prominently at home and at the place of work

" Kick the butt early and not kick the bucket early".

Step 8 : After you have KTB successfully take it upon yourself to cause a difference to your close friend or colleague who is a smoker and motivate him and influence him also to KTB. Whether you are going to be successful or not but it will make you to be a strong advocate against smoking and if you succeed it will be a double whammy for you.

All the best for those smokers who are influence ed by this blog and are going to have their "Mission KTB".

The other smokers who are still not influenced and are not launching their "Mission KTB", please be warned you are going to get lots of Kicks in your butt from all and sundry and your life is going to be miserable.

mentor mohan

Highly qualified vs Highly educated

Hi,

Musing #27

In my musing # 24 I had exposed the charlatans in the financial fiefdom who gamble with other's money most of their time, drawing fat salaries for the same. Surprisingly no comments were posted about this blog. Was it because I was adding salt to the wound or many of you felt that you were not affected by these charlatans. If these charlatans are not going to be exposed, take it from me they will metastasize and spread the malignancy all over and every one will have to face the trauma.

Today's victim of this cancer, Mr. Karthik Rajaram, a B.Tech from IIT-chennai and an MBA from UCLA, an NRI based at Los Angles shot his three grown up sons, his wife and his aged mother-in-law because he not only lost his job, but became bankrupt because of losing his life's savings. What use was his qualifications if it did not,

1. make him a strong man first and foremost to face adversaries,

2. make him more knowledgeable about "risk management".

3. make him learn that "failure is not the end of the road but a diversion to be taken to reach the destination called success".

4.That he can play God and decide that his near and dear one's also will be cowards like him and that in his absence they can not survive and will perish and hence it is better now, by his own hands rather than later so that he can die peacefully(sic).

It is high time that our so called educators re- evaluate our education system, ignoring the pseudo concepts floated by the arm- chair gurus who are theoretical, and get the education system revamped by practicing managers who have slogged and come out successfully like the pure Gold that is purified by it's ordeal with fire.

People may acquire all sorts of fancy qualifications from many hyped up institutions, but the moot question is did they acquire only qualification to serve as appendage after their glorious names or they really got educated to face all stark realities of life and acquire the common sense and resilience to go through the ordeal by fire so that their problem solving skills do not take recourse to pulling the trigger on them and, Oh God! on their near and dear ones also.

I'm quoting here my Guru Mahatma Gandhi on "The Roots of violence" and am giving live examples to illustrate how valid his timeless teachings are ,even in today's context,

1. " Wealth without work"- Trying senSEX to get rich overnight and ending up with another kind of killer AIDS( Aggravated Investment Death Syndrome).

2. "Pleasure without conscience"- Abusing the body with all substances for momentary pleasure and ultimately killing their and other's life.

3."Knowledge without character"- All those educated terrorists who use their knowledge only to cause murder and mayhem.

4."Commerce without morality"- All those chemists and druggists who sell addictive drugs to youngsters knowing very well that they are ruining the lives of these youngsters. Also credit card companies luring gullible people with their cards and trapping these people in a deadly debt trap.

5."Science without humanity"- All those international scientists who blew up billions of dollars to recreate the supposed to be "Big Bang theory of formation of our mother earth "(LHC experiment) and the Indian scientists who are blowing up crores of rupees in chandrayan when the same money could have been used to set right so many humanitarian issues plaguing our earth like hunger, sickness, terrorism, suicides , illiteracy etc. etc.

6. "Worship without sacrifice"- All those spiritual leaders who do not fore go their comforts to transform the life of down trodden and suppressed people in their own religion but cry hoarse and even instigate violence when some one from their religion chooses different faith to seek his salvation. This in spite of their religious teaching "Vasudeve Kutumbakam" IE. irrespective of which religion anyone is following the whole world is one big family.(Hindus attack on Christians in Orissa & Karnataka)

7." Politics without principle"- Examples are plenty for this, but the latest example was witnessed in West Bengal where due to one selfish woman's vote bank politics she misguided many, resulting in lots of violence and death and also ultimately TATA said Tata to all those eager workers seeking employment in TATA's NANO factory and moved to Gujarat. There is some poetic justice in this because the communists got the taste of their own medicine that is "agitation for agitation sake , and don't care who suffers in my agitation"

In all the above seven "Roots of violence" cases all the perpetrators are/were highly qualified but unfortunately their costly and time consuming qualifications did not give them their due education. Let us appeal in unison to,

Teachers prepare your students by educating them to face life and not just examinations.

Students acquire education not just qualifications.

Parents get your children acquire education and not just qualifications

Would be brides and grooms check out how well your would be is educated and not qualified

Employers assess not only how well the candidates whom you want to recruit are qualified but also assess how well their qualification has educated them.

Bosses evaluate your subordinates based on their educated contribution to the long term benefits of the team and the organisation rather than going by the alphabets added as suffix to their names. Don't get carried away by their fancy theories and jargon's which they throw up only to hoodwink the system and when the collapse is in the horizon they will be the first to desert like the proverbial rats.

To set right the distinction,

Managers are always highly Qualified

But

Leaders are always highly Educated.

Unfortunately we have plenty of managers in our midst today and only handful of leaders.

mentor mohan

Bankruptcy hits Hollywood

Hi,

Musing#26

I just happened to watch this Hollywood movie "Wanted" starring Angelina, Freeman et al. I was really amused, as I felt I have gone back in the time machine and watching one of those Vittalacharya Telugu movies of 70's. For those of you who are not aware about Vittalacharya movies, he used to produce all super natural movies involving maya jaal, aliens, freak creatures etc. Many of his movies use to be successful and later on such genre produced by others also used to be referred to as Vittalacharya type of movies. In his movies the arrows shot in the battle between the hero and the villain used to collide in the mid-air and the fighting scene would continue with fresh shooting of arrows. Those of you who have watched the serials like Ramayan and Mahabharat would have viewed such battle scenes. In this movie "wanted" the bullets fired by two people collide in the mid-air like the arrows(Baans) and not only that in one scene the laws of physics are further defied as a bullet after firing travels not in a straight line but in a circular path killing more people. Ironically they call these movies as science fiction movies. People usually blame that our guys copy Hollywood but it seems that the tide is changing and Hollywood is now copying Tollywood(Telugu film industry). Like how financial bankruptcy has hit the American economy, similarly creative bankruptcy has hit Hollywood and is making a mockery of present day Hollywood movies. Who can forget the great movies of yest er years from Hollywood like...... The sound of music, My fair lady, Benhur, Cleopatra, Mckenna's gold, Hello Dolly etc.

One of the reasons for the standard going down is the way the Oscar committee function with a myopic view. However bad the Hollywood movies have been in a year still they search desperately to find some mediocre Hollywood movies to be given the Oscar awards there by making the Hollywood producers complacent and smug in their audacity that only Hollywood movies deserve awards. The Oscar juries should wake up and dump the Hollywood movies to the trash can this year and start looking beyond Hollywood.

Last time Lagaan missed out the Oscars because Cricket as a game was not understood by many juries. This time Aamir Khan's "Taare Zameen Par" has been selected as Indian nominee for the Oscars. This movie in all earnest should get the Oscar award for the best movie. I have watched all the recent past Hollywood movies and none of them come anywhere near to TZP. The juries might have got away last time by ignoring Lagaan with the pretext of ignorance about the game of cricket. This time they can not show their ignorance about dyslexia.

Dyslexia means difficulty in learning and if TZP is deprived of the Oscar this time then it is high time we question the learning abilities and the integrity of the Oscar juries.

mentor mohan

Honest Human Interactions

Hi,

Musing#25

When dealing in the purchase of items/articles all are very particular that the article they are buying is genuine and repeatedly they reconfirm from the seller about the genuineness of the item. Nothing wrong in that as anyone would like to ensure that they get a good deal and also get value for their money. But why the same yard stick is not applied when it comes to dealings with their own fellow human beings. Most of the time they are not genuine in dealing with their own kith and kin, colleagues,peers and even friends. They think by this behaviour they are outsmarting others or they are being very tactical not to get into any obligation or a good way to shirk their responsibility. They may be patting themselves for being clever this way. But like how any fake item does not last long, same way the relations with such people also don't last long. But they cause immense disharmony in their families, create mistrust in their team and are the root cause for the team to become dysfunctional in their organisation. The flip side is there are some people who willingly become a party and get along with such pseudo characters for their own personal benefit. Like how in dealing of fake goods there are buyers for it similarly there are people to patronise these pseudo characters as it benefits them at others cost. But in the long run these dealings catch up with them and they ultimately end up as emotional cripples.

This is the story of a car mechanic who buys fake parts and fits it to the cars given to him for repairs and charges the owners the cost of genuine parts. But ultimately he falls victim to his own misdeeds as one day he takes one of these cars for a test ride and the defective brake part gives away and he crashes and becomes a life long cripple.

We look for the ISI mark in an item to ascertain the genuineness of the item while buying. Same way let us look for the HHI(Honest Human Interactions) while dealing with people.

While buying lifeless articles we are so particular about genuineness, then why same genuineness element can not get into human interactions....................?

mentor mohan

The business school charlatans

Hi,

Musing #24

Like the regular feature of bomb blasts the financial markets have bombed once again. I read in the news paper about some people having committed suicide because they lost all their money due to this crash. Now my question is what is the difference between those ignorant terrorists who cause loss of life due to their physical destructive activities and these supposed to be financial experts who are no better than these terrorists by squandering away the hard earned money of gullible investors with their reckless financial wisdom and causing economic destruction. Mind you, all these supposed to be financial wizards pass out from premier business schools and are recruited by many of these financial institutions offering obscene salaries to them. During my six month stint in IIM-A as part of my company sponsored Management education programme, as part of interaction programme between the industry and practicing managers, I had occasions to interact with many of these students and I could find most of them only bothered about how they can land up with plum jobs and their learning from the course was only theoretical and they were very hollow. One of my bosses also happened to be a product of this institution and I found him to be totally hollow and lacking even basic human relationship skills. Basically all of them were lacking in that common commodity called common sense which was uncommon in these elite group. You look at all those business leaders like Kirloskars, Ambanis, Mittals, Bill gates, Narayan murthys,Birlas and Tatas, they never had an appendage of a business school degree after their name but they were the most successful business leaders and have created enormous wealth. Why leave out the often ridiculed our lalluji. he turned around the railways in a big way and he drove some gyan into the skull of these wizards at the famed business schools. But these charlatans who pass out from these fancy business schools have only been wealth destroyers than wealth creators. But still industry across the board want to pamper them as if they are the messiahs of prosperity. My advice to all of you who want invest their hard earned money is that do not put your money in the following,

1) Share markets

2) any mutual fund schemes

3) any private company's fixed deposits

My investment guide to you is, spread your investment across the following,

1) 40% of your savings in bank fixed deposits(nationalised) with short term investment where you are assured of 10% return and payment of monthly interest.

2) 30% of your savings in gold ( of course to be kept in locker)

3)30% of your savings in post office monthly investment plan.

As per the time old sayings" do not put all your eggs in one basket". Do not succumb to greed and invest in these mutual funds and other investment plans which are linked to the crazy sensex. Recklessness in sex and succumbing to those luring and enticing sex workers, can give you AIDS and similarly greediness about sensex and succumbing to those luring and enticing sensex specialists( they call them as financial experts in management parlance) can also give you a different kind of AIDS(Am in dire straits).

With sensex history keeps repeating itself, whether it is the great U.S.A. or the now supposed to be emerging economy like India. In the U.S.A. if it was the junk bonds then and the ridiculous scheme of sub prime mortgage now, in India it was market manipulators like Harshad mehta then and recently Ketan parikh. During my recent visit to the U.S., I happened to witness the tamasha at the wall street when the market was closing for the day. Skimpily clad girls who were supposed to be erstwhile Miss. America were shaking their booty because the market got bigger that day and this was being telecast live by Fox news.

I may be a conservative who believes in the dictum " A rupee saved( wisely) is a rupee earned".

But I'm happy with this policy of mine because of which I am not affected by these ups and downs of the sensex. The U.S. government is squandering tax payer's money to ride overe this economic crisis brought about by these charlatans who acted intemperately for a number of years in squandering the public money which was given to them in all faith and for which they were being paid obscene salaries.This is going to become only more and more disastrous due to the vicious cycle created by all these nincompoops.

mentor mohan