Sickle and Hammer, Hammer and Tongs

The first ever election that I witnessed was as a five-year-old, in 1980, in the communist town of Tiruppur in Southern India. Although the big fight in that election was between parties led by the men in shades - MGR and Karunanidhi - we, in our small town had many more drawings/posters of Che Guevara, Lenin and Karl Marx (I can even remember a few pictures of a stern-looking Stalin) on our walls. Almost every wall had Suththial Aruval (Sickle and Hammer) drawn alongside. We, kids and grown-ups alike, did not know who all these foreign-looking men with beards and mustaches were but knew that they were definitely bigger personalities than the bald scriptwriter (who was crying on stage for forgiveness for his misrule during his previous tenure as CM and for another opportunity to sit on the chair) and the actor with an indistinct speech (thanks to a bullet embedded in his throat from a punch-up with a fellow actor - the details of the fight are still unknown).

Tiruppur, being a hosiery-manufacturing town, had a very strong communist leaning and as long as I lived there it was always the left parties – the CPI or the CPI-M – that won all the local elections. An uncle of one of my friends was an artist as well as a staunch communist, and I still remember the concentration on his buck-toothed visage as he painted the cut-outs of these leaders. The likes of him never cared for the Congress Party’s continued whinging about the fact that the Communists had, after all, supported China when India was at war with its number one enemy. But, unlike the Congress Party, which was the only strong national party at that time after the fall of the Janata Party's ragtag coalition, the Communists had regular meetings in the street corners. They weren’t elitist – at least not in my town.

Every third person you saw on the street was related to the second and all three of them voted for one of the two prominent communist parties (there were others like CPI-ML). Also, child labour was quite rampant in those days (I think even now it is) and I guess many of the kids who were working in these hosiery manufacturing units felt the need to have a voice of their own. Bruce Lee, of course, was our hero and ‘The Big Boss’ and ‘Enter The Dragon’ were perpetually featured in one cinema or the other at any given point in time. So, it was only natural that many of us were pulled towards ‘communism’ quite early in our lives, although we never fully understood the philosophy itself. The idea of everyone being treated as equals and everyone having everything was enough for us. It was as appealing to our young minds as religion is the opium of the masses. This was enough reason to support one of the two prominent communist parties. How wrong were we to mix up an ideology with a political party!

[To be continued…]

X+Y=?

When my sister had her first son, Shankar, I was 20. That was when I started thinking about generation gap. Seeing how smart the kid was made me wonder how well I would be able to cope with 20-year-olds by the time I turned 40. Watching him grow up was an inspiration in itself. When he started rattling out names of a 100 different animal species it was time for me to start watching Discovery channel more seriously. I had to come up with new stories for him everyday, with appropriate quizzes and morals, honing my narrative skills in the process. I brushed up my knowledge of Phantom, Tintin and Asterix & Obelix as he started reading them himself. And I started thinking more and more about the idea of generation gap.

What decides generation gap? To me, the right answer was 'exposure' - exposure to the media, exposure to the world around you and what's happening in other (younger/older) people's lives. But, then again, isn't your exposure more likely to coincide with the times that you live in! Need not be. When I started reading short stories/children's novels as an 8 year old, all I had to read was stories published in the 50s, 60s and early 70s which my aunts and uncles had been foresighted enough to get bound. Later on, when I was in high school, my life's mission was to watch old Tamil films from the 60s, 50s and even the 40s. I'm probably one of the few Tamils in my agegroup who could boast of (!!) having watched all the films that MGR ever acted in, and almost all of Sivaji's flicks as well. Could this have made me a Babyboomer, instead of a Generation X (born between 1961 and 1977) person?

As I learn more about Babyboomers, Generation X and Y (born after 1977) I am quite confused. I don't seem to belong to any of them and yet belong to all of them at the same time. In a way that's good. I think I can relate to older people as well as the younger ones. I know I have issues with the Generation Y's impatience and insatiability. But I am guilty of those crimes myself. So, I think I like dealing with the Millenials - even if we don't always get along like a house on fire. I know I'm right alongside the Babyboomers and Generation X most times. Will I be able to get along with the new wave of youngsters who will enter the workforce by the time I am 40? Not unless I manage to keep up with the times.

LAYERS

With me, what you see is not what you get. Sometimes you see more, sometimes you get more. I think in layers – a logical plan (with scores of related ideas connected to it), a backup to the plan, and a backup for that backup. And that is why I surprise myself when I have only one subject/object on my agenda. Interestingly enough, when I look back, I realise that it is these obsessions that I relish most when they fructify.

I applied for only two scholarships (and was awarded both), I am looking at just one job at the moment, unlike my fellow MBAs, and I am very likely to get it. It’s just not me. And yet, it is. Some big businessman (either Carnegie or Warren Buffet, I am not sure which of them) once said, ‘put all your eggs in one basket and watch it’. I always thought I’m not the type who would fall for it, but I am doing just that. Why?

A very bright friend of mine, to whom I am getting quite attached these days, pointed out recently that everything I do seems like a battle I’m fighting with myself. Just a day later Joe (the organisational psychologist I have been working with) said that I was putting too much ‘deterministic pressure on the personal perpendicular pronoun’ and asked me to reflect on it for sometime before coming up with a response. Am I really striving for perfection? Do I really think it will make me or my people happy? I don’t know. I just want to live my life to the fullest and the only way I can think of living it well is by doing what I like doing, by trying to do justice to my potential.

Where will this quest stop? Well, why should it? Remember the story of Matsya avatar - the fish that kept growing to fit the pond, the river and then almost the ocean itself? I feel like that fish sometimes. The good thing about it is that it never felt a fish out of water. I don’t either - even if I am the only atheist who loves the idea of God, religion and Bhakti; even if I am the only rationalist who values emotions more. I am an amphibious fish ambitious to fly!

Carpe diem?! Sod it!

A Sunday morning in March
I am half awake inside by double duvet.
I know what I'll see when I open my eyes
A heap of unwashed clothes that may start smelling anytime
just behind the door.
Two laptops, both switched on;
One has on a pornographic story that failed to excite
and the other has the reason why it didn't:
the unfathomable finance problem that only Lance Moir can solve.
Accumulated wisdom on People Management, Supply Chain, Macroeconomics,
Strategy, IT management and Business Law
spread out all over the place as sheets of paper. All mixed up.
I'll have play hopscotch all the way to the loo!
I open my eyes. I can see why it feels colder than usual.
It has been snowing.
I turn around curl myself into a ball,
hugging the pillow tighter than before.
Boy! Bachelorhood sucks!

Ennum Ezhuththum Kannena-ththagum

It has been a fascinating two years of reflection and learning leading to better self-awareness and confidence, and I have enjoyed every moment of it. There were some highs this last year and very few lows. As always, I think, I have learnt more from the lows.

Being back at school doing something as formidable as a full-time MBA has meant that I have had to tackle my personal demons. The biggest of them - my faith in my own numerical skills. I passed my school final with 98% marks in math and didn't do too badly in my GMAT either; but in a class of 115 people - most of them engineers from premier institutions in their respective countries - I was one of the few who hadn't had to use anything more complicated than fingers and toes to do our most complex calculations at work. So, accounting and finance were, naturally, quite intimidating. I can't say I have conquered them - but I can last all 12 rounds in the ring with these demons and hope for a tie, and that's all that matters to me.

As far the written (and spoken) word, I must say, I have been much luckier. I have often been appreciated (by mates and teachers alike) for my approach to issues under discussion. As I see it, my approach to writing has always been the same - convey logic in an interesting way. But, isn't that what math too is all about? I wonder. Anyway, the trick is to play to your strengths and manage your weaknesses at the same time. I am happy I am mastering this trick.

(Interestingly, Auvvai and Valluvar both used the analogy of eyesight to stress the importance of the written word and number-skills more than 2000 years ago. Tamil never fails to surprise.)

Hasta Luego!

YIPPEE, THERE ARE SOME YUPPIES (Or yeehaa, there is yahoo!)

There's a good possibility that Indian news channels in English have got certain basics completely wrong. They all claim that there is a huge potential for 24-hour news channels; they all say they are targeting the yuppies in the metros. And funny enough, almost all my yuppie friends in Chennai, Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad - yes, I do have some non-journalist yuppie friends - say they don't like watching news anymore; these guys would rather read newspapers, watch movies and blog. Shocking. None of them ever mentioned it to me when I was still working.

Seriously, is there really so much scope for so many 24-hour news channels? I myself tried watching two channels continuously over the past two days - on live streaming video - and was quite disappointed. And I was expecting nothing out of the world. The only thing that impressed me was the quality of video on broadband. The portals, of course, seem to have a lot of potential. If the TRPs-or-whatever-they-call-it-these-days are really measured on the basis of viewing per minute, do they really count? No wonder, everyone wants more and more breaking news stories, exposes and such. After all, all you are looking at is some eyeballs that will stick with you for a few minutes to boost up your rankings and revenues. Is that what it is all about? Sorry, I would rather give them a miss. (If you leave out journos, politicians and special interest groups, where will the rankings stand? Also, what percentage of the population - yuppies included - really watches news in English?)

Is any of the so-called entertainment channels thinking of going back to the good old days of two or three 15-30 minute long bulletins a day? I think that would be a good idea - you can always put the breaking news on the ticker (which you anyway do) and perhaps, have a special bulletin, if it really merits one. Of course, the thousand or so fresh journalists mass produced at the numerous self-financing colleges every year will lose a few well-paying job options. My advice to them: Guys, remember just one thing. Long after we all die, they will refer to our era as the Internet Age.

WRITER'S BLOG!

Do I want to write? Not sure, really. There was a time when I used to believe that I could be a good writer, if not a great one. But not anymore. Maybe all the time I have spent thinking about what I really want, over the last 8 years, has made me understand myself better. Not that I know what I want, but I do seem to know what I like.

I like initiating thought processes; I like kicking off new projects; I like managing crises - in other peoples’ lives; I like brainstorming for ideas; I like numbers; I like films; I like to read endlessly; I like thinking about what the first line of my first book should be; I like coming up with new titles for the books that I want to write; I like debates and I like to cook.

And, since 2001 I have been doing things that I like doing. Almost everything but writing. I thought I’d start writing like a maniac as soon as I reached Scotland, what with so much free time in hand and all that. It has been 5 full months here and I have written precious few words - discounting the numerous assignments and the few exams. I thought I’d buy a handycam as I landed on the UK soil and film everything I saw. The plan never took off, though. Maybe the mind was just trying to control all distractions till I got into the MBA course I liked. The MBA seemed to be the answer for everything! So, when my admissions were through, with an impressive 50% scholarship, I should have started feeling less restless, right? No’ happenin, mate!

So, what do I want? To BLOG?! Do I even want to share the thousands of cool ideas and the out-of-the-world theories I come up with everyday - with the faceless few who may read this for want of anything else to do? Wonder how so many of them manage to write so regularly and with such confidence. Many of them are even convinced that they are saying the right things. Is there any such thing as the right thing? Is that why I’m so reluctant to write? Do I fear that I won’t be able to write the ‘right thing’? Or have I just run out of opinions? At least, I don’t seem to be running out of ideas!
If there’s a celestial monitor, it (rather than he or she) would have realised that I have spoken more words in the past 5 years than I ever have in my previous years put together; And it would have spotted that I put in more effort to finish off the projects I start. Perhaps, that is what is making a difference - I’m now completing things rather than see them fall off, like I used to.

One at a time, and one by one. Doing everything I like to do because I don’t know what I want! Likes and wants aren’t the same, are they? Not sure. And one day they might even count mine as a success story. Vision and determination, they’ll say, made the man!