All the random thoughts

As the world's economy melts and the true result of unfettered capitalism is being experienced by sociologists; and as the investment banking sector is just disappearing from the face of the world dousing the hopes of hundreds of aspiring graduates from top business schools of the world, there is one unexplored sector in India that continues to deliver double digit growth and is a potential next big thing after investment banking. This sector is right now highly unorganized, mostly dominated by extremely skilful and tactful, though underpaid, labor force whose efficiency could only be matched by their effectiveness. No, I am not talking about our IT industry here (which is now highly organized). The focus is on the servant maids who work in most of our homes. It is hard to miss the similarities between the two sectors though. The high dependence on people, lack of skills or interest in-house to perform the job thereby necessitating outsourcing, availability of resources with needed...

Leave a man alone next to a serene pond in one of the great open spaces, he becomes reflective. He will reflect on the goings on in his life, how right or wrong he has been in some of the dealings and then gets into questioning himself. He will try to convince himself that he had to what he had to do and at that point in time there was nothing better he could have done. May be there was. He becomes conflictive. He will try and see if there is any fish in the pond. If he finds one, he will gaze at it for some time. He will then standup and run his fingers through his hair (if he has some left). He will look around himself to see if there are any stones about that are flat, thin and slightly wide. He will then look about to see if there is anyone around who could be watching him. Having confirmed that he is alone, he will then pick up one of the stones and, with a flourish, swings his arm to zip the stone into the pond at an angle that will help the stone bounce on the surface of the wat...

If you want to be healthy then you ought to make the Doctor happy. The natural question to ask would be, will not the happier man also the healthier man? And the natural answer has to be that if you want to remain healthy then your Doctor has to be healthier. I haven’t seen or been in times that are not mine, but I doubt if there was any other time in the human history when society’s responsibility towards the Doctor’s health was greater than the Doctor’s responsibility towards the society’s health. If you think I am uttering nonsense then that must be because you are a doctor yourself or a patient patient. When a patient approaches the Doctor, the relationship between them is that of a giver and taker. In the good old times the patient used to be the weaker one, looking helplessly at the venerated doctor saab . The patient was the taker of Doctor’s advice, medicine and a schedule. The Doctor was the giver of health and of advice to the patient. Both were patient enough to talk ...

As we experience the phantasmagoria of events called life, we keep wondering as to why we are here and what makes sense. The more we think about it, the sillier it seems that we are actually concerned about “meaning of these events” and “solutions” to our perceived problems because, the way we are leading our lives seems to be just about right in the end. Each one of us thinks along these lines, one time or the other. And then we satisfy ourselves with what convinces us. Those of us that could provide satisfactory explanations to the wider populace (and not just to themselves) will evolve into Gurus and have books published with their name as the author (Which in itself is an event and leads to further questioning on the meaning of it !). It never will stop, though. After much self torture and mindless thinking, I too had to come to some conclusions about the meaning of life's events and problems & solutions. Lest I forget this piece of revelation that came about from my own mi...

Everything in this world is linked to every other thing in this world. This profound sounding statement could be extremely simplified if one simply ignores it. It is not very easy though to be totally unconscious of this great cosmic truth if one is born and brought up in India - a country whose society is close to becoming a showroom model for selling a commodity called 'confusion'. I will not be surprised if very soon we see people landing in this country to assess the value of confusion and how it sounds, looks and feels. Everyone is confused, everything is confused and every moment is confused in India. The other day I, along with my neighbours, went around the market place to purchase an idol of Lord Ganesha to be duly implanted in one of the free rooms in our community. While we were scouting around looking for a good looking Ganesa idol, we were confused if the Elephant headed god's trunk should be pointing left or right. Some one said right. Then the confusion was a...

Children are about the only humans in the modern civilization whose feet are firmly planted on the terra firma. Despite the best efforts of their grown up parents to confuse them with explanations that only create abstractions, they just stick to their guns. “Simple questions demanding simple answers” – that is all they care about. While the parents try to answer those simple questions with an eye on the future of their kid (“I think he is very smart to be able to ask such questions. May be time is just about right to give him a hint of Newton’s first law!”), the children probably get all the more worried at the inability of their parents to keep things simple. Simple children, Complex parents. It is that simple. May be not. It happened almost a year ago when we moved into the new apartment. Every small deviation from normal was a cause for concern at the new home. Electric switches not functioning, hairline cracks on the walls, creaking doors or leaking taps – everything raised the la...

Organizations are great places for story building. On a daily basis stories are told and untold, with great excitement or utter despair, depending on if a ‘strategic goal’ is met or not, consciously or otherwise. The corridors of great organizations are like drama theaters where people act out these stories. Being a hero or a villain is purely a matter of luck and depended on who the story teller of the day was. And then there are the actors. Some of them understand the leitmotif of organizational dynamics and continue to enjoy the fun watching it from afar, even if they end up being a hero or villain in the story. While some more understand the leitmotif but continue to act as if them being heroes is the reason why the story would have a happy ending. And then there are few others who simply watch in awe the heroes, and in disdain the villains. The last category are pretty much the wannabe heroes who one day will graduate from last rows to ring side and finally on to the stage. I...