Afterlife

Today the world is waking up to a movement of sorts.Thousands of men are realizing the value of purpose and peace and are ready to pay the price for it, flat. In this new world that is being created in the minds of many who have gained purpose, the focus is not on a list of things done, but on a list of things that are consicously not done to gain that one precious commodity - peace. In the science of this philosophy, numbers have no meaning because peace or purpose, unlike riches aren't defined by a number, and better, they are alll inclusive - Just one man can never be at the top of the ladder, and there is no ladder either to be on top of. There are realtime examples of this phenomena and all of us have felt such an experience though at a minor level or for a relatively small period of time. To elucidate this however, I find no better example than a five hour spell of cricket that goes as described.

The Sun is up, shining and at peace, not having heard of any competition and never having thought of the Moon as one, it just sits there looking down at the vastly spread green grass of a playground that has an equal amount of space for everyone who is standing on it. At the centre is a man in white and white with a bat in his hand. His name is Rahul Sharad Dravid and his batting is the closest one can get to describing the philosophy of purpose and peace.

He plays as if time is an eternal quantity. Coming to think of it, time is an eternal quantity, if you allow it to be -if you are consicous enough to live life by your own clock and not by that of your paymaster. It might look like he is letting every ball be a dot ball but at the end of the day he ends up scoring as many runs as anyone else. Infact a lot more than most men who have ever played test match cricket and less than only one player in all of the game's 140 year old history. Never in this process has he ever looked like scoring. 

Rahul Dravid just lives through a day of the test match. Today there is so much need for life. Go get a life, I need a life, High on life and what not. What exactly is this life that we are talking about? If you think about it, life has nothing to do with the shots and the scores. It is like a parallely run government that is flourishing, while the scorers think they are writing the rules of the land. The achievements of this government can't be calculated, they can only be felt; and the feeling is absolutely priceless

Anyone who has seen him play will vouch that the best shot in his arsenal is 'The Leave' on the offside. It is the confidence and seamlessness with which he leaves ball after ball that rattles the strength of the opposition and establishes him as a near immortal presence on the ground. In life too, it is very important to leave a few things and I don't mean leave in the context of a sacrifice. It is defined as an effort to consciously let go.

Not everyone works for money or promotion and not everyone wants to score. Some of them have found an unarticulatable purpose and have sold their Ferraris even before they bought them.

image courtesy: Dharam Chandru 

Sometime in the year of the lord, 1995 at Vizac, A.P - An extremely obscure hindi movie of the mid 80's played on the city cable and a young boy in this third standard sat watching. Somewhere in his mind, a dialogue registered like how feet register on wet cement: "Burjan Singh, Yaad rakh, Jab magarmach paani se baahar aata hai toh kutta bhi use kha jaata hai".

One morning in the year of the lord, 1999 at Chennai, T.N - About 30 minutes were left for the school van to pick him up. He had finished his breakfast and was fully dressed and ready for school. Each of those thirty minutes were periods of bliss. Somewhere in his mind, the feeling was permanent as permanent as a government job can be, that time in hand is good.

Somewhere in the Chennai summer of 1992, they, his aunt and he, took an auto to a toy shop. Fifteen minutes of joy hit a two minute long roadblock when the driver started arguing for money. However, the moment his aunt paid the driver off, the world became beautiful again. Somewhere in his mind, the thought sat down like how magnet sits on iron, that he could always buy off the discomfort of a negotiation

Almost a decade later, when Englad toured Australia in a glorious Ashes summer, he woke up at 10 at his Chellam 4 residence. The summer of Chennai wasn't any less glorious and when time just stopped in his sofa, when macroni tasted eternal and when Michael Vaughan hit a timeless cover drive for fout, somewhere in his mind, the image stuck like how glue does, that sunday morning is everyday for all he cares.

Coming up next: Origins of the demented girl? 

SKY DEEP - The Legend of Power

This is the story of how, in the year 2012, Gagandeep from Ludhiana resuced his love, life and land from the hands of B.J.M - the liquor baron. Spanning across the length and breadth of this nation, the boundless domains of emotions and the vastly spread philosophical space of the mind, SKY DEEP is perhaps the most powerful short epic ever written. Divided into nine chapters, SKY DEEP is all set to leave its readers flamboyant and depressed at the same time. If sky is the limit, then SKY DEEP broaches the limits of depth.

 1. High Tides and the Sea Monster

Have you ever wondered how the greatest of champions emerge from the child that is inside you? The child who is undaunted by the results of actions and decides to take a shot. Lost in the Arabian Sea was the country’s costliest cruise - the Empress, her Captain and a hundred others keeping at bay a rough weather and a rougher ocean. In a couple of days, the monsoon of 2011 was to reach her merciless most and if GOD thought he could save the empress, then he thought wrong. The first hit took the ship by shock. Grief spread like fire and an unprecedented loss to wealth began. A reedy built dark young Sikh observed this chaos from an end of the ship. He then spread his arms and took a leap into the ocean. In minutes, he was standing to the height of the entire ship and holding it with his hands. The storm hit him and died down as if in disbelief, as if it had just witnessed what it never thought it would. Gagandeep let loose his grip and casually jumped back into the Indian Empress.

 

cOMING UP NEXT... 2. hero of the hearts 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Somewhere in this heart wrenching tale of a collective failure called the society, Amitabh Bagchi makes 'Arindam Chatterjee' narrate thus "Everyone lies. More than pointing out the lie to the person, it is important to know if he himself believes in the lie or not'. This statement more or less defines the multiple stories that ‘Above Average' manages to create in a completely non linear narrative. In a complete contrast from the low on philosophy - Chetan Bhagat genre of mindless and clichéd college romance, Above Average is a solid and well researched account of a person who just like the book itself, learns to see the big picture with every step that he takes.

Above average is an important book. Arindam Chatterjee's neighbours and friends go on to represent all of India, not from a region or religion based point of view, but from the point of view of internal philosophy. Each character in the book is in the process of recognizing his true wants and that is precisely where today's Indian youngsters need to head towards - To be clear in one's own head, what one is wanting.

What makes the book beautiful is Bagchi's effortless shifts from one timeframe to another, from narration to prose, from gut wrenching to rib tickling. The writing style is unique and in a surprising salute, Bagchi takes an extra effort to tell us about how Amitav Ghosh's 'The Shadow Lines' inspires the non linearity of 'Above Average'

Arindam Chatterjee's story is not his. It is the story of Bobby - from the lesser approved part of the society, his lies and his love. It is the story of Winky and Bhavna and their young adventurous lives that end with murder and suicide. It is the story of Bagga and his extremely typical IIT dreams that almost typically vanish one day. It is the story of Sheiku and Neeraj - two raw talents in computer science who have a common dream and go different ways, yet neither wanting anything lesser than before. It is the story of Arindam's touching friendship with both these men. It is a struggling rock-surd's story. It is a disdainful Karthik's story. It is the story of short lived romance and moving on. It is the story of a young Chandana who loses her life to Indian drunk mindlessness.

Above average is a book that should not be missed. It comes from a rare breed of Indian campus story writers who take time to look at the big picture

 

 

 

 

Middle of nowhere and all of a sudden, a building with a coned roof appears in a monsoon land. He is standing in the middle of a house with an open air setting facing rusting blue windows and the interiors within. The clouds are greying up and he approaches what could be a marvel of great proportions. Characters and times are getting mixed up. A friend only from school is walking the corridors of the college hostel and delivering warnings from an instrument never seen before.

 

Back in the monsoon house, in a dark room, a bath tub shaped, lion sized, blue mass of jelly is the centre of activity. A human being of immense importance to him is satisfying carnal desires and he watches this in shock even as angelic voices echo through the otherwise empty space. There is a point of disagreement. It is a war of words and reasoning between the inspired and the inspiration.

 

Out of the room now and clinging on to the blue windows, he is the epitome of disrespect. Fingers are flying around like mosquitoes and then there is an intervention that he loathes. It is however, powerfully guilt arousing. Then he moves away and a completely unexpected acquaintance from a previous life delivers sane advice. He however feels he has a clear idea of whats being spoken about at that point in time.

 

Now, running out a dull brick-brown metro multi story apartment, he finds a cop conversing with a cab driver. With guilt, fear and a pillow

in hand, he starts walking fast. The cop is done with the driver and on seeing that, his delinquent feet gain speed. The clouds going greyer all the time and at the darkest moment when the color of sky and the color of the road are one, he is snatched by his shoulder and asked to report back to the monsoon house.

 

For the prequel (which unlike many other prequels, is a must read) visit SHOT STORIES I

What the hell kind of man decides to dress up as a bat and run around the city? There's got to be something a little bit loose in there.
- Christian Bale

Niraaj Seth was in two minds. Less than one hour ago, he had locked his daughter Harshya in her bedroom at his Nungampakkam residence. In the rush of the moment, he had also taken his gun out of the table drawer. Right then, Thangam had called. She was ready with the money, waiting for him at Ashok Pillar. Leaving the room locked, he rushed to the spot in his Fiat. The deal was done and only when the suitcase reached the backseat did Harshya come back to mind. He looked lost in the afternoon and stood facing Hotel Gokulam Park and as his eyes moved further left, he found Champs. Niraaj Seth walked in. The south-end 8 seater waited for him.Without a word, Romanov and Sprite were served. The champsion quatret of cucumber, chickpease, cornflake mixture and Bombay mix followed. In the next table, five school boys discussed in raw and graphic details, 'The Rape of Lucy' by William Shakespeare. One of them even read the poem out. As large after large downed that throat, Seth had made up his mind.

Sumana was back. Four long years spent in Central Tamilnadu far away from her K K Nagar home had left her high and dry. She missed her dramatics sessions with Evam - Chennai's leading theatrics group, her lead vocals for 'Irumbu Kanni' - the heavy metal rock band from school and Amma's kaara chutney with mutta dosai. What she missed the most though was sessions at Champs with Gokul and Raghu. The greatest and most creative of Velankaians, these three in essence defined the culture called Chennai. Raghu had risen through the echleons of the club cricket circle and now awaited his chance for the double champion super kings. Gokul was a film buff who watched every movie that released, wrote and spoke endlessly about Tamil Cinema. Three different outlets and yet all three of them were studying engineering. Champs was their home; they had graduated the course in alcohol from the university called Champs. Even when clubbing was a weekend regular, Champs served as their high point. This evening, all of them felt a sense of completion. A sense of homecoming. Gokul and Sumana had matured to scotch and stayed with it for an year now. Raghu still loved beer and still loved rubbing it over thighs. They just sat there till it closed at around eleven and no one had a place to go till it opened again at 10 the next morning.

Ravimaran took a sip, straight from the bottle and said "fake beer da".  T he atmosphere was getting louder and the bar was picking up as Vijay song after Vijay song roared from the Sun Music playing on both the south and north end televisions.The liquor was gaining color, the tables were packed with glasses, so much so that even the famed Champs ice box had no place to sit. "Fake beer da", he said again. Kesavan had had it. Ravi, of all people, had no rights to criticise the beer of the mother land ('mother sand' in tamilzh). While Kesavan had remained faithful to the Tamil dream, Ravi had sold out to sales and marketing. Too many conversations from the past started playing in his mind. The Chennai debate, the speech at the first meeting of the AIYABRA (Association of Indian Youth Against Brain Drain) and many other instances where Maran had shamelessly preached Chennaism. He could see that hypocrisy was now spilling out of Maran's beer bottle. No one in the bar, till that very moment, thought that the other bottle of beer on that very table, a Kingfisher Strong, could turn into a weapon for murder. It did. 

Padinettu (18!) counted Karagar's men as he downed his peg of rum. He was competing with Ratnavel and his men in a Rum downer competition, the winner of which will automatically indicate which of the warring parties would win the Tamilnadu assembply polls whose results were awaited the next day. Ratnavel comfortably finished his 18th and made sure DMK had a long way to go before they lost their government. The real action though, started when the scores reached 23-22 in the favour of the rebel AIADMK. Paramahamsan poured whiskey on Thangakarupan's head; Babu Ganesh puked on Kannapan. Jagadeesh broke a bottle on 'Peon' Suresh and Arul Raj cut Gaja's tongue with a blade. Thalakumaran snatched Pasupati's balls; Rajeevan plucked Ponselvan's right eye. Brahadeeshwaran tore 'Kirda' Ramesh's stomach and Kaathumuthu jumped on Aravindan's chest.

 

 

Every year, hundreds of thousands of Indians master business administration. India Inc goes on a hiring binge to manage her affairs. Careers are upgraded, job scopes are expanded and market values are aggrandized. Strategic and cultural fitments attain glorious realities. This, people of India, is the largest play ever enacted in the history of this country. Management education is a myth, the placement season is a joke and this entire nation is starkly disillusioned.

 

The average Indian MT aspirant is blindfolded at the start of what most probably is the flagship course of what very often is the premier management institute of the country; and is then asked to sleep walk through two years of a rat marathon. Like Aamir Khan from Ghajini, the one word that’s whispered in these unaware ears is 'placements'.  While the enthusiastic freshers have no idea of the rot they are getting into at the end of two years, the calculative workexes are only returning consciously to the complete shambles that the Indian corporate finds itself in right now.

 

With a single and solid focus, two years pass. Planning, plotting and punctuating their way through the course are minds that will go any extent to get the best return this institute can offer to their investment. Under the complete misnomer cloud called professionalism, morality and humanity take a hard hit. Relationships are a direct result of who can help out with which assignment. G, O and D are replaced by G, P and A. In the search for money, man loses his soul yet again.

 

 

The real heart of this drama dawns on its actors only when their dream job moves past the induction honeymoon. Having sacrificed two years of normalcy and sleep, the expectations from the promised challenge called work is all about xlxes and pptxes. 'Microsoft Office test user' is probably the job with the most number of synonyms, ranging from associate consultant to management trainee and lead business associate. Lakhs are spent and unprecedented growth is projected and proved, but neither is any business moving towards its ultimate goal and nor is any manager getting what he set out to in the first place.

 

There are very few who survive this brain-shed. These are the ones who know how to love and learn. The true success of a B school is a student who has found passion in one of the subjects he's learnt there and after testing his theories at the corporate, is bound to return to the academecia. The real B school hero is not someone who has rushed through the twenty four months and landed a twenty four lakh job, it is he who has more often than not, stopped to enjoy the little thrills of the business school life. A satisfied B schooler has not spent the course, but has lived it. Management education is not designed to fetch magical organizational results, it is meant to imbibe in its participants, a sense of purpose and a clarity of vision. To gain all the two cents that the MBA has to offer, one has to go in not with dreams but with spirit; not with skills but with an empty mind; not with a hunger for results but with a soul that is ready to completely give itself to the atmosphere there is.

 

 

In what probably was his lost shot at a revenge on the dreaded end term examination system, Krish king Nishanth ended up composing a three page poem for an answer. The authority in picture saw through this personal war on the end term and decided to royally ignore the work, neither appreciating nor demeaning it. Read on for one of the most impromptu and academic pieces of poetry...

Q) Describe the MnA due diligence process in detail. Briefly explain the soft and hard issues of the DD along with some examples. 

Answer)

Human due diligence is a practice,

where the acquired and the acquiring one,

analyse all the people issues,

and decide if the merger can be done.

 

They look at every contract,

they look at each record.

Arrive at intergration issues,

both soft and hard.

 

Among the softer issues is culture,

whether the work ethics match.

And if they don't do so,

then which factor is the catch?

 

Also in this process,

they gauge possible employee morale,

and decide on a series of steps,

for a happy 'one and all'

 

Another soft issue are the stars

they need to be identified.

One must also decide communication,

whether to tell or to hide.

 

Rounding up the softer factors

would be an org structure analysis.

For every woman to know her role

and every man, his.

 

Moving on to the hard factors, 

first comes compensation.

To intergrate pay bands and ranges,

to decide how much who'll earn.

 

Retirals are an issue

they need to be resolved.

The legalities too need to be calculated,

before the cases can be solved.

 

One must also create

an HR balance sheet.

of human assets and liabilities,

the costs that we should meet.

 

Golden parachutes are liabilities,

lay offs might be assets.

Getting a tangible value for talent acquired

is as hard as it gets.

 

To relate this to a known example

lets take the case of CISCO

It is not the offices that they want,

it is for talent that they go.

 

In their DD they study kep people and skills.

The latent they should now posses.

They map the processes and practices to their own standards

The biggest MnA hit, I must confess.

 

the end.

 

 

The night was one of the more important ones in the Hindu mythological calendar. It was the grand night of Shiva - the supremely powerful and by far the closest that any Indian God has got to controversy. So on this night, in a dark blue room playing Pink music, I was in love with the pace of time.On the same night, many other personalities inside me were experiencing their own uplifting and downfalling moments. Here is a (joint) account

As the space between the outer skull and the inner skin of the head increased and got filled with beautiful forces that pulled all of my energy upwards, a hopeless romantic was searching for hope. A battled warrior was looking forward to home. A hungry construction worker was waiting for contracts from the east. A friend was confused with himself and miffed at his close one. Later in the day he would gain some clarity and wait for more. That night, a young man sat brain mashed by Gilmour and Waters. The words and the sounds they generated. Later in the afternoon even as plataeus and lakes of fire circled the dim yellow room, thick smoke rose upwards, non stop till this amazingly fake concept called 'sanity' returned to take over and gave the pleasantly doped out pace of life its original mean form.