Encounter of 4rd Bribe:

Encounter of 4rd Bribe:

After coming to Bangalore, this is my 3rd enounter of bribery.
All are related to traffic violations. During 1st time, I went to Nandhi hills along with
some of my friends, and for one of the bike, we did not have any documents, and my friend gave away
some amount to police.

I said to myself - thank god!, my friend did not ask me to share - (how luck struck to save my money from bribing?)

Second time, I went to a hotel for lunch on a good sunday after noon. This time again
police sidelined us, my friend's purse was having just 50 and i was having close to 200 or 300.
The traffic police was not ready to accept 50. My friend turned to me and asked me to give some amount
I lied him saying i was not having some amount. I did this with the intention of two things

- to prevent my oney to be used for bribery
- anther way to force the police to accept only 50.

Finally my friend made me as a mortgage ! and drove to an ATM, and the rest is an easy guess.

Third time, I was mere a spectator, again I was with one of my friend after having my dinner.
We were strolling on the road. Meanwhile a police jeep on the opposite side stopped,
an employee of the hotel informed the owner. The owner gave a signal along with some amount.
The employee took the ready dinner packet, ran to the police vehicle and give both to him.
I am not sure why this happened.

On the earlier 2 cases, the mistake was on my side. Ofcourse my friend's side, but still
I am also part of it knowingly or unknowingly. The bribe was paid to cover up the mistake.
But in the 3rd case, I was not sure whether the hotel owner is obliged to bribe the police for saving from
any future troubles or for something else?


Here comes the 4th incident. We, 3 friends, riding on a single motor vehicle.
We went to a theater but found that the screening started 1 hour earlier. We returned on the same route.
While we were few feet away from our house, my friend asked me whether the police is following us or not.
I was replying that i dont know. In a fraction of second, I heard a sound on my back asking us to stop the vehicle.

This time I made up my mind to resolve to pay fine as it our mistake. Police came to us and there were ususal
threats of taking the vehicle to police station. We said, ok lets go there, we will pay fine.
He became furious and asked my friend, where he was working, my friend lied that he is searching for a job.
Then he turned me and asked where i am ? I told him , i am working in Infy (???? - why did I say like that??)

Then the police repeating several times, we should not argue with him as he was doing his duty.
My friend said, he is not arguing, he is ready to pay fine. But the police started asking where you guys are from?
We said TamilNadu, he replied, this is not tamilnadu, this is karnataka. You must know to obey police
I was spectating an about to raise political problem. Soon, my friend replied, why he is bringing states issue in to this
problem. The police again furiously replied, he should not argue, just obey.

I interrupted and told them, we are ready to pay fine, please give me the receipt. He said, "oh you need receipt,
then come to police station" . On my mind, I was both happy and scared. I was happy because first time i am going to
a police station. I was scared whether, they will give us a fake receipt in the police station.
Because nobody knows whether the fine paid is taken as a true fine or not.

There were so many talks between my friend and the police. Finally the police asked my friend to sit behind the vehicle.
Sorry forgot to tell you, there were two police.

One police drove my friend's vehicle along with him. My friend, before they were about to leave, told me ,
"Please bring 1500 to police station". I told myself, "Oh my God, this time really my money is going to bribed",
"I told myself that i will not take more than 200 rupees to police station". i will take the money only to pay fine.
Because through one of my office mail's forward I came to know that the fine is not more than 200 rupees as per law.


On my way to follow them, some one from road side told me to take help from my house owner.
Since he is doctor, i thought he might give morale support. did i need a morale support? I dont know.
My imagination of police station is a shabby building with lots of wooden tables
and papers. Few rapes on the side and few bars behind that there will be few human faces.
I walked directly to my house.

Suddenly the vehicle vrooooomed across me and it was none other than my friend. He told me
that he gave the money to him which he kept for watching the movie. I was happy but at the same
time, again weared my ugly face of being non-patriotic with the mask of incapability.

I told myself, what is the use of reading "A better india, a better world" by Narayana murthy now?
and the most ugliest thing that can ever happe is
just few hours back I was watching the movie "Indian" (tamil,telugu) / "Hindustani" (Hindi) on the same day?

Openness in Layoffs

Hi,

Indian companies are far from this openness shown by MNCs, In this case, Microsoft. I was stunned by the view suggested in the book “Good to Great” that if you think eliminating employees is the only option you have, do it as quickly as possible. The reason being is after the elimination, there is no doubt that the employees will weal around questioning “Why me?” but it will help both employees and the organization to sit and brain storm what next they can do.

This will be a driver for increased focus among individuals to choose right direction. At the same time, it will offer the organization to decide on their future. When Gates quoted what has happened to DEC in early 60s of this century in his book “Road Ahead”, I did not take notice of it, but on seeing Satyam and Sun saga I realize no one can say he is non-volatile.

Indian companies learned lot of things from MNCs. In the same way I wish they would add this item also in this list in future course of recession




Mail sent by Steve Ballmer.


Microsoft's layoff email to employees



Employees

Subject: Update: Realigning Resources and Reducing Costs

In January, in response to the global economic downturn, I announced our plan to adjust the company’s cost structure through spending reductions and job eliminations. Today, we are implementing the second phase of this plan.

This is difficult news to share. Because our success at Microsoft has always been the direct result of the talent, hard work, and commitment of our people, eliminating positions is hard.

Today’s action includes positions in the United States and in a number of countries around the world. In the US, affected employees will be notified directly by their managers today. In other countries, local leadership teams will provide more specific information about the impact to their organizations.

With this announcement, we are mostly but not all done with the planned 5,000 job eliminations by June 2010. We are moving quickly to reach this target in response to consistent feedback from our people and business groups that it’s important to make decisions and reduce uncertainty for employees as quickly as possible, and so that organizations can concentrate their efforts and resources on strategic objectives.

As we move forward, we will continue to closely monitor the impact of the economic downturn on the company and if necessary, take further actions on our cost structure including additional job eliminations.

For those of you directly affected by today’s announcement, I want to thank you for your contribution to Microsoft and assure you that we will continue to provide support as we did during the previous job eliminations.

And for everyone across the company, I want to reemphasize how much I appreciate the way you have pulled together to help the company respond to this difficult economic environment. There’s no doubt that these are very challenging times. But together, we are making the right choices to ensure that we will continue to deliver great products and position ourselves for strong future growth and profitability.

Thank you for your continued hard work, commitment, and focus.












Regards and thanks,
Muruganandan

--Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

Kudos to Gen-Y parentz

Simple Analogy:

You go to a hotel to have some good food for the first time in your life. Or you go to a new hotel where you had never been.

The waiter comes and asks you what would you like to have? The first thing you expect is , “What are the items the hotel possess?” This is very very very very important question. Because depending on this answer you can make a choice

(1) either you eat an item which you want

(2) to leave hotel and look for something else if nothing interests you

(3) compromise on your wishes and go for alternative.

In mgmt terms, I would say this question is nothing but “What are the choices I have?”

From the perspective of a parent who wants to nurture a child, I would say, “what is THE thing which interest my child?” Only when a child is given an ‘exposure’, repeat after me “only when a child is given an exposure”, he / she can choose his item of interest.

Gen-Y Parentz

In India, there is a new generation of fathers being sprouted up. With the advent of IT jobs, sons and daughters of yesterday’s fathers got the opportunity to see the new world. No longer have they needed to embrace a mediocre life. In some cases poverty becomes an alien. Yesterday’s fathers were mostly in to banking, teaching, petty shop dealers or government sectors (from BSNL to forest officers). Their life revolved around a circle. Most of these families died/dying without a seeing a single foreign country / place.

But their sons/daughters because of IT are now seeing the whole new world. They get exposure to things which might not be possible without IT. They travel in taxis, shift places in planes, stay in a good hotel, have food (at least once) in McDonalds, buy houses, etc. These things happen with in a very short period of 2-3 years of joining a company. These kinds of exposure were unimaginable in government sectors.

These kinds of exposure were restricted to TATA’s, Birla’s or for fathers who worked in these great companies in the past decades. But now the landscape has increased. 80% of these young generations were first out comers from engineering or graduation. A time will come in their life at the age of 28/29 where in which they want to see their children grow beyond their exposure. They want their children to study in IITs, graduate in US schools, etc..

The most important point here is these new generation fathers are “open”. Unlike most of the past decade families who without the knowledge of exposure wanted somehow their children to be in safe job. When I say open, it means these fathers are broadminded and open to understand a child’s natural interest and grow these children in those lines.

Of course these new generation fathers cannot make them to study in ooty schools and pay 1-2 lacs even for 1st standard. But still they want them to study in best schools in the city where they are residing.

Indian education system is inherently faulty. Whatever is the type of education - Matriculation, CBSE, ICSE, Anglo Indian, etc. the syllabus is more or less similar but the way it has been taught is pathetic. A physics teacher who teaches gravitation cannot himself understand usefulness of Einstein’s law in real world. A chemistry staff who teaches elements will not do experiments on his own in the lab.

When the staff himself is taking a teaching job just because he does not have any other option, how children can get confidence to choose an area that’s of interest to him. That’s why 60% of the students are doing engineering / medicine in our country. It is pathetic. I would say not more than 15% of students should choose engineering. Because when I say engineer, I benchmark their talent against Steve Wozniak. He loved engineering and chose his career. That’s why he could able to design and build world’s first computer and started the revolution. It is a herculion task to change the system in India and I believe it will take minimum 40-50 years to make a change and see the result especially in education arena.

What is the difference?

Michael Dell, Bill Gates, Abdul Kalam, VS Naipaul, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, JRD Tata, Sania Mirza, Tendulkhar, A.R. Rehman, etc.. etc..All of them are very different people. But they have only one thing in common. (rightly said by Michael Dell)

“I found what I want at an early age, but some people take lifetimes to figure this out….”

It is not the mistake of the child / parents who are not able to find out what the child is great at (not ‘good at’ !). There are multiple factors which play a role

(1) Parenting

(2) Financial capability of the family

(3) Genetic nature

(4) Schooling

(5) friends

(6) luck

(7) staff in school / colleges

(8) The country and the period in which the child is born

(9) nth generation from grand parents, etc..

When some factors are present some other factors will be missing. No child will have the opportunity to get all. Even the people whom I have mentioned earlier did not get all these factors in their life time at required times. The pathetic situation is even they are unaware that these factors decide their destiny.

But these factors which “can be produced/simulated“.

Here presents the opportunity. A child can undergo a 7-10days workshop constituting 2-3 hours a day. This will be done under the guidance of skilled people, who wish to do the following thing,

… A child will be given a series of exposure in most of the areas (starting from painting to Karate. from physics to yoga , from music to Mergers and Acquisitions). Out of curiosity and natural inclination, the child will choose a narrow set of options.

Then the parents will be given a report of their child at the end of the workshop. The report will contain a set of 5 choices from the 1000 list of choices the child interested in.. The parents then give more exposure to their child on all these areas and let allow the child to choose his own line of interest. By this and continuous hardwork of the child will inevitably become successful. We will get not one Steve Jobs or Narayana Murthy but several.


The toughest thing here is to develop an “intelligent program content” for the workshop that can be customizable to children coming from different traditions and countries. The workshop content can be developed using research people from various universities, schools, NGOs.

The program content once developed will be subjected to continuous up gradation. Conductors of this program will be highly skilled people because they not only do this as a job but also with the intention that their output is going to shape a child’s future.

When a say child, I meant a child studying in 6,7, 8 or 9th standard. I believe beyond 10th, one is subjected to limited options.

There can also be advanced courses/workshops where in which we still narrow down from 5 choices (given at the end of the basic workshop) to 2-3 choices.

Can anyone help me to build such a program content?

Letter 2 Leaders

Before writing this blog, I wrote two entries offline for my blog. One titled “Letter to Premji” and another is about “PRA – a custom defined solution for happy life”. But I did not give for publishing.

There are few reasons for my decision. Blog titled “Letter to Premji” is my dream project (blog); I do not want to end that as another entry to a million blog entries. I want some sort of result-orientation to my writing, so I decided to come back afresh. Blog titled “PRA…” is a manifestation of an ever lasting thoughts lingering in my mind. When I wrote, it has become much difficult for readers, to some extent even boring. This baby “Letter 2 Leaders” is going to be a series like spiderman-1, 2, 3. I have not decided when to end this series. But I have decided to start this series without any apprehensions or fear of?? (Guess what?). Recently, I read one of my favorite newsletters – Knowledge@wharton. One specific article, one specific line is the cause of this blog. It states that there are many ways to capture trends in shift in customer’s preference. Surveys, direct opinions, feed back forms, interviews have now become “Egyptian old mummy ways.” Social networking (like orkut, Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin) is the latest pool to extract the taste and preferences of customers. The CEOs of Fortune 500 companies use extensively these social networking sites To answer customer queries directly, To receive complaints / compliments from customers directly. To identify what is the next rocking product / fashion. They felt that this interaction every day morning between end-users and CEOs of the companies gave lot of insights than what surveys, feedback forms gave them. Some times surveys and feedbacks just gave out numbers and CEOs could not extract any information which they are available now in handy. Now we shall move in to that trend in near future. Before jumping in to that trend, lets experiment this facility with Wipro’s Internal Customers. That is WE.

Wondering?

If you are now thinking that this blog is going to be a pool of some comments and Wipro Leaders might read the same, then I am sorry, YOU ARE WRONG. Because in your assumption you have neglected two people as part of leaders conglomerate.

One is ME and next is YOU. I am gonna to experiment few things in this series which I feel it should be. According to me “every atom in this world should be subjected to experiment, evaluation and redefinition.” This experiment would not be conducted on TRUTHS because truth neither requires definition nor experiment it just has to be perceived. Say, gravity is a TRUTH it works same before Newton discovers and even after his death. Similarly our values like Honesty, Intensity to win, Integrity are truths. Lets take a short commercial break..:)

From Rs 50 to a Forbes billionaire!

When I was working in Bangalore, I’d seen lot of upraise buildings (of course first in my life J) and most of the buildings are garlanded saying built by Sobha. Till few minutes back I was assuming that this is a large realty MNC that came to India after 1990 and doing big business. But when I read this article from Rediff, I was totally stunned and took some time to collect it in one page (difficult to read in rediff).

Worth for your time. Go on.

From Rs 50 to a Forbes billionaire!July 1, 2008


Puthan Naduvath Chenthamaraksha Menon, or P N C Menon, chairman of the Rs 1,500-crore Sobha Developers Ltd, is one of the few dollar-billionaires in India. For the last two years, he has been listed in the Forbes list of billionaires (he is listed at number 754 in the last Forbes list of world?s billionaires). Menon set up his empire in the Sultanate of Oman with just Rs 50 in hand. Through sheer hard work and some wise decisions, he has become one of the most successful businessmen from India. Today, his company has a presence in India, Dubai, and Oman. Sobha Developers went public in November 2006. Today, more than 4,000 people are directly employed by Menon, in addition to the thousands more involved in the construction of his buildings. As he diversifies his activities as a businessman, he is also in the process of developing the village he belongs to by adopting the 3,000-odd families which are below the poverty line. At Vadakkancherry in Kerala, he has built a hermitage for old people and young widows, a school for children, and also a hospital for the villagers. He also runs the Sobha Tradesman Academy in Bangalore that trains people from economically backward villages in trades related to the construction industry. In this interview taken at the Sobha Hermitage at Vadakkancherry, Menon speaks of how important it is for him to take care of his fellow beings. A pyramid shaped development centre built by sobha developers at the Infosys campus. Childhood in Kerala I am from an agricultural family in Palghat in Kerala. As my father was into small business in Thrissur, I grew up there. I lost my father when I was 10 years old, and my grandparents were not educated enough to take care of his business. My mother also was ill. So, everything disappeared in a short period of time. You can say I became an adult at the age of 10 or 12, and started taking decisions on my own from that age. It was a very unfortunate childhood; not a happy one at all. I did not complete my graduation; I dropped out. If you ask me why, I don?t know. Probably I was in a hurry to be on my own. Like many children who come from a business background, working for somebody else was not there in my mind. I started my own interior decoration business; small scale contract work of the interiors of houses and offices. It was nothing to write home about. Interior of a palace built by Sobha Developers in Oman.Chance meeting with an Arab In 1976, I met this gentleman — Brig Gen Suleiman Al Adawy — in a hotel lobby in Kochi, quite accidentally. He had come to Kochi to buy a fishing boat. I had gone to the hotel for some other work. We happened to talk to each other, and after that, he said, ?Ours is a new country. There are a lot of opportunities. Why don?t you come over to my place? We will do something together.? Till then, I had not even heard of a place called Sultanate of Oman. (I went back home, took an atlas and located the place!) In Oman, with Rs 50 in hand I decided to accept his invitation. I took my passport and within two months, I was ready to fly to the Sultanate of Oman. I had only Rs 50 in my hand as, at that time, you were permitted to take only that much money with you. But I was excited. There was no fear of uncertainty in my mind. I had always been sure of myself. I knew I would be able to do something there. I don?t know whether it is the right attitude, but I had that confidence in me. I may sound arrogant but I was confident because I had no role model.


A futuristic multiplex at the Infosys campus in Mysore, built by Sobha Developers.Starting a business in Oman We had many pre-conceived notions about the Arabs, like they are swimming in money, etc. But this man was only an officer in the army. He had no money to put in as capital to start a business. So, both of us went and borrowed 3,000 riyals from a bank as the initial capital and started our business. We decided to do the interiors of buildings, a continuation of what I was doing in Kerala. It was an international market but I was only a street-side contractor. Street-side contractor means you had only a briefcase with you; not even a great office. I was like a fisherman, going to the sea to fish, going to the market to sell the catch and make a living. The beginning was very, very small. Working hard and with confidence It was tough initially, but I worked hard, really hard. Five things were against me: I was not professionally qualified. I did not have sufficient capital. I was in a new geographical location. I didn?t have sufficient contacts. And my communication skills were poor as I had studied in a Malayalam medium school. So amidst all the negatives, it was like chasing dreams! Yet, even though I, my feet were firmly on the ground. And although I had all the negatives stacked against me, my confidence level was very high. The ability to understand too was very high. I never settled for anything less than perfect. Now I feel I had divine blessings. Sobha Hermitage at Vadakkancherry in KeralaLeader in the industry in Oman I entered Oman in 1976, and in 1984, I was in the top 4. By 1986-87, my company, The Services and Trade Group of Companies, became a leader in the industry. Even now, I am the market leader there. Remember, I was competing with European companies. Initially they looked at me as if I were a joker. But as I began to succeed, they started looking at me seriously. Why, or how, I became the market leader was because I never transferred the money I made back to India. I invested all that in the expansion of the business. I slowly built my enterprise in Oman. It was not easy building an enterprise; it was very, very difficult. It was like building it brick by brick, step by step. I was learning on the job with each passing day. Each step, you perfect it and go on to the next level. ‘Competing with myself’ I always compete with myself and in that competition I am a failure. There are two personalities here; the man with the requirement and the man who delivers. The man with the requirement demands a lot which the other man cannot deliver. That is why he is a failure. I will be sixty this year-end (2008-end). Probably I may die without achieving what one part of me yearns for. There is always a gap in what you have achieved and what you plan to achieve. A new residential building by SobhaFrom interiors to full structure In 1986, I decided to be a full time builder. What I did was backward integration: from architecture to structural engineering to designs. We are probably the only backward integrated company of this size and type in the whole world. From factory-building, we went to construct houses, and then to large commercial buildings. We also did private palaces in the Middle East. I became a citizen of Oman a decade ago. From Oman, I moved to the United Arab Emirates. Doing business in India When I came to India to do business 14 years ago, it was to diversify the geographical spread. I chose Bangalore as our destination in India. I started Sobha Developers in my wife?s name. Because I had done even the palaces in the Middle East, I came with top-end knowledge. That was why we succeeded here too. We have completed more than ten commercial projects on turnkey bases, covering 1.85 million sq ft. Forty residential projects have been completed and about 32 are in the process of completion. Under contractual projects, we have built office buildings for Infosys, Timken, Taj, Mico, HP and Dell. We went public in 2006. Now we are a Rs 1,500-crore company. Virtual tour of the awesome Cisco campusIn the Forbes list of billionaires I went to Oman to start a business with Rs 50 in my hand. Today, I am in the Forbes list of billionaires. In 2007, I was listed in the Forbes list. In the 2008 list also, I am there. If you ask me how I felt, I would say, it was a very satisfying experience. Internationally, the tag has its advantages. If you do not have acceptance in the market place, you will not be able to continue as a businessman. One has to admit that there are only 1,200 people in the world who are listed. So, it was a nice feeling. Children at a school set up by Menon’s companyThe life of a billionaire I live a good life and I don?t feel guilty about it. I have beautiful houses, beautiful cars and I have also ordered a private jet now. However, after a point, money cannot be the motivating factor. Money is only a byproduct of success. Success for me is. . . well, if I am at step 10, then I see success at step 20. So, success is infinity for me; it never ends. I come from a middle class family and I still have those middle class values. Dreams of a billionaire My first ambition is I want to prove that in India, we have a global Indian company in the real estate and construction industry. I want people from anywhere in the world to look at my buildings and say, what a building! What construction! My target for this global Indian company is 2011. My dream volume: 10million sq ft of buildings, and 10 million sq ft of infrastructure. I am confident we will achieve that dream. Diversification I plan to get into the hospitality business. In the next seven years, I should have 4,000 rooms operational within and outside India. I am also getting into the retail business. I want to set up home stores where you can buy everything for a home, other than grocery and clothes. You need a minimum 50,000 sq ft to set up each such store. I am already in to information technology. I have a 1,000-people company called Sobha Renaissance Information Technology in Bangalore. I am also targetting trading and investments. But my primary verticals will be construction, infrastructure, retail and hospitality. A community dining hall, one of Sobha Developers’ initiatives in rural KeralaSocial responsibility By giving something back to the society, I don?t feel I am doing a favour. I am not doing any charity. It is my responsibility. You are part of a society where 400 million people are extremely poor. When you create wealth, a portion of that wealth has to necessarily go to these people who are right at the bottom. I have been doing this for the last 25 years in my village in Palghat. The size of my wealth was nothing compared to what it is today, yet I was doing that. I have been feeding the poor and the elderly two times a day for the last 25 years, but I don?t like to talk about it. Recently I decided that my geography of work will be the place where I was born, the Kizhakkancherry Panchayat in Palghat district. We did a study in the two panchayats to find out how many people there were really poor: we found that there were 3,000 families living below the poverty line. So, my focus is on these 3,000 families — the education of their children, their health conditions, their housing, water, sanitation, and, finally, their employment. I have put a time target of 8-10 years for the socio-economic empowerment of these 3,000 families. About 12,000 people will benefit from this. I am like a father to these 3,000 families. They are like my extended family. Menon’s company has been serving free meals to the impoverished in rural Kerala since many years.Educating and rehabilitating people At the Sobha Academy that we started last July, we follow the ICSE syllabus and provide free education and maintenance — that include three meals, uniform and books to all the students. I expect to educate 2,000 students. We take students only from the impoverished families in the locality. The biggest challenge for me will be creating employment for these 3,000 families where they live. If I set up a business in these two panchayats, it will not be to make money. I will not even drink a cup of tea from that business. The entire money will go to their benefit. I will not own even one inch of land in these two panchayats. If I create a business vertical there, it will only be to benefit them. It is easy for me to take them out elsewhere but I want to avoid migration. Migration should be avoided if we want to empower rural India. No amount of money can give me the kind of satisfaction I get when I see these little children in uniform. It fills my heart.

Bomb the B-Schools

The sperm of this thought – writing an article like this, joins with the ovary in one of my famous bus travels. Thank God, unlike women of this world I need not have to carry this child for a minimum period of 10 months. That’s why I have decided to give birth to this child as soon as I got the confirmation that I am an expectant.

MBA, one of the top 10 influential words of the graduate world. In short, an educational gateway which leads to a designation which has holographic character and scope.

- a million dollar opportunity

- a gateway to the world of dreams.

- a road decided to travel for chasing (of course some without knowing what are we chasing).

- The birth place of opportunistic character.

Who should be a Manager?

I have very strong views as an answer for this question. Studies and observations show that more than half of the world’s population take up and accept things which comes on their way without thinking whether it is their cup of tea. The truth is not many know what their cup of tea is. Strange but it is an undeniable truth. How a truth can be denied? Truth is not a topic to be discussed or debated over. Truth needs acceptance with understanding. Na, truth does not require in itself to accept. It is we who needs it.

Today many companies have proven models in place and follow a process which provides so called equal opportunities. What a company needs is not an equal opportunity solution rather a tailor made opportunities for its employees. Many of the process oriented companies give two choices for its employees to choose, a technical line or a managerial line. A lavish hotel providing only two items in the menu to its customers and a medium hotel providing more choices to its customers. Which one do you prefer, provided you are not damn hungry?

The same answer applies to many companies in the world. Coming back to our question, due to the availability of less choices, many choose a managerial line without thinking whether it is their cup of tea or not. Why there is so much affection towards management career like half million love to live with Angelina Jolie. Ultimately we are doing injustice to Angelina Jolie, I am sorry, to the profession, “Management”.

Before making any decision in life, one should give convincing self-answers for the following questions IN ORDER.

1) What is that? – Do I have clear understanding of what is it?

2) Why do I need this?

3) If I get this, will I be ready to die happily?

4) Upon receiving it, what next would I require or is it the end of rat race?

5) How am I going to deliver? Because “With Power comes responsibility”. Answer first whether will you deliver and satisfy every one or find an ISO 9000 compliant answer for your inability. Here I can get the help of my nation’s father Gandhi. Gandhi started as a single person, started where he were without waiting for a positive climate, and was 200% adamant in his goal. There he planted the seed of freedom. These are the best epitome every so called manager and wanna be managers’ needs to emulate. I am not asking you to be adamant but I am asking you to be adamant to deliver and do justice for the responsibility you took with a designation. You must attempt to satisfy every customer, every employee, and every share holder last but not least satisfies yourself. Be careful while reading my above sentence. I am not asking you satisfy them but I am asking you to make an ATTEMPT. Ultimately whether the concern individual get satisfied or not it left to his life’s choice. It is like Gandhi attempted to give freedom, but it is unity of people of India towards a single goal fetched the freedom.

In this world of outsourcing even “Statement of Purpose” to get in to management education, these questions are of much important. Even if you are not trying for a management education, don’t ever accept the management designations which is bestowed on you based on your experience without answering above questions.

If you wanna be a manager?

- Start NOW to LIVE as a manager. Don’t wait for the designation to come or a degree to complete

.- Compare and understand yourself with world’ best managers and try to fill in your weaknesses.

- Answer whether the “Qualities of an Ideal Manager” is filled in you, if not am I susceptible to receive such qualities? Or am I eager to know what are those and try to pursue it?

Do you want to still dig out some untold truths?

The attraction towards management for somebody is because basically their minds want to quench its thirst by making few people to work UNDER him and not work WITH him. If your answer is this, for God’s sake understand that a manager designation is not your direction; there is some other flower in a different garden waiting for you. Find out that garden.

If you are a student, understand first that MBA education is not in itself makes you a manager. MBA education is like a fertilizer to a plant. The seed is with in you.If you are planted in a bad soil, may be a fertilizer will help you. If you are planted in a good soil, even then a fertilizer will help you to give extra characters. But think whether you have seed or not? Because spreading just fertilizer in a land without a soil will degrade the quality of the soil,

Make tailor made decisions whether you need fertilizer or not, it is the soil, seed and water which makes you a plant and not the fertilizer.

If you really have the ability to make a discerning decision, it will be AWESOME. Even if the opportunities and external factors prevents you to get in to a Stanford, Kellogs or MIT still you will be a manager.

I would even go to such an extent even if you are uneducated one can be the world’s best manager if you identify the seed with in you. I need not have list down examples for this. It is known by you.

So YOU decide whether to BOMBard the B-School or BOMB the B-School.

Power of Awareness

"Awareness at right time". Have we ever thought what is root cause all 'correct' decisions?. These decisions could be as simple as what is the right choice of restaurant for dinner or it could be life changing decisions made by students based on their intermediate results or it could be as big like opening up of economy like how it happened in 1990s.

All perfect decisions irrespective of scenarios occur mainly because the decision maker has proper awareness at right time. Lets say we go to a hotel, the first thing happens in this condition is that the waiter offers us the available choices (make you aware). From those choices, we make a decision which makes us happy. If we are not aware of our own choices, how one can make a decision?.

This awareness is the key factor missing in India. An 8th class student of a rural school in India is not aware of how big the world outside is. His mind is not given enough exposure to make his choice of study. If a well performing student of physics who loves to make equations is forced to choose his career in software engineering, India will lose a Nobel Prize in physics. He chose to be a software engineer not just because his parents have made up their minds that only software is a growing field, but because he and his parents does not have enough expsoure that a field like Physics has equal respect in outside world and will definitely allow him to earn good money to alleviate his poverty.

What we saw is a simple case but a powerful case happening in almost every corner of India. The basic Indian problem is both youngsters and family people does not choose what they want but they ought to choose what it is available. Because a family cannot afford to wait for his child to choose his/her own direction. Because there is a possibility that positive fortune might not encounter in life. Thats the reality.

In order to shift this mind-setup in all cases, "courage" is required. Courage will not dawn in to one's head. Courage is driven by strong will and inclination. Strong will happens only when one sees a dim light. A dim light is nothing but awareness. If a light does not appear, courage wont happen, if courage does not happen, one will not have urge to follow his natural wish.
If one does not follow his wish, he will obviously choose something which is nto apprpriate for him. So the entire generation of his will result in weeling.

Here comes my duty to give exposure. An awareness at right time. This exposure will in turn enforce one to have courage which in turn will allow people to follow their ambition.

How am I going to offer this awareness?

1) Incase of education, there should be separate course every week for one period which
gives students what are the possible career choices available in this world/

2) Incase of farmers, through cooperative banks there can be sessions on what are the low
cost manufacturing jobs available in India or how they can venture out a new career?

3) Through public-private partnership private companies can create awarness on what are the
best practices of their own institutions and how it can tailored for public enterprises?

4) There can regular sessions in court for free of charge about court proceedings, basic laws
a citizen entitled to be aware of?

5) A group of parliamentarians can be offered to learn other parliamental systems available in
other nations and how they are effectively using the system to make their country a
developed nation. This will sow the seed of removing flaws in our constitutional system.

6) Instead of free medical check ups, hospitals must come forward to create awareness
among people to prevent diseases

In all these cases, information technology can be used as a tool to provide awareness with efficiency. At the same time to relook in to schemes created for this purpose to benchmark whether these awareness campaigns result in expected output.

Needless to say, change will happen in India but at a slow pace. It will not happen at the rate we want but surely will happen. This is not optimism but its a reality that every civilized society is subjucated to change.

This awareness is not only the driver. But also a catalyst. Creating awareness in one way will enforce one to take risk and stride down his ambition even if future appears bleak.

To explain in lay man terms, if we take a set of slum people to a five star hotel in the city and allow them to stay for few hours and later if we tell them that the people who regularly stay there are not just because they are affluent. We need to tell them how they have reached that affluent stature. It might have occured because of their education. It might have occured because of the hard work in their own business. It might have occured because they are well versed in their own subject (say Nobel laureats, artists).

This awareness will sow a seed in the minds of the slum people that either they should go up to their level or they must create an environment for the next generation to flower. So this awareness will allow them to take next steps.

Thus offering free lunch is of no use. Let us create awareness in every possible way and things will bloom. There is no doubt about it. Who ever mixes two parts of hydrogen and one part of oxygen will get water. Water is the output irrespective whether the doer is a hindu / jew. Hence our duty is to create awarness in all fields for the less privilaged and you can see the result.

got a topic

Yes, I have found a really interesting topic to write. It is "Qualification".
Every thing in this world, whether it is an issue or some sort of happening starts and ends with this 13 letter word.

Apart from that, this has a special quality. It is the most favorite topic of my heart. I don't say i just love to speak about this. It is that this word has enslaved me. It is part of me like my hand.

Ok, let's see what is this Qualification. This is a world of opinions. A world of expressing one's view. A world of keeping one's view. A world of attaching and giving more respect to this so called views more than one's self himself / herself.

90% of the people and 100 % of the current number of countries do not qualify to speak about 90% of the things but still it happens. It happens not for its own sake but to make the world run. Otherwise we will not have a word called affair in English itself.

There was a saint about 3000 years ago. Why the hell I should talk about someone whom I have never seen. Hope neither you do. Ok then lets a contemporary guy. Mm, if I take some film artist, then it wont be proper, if i take some friend's name again it wont be good. Then let me take some X guy.

A child was taken to this most respect X by the child's mother. She complained that the child has a bad habit of (as is she is right in all things) eating chocolates.
She expected X to do some magic to make the child stop eating chocolates. X said that mother please come after one month. After a month the mother brought the child again and got the same suggestion but this time little bit different - to come after 2 months.

The relentless mother brought the child after two months. This time the X said that eating chocolates is bad for health. one or two is ok but not many in single day. This made the mother angry. She asked furiously why the X did not give this fucking suggestion on that day itself.

X said calmly ,"he is not qualified to do so 3 months back".

Now this is not a point. This is not a moral of the story. Rather it a truth. A truth that prevails in timeless manner.

In this world of suggestions / advise, giving an advise to a child is the most easiest thing one can do. Some people keep this as a hobby. Some people cannot keep suggestions or advise to themselves otherwise their head will break in to multiple parts.

But in our case, X thinks first whether he is qualified to do so or not. He not only thinks but act on his words by preventing giving the advise. If every guy has become like this, 3/4 of the world's noise will get over.1/2 of the people will lose their jobs. Most of the consultants will be guillotined.

Ok lets see where and all in our day to day life we can apply this. Ok that might be too much for you guyz. Then lets take one step back. We need not have to apply but start thinking.

Before that let me make one important point here. My intention is not to make people stop making unnecessary comments but to make them think
- lets see if one is qualified to do some Y. If he / she is not qualified
- lets refrain from talking and choose one choice

-- shut down the topic from the mind
or
-- prepare to qualify to make the Y

Now lets see where and we can apply this in our day to day life. Ok i am sorry, lets see where and all we can think this in our day to day life

1. When having a discussion with friends
2. When providing feedback
3. When criticize something - Oh my god i need to write a separate blog for this 3rd
point.

4. In office, while taking interviews.
5. In accepting rewards.
6. In accepting criticisms from others. (Its a beautiful point to write in detail)
7. While talking with parents.
8. While reading newspaper
9. While eating , ofcourse , why not ?
10. While speaking in public. (Politicians of India are exceptional here. They belong
to asylums not in commune. ok lets leave this)
11. Writing review for a movie.
etc..etc

I have taken only the simple points. The list is almost endless.

Ok having said so much here raises another clarification

Who the hell am I to tell all these things? or whether I am qualified to speak / write about this ?

The answer is obvious.

My first movie blog

Nothing has forced me so far to write a movie review. I wont call this as a movie review simply because I am not a critic. so this blog is gonna be about few movies which I have watched so far and which I have liked so far would be a better word.

Out of so many moview both english and tamil, I am highly impressed with a good number of collection. Let me recollect few.

Tamil:
Nayagan
Aboorva sagotharargal,Thiruda thiruda, mouna raagam, bombay, and all balachander movies


English;
Finding nemo, jurassic park, Life is beautiful, Schindler's list, etc..etc..


Out of these I am going to talk about.. ok i am sorry, write about Schindler's list.
Not because it is relatively have a special corner in myself but because that is the one I watched more recently

Schindler's list:

I am huge fan of Steven speilberg. Oh. God damn, every body is fan of him. I like him very much because of his skill in taking variety films. He could able to make such wonderful classics like Schindler's list at the same time, switch his mind to technically advanced movies like Jurassic park, minority report.

i would compare him with Mani ratnam here because of the same reason for the ability to take films based on variety of stories.

Few days my friend Narendran while writing a recommendation for a movie made a comment saying that his movie is not of fantasy type like speilberg's. That time though I know these words are direct quick judgements of lack of awareness, I would like to just ignore it.

That time though i know Schindler's list is a master piece of steven, I dont want to make troubled conversation.

Ok let us get in to schindler's list. I am not going to tell the story , rather few scenes which stand of epitome of a good film , screenplay, cinematography.

1. The first scene starts with a prayer of a Jew family. The soot from the candle just goes up and got morphed in to the soot of a train.

this is one of the best technique and a mostly used favourable shots used by lot of people and lot of eminent directors use this. this is first done by Kiyoshi Kurosawa

2. Then the hero of the film, schindler is an apt selection for the character.. through out the movie he has portrayed the real schindler in a shrewd, stern look but at the same time keen in doing business but not at the cost of people's lives.

As the plot happens during second world war, we cannot expect a real super hero who throw away all villians and save the whole village or world. but schindler is good and does things as practical and possible with in his boundaries.

3. An wonderful scene in which a chicken was killed and the Amon goeth wasking (was +asking) a group of people who has killed the chicken
since nobody opens the mouth, he shot a guy in random. On seeing this cruelty, a boy came forward a step with his head facing ground..

Goeth went to him and asked him whether he has killed the chicken was, the boy nods his said in rejection. then goeth asks then he might be knowing who has killed it..
the boy said the points his finger to the recently shot dead guy..

this scene makes viewers to just jump out with joy. Viewers are confused whether to praise the intelligence of the boy or the intelligence of the director.
Nazi army to kill jews, let me put it over here.

People are made nude, their one leg is tied with a ring, and pushed in to room where there are lot of showers. Thru this showers, poured poisonous gas. when the people are dead, they burn them, and count the number of rings to make account

So the women's train has been redirected to such a camp by mistake. The women like procedural protocal pushed in to the room. You can observe the pathetic situation of the women...

Soon when the women were scared of showers like the viewers of the movie, there comes water instead of gas.. we cry along with women..

4. In another set of cruelties, a bunch of close to 5000 people are captured and burned together in a single place. The soot of such flames raise to the skies and fall in to the city like rain.
-ash-rain.

ever wonder , ever imagine, the kind of atrocity happened at the time. These things had not happened some centuries back.. it just happened some just 50 years ago.

On seeing this , I believe human beings came to this earth some 2 crore years before. but civilization , and a killing of man by another man is still considred as an art of expressing courage and power.

5. Next scene i Liked most was climax where Schindler feels that he could have done more by trading money and brought some more people.. Such an wonderful acting by the person who acted in the rol of schindler (forgot his name, sorry)

6. Another notable role is the role of Ben kingley, the accountant to schindler.
I could not think of any other movie or character which played such an awesome supporting role.

7. After the movie I felt, may be this is reason why there is always a problem in Israel and Palstein.

After a serious atrocities, where the entire world just watched (till hitler touches their own country), the jews want to protect themselves. They cannot think of any other situation like that.
they have suffered enough for centuries

Thanks to speilberg for making such an excellent movie.

I wish some one from the eastern side should have enough money and courage to capture the real atrocities happening in Tibet, Srilanka and egypt

Not to get an award, atleast to show the world that still the homo sapiens group is not matured even after 2 crore years.

lemme write..something

For a long time, I have not been bitten by orkut, face book, blogs, twitters.

I am aware of it but nothing I did not fall in love with that..

even today there is not a big improvement. But still at times I feel to write something ...

I did not follow those mainly because I am not quiet interested in 'talking' to computers.

I love to 'listen' to people. I always want to be part of active listener.

Most of the times, for most of the issues, I dont have a say. So I just listen as sincerely as possible.

I dont have a say because I am too critical.

I want to qualify before I say. So most of the times, i dont qualify which in turn i dont have a say...

so today i was in some mood to give some colors to my blog.

see.. even here i am boring..Getting bored is the worst thing.. making others bore is doing hell to others..

meet u later..