Fire

It was an innocuous Thursday evening. Schools and colleges were closed for Christmas vacations, people in corporate jobs were on their year- end leave. A nice time to have a quiet celebration. 

Parel in Mumbai was once upon a time a hub of flourishing activity with quite a few textile mills situated there. However the textile mill strikein the 1980s  ensured that most of the mills never opened. Slowly the mills were sold and Corporate Offices and Shopping Malls started coming up in these mill compounds. Lower Parel regained its status as a hub of economic activity in Mumbai. Most Television Studios are located here. Quite a few Corporates have their head office here. It is but natural that the locality also morphs into a party hub. After all people working more than ten hours a day need to let their hair down. A whole lot of fine dining restaurant and bars have mushroomed in the area. Being centrally located, it ensures a decent footfall.

Communist ideology which once flourished in these mills has given way to crass capitalism.

However 28^th December wasn’t another Thursday. A few minutes past the hour when the dates change, there was a spark. Suddenly one of the restaurants caught fire, and spread. Fourteen innocent lives were lost, mostly women.

The standard blame game has started. Corrupt municipal officials, politicians, fire department the promoters of the restaurant have been blamed. Some people will be arrested, some will be suspended and after a few days everything will be forgotten.

I personally think it is we as a society who is to blame. When I say we, it means you and me. We patronize corruption, right from childhood. On a daily basis I see a lot of people driving on the wrong side of the road. These are educated people and the vehicle ranges from a motorbike to auto to even a car. The perpetrators of the offence (in their minds it does not qualify as one) range from teenagers, middle-aged women, to even senior citizens. We have scant respect for the rules. Many times I have stopped people and admonished them, only to get varied reactions. Some are sheepish and apologise, but a majority respond arrogantly with “Mind your own Business.”If a father takes his child on a bike on the wrong side of the road, the child never realises that it is wrong. Now if this person meets with an accident, we will always blame the bigger car, and the police for not doing its duty. We sympathise with the aggrieved person even if he / she is wrong

Similarly I see people littering on the road, when dustbins are nearby. I have seen people who are in senior positions in corporates, throw the soft drink can out of the running car, throw the toll receipt at the toll station itself. In spite of strict enforcement on drunken driving, we still have people who drink and drive. Those who refrain from driving after a drink only do so out of fear and not out of concern for fellow drivers or passers by.

I have seen people disappear during fire drills in corporate offices. It is considered a colossal waste of time. I have rarely seen a fire alarm taken seriously. People don’t even stir when the alarm rings. I wonder whether they even recognise the sound of the fire alarm.

You will ask, how is all of  this connected to the fire. It is part of a larger malaise. We simply don’t follow rules. We take pride in boasting about how we have bent the rules. How can children who have grown up seeing their parents break the rules, be expected to follow the rules.

Tomorrow when our children grow up and are setting up an office or a restaurant and the department throws them the rule book, they will throw it back with a wad of notes. Because rules are meant to be... bent, broken, twisted – but not followed.

Today as we get into the new year, let us take a pledge – to follow the rules, not bribe officials, pay our taxes, not litter on the roads, stop jumping red lights even when no one is watching. Let us take the pledge to be a model citizen... so that we leave this country as a better place for our children. Let us stoke the fire of compliance within ourselves. We need to make the beginning ourselves. Charity after all begins at home.

Match Referee

Game. The word represents a contest. Two teams playing against each other or two individuals matching wits and skills. However, there is one game which you actually play against yourself – golf. It is an ultimate test of concentration and trying to focus on your abilities and routine and get a better score than the last time you played the same.

When you play the game on a weekend, you are not offered solitude. The club pairs you with different people. One such pairing, found me playing with a lady who was had represented India in cricket. For someone whose long cherished dream was to play cricket in whites at Shivaji Park, one of the nurseries of Indian cricket, it was a dream come true. What more can a cricket fan; no a fanatic want than to spend four hours in the company of someone who has played cricket at the highest level? Of course at the age of 45, the fanaticism has been converted into admiration and I began picking her brains. About the sport, the concentration levels, fitness, staying motivated and the love for the game.

It turns out that the lady in question is also a Match Referee. Now that is interesting. For me a match referee was someone who has a very cosy and dream job. Wear a tie and suit, go out for the toss, get paid to watch a match and then hand out a few fines.

As a child, we were told that the grass is always greener on the other side. I understood the meaning of this statement, when the lady explained to me her duties.

She is a match referee for domestic games in India. Her job begins a few days before the match. It starts with inspecting the arrangements for the players, in terms of accommodation, food, travel etc. No, as a match referee, she is not responsible for the same, but is responsible to report on the appropriateness of the same. She then has to inspect the ground conditions and also the equipment like rollers, super sopper, scoreboard, sight screen etc. After all the Board has paid for the equipment and she has to report whether the same is in order and fit to use.

She then has to inspect the cameras, whether they are placed properly as per standards. She also had to interact with the cameramen, to check facilities and arrangements for them. We take a lot of things for granted when we watch the matches on TV, but an incorrect placement of the camera by even a few degrees can impact the outcome of a match. She has also to check about the availability of a doctor at the ground and whether an ambulance is present at the ground.

Once she is convinced that everything is in order, she has to convene a captains’ meeting. She has to explain the basic behaviour and the code of conduct. She conveys to the captain cases where a certain player cannot bowl, as they have been reported for suspect actions. She also conveys the disciplinary history of players coming into the match and the impact a violation of the code can have on the team, or the player concerned. She has to handle super sized egos. The bigger the player, the bigger the ego. She also mentioned that she has to play the dual role of the third umpire.

At the end of the game, she has to prepare an umpire’s report, which is a very critical part of the job. This reports the decisions they made on the field, the quality of decisions, errors if any, how they handled player pressure, enforced discipline, ensured speed of play etc. Over and above they also have to report on the facilities, the equipment, the conduct of the match as well as handing out disciplinary actions against the players if any.

On the whole it seems to be an enormous job. She says, that in India the system is more difficult, as the match referees also have to double up and play the role of the third umpire and adjudicate on decisions referred by the on-field umpire.

So it is a tough job, where the match referee cum third umpire has to concentrate on every ball, at the same time, focus on the conduct on the ground. The match referee for international matches has an easier role, as there is a separate third umpire.

I was told that India has only one match referee for international matches. One of the reasons is that to be an international match referee, one needs to have played international cricket. Apparently most of the male match referees in the domestic circuit don’t have international experience. Hence they are not on the international panel. But the lady match referees in India have played international cricket. They can qualify as international match referees.

Very recently, Claire Polsak of Australia became the first woman to umpire in an Australian men’s top level fixture. Another glass ceiling broken. As a follow up of that, why can’t women be nominated as match referees in international cricket?  They have inbuilt softer skills to handle delicate situations better.

Since the 1983 Cricket World Cup, the BCCI has had a great impact on international cricket administration. With the amount of cricket being played today, there is going to be a huge pressure on the existing pool. It is time to expand the pool.

The BCCI should moot the idea of Women match referees in international cricket and begin by referring some of its own woman match referees on the international panel. Time to break another glass ceiling. 

Snakes and Ladders

Sunday afternoon, was a day when I had nothing to do. The house was a mess as it was getting painted, hence the favourite pastime of watching Sooryavansham on SET Max (if not anything else) was not available. And freshly painted walls of whichever colour aren’t exactly interesting.

My six year old decided not to sleep and hence I ended up playing Snakes and Ladders with him. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience. It is divine to play with a child. It completely de–stressed me. The pain of the monster at office, the worry of making ends meet at the end of the month, the stress of my growing paunch, receding hairline, greying hair, concern about where my son will study fifteen years from now, anxiety about whether I will have enough money to fund his education, his marriage and my retirement, the fear of ill health striking any member of the family, everything vanished for those fifteen minutes.

The hunger to get a six to start off, getting an accurate number to get the ladder, avoiding the snake, the joy at getting the ladder, the disappointment at getting a snake and the joy at finishing first were infectious. It brought back the child in me and I was extremely happy.  I should do this more often, I thought. After the game, as I was putting my son to sleep, I pondered over the game. And what it taught me.

First of all, it is a brilliant game. One rarely finishes the game, without encountering a snake and falling down. To me playing this game with the child, teaches him / her how to deal with failure. As a matter of fact, it might be interesting to observe the child’s reaction to a snake. In today’s competitive world, where success is measured by marks and the rank in class, we prepare children for success. But we don’t prepare them for failure. They need to be taught to be resilient to failure or to play on after stepping on a snake.

The first time your child gets a snake, they will be unhappy, because it will push them behind in the game. I know of parents, who will cheat and ask the kid to throw the dice again, so that he / she does not encounter the snake. Some will deliberately miscount and ensure that the kid ends up either before or after the snake. This is a huge disservice we do to the child. We have to teach the kid the rules of the game, to play by the rules even if the outcome is not in their favour. As a parent we have to ignore the child’s tantrum and cajole him / her into playing till the game is over. Most importantly we should not allow the child to quit because he / she is losing.

If anybody remembers the game, there is a snake at 99 which brings you down to 7. I think that snake is a great tool to teach the kid never to give up. Obviously you can’t give this gospel to the six year kid, but you need to inculcate fair behaviour, letting him / her lose sometimes and demonstrating that all is not lost even if someone is miles ahead. We are actually inculcating life skills in the kid.

The more I think of it, I marvel at the genius of the creator of the game. I am equally amazed at the similarity it has with one’s career. We get ladders of education, promotion, job changes in the early stages of the career and rise fast. We dodge snakes. Sometimes we step on some which are like bad bosses, tough projects, bad jobs which make you feel you are pushed back. Sometimes life is boring when we get ones and twos and we simply try to avoid that snake which will push us down further, and try to catch the ladder.

The faster we rise, the chance of stepping on a snake goes up. The chance of climbing a ladder is minimal.  That to me is the simple truth and a Eureka moment.

In the first ten to fifteen years of my career, I am used to scaling ladders. Post that ladders don’t exist. Am I ready for another for the next fifteen years of my career to be boring without scaling ladders? And that’s where a lot of us make decisions. Decision to quit the job, get into consulting or into entrepreneurship. Or we get bitten by a snake. Bad ratings, lay- offs.  At this age, we are no longer a child and hence have a huge ego. It is mentally demeaning to accept this fall.  Whether we stay in the game or leave it depends on how we react to such snake bites.

This game has taught me three lessons:

1.      There are quite a few ladders available at the beginning of the game

2.       The higher I go, the chances of stepping on a snake are high.

3.       Closer to the top, there are no ladders. It is a tough grind

Next time I encounter a snake, I hope I have the childlike tenacity to roll the dice... and look at the ladders available. Again to go up, dodge the snake and reach my destination.

My parents had safe jobs. They played Ludo. Today we are playing Snakes and Ladders.

Technology and Roller Coasters

I am sixteen. Sweet sixteen. But my wife says I am getting old. I just completed the sixteenth anniversary of my 30^th birthday last week. They say a person is as old as he or she feels. I dont think I am a day over thirty.

All women start developing a new strand of DNA when they get married. And this DNA is so firmly entrenched it is not funny. It is the DNA of showing the mirror to the husband. While she continues to rib me about being old, I consider myself young.

When she points to my being out of shape, I say round is a shape. She can outrun me, outwit me and outsmart me. But I point all of that to genes and not to age. What do I do if she has a manufacturing defect and is better than me in all these areas? After all I am human.

The one area where she is right pertains to roller coasters. While life is a roller coaster, I can’t sit on one. I am afraid. I don’t know of what, but I refuse to sit on one. She then proceeds to turn the screws by saying,  that a big sign of old age, is that I am slow to adapt to new technologies.

There are four kinds of people in this world. There are people who are technologically savvy, technologically friendly, technology agnostic and technologically averse. I believe I am on the cusp of technologically friendly and technologically agnostic. My wife maintains that I am on the cusp of technologically agnostic and technologically averse. It  is time for me to accept reality as mirrors don’t lie.

When I board a roller coaster, I lose control, especially of my life and safety. My survival depends on the safety equipment, and how my intestines react to the ups and down. I get the same feeling with technology. It is moving at a very rapid pace from being helpful to being intrusive Every website I visit, I end up leaving a footprint and I am not comfortable with that.

Last week I wanted to see how the White House looks. So I entered what I thought was the website of the White House. I was shocked at what I saw. It was a porn site. Just imagine, if I had accessed it from my workplace. I would have lost my job for inadvertently stumbling into objectionable content.

I love innovation. I love the comfort it gives me. But it makes me lazy. Makes me a parasite. Once upon a time, I used to remember the telephone numbers of my friends and relatives. Today, I dont know a single number. For survival reasons, I have to state that I remember my wife’s telephone number. But I dread the day, when l leave the cell phone at home. I am completely handicapped.

Last week the latest version of an iconic phone was launched. There were a host of jokes around how one needs to sell a kidney to buy one. The phone came with face recognition features. Apparently it would unlock only if it recognised the face of its user. There were another set of jokes about how women would be unable to open the same without applying makeup. There is an old saying “Jiska Bandar usise naache?” I am more worried about disasters. What if one is caught in one, and the onlookers who want to help and can’t unlock the phone to identify the person?

As mentioned above, I leave an indelible footprint every time I visit the world wide web. If I search for a flight ticket for Chennai, immediately my screen is flooded with hotel options for Chennai. Artificial intelligence is getting intrusive. I hear that companies are hiring psychologists to view facebook photos and fathom the mood of the person, so that an appropriate product advertisement can be pushed. A day will come when I may start getting sucked into the whirlpool of the internet and the internet will start guiding my thinking.

This is exactly happening with the Blue Whale game. Players are getting sucked in resulting in disastrous consequences. I know of exactly fine people who want to try out the game for ‘kicks’. We are at the cusp where technology will slowly take over our brain, and we will not even realise it. Daily we are getting sucked into it.

I use technology, love it but don’t want it to take over my brain.  I love the highs of technology. But am hugely scared of the lows.

That is why I stay away from roller coasters – real as well as virtual. I am not getting old, I am getting wiser. That is what I would like to believe. But mirrors and birthdays don’t lie

Casting the first stone

8^th November 2016. I was in a restaurant in Hyderabad sitting with a bunch of fresh Chartered Accountants.  It was a few minutes past 8 p.m. We were waiting for the juicy succulent kebabs to come in, when suddenly mobile phones started buzzing.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced Demonetisation,. All currency notes of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 were now invalid. Processes for exchanging the hard earned money were announced.  The next hour in the restaurant was an animated conversation. On one side there were people who extolled the virtues of this move, on the other was another bunch who criticised the move completely. 

All of us converted into armchair critics in a few minutes. It did not matter whether you understood the move, criticising and having an opinion were extremely important.The entire nation got converted into a bunch of instant economists and critics, each having acquired their expertise instantaneously. The nation got divided along political lines. and the political tamasha had begun.

Over the next few days, the media fed us with visuals of people suffering and dying while standing in queues. On the other side, there were visuals of police having found money flowing in rivers, in garbage dumps etc. Experience has told me that both sets of reporting can either be factually true or manipulated.

Over the next few months, everybody who has an opinion and more were discussing the benefits or otherwise of demonetization. It was predicted to be Prime Minister Modi’s waterloo. But the forth coming election results surprised everybody. The BJP made a clean sweep of most elections. The opposition could not believe it. They now started contesting the validity of the Electronic Voting Machines.

Anyways 10 months later RBI has finally released data. More than 99% of the invalidated currency notes have come back into the system. Most economists and armchair critics are out to fry the Government for what it calls as an unsuccessful experiment or a colossal failure.

And the Government on its part is trying to give a different spin to the episode, by insisting that the success of the Demonetisation move has to be measured differently.

As for as I am concerned, demonetisation is a thing of the past. Today by looking at the number of notes returned, we are only conducting a post mortem. The organ has been removed. Was it cancerous? Or was the surgery unnecessary?  This post facto analysis tells us whether the Prime Minister was right or wrong.

I wish the prime minister had the benefit of clairvoyance at the time of taking the decision. Or there was a crystal ball which he could have looked into and decided about taking this decision,.

Let us look at the decision making process. First, is there or was there black money in the domestic market? The answer is yes. Anyone who denies the same, is either blind or naive or motivated. Would part of it be held in currency of a higher denomination? Would these people holding this black money have difficulty in converting money into cash? The answer to both the questions is yes. With this evidence, was demonetisation a correct decision? Maybe. 

Now let us look at what foiled the plans.One there were a host of accountants indulging in a colour change operation. Secondly, there are stories of corrupt bankers, who helped these people exchange their old notes into new notes for a commission. These were the two factors which ensured that most of the notes came back into the fold. Wonder whether the Prime Minister had bargained for  the ‘support’ of these so called professionals who made a fast buck themselves in this process.

On 1^st July, 2017, addressing a bunch of Chartered Accountants, he chastised them for these activities. I don't think the Prime Minister has failed. If we look deep, we as a  society have failed.

I remember a story where a liar was going to be lynched. Along came a wise man and said, “Let the first person to  throw the stone be someone who hasn’t lied ever.” No one came forward. Similarly, for those who are expert at throwing stones at failure, let me say, “Let the first stone be cast by someone who has taken a risk and never failed.”

Grip of the Patriarch

Once upon a time Hindi movies came with a social message. It was about good winning over the evil. There was a moral to the story. The protagonist would be allowed to stray, but would suffer and would always come back to the righteous path. Since 1990s plots have changed. Most of them are now shades of grey.

However things seem to be changing. ‘Toilet – A Prem Katha’ is a movie with a strong social message. I am sure it will do a lot for the Swach Bharat Mission. Movies have a magnifying impact on society. While the movie emphasises the importance of building toilets for women, the protagonist is unable to build a toilet in his house or village due to objections from the village head and his father.

Indian culture lays an emphasis on respect for elders. I have seen families where the father figure’s writ runs large. Nobody dares protest or speak anything against him. Let us call him the controller. Deviations from his script are practised in private outside the house, only to have a mask of compliance and respect in front of him.

The controller does all this for the good of the family. He is the one who has raised the family through tough times. The children were young and the family was struggling for two square meals. The controller worked hard, put in long hours, skipped meals only to ensure a strong future for the family. And today when the family is strong and independent, he does not want to let go. He wants the next generation to carry on his legacy, not on their ideas, but as per his wishes. He still continues to wield an iron fist. Any attempts to break free are chastised.

Most of the times, the progenies of the patriarch are weak. They can’t, don’t want to take or are not allowed to take independent decisions. Initial attempts at breaking free are snubbed and chastised. The patriarch takes pride in ensuring his writ runs large across the family. The patriarch’s decisions are not to be questioned. The problem with these families, is that it becomes very difficult for the patriarch to walk into the sunset. The progenies aren’t strong enough to handle crises and the patriarch is always relied on for advice. When the patriarch is no longer available, the families struggle to thrive.

The behaviour of the patriarch is part ego, part concern, part resilience to change. And in this environment, the younger generation feels suffocated. Outsiders who get married into the family feel the suffocation even more. They come from a different environment, a different culture, sometimes even an open culture. They are raised as independent individuals in an environment where creativity is encouraged, issues are debated and people are allowed to make mistakes and learn from them. These outsiders find it very difficult to adjust within the family. They either rebel against the patriarch or leave the family. They are then accused of splitting or driving a wedge within the family.

What then is the solution? The patriarch needs to start loosening his grip. The patriarch needs to decide which battles to fight. The smaller battles need to be left to the progenies to fight. Failure needs to be tolerated. It is not about being victorious all the time. Discuss the repercussions of various decisions and leave the progenies to make mistakes. Let the progenies learn from their mistakes.

In case of a failure, criticism should not be “I told you so.” It should be, “How can we now retrieve the situation or minimise the damage?” The next generation should be hand held into succession and the reins should be handed over. The handover process should be initiated well before retirement and the transition has to be smooth and lengthy. Most importantly standards of success need to be altered. 

One cannot expect perfection all the time.

Most of the times, the routes may be different. There are multiple ways to success and the patriarch has to realise the same. Different routes need to be tried out, to identify what will work and what will not. There has to be a tolerance for different thoughts, failure and different measures of success.

At some point of time, even though the patriarch has a stake in the family, he needs to disengage from the proceedings  and focus his attention on something else and let go. The child has now grown up and needs to find its own feet.

Do you see similarities in your lives?  I thought I was writing about the Infosys and Tata episodes. 

Kumble-ing Lessons

Recently, Anil Kumble, one of the pillars of Indian cricket, resigned (or was forced to resign?) from the position of coach of the Indian Cricket Team. The team had a very good run under his leadership. The resignation, was due to reports in the media, that there was a rift between the Captain of the cricket team, Virat Kohli and Anil Kumble. There are also reports that the players felt suffocated b y 

Kumble’s approach to practice sessions and his leadership.

The media is gaga about how it is a sad day for Indian cricket, or how Indian cricket will be at a loss due to Kumble’s departure. There are also narratives about how Virat Kohli (a superstar in his own right) is growing too big for his boots. I would like to present two perspectives here.

Firstly, India as a society is very patriarchal. Our culture talks about respecting elders, and the word of elders is final. There is no appeal, no reasoning. However, there is a difference between listening to elders and respecting elders. People can chart their own paths, deviating from elders’ advice, without disrespecting them. The narrative can be “Fine, I heard you, but I beg to differ. Let us agree to disagree.” There is no feeling of disrespect to the elders. For eg. I love my father, respect him, but don’t agree with his perspectives.

The elders have good intentions in their heart. They don’t want the juniors to make the mistakes that they have made. But what they don’t realise, is that their strength has only been obtained by learning through these mistakes. Our society frowns upon disobedience confusing it with disrespect.

This is exactly the narrative that is being played out. I don’t think Virat Kohli disrespects Anil Kumble. He may not be agreeing to his methods and hence wants someone with whom he can be more comfortable.

The other perspective is from the corporate world. Many times when two strong personalities, clash, something has to give. Let’s take this case of a very strong Leader who is extremely hands on, bright, brilliant and very talented. And then there is another person who is recruited as a second in command, let us say the Deputy, who is equally bright and equally aggressive. Something has to give. There have to be times, when one of them takes the back seat and allows the other to prevail. Leaders tend to get blinded. I am differentiating blindness from arrogance. They get blinded by their own success and confidence in their own abilities. This confidence leads them to want to have their own way, always.

Initially the Deputy soaks in everything that the Leader says. He is also in awe of the Leader and wants to learn from him. However this continues for not more than 6 months. Being bright and talented himself, the Deputy has his own mind. And slowly starts getting stifled. He believes (rightly or wrongly is not relevant here) that some decisions of the Leader may not be right. He wants to try things in a different manner. But the Deputy does not get the independence. The longer that happens, chances are that this relationship will break.

It is not who is right or who is wrong. This is a reason, a lot of children fight with their parents. The stubbornness is transferred genetically, which leads to clashes. This is exactly what happened in the Kohli –Kumble saga.

In Corporate Life, employees leave their bosses. In sport, players sack their managers. Ravi Shastri was more successful in managing the boys than Anil Kumble. Who was the better player? No doubt Anil Kumble. But maybe Shastri was the better coach.

I personally think this divorce is very good for Indian cricket. The victor is not always the villain as is being painted in this picture. 

The Trust App

Today, you have apps for everything. Apps for movie tickets, fitness, flight tickets, banks, payment, religion, spirituality etc. Name the service and you have an app. Kar lo duniya apni mutthi me..is actually a reality. I am waiting for the day, when I click something on a phone and it goes and burns my bulging fat.

The other day, I met someone who came to me with a tech solution. She runs multiple training centres and uses technology to keep tab on the trainers, the quality of teaching etc. She has an army of trainers conducting training sessions simultaneously across multiple locations. She has a tracker which tracks where every trainer is and whether he / she is going to reach in time for the session.

The need for this feature, is based on the inherent premise that normal trainer behavior is to be late. But why would a trainer be deliberately late? His / Her bread and butter depends on the training, so they will always try to be on time.

I wonder if I am one of her trainers, and 10 minutes before the start of the session, she comes to know I am not going to reach in time. Say there is a traffic jam, or the local train electricity grid snaps, or I have an accident, or I have just started late. What can she do? Sitting some hundred miles away, can she fire a command and have a jet or drone, or time machine sent to me, which will lift me from my current place and transport me to the training centre? The answer is no. The only benefit is that the app will automatically shoot an email or a message to the training co-ordinator at the location that the trainer will be late. But then this can even be done by the trainer himself or herself.

What if the trainer is a habitual late comer? Three sessions and he / she will be found out by customer complaints. You don’t need to build a sophisticated tracker. As a customer this feature is good, but like a lot of such features is just a mirage. Just simple trust in the trainer, saves me the cost of building this tracking feature. However, trust isn’t sexy, apps and technology are.

Another feature tells you how much time the trainer has spent on which slide. The whole focus is on following the process, the assumption is that if you follow the process the results will be fruitful.

Unfortunately training is different from manufacturing. In manufacturing, multiple raw materials need to be subjected to different processes in specific environments to get desired outputs. Training is more of an art. By focusing too much on the process, you will kill the art and slowly robots will take over training. Then you will find that training is not effective, and you will go back to the trainers.

Every trainer is different, brings with them their own flair, style, creativity, anecdotes. Being a trainer for 20 years, I can see into a participant’s eyes and decipher whether they have understood the subject or not. There have been instances, when I have seen into somebody’s eyes, and asked the query what they wanted to ask. This my dear friends, is the art. There are so many other trainers I know, who have superb flair and are great trainers and story tellers and are also effective. The best trainer is one who runs the session without slides.

I am personally uncomfortable with such tracking features and later being appraised by ‘analysts’ who rely on ‘data’ to tell me where I am going wrong. If you employ me, trust my abilities, else I don’t want to work with you.

Remember, freedom comes with responsibility. The sign of effective law and order is minimum policing. What the world needs today is a Trust App.

Internal Controls at a Dosa Stall

I like to begin my day early on Mondays, for primarily two reasons. I beat the traffic and get a decent parking space and I also like to get a head start to the week. The result is that most Mondays I end up not carrying my lunch and end up eating outside.

One such Monday, a friend working nearby convinced me to join her for lunch at a roadside dosa vendor. I had a look at the menu card and was flabbergasted. There were thirty five types of dosas on the menu card. I am sure, that even Udipi restaurants don’t have more than 10 to 15 varieties. One name on the menu intrigued me – it said Gini dosa. I was wondering what it was and mentioned it to my friend, who recommended it very highly.

The place was crowded. There were at least 20 people waiting for their orders. There were only two people manning the stall. One was taking orders, serving people and taking money, the other was preparing dosas on three hot plates simultaneously. The person taking orders was a genius. The piece of computer six inches between the ears, would memorise every order in sequence and remember who placed it. There was no advance payment of money, people would finish their food and pay the money.  The biggest challenge was when a group of 5 or more youngsters came it and placed the orders. They would change the orders thrice in a span of 45 seconds, and this guy would always get the order right. When it came to collecting money, he would do the calculation in his brain and had no time for a calculator. And if anybody disputed the amount, he would verbally roll out his calculation and he would be right.

The person preparing the dosas was simultaneously working on three dosas, knowing exactly what ingredients to put in which dosa, and the order in which it was to be prepared so that no customer was made to wait for a long time.

I was amazed at their capabilities and processing speeds and retention power. A stray thought entered my mind, how would these people function in corporate? After all they were competent, had a great processing speed, great calculations and a great memory.  I mentioned this to my friend, and she had an interesting reply. She said, you will destroy their skills by corporatizing them. The reason these guys are good, is they are constantly using their brain, which is getting sharpened every minute. While I agreed with what she said, I was slightly insulted by her answer. Not wanting to accept her argument, I asked her, “Do you mean to say we in Corporate don’t use our brain every minute?” She smiled and said “I didn’t say that.” 

While we were waiting for a dosa, she asked me whether the dosa maker lacked internal controls and what could be the risks for the business. I said, yes, it lacked internal controls big time. I mean, the guy could take wrong orders, he could miscalculate the bill and importantly customers could go away without paying, resulting in substantial loss of revenue.

“So what is the purpose of internal controls?”, she asked. I said “prevention of fraud, accuracy of data, correct repoting.” I had left accountancy practice 20 years ago, but not forgotten the basics. She once again smiled. Now her smiles were starting to get on my nerves. Are you saying, I am wrong?

“Which of these two guys is going to create a fraud, what data are they reporting and to whom? Do you realize that lack of internal controls also indicates presence of trust.” And then suddenly it hit me. Internal control systems are designed mostly by accountants. Their basic motto is “Trust but verify.” As a matter of fact, they want documentation and documentary evidence for everything. Their basic functioning is based on ‘mistrust’.

My friend then made a suggestion. Lets come back again at 4 and speak to this fellow about his lack of internal controls. Instinct told me, I was going to learn something.

At 4 pm, both of us returned. She was a regular customer and hence knew the dosa vendor. She started, “How many times do you prepare incorrect orders?”

“Rarely. Maybe 5 wrong dosas in a day if it is a bad day”

“And how many dosas do you make in a day?

“Close to 1000”

I was impressed. An error rate of around 0.5% on a bad day, is setting very high quality standards

“Does it happen that people go away without paying the bill? Are you not worried of that? “

“Saab.. nobody in this world steals food.”

My jaw dropped… what was he saying?

“Sometimes people forget to pay in a hurry, but they come back the next day and pay. A poor guy who is hungry will beg, ask for food and not steal it. There is only one category of persons who steals food and that is college kids who are out for a cheap thrill. We get one such bunch, once in a month, and we allow them this thrill. They are not thieves, they just want to beat the system.”

I got one of the greatest insights of my life with the answer

In the evening, driving back home, a thought struck me, “His business revolved around trust, while internal controls revolve on mistrust. I looked at the people around me and realized that most of the people at junior levels are honest. Is it time to dismantle internal controls? Maybe it is time to hand them over to a non-accountant, who will design them from a perspective of trust.

Managing Fast Growth

This is the story of two friends, Amit and Vaidehi. Both are friends, work in a technology company, and are at crossroads in their career. Amit is in his mid 40s while Vaidehi is in her early 30s. Both are bright, brilliant and achievers in their respective careers.

8 years ago, Vaidehi was graduating from B-School and was eagerly waiting for the campus placement process to begin. A reputed technology company was scheduled to visit on Day Zero, and Amit was part of the recruitment team. That is the first time when both faced each other. After a grueling interview, Vaidehi got selected and joined the company.

Vaidehi was bright and brilliant and in due course of work was also a super achiever. At the end of the first year of her career, Vaidehi stood apart from the rest of her batch and was a hot candidate for promotion. Amit was part of the committee which voted on promotions. Vaidehi’s candidature was solid and there were no grounds to deny her the same.

Amit was very fond of Vaidehi. He had personally selected her from campus and through the rest of the year, continued to groom her. He had a habit of keeping a tab on candidates having a bright potential. The information that he had gathered on Vaidehi in the last one year impressed him. He silently patted himself on the back for having unearthed a raw diamond.

However sitting on the committee for promotions, Amit was worried and not convinced about Vaidehi’s candidature. He had absolutely no doubt about her promotion, or whether she deserved it. 

His only concern was whether success was coming too fast for her. He wanted to test how she would deal with the dejection of not getting a promotion. Amit argued vehemently opposing Vaidehi’s promotion, but was outvoted. The management said, that if they did not promote Vaidehi, she would leave and the organization would lose a top talent. Fear was an integral part of the promotion decision.

Amit came out of the meeting with mixed feelings. While on one hand he was happy about his protégé’s success, he was concerned whether she had the maturity to handle success.

Over the years Vaidehi's career grew from strength to strength. However the profile of her work changed. While she had started her career as an individual contributor, with a couple of promotions, she had moved to managing a team. As she got promoted from an analyst to an associate and later to a Vice President in a short span of 8 years, she had moved from actually doing work to managing teams and stakeholders. A typical day would begin with a few meetings, followed by few more meetings, followed by conference calls with international stakeholders, followed by a few more review meetings with her team.

On the other hand, Amit being fairly senior, had become an expert at playing the meeting game. One day he wondered, whether he was doing any work himself or just conducting meetings. Meetings for leading cross functional projects, meetings for review with clients, internal strategy meetings, review meetings with teams. He convinced himself that he was a leader and his leadership skills were his USP.

But today, 8 years later, both found themselves at crossroads. Being highly successful, they were very well paid. This also ensured that they were ‘high cost’ resources. While they were proud of their success and where they had reached in their life, they did not realize that fast growth was a curse in 

itself.

Just yesterday, the company had announced that due to shrinking business and rising costs, the firm was offering a Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) to AVPs, VP and Directors. Suddenly the rug of comfort was being pulled from under their feet.

This announcement had thrown the cat among the pigeons. Everyone who was in these ranks were wondering whether they would be on the ‘hit’ list. Amit was more or less convinced that he was. Vaidehi was not sure, and felt that she would ride out the storm.

Amit was now wondering, whether at the age of 45, having the brand of being a VRS beneficiary, in short a sophisticated name of being sacked, he would get a job. He wondered, how he would pay his EMIs. The total EMIs came to more than 1 lakh rupees a month, which consisted instalments for housing loan, a brand new IPhone he had purchased for his wife, and the new BMW which he had bought 24 months ago. He was also wondering, how he would break the news to his family and whether they would adjust to the reduced standard of living.

Vaidehi, had a different concern. Being single, she had splurged most of her income on partying, shopping and vacations, and hadn’t saved much. She wondered about the longevity of her working life. She felt that she had a high probability of surviving this round, but wondered whether there would be another round of VRS five years later and whether she would survive the same.

What was Amit and Vaidehi’s mistake? Over the years, both had developed strong leadership skills. There would be so many people with experience having leadership skills competing for senior management jobs which are anyway in short supply. Organisations are like pyramids. There is very little room at the top and the danger of falling off is very real.

I am sure there are many Amits and Vaidehis around at the workplace. How do they avert this danger? One of the ways is to develop strong functional skills. As we grow in an organization, we lose touch with ground level functional skills and develop leadership skills. While leadership skills are good, they are really not differentiators. Leadership skills coupled with strong functional knowledge is going to stand you in good stead and will elongate your career.

Measure your success, not only by your promotions and money, but also by what domain skills you are sharpening. If you are not sharpening any domain skills, you are living in a bubble which will eventually burst.

Remember, Sachin Tendulkar was not a great leader – as a matter of fact he realized very early that captaincy was not for him. His longevity was a function of his domain skills. To survive in the team, your leadership skills need to be backed by strong functional skills.

(The above is a fictional piece written in response to an IT Majors announcement of VRS for its AVPs, VPs and Directors. Any relation to any person is purely conincidental)

Best of Luck Mr. Bhatti

Today I met a real victim of Demonetisation. Let us call him Mr. Bhatti. Riding in a taxi in Delhi, a small piece of conversation with Mr. Bhatti made me realize that he is not a stereotypical taxi driver. Something in the first few words made me shift from the back to the front seat and engage Mr. Bhatti in a conversation.

Mr. Bhatti, it seems was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. His dad had a factory in 1979 which supplied AC to DC (Or is it the other way around?) switches to a television company.  Mr. Bhatti enjoyed his childhood and his father owned a hotel in Manali where they would spend their vacations. There was never a need for education for Mr. Bhatti. After Class 12, Mr. Bhatti’s father opened another factory for him. Life was excellent and the Bhatti’s were rolling in money.

But then televisions moved from black and white to colour. Technological advances made the Bhatti’s factory redundant. They had to sell everything to pay off their dues and start back from scratch.

But our friend Mr. Bhatti was made of sterner stuff. He borrowed a small amount and set up an office of a real estate agent. He started with thousands, made lakhs and turned them into crores. He converted himself to a builder and started implementing real estate projects in the NCR region. Life was again back to normal… or so it seemed.

2008 brought a global crisis and a slowdown in the housing market. Mr. Bhatti lost money and was cheated by his partners. He lost everything. Another riches to rags event – another setback

He then started working with a real estate developer. Someone who was once the owner was now an employee. Salaried people will never ever understand this transition. I am amazed at Mr. Bhatti’s resilience. He started cutting down on his expenses. Someone who spent in lakhs per month, was now working at a salary of Rs. 55,000 per month. Try doing that my friends. Try explaining to your wife and children that the outings, shopping, toys, movies, dinners or any other spending which was once normal is now to be curtailed.

Then comes November 2016. It is an open secret that demonetization has hit the real estate sector extremely hard. Mr. Bhatti lost his job, as the real estate company he was working for downsized their costs and in turn their employees

Today  Mr. Bhatti drives a taxi. Some one who  once owned 5 cars, drives a rental taxi. He earns upto Rs. 25,000 per month. He now has to downsize his expenses by more than half. I shudder to think how he is dealing with a 12 year kid’s aspirations. Mr. Bhatti is unhappy with the hand that fate has dealt him. But he is not completely bitter about it. He goes about his work hoping for a better tomorrow.

What Mr. Bhatti is unhappy about is this. His friends who did all kinds of unscrupulous things thrive today, while somebody like him, who hasn’t had any wrongdoings (as he says) is suffering. His aunt is a sanyasi. She says this is the result of the karma of his previous life. He says he is not bothered about previous life or future life. He is bothered about his aspirations, his family his current life. My heart goes out to Mr. Bhatti. That 45 minute ride taught me quite a few lessons.

The first setback in the Bhatti’s life was the development of technology, which took away their living. Is this a sign of things to come? While one may be pardoned for not being so forward looking way back in the 1980s, the situation is different today. The pace of development of technology is rapid and the day is not too far away, when quite a few of our jobs will be taken away by technology. If today we do not anticipate the change, and live in our cocoons and comfort zones, we are idiots.

Secondly, let us not undermine the value of education and upgrading our skills. The one regret Mr. Bhatti has, is that he does not have a qualification. But with a silver spoon in his mouth and factory under his belt, he didn’t need it; or so he thought. Today thinking like this is committing suicide. The quality of education is a different matter, but education is an entry barrier.

I would like to end this by paying a tribute to Mr. Bhatti’s resilience. If growing up in poverty is tough, a riches to rags story is tougher. The mental make up and adjustment required to bear the humiliation from family members, questions from children, accepting and living through failure is not at all easy.

Salute to you Mr. Bhatti. Some day our paths shall cross and I hope you will see better days and we shall have a drink together. Best of luck for a better future.

Sikka Bolta Hain

As a child my grandmother used to tell me fairy tales. These tales were etched in memory and as we grew up we started narrating those same tales to our children. We grew up believing a lot of these stories and treating them as gospel. As we matured, we realized that they are not true, but are an effective way of keeping children engaged and scaring them, so that they behave or eat their food. It was a convenient way of bringing discipline.

As I began my career, I was told that the most important thing is the quality of work you do. Money can come later. So early in my career, I grew up working for a pittance gaining valuable experience. After doing a good job for a few years, I got promoted. My designation got better but the pay hike just about defeated the interest rate on fixed deposits by a whisker. A few years later, when I had done well and it seemed apparent that I would definitely get promoted, I again missed out. Once again my pay hike competed fiercely with the interest rate on fixed deposits. I don’t remember who won.

After waiting for an eternity, I finally decided to change my job. I was under pressure from my family to buy a new house, get married, settle down. Some recruiter tracked me down, offered me a position in a good company, with a decent salary hike. It was decent by my standards, but astronomical by the increment standards set by my own company. I went with my resignation letter to my manager. He was angry, disappointed and made me feel ashamed that I am changing jobs only for money. I felt as if I was stealing some national treasure and nearly took back my resignation.

But the women in my life prevailed. My mom was very clear, “I don’t understand your career, shareer… I only know the size of the pay cheque you get home.” My would be wife threatened to break the alliance. Finally between, two marriages, I knew which one to choose.

As I grew in the organization, I also started telling the same fairy tales to my juniors while doling out increments. I knew they were not true, but my job was to ensure that crumbs which are handed out are made to feel like cookies.

Once I took a job in Saudi Arabia, and on the day of joining the HR manager asked me, what made you take this role? Unabashedly, I said money. I mean one goes to Saudi Arabia for only two reasons – Pilgrimage or Money. I was then asked, ok other than money what interests you in the role? I wanted to say ‘nothing’ , but cooked up some story. I quickly realized that whenever I am planning to change jobs for money, I need to talk about the excitement in the new role, the challenges etc. and relegate money to just a by-product.

But last week has changed everything. Infosys founder Narayana Murthy criticized the Infosys board for hiking the COO’s salary by 60%. He called it bad governance. His contention was how would somebody who gets a 60% hike, justify the measly 6% to 10% increment for the juniors or the worker ants, the ones who collect the honey. His contention is right.

The current CEO of Infosys disagreed with Narayana Murthy’s view. He quoted numbers that the cash component had gone down, while the variable component was up – basically a lot of mumbo jumbo to confuse everyone. What is more important is that he said, that this was required to retain talent.

Really? So what does this do to the fairy tale that motivation, culture, job role, job satisfaction are more important? Ask 95% of the HR managers and they will tell you that money is not the only motivator for the employee. They will use this fairy tale to ensure pay hikes are restricted and in turn splurge money on parties, offsites  etc.  And if money is a motivator for someone who earns in crores annually, why should it not be for the juniors? The HR managers are going to have a lot of answering to do. Temptation is sin. But if someone offers me a 30% jump in my salary, I will be more than willing to give in to temptation.

One thing is now very clear. From today onwards, if I am changing a job for money, I am not going to be apologetic about it. After all as a colleague once said, “Aashirwaad se pet nahin bharta”; “Blessings do not feed a person.”

From now on, fairy tales have to be questioned. After all, Sikka bolta hain. 

Life is a Balance Sheet

This one is emotional… maybe incoherent. Yesterday I had decided to write about Taapsee Pannu. Today, I came to know of an incident which has shaken me…  I am now trying to piece both thoughts together. I hope it makes sense at the end.

Someone I know, has been accused of sexual harassment. I knew him personally more than fifteen years ago and today he is on the run. I have worked with him, gone to his house, his wife was friends with my mother and my wife and today he is hiding from the police. An FIR has been filed against him and there is a manhunt for him. The incident has shaken me. While I don’t want to make a value judgement and pronounce him guilty, I don’t even want to defend him and pronounce his innocence. Only he knows the truth.

Though I am sad for what his family has to go through, I have no sympathies for him. To me life is a game of chess. One needs to be aware of the consequence of every decision one is taking. If they are not, they are foolish. This statement from me may seem arrogant – you know what; it could even come back and bite me. But I am fine with the same.

I wondered how someone so educated can stoop to this level. And then I recollected a recent meeting with a famous author. He said that every successful man has three handles of power – Money, Position and Women. It is a surreal how quickly these words would prove itself when it comes to someone I know personally. There is a line which goes “Vinaashkaale Vipareetbuddhi”. Loosely translated, this means that when you are destined to destruct, you will have a brain fade.

Now about three film personalities. Over the last few months we have been hearing about the verbal table tennis between Kangana Ranaut and Karan Johar. And today I read that Kangana is to star in the next Dharma Productions (Karan Johar’s home production) movie. So was this a publicity stunt? I don’t know. But one thing is true. There is nepotism in the film industry and it is very difficult for someone to break in or get as many breaks as the star children get.

Which brings me to Taapsee Pannu.  While she is a successful actor down south, she made her Bollywood debut in 2013 with the remake of the movie Chashme  Baddoor, with her in the lead role. The movie sank at the box office and Taapsee’s career in Bollywood was going nowhere. Being an outsider also did not help. In 2015, she got a bit role in the Akshay Kumar starrer Baby. This character was liked so much by people that, the producers decided to make an entire movie on her character Shabana. I am sure, Taapsee would have expected the lead role in Chashme Baddoor to catapult her career. Even in her wildest of dreams, she would not have expected the eight minute role in Baby to take her career forward. In between there was a strong role in Pink, which had Amitabh Bachchan in the lead role with three unknown (?) women in the movie. This role got her critical acclaim. Gut tells me, Naam Shabana will be a hit and we shall see more of Taapsee.

What all the above events tell me clearly, is that your script is being written by someone else. They say fact is stranger than fiction, and it is absolutely true. When I look at events in my life over the last 24 months, they are nothing short of a potboiler. Unconnected events, unconnected people come together to form a future for you which you have never thought of. The way these things have come together and contributed to my career is clearly amazing.

Over the last few years, I have told people that I am fatalistic. No that doesn’t mean, I have resigned myself to fate. I still have to do all the hard work and take all the smart decisions that are required. However, the outcomes are not in my hand. I have had instances where whatsoever one does, if something is destined not to happen, it will not. At the same time, if something is scheduled to happen, it definitely will. I have seen both sides, despair and joy. I just need the strength to handle both success and failure.

Success can give you arrogance and the feeling that one can do nothing wrong. I pray that my scriptwriter gives me the power to keep my head on my shoulders, be humble, treat people rightly and with respect and not get carried away by success either of position or money. And just when you think you have the Midas touch, “Vinaashkaale Vipareetbuddhi” comes in to the picture. At the same time, I hope I have enough strength and resolve to handle failure.

Life, after all, is a Balance Sheet.

Bon Appetit

Last week we had dinner at a Chinese restaurant. It was a standalone restaurant and not one of those multi-restaurant chains that exist. I visited that place after a few years and the food quality was really good. I could remember the taste from 5 years ago. The couple who had accompanied us to this place, used to frequent the place when they were dating. The signature dishes maintained their flavour

The conversation slowly moved to other Chinese restaurants in the vicinity and the subject matter of discussion, was clearly two big chains. The first one of discussion, existed as a standalone restaurant for quite a few years and was an iconic place in the city, similar to the one which we were visiting. Then slowly it expanded, came up with an Initial Public Offer, set up restaurants across the country as well as internationally. Basically it tried to milk its brand.

Though I am no stock picker, I bought shares of this brand. Five years after investment, I have lost 50% of my money. Which brought me back to the question, was it a wrong investment? I went back to my premise for investing in the stock, and they were basically three. 

1. They had good food
2. The Brand had a strong recall 
3. Incomes in India are going to grow, and people are going to eat out more frequently

All the assumptions were valid, but where did I go wrong? The question was answered by the choice of restaurant I went to. Why did I not go to that branded Chinese restaurant? 

1. It had become expensive
2. The taste of food was no longer great

Somewhere in milking the brand and expansion, it lost focus on what it was offering - good food.

While biting my Chilli Chicken, I wondered what made the place tick. It was a simple place, with nice ambience, no extravagance. It still had a paper based menu, no app based or tab based ordering system, which is supposed to reduce turnaround times. The service was good, the waiters pampered and handled my 5 year brat. And importantly the food was good. First lesson for me – you can get all the technology you want, your product needs to be good. People come back for the product and not the technology.  At 10 p.m. when we were exiting after a good dinner, we saw a huge number of people waiting to get in. Clearly the place was doing very well. In the car we had a conversation wondering why the owner was not spreading his wings, creating new outlets and cashing in on his brand. We ended up branding him unambitous, contented and even saying he was a loser. Is that really true?

There is a lot of management and personal development speak on being ambitious, moving ahead in life, growth in both individual as well as corporate life, one thought strikes me hard, is lack of ambition bad?

In a situation, where I am doing good and happy, do I need to lose sleep by chasing a dream? And once I achieve that dream, should I chase the next dream? And when does this chase end?

Who is more successful, the well run standalone restaurant or the chain owner who runs multiple branches and now chases profits rather than ensuring food quality?

Depends how we define success. Is it measured by the brand of car, phone, watch, villa, exotic vacation? Are these societal parameters or our parameters of success? What is more important, cracking that one additional deal, or that one hour of playing cricket with your five year old in the corridor?

Should I be content, have time to pursue my hobbies, spend time with my children and family, sometimes simply laze and do nothing, watch that cricket match, play on the beach or chase that additional revenue?

At the start of my entrepreneurial journey, I was told that if I replicate the effort I put in corporate life, I will earn at least thrice the money that a corporate job gives.  But isn’t entrepreneurship also about finding time for yourself while earning money? Why should rigorous hard work be accompanied by the stress of earning money? Should my mind be focused on putting my best foot forward or worrying where the next piece of revenue come in from?

I really am confused and don’t have any answers. Maybe I have got it all wrong and hence failed as an entrepreneur.

I think it all depends on your hunger… and taste. Bon Appetit

The Cheese is Moving

11^th March 2017 will be a watershed day in Indian electoral history. The Bharatiya Janata Party has emerged as the single largest part with a 3/4^th majority in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. People haven’t been surprised by the victory, but by the margin of victory.

However there is one narrative which has played itself out and needs a mention. The BJP has secured victories in Muslim dominated areas.  From all six constituencies of riot-hit Muzaffarnagar to Deoband in Saharanpur, Bareilly, Bijnor and Moradabad where Muslims dominate the demography, the BJP swept the polls. If one takes the case of Deoband, it has a 70% Muslim population. Now there is a common ‘perception’ that Muslims vote en bloc and are strongly against the BJP.  A Deoband win was not possible without Muslims voting for the BJP.

Clearly the cheese has moved and a people are slowly moving away from voting purely on casteist and religious lines. The BJP made no excuses about being a Hindutva party, at the same time, tried to woo the other religions not from a populist agenda, but from a developmental agenda.

The opposing parties have underestimated the value of Swach Bharat, Kaushal Bharat, Electrification and other announcements of the BJP Government, even though the actual progress on the ground may be limited. The so called ‘Jumlas’ are positive as compared to the promises of the other political parties, who have focused only on belittling the Prime Minister and catering to vote banks.

Clearly Vote Banks are beginning to evaporate and people are going to vote on the caliber of the candidate or vision of party irrespective of caste. The importance of Law and Order cannot be emphasized. In the past 5 years Uttar Pradesh saw 44 riots, and the so called ‘protectors of minorities’ were in power.  .

The writing has been on the wall since 2014, when Modi launched his campaign on a Developmental agenda than a divisive one. While the entire country is waiting for “Ächche Din” and the opposition is mocking the Prime Minister, what is their narrative? The political narratives of non BJP parties have been stuck in a time warp –“We are Secular, BJP is communal, Democracy is under threat etc.” 

If you look deep they actually have no narrative. If the opposition does not reinvent itself, it will be irrelevant. The Cheese has started moving, or maybe it has even moved.

There is a lesson in this for Corporate India. The way the BJP has seen what will work in the future and moved away from the once successful ‘Ram Mandir’ agenda, companies need to think about relevance of products / jobs in the next 5 year. The way technology is progressing, one cannot predict beyond five years.

A month back Capgemini came out with a statement that 65% of the work force is not trainable. A lot of people would have dismissed this statement with a pinch of salt. And then there are a lot of people who would have believed the statement, but said, “I fall within the 35%”. Either they are right, or hiding from the truth.

In my interaction with different corporates, the hushed narrative is that IT and IT enabled services people are going to lose 25 % of jobs to automation. It is time to listen to this narrative and act on the same. And this message of mine, is not to Corporates, but Corporate employees.

A lot of them function from one appraisal cycle to another trying to ensure a good pay hike. A lot of them have got promoted and have effectively no work and appear busy. If some of my readers think the above is an instigating statement, it is right. I want to instigate you to think whether it applies to your job.

It is time for all of us to smell the coffee. How do I know, whether I am a dinosaur or going to become one? First step is to write your CV today, and your CV as it will look 6 months from now. If there is no change other than the size of your pay packet, time to pack up.

I know of a friend who started her career in one of the best banks in the world. She kept on getting offers from multiple banks, offering her a better salary (sometimes hikes as high as 70%) but the same work profile. She was clear that if she moved, she would do so only to an industry and work profile which kept her relevant. Such maturity at a young age is rare.

Now if my future CV is not going to make sense, what do I do?

Please, please, look at what is going to keep you employable for the next five years. Look at the skills that will be in demand in the next decade and start acquiring them. If it means quitting your job and doing a course, so be it. Family and well-wishers will say it is a foolish move, but your elders haven’t been through the times you have and don’t understand your industry.

Time for you to disrupt your life for the better, before technology does the same. Remember when the ages change, some species become extinct.

Background Check

Perceptions make lasting impressions until they are broken. Growing up in the financial city of Mumbai in the early 80s, the place to work was South Mumbai. When you qualify as a Chartered Accountant and have dreams of working in the financial sector then you dream of working in the nerve of the financial sector in Mumbai which is South Mumbai. This place is home to Reserve Bank of India, State Bank of India, Bombay Stock Exchange, HSBC, Standard Chartered Bank, IDBI, Dena Bank, Allahabad Bank, LIC, New India Assurance Company… in short the who’s who of the financial sector was in South Mumbai.

But Mumbai is an island and will always be constrained by space. So in the 90s when the financial sector was growing, you had new players coming in combined with lack of space. Commercial Real Estate prices were at an all time high. The then Government set up a new financial district in the Bandra Kurla Complex over what was once a marsh. Instituitions like the National Stock Exchange, ICICI, UTI, Citibank etc. set up shop there. In the first decade of the 21^st century when outsourcing was taking roots in this country, international companies wanted offices close to the airport. Thus areas like Malad and Goregaon developed and became the hub of the outsourcing industry. And now in the quest for cheaper real estate, Airoli has also developed as another hub.

So today, even though the financial sector jobs are available all around the city old timers like me who desperately try to cling on to nostalgia, still dream about working in South Mumbai. The heritage buildings, the beautiful movie theatres, the charm of Horniman circle, the Parsi food joints, Marine drive have a different allure to them. So recently when I was picking up a new job, the location being South Mumbai was one of the factors contributing to the decision. Dreams do come true, even if they are 25 years late.

First week into the job and I am still coming to terms with the travel and hence do not carry my lunch with me. After all the neighbourhood is a food lovers paradise. Importantly you get a variety of good food at very reasonable prices. I walk out of office for grabbing a quick sandwich and as I am walking, I am also thinking about the task on hand in my new job. Suddenly a gentlemen in his 50’s stops me and shows me a piece of paper. Instinctively I think that he is asking for directions so I look at that paper.

I am completely taken aback. It is a photocopy of a girl’s identity card and now mind is completely blank… I wonder what the guy wants. This gentlemen now says that they are looking for an alliance for his son, and the prospective daughter in law works in this building. Apparently she comes home very late, and he wants to know whether they really work so hard.

I am completely dumbstruck by this question. I tell him that I would not know, nor would anybody be able to help him about such information.

However the question continues to haunt me and remain in my mind. Why does this gentleman need information about a prospective daughter in law? Why should he not trust her when she says, she works late? If the proposal goes through, is suspicion a good foundation to start a relationship? However before we pass a value judgement on the boy’s family let us understand their perspective. At this point I would like to make a disclaimer, that I have no intentions of justifying any actions of any party. I am just trying to understand their thought processes.

Once upon a time, people used to have a 9 to 5 job and would be home by 6- 630 depending upon the proximity of the office to the workplace. This is still prevalent in a lot of public sector organisations and even in quite a few private sector organisations. So for this gentleman, who probably has a similar job, working late is slightly alien. Secondly the arranged marriages work in a funny manner. 

A lot of times, when the boy or girl is having a relationship, which the parents don’t approve, the easiest solution is to fix up an arranged marriage in the hope that post marriage, the earlier relationship will die down. Both sides of parents are guilty of this.

To me what is a matter of concern is, how did that gentlemen get a photocopy of the girl’s identity card? Did the girl’s parents give it? Did the boy give it? Chances are that the photocopy was acquired in a clandestine fashion. And this is the thought which troubles me. Is this an invasion of the girl’s privacy? When one talks about consent from a woman is this a violation of her consent?

Standing below the mecca of capitalism in the 21^st century, I am rudely reminded, that this is a tale of two countries. There is an India and there is a Bharat. And Bharat co-exists happily with India. India is running in the 21^st Century with Bullock Carts on the road and Jet Planes in the sky.