Applying for a Job

No, I am not applying right now. I have a job. But this is about the process of applying for one. I am not including campus placements here.

When do you feel like applying for one? Usually there is either a positive or a negative reason. You may be motivated by something on offer (salary, location, job challenge) or trying to escape from something- a bad boss, bad colleagues, subordinates you cannot handle, bad location, etc.

Your search begins. You apply. This in earlier days involved getting a CV typed by sitting next to someone, later morphed into typing your CV and printing it, and further has changed to emailing it or posting it on a  job site.

Then, you wait, with no news until you suddenly get an invitation to an interview. Then you try and figure out what the interviewers want to hear-How you love challenges, you are a quick learner, dynamic, and all the rest. If you speak the truth, you generally stand no chance.

So, if the process encourages deceit, you may have to go with the flow, and once you get hired, revert to your real state, whatever that may be. And get found out, and resume the search, ..for the next job..

Truth is a Pathless Land- Book Review

This book is about Jiddu Krishnamurti, one of the well-known philosophers from India. What is somewhat surprising is that he was a made-to-order philosopher, almost forced by his mentors, at the Theosophical Society, into becoming one.

Deborah Richards writes about his days during the process of being transformed into a thought leader. How an Englishman spotted him on a Chennai beach, took him under the wings of the Theosophical Society, and how Annie Besant became his foster mother, and took him on Kailash Mansarovar and other trips to help him discover himself.

The accounts of his having discovered the highest chakras of Kundalini are similar to what I read about in UG Krishnamurthy's (no relative) autobiography. While one cannot comprehend this process, our gurus seem to have documented it in ancient texts.

What Jiddu did after being annointed a messiah was surprising, though. He dissolved the Order of The Star, which he headed. He said an organisation was not needed to discover Truth, or God. It is a personal quest.

The characters in the book include the wife of Edward Lutyens, who also played a role in helping him survive in England, and other friends of Annie Besant and the Society. There is no mention of the Schools set up by Krishnamurti Foundation (Rishi Valley, etc.) which might have happened during the time of this narrative. But what I found out from this book is that he mostly lived in California rather than in India. A good read for fans of Jiddu.

Allaying Fears

I am always intrigued by the jargon used by our journalist fraternity. 25 feared killed in landslide. Disaster strikes Maryland. Town heaves sigh of relief as tornado passes it by. Government allays fears about the H1N1 epidemic.

These are a small sample of headlines going about the 'newsy' rooms and on to the printed pages. What if they got really daring, and started to become bold (if not beautiful) and report what they truly felt, minus the jargon? We might see something like these reports-

He claimed a lot of things, but the audience knew it was hocus-pocus.

The news reporters in the press conference were clueless, and ill-prepared to ask intelligent questions, including this reporter.

The speech did not make any sense, but the audience clapped anyway.

There was no news to report on our beat, so we made up some.

The same old parade- looked more like a charade.

The roads had the same number of potholes as yesterday. So we did not bother to go out today.

It rained incessantly, so we let the TV channels go out there to report the 'reality' while writing our stories by watching them, sipping some hot tea with samosas in the office.