What Retirement Might Mean

This is a predictive look at retirement. You

-Travel less, because there may be only discretionary travel.

-Eat less, because appetite reduces with age- this is fact, not fiction.

-Talk less, because not too many listeners are around, particularly if you repeat yourself. Exception-you can talk to yourself. It's not weird, it may be the only option if you want to.

-Have an opinion about everything- with little to do, you become more opinionated, just because you have the time..particularly, about the young and the stupid!

-Become more British..I mean, talk about the weather.

-stop learning, because you are no longer sure you can use that anywhere. 

It was to prevent some of these, that there was a practice of old people in India going on a Kashi yatra, in olden times. Or vanavasa, maybe. The equivalent today could be going on a never-ending world cruise..if only someone would buy me a ticket, I'll consider retiring early..

Productivity and Managing Your Time

Some things can't be rushed. A baby has to be nurtured/incubated for around nine months in the womb. But most other things can take different amounts of time. One way to do it is to practice until you are good at something, so it takes less time. The other major thing one can try is to avoid (big) time-wasters- I mean, pick a few, if you cannot avaoid all of them, but pick those which take relatively less time.

This post is actually triggered by a question from Writabrita Ray, my recent student. She asked me how I manage to pack in so many things in my day. One way might be to sleep four hours a day (like Mr. Modi?), but I can't do that. I need my quota. But the waking hours can be distributed according to what you like to do plus what you have to.

Travel is sometimes optional, but I like to travel because it is always a new experience. I do look for opportunities to meet people during travel (again, that is optional). I have met several ex-students, colleagues and friends/relatives in my travels- in the U.S, too, and in Indian cities, and in Singapore (there's nothing like a real meeting!). It also gives me a chance to take pictures, and pick up books- I am a book store addict! For some of my own books (like Marketing Research), I have made students work-I use their cases, with credit to them. That saves me time, and gets the work done. So share the work load- in legit ways- and be more productive.

Writing, I have been doing since I was an editor of a wall magazine during my MBA, and I started off with reports on campus events ( I still have the originals, ink on paper) and reviewing films. We also wrote small pieces about our classmates for the Year Book. Blogging came naturally, and book-writing, not so naturally, as it is hard work. Hearing someone say they read it, is priceless though.

Ok, so the point is, I guess, you do more of what you like, some of what you have to, and avoid time-wasters. I control my TV time (almost nil these days), phone time (likewise), and find that I have plenty of time left to do what I really like doing! Karaoke partying is one of those. I also find social media, with its 2-way communication, more energising than TV-watching. It's also a great source of ideas, like the one for this post-and fun!

Social Media Posts With Feelings

It's confusing. I don't know whether to feel good or bad any more. Whenever I go to my favourite social medium, there are feel-good posts, on these lines.

A poor boy/girl made it to the IAS.

He conquered disease/disability/parents' insistence on careers to  achieve success.

His friends at the bachelors' party ditched him, but he found happiness in marriage.

He managed to eat a full biscuit without it breaking in a cup of tea that he'd dipped it in..



And then, there are feel-bad posts..

The world will end in a big ball of fire next Wednesday, when a meteorite/asteroid will crash into it.

The glaciers will enter your home in Chennai in 5 years..

MBA programs to close down soon, and everyone will have to keep doing whatever they are doing now.. coding for life, and so on..

Get a Good Photographer

Yes, I know the trend these days is to take selfies, but I cannot underline enough the need for you to make friends with a good photographer. It can be the difference between you looking like ............ (fill in the blank with whoever you adore) and you looking like Dino Morea (sorry, man, nothing personal).

I have now seen, just by virtue of being on the planet long enough-it's not some special skill- many people who look like celebrities or better, just because of this special friend. In fact, many celebrities would not look like themselves without their Atul Kasbekar-like photographers. Not all of us are fortunate to have great looks which look great under the gaze of any camera at any time, but getting a good photographer friend can result in great pics for all of us...I am not kidding! (The DP award winners might just agree).

A problem with selfies is that they limit your flexibility, apart from turning your image into a mirror-image. But even if you fix that, it's hard to do a few things which a good photographer can do.

I am planning to get one (just to prove that I follow my own advice)- it's never too late! Make this your half-yearly resolution.

Karaoke- An Invention I Like

For years, we have had small booklets that contained Hindi film songs (lyrics) by some category-usually, by singer. I have a couple. If you had to sing a song, you could look up the lyrics and do it.
The music would not be around.

With a karaoke mic, you have both the music and the lyrics available, and you can look at the lyrics on the monitor and sing along. Many of these are called Sing-along mics. In my view, it has democratised singing, and added life to many a party. It brings in enthusiastic participation after an initial hesitation, and I have seen lots of people totally enthused and practising their favourite songs. I have also discovered singers through this process, among close friends and others. Some pics of karaoke parties we have had- in the family, it is a regular affair..we consider ourselves The Sound of Music-wala Von Trapps.. my favourite song is Phoolon ke rang se, dil ki kalam se from Prem Pujari.

 Sadhana, Swathika Kalaivani and Akshaya look on, while Madhan sings.

 Pratyush is entertaining all of us.

 Radhika likes what she sees, and makes good use of the mic.

Long live Karaoke!

Tribute to a Former Student

Sidhanta Patnaik was a student of ours at PESIT. He was a passionate guy, and it showed in everything he did. More recently, he had been the Wisden writer who covered everything in Cricket that was happening around. He also wrote a book about that neglected dimension of cricket (yes, even in cricket, there are some)- Women's Cricket, a history of it, along with a co-author.

When I met him a few months ago, he was discussing plans for more books with his friends. A casual
observer would not have suspected that he was battling cancer, and had just come out of surgery after a relapse that may have led anywhere. He was unflappable, and though he must have been tired, sportingly chatted with all of us until I left, about an hour or more after we met.

It is not every day that we have such remarkable students. He was one, and my thoughts are with his young family, that they will bear this tragedy and come out strong. I will always remember him fondly.

(Incidentally, though we criticise social media for a lot of things, I reconnected with him and his family because of it - a classmate of his had informed me on Messenger about his surgery last year.)

IIM Lucknow Days Remembered

 Two of my colleagues from Lucknow days- Prof. KN Singh and Sengar. It was great remembering my days at Lucknow (2001-2003), and finding that many ex-colleagues are now heading IIMs. Also met Srinivasan, who is now a prof. at IIM Bangalore, and Sushil Kumar, who is still at Lucknow and hails from the hottest place on earth (!)- Chandrapur, according to the stats published a couple of days ago.

 Met them at Ranchi, where another colleague, Dr. Shailendra Singh is director of the IIM.
The pics are from Kanke Dam/Lake in Ranchi. Incidentally, my first trip to the city.
I also ran into Prof. Venugopal of XLRI, who had come to our NASMEI conference at IIM Indore in 2017, and is expected again in July this year.

I have written about my Lucknow days in my autobiography, so I won't go into them here.