Pulling Legs

Pulling people's legs is an activity we should indulge in a lot more. It beats pulling the trigger on anyone, for one.

Second, laughter is the best medicine. It does not cure disease, but certainly prevents some and makes others a lot more bearable.

If you actually pull someone's leg in the correct direction and with the right amount of force, it may be a good stretching exercise for those lazy muscles.

Pulling a fast one, if harmless, falls in the same category as pulling someone's leg, and is also advisable in small doses (if the dose is large, the person concerned may not pull his punches, and we are back to square one- not achieving the objective of lightening up!).

Having pulled my weight by doing my share of writing for today, I will not strain you further. Thanks for being here- now go pull someone's leg!

Covers and Cover-ups

Covers are used to hide what's beneath. So, it's a kind of cover-up, I guess.

What can be covered?

Crimes, as we learn from the great mystery writers, and not so great mystery serials (C.I.D.).

Books, and note-books, as we learnt in school.

Bodies, to prevent others from seeing how ugly we really look (ha, ha)

Homes, so that we have a roof over our head- literally!

Stadiums, so the screams of the Football/Cricket fans don't cause noise pollution.

Water-filled buckets, so the mosquitoes don't breed like pigeons (they seem to be everywhere, like the sheep in New Zealand).

Cups of tea and coffee, so they don't get cold while waiting for the drinker to arrive.

Light and Shadow

The lives of most of us are comprised of the light and the dark. The dark can be accepted for what it is, and some of it can be dispelled by lightening up. But the contrast is actually something we need to understand and appreciate. If it was all goody-goody, maybe we wouldn't understand its value. Heaven must be boring, and Human Life must be the more interesting! Unless you knew about Hell, I mean.

The mind can probably be trained to do good things, like accept some things, and to face other events with fortitude- to light a light, in other words, to take things positively, as much as possible. Here's to lighting up, and lightening up. 

Revisiting Kanchipuram

 Some interesting pics from a visit last December..

 Vijayakumar, and my brother Satish, exploring.

 Outside, and inside.

Running Out of Things

I don't mean groceries at home. It's about the world at large. We are, according to some predictions, going to

1. Run out of drinking water in 15 years,
2. Oil in 40 years,
3. Glaciers in 25 years,
4. Chocolate in 10 years,
5. Fish in 75 years,

and 6. Air in a 100 years-at least, oxygen in the air.


I am just wondering when we will run out of these crazy predictors?

Life in the Next Century

Obviously, not mine..this is 2091 and beyond, not 2019..

You come into this world. Your Mom takes a selfie with you (and Dad if he is around), and sends it up simultaneously on all media- before anyone can ask her What's Up, it's on WhatsApp.

You sign up a few friends on Instagram before you leave the hospital- could be other kids born nearby. You go home, and meet relatives- via Skype, of course, and they send you flying kisses. Less scope for infections, you see..all for the good.

You get an online application for Kindergarten, High School, IIT and IIM, all at the same time, and fill them up with the help of your 10 year-old sibling. Also, a passport application, just in case..

You play with friends, all possible games online, and go to school-also online. You download directly into your brain all the content shared by teachers, and then write exams by Thought Reader- the teacher can directly read your thoughts by scanning your brain.

You date people by going to restaurants in the Second Life, and imagining you ate/drank. You give a rating to your date, and she/he does the same to you.

You choose one of these eventually, and live happily ever after- she/he in their home, and you in yours.

How does this sound for Utopia?

Live Concerts

I have been to a few- Shankar Mahadevan, Sudesh Bhosle, Hridaynath Mangeshkar, Manna Dey, Kishore Kumar-RD Burman-Asha Bhosle, Pandit Ravishankar, Pankaj Udhas (aka Punk Rock of India- just a joke), Shiv Kumar Sharma, Hariprasad Chaurasia, Ghulam Ali+Mehdi Hasan, and a couple of them dedicated to people no more- SD Burman, and Mohammed Rafi, for instance.

I enjoyed all of them, because hearing music live, specially from the artist himself, is a different feeling, and he/she brings some story about the music or songs to the event.

Milan Talkies- Review of Hindi Film

It has shades of a movie classic called Cinema Paradiso, but falls short on a comparison with that classic.

Not bad, but for me the major highlight was watching Shraddha Srinath, a Kannada actress making her Hindi debut. Of course, the setting of a movie-director in the making from a small town is a bit different, but the story is oft-repeated. Love blooming in a small town, boy getting beaten up by the girl's family and so on.

Tigmanshu's own film-crazy character is another highlight. Worth a watch, maybe, but no big deal. 2.5 on 5.

P.S. The songs are really bad!

Marching Along

Left, right, left.. is one way to do it. It is much more humdrum in finance and academia- we reach the financial year-end in finance, and academic year-end in academia.

But it also brings on a season of wonderful memories of the year gone by, of faces you will not see (for some time)- the students graduating, or going on a hiatus for the summer. And of course, the anticipation of a hot summer followed by cool rains in the Indian monsoon. This year, hotting up the summer will also be a General Election to India's Parliament.

I am more of a Governance animal than a political animal, so I am more interested in the WHAT rather than the WHO of governance. I just expect and want the governance to be good, and keep score on that count. A person or a party is the medium who may (or may not) accomplish that, and is therefore secondary to the WHAT. I have, over the years, visited several countries and lived in one (the U.S.), and I feel we have a long way to go in improving governance in almost every sphere. Public transport is one which affects millions in our cities, and must be made world-class. It is nice to see some metros under construction or near completion, and those may solve commuting problems of many.

In my view, all the governments (maybe with one or two exceptions), starting with Narasimha Rao's in 1991, have done a lot to improve things in some sphere or another, and let's hope that continues with the new one to take charge in the coming months. All the best to us, citizens.

More Udaipur Pics

Here are some more pics of Udaipur, one of my favourite Indian destinations-

The Beauty of Udaipur

We went there a couple of times in the last five years. I am very impressed with Udaipur, more so than Jaipur, for some reason. So I am revisiting some places and quirky pics taken there. Enjoy!

I Wonder...

Sometimes, I wonder if..


1. I had not cleared that interview for IIM Bangalore admission into the MBA program,..

2. I had not got a scholarship to go do a Ph.D. at Clemson, USA...

3. I had not returned to India after a couple of years' teaching,..

4. I had not worked in Marketing Research and Advertising,...

5. I had not written that book..or those books..

6. If I had not started blogging,..

7. If I had not got a single friend request on fb,..

My life would have been poorer, for sure. I am happy it turned out the way it did.

Small is the New Big by Seth Godin

He is a well-known author with many business books to his credit. Purple Cow is one of them, and this one (Small is the New Big) is another.

He talks about various things in this book, including why people go to business schools. According to him, it is for the branding that makes you attractive to corporate recruiters, and for networking possibilities, and not for the learning. I don't agree entirely, but that's not the point. He writes engagingly, and I think is one of the best writers of business books.

Of particular interest to me are his takes on social media, and digitally marketing yourself, your firm or your book. A must-read for many people, including students of marketing.

Modern Times by Charlie Chaplin

                                                    

                                                           
This film in my view is one of his best creations, the other one being The Great Dictator where he played Hitler. Just watched this again, after quite some time. The story is of angst in the industrial world, the greed of corporate chieftains, and the struggle of a common man..and woman.

That paragraph above does no justice to a masterpiece. How that story translates into film is what is hard to imagine, until you see it. It manages to be a comedy all through its run, with a romance on the side. And it's better than most comedies I have seen, in Hindi or English. That is its achievement, apart from the superb acting by the great man himself. Unparalleled!                                                        

Interesting Conferences

One was on Retailing (about Online versus Offline Pricing), and a paper I had written had an unexpected reaction on fb- lots of people requested a copy, and I was amazed.

Another very interesting conference was in Beppu, a small Japanese town. Met some amazing professors and students there, and got a taste of Japanese culture- one of the most polite people on earth. Another was in Sri Lanka, and I thought about why we in India don't do more in partnership with their universities-could be very fruitful.

There were others, one in Cambodia by ABEM, that enabled a visit to Angkor Wat, which was on my bucket list. Some of our domestic conferences- one on Social Media at Bangalore, and another on film and literature at BITS Goa recently, also gave me  a chance to explore interesting themes.

No-thought Leadership

I thought about various things today. Yes, I do that at times. But then, this thought-thinking business is addictive, and one thought follows another for no good reason. This train of thoughts finally came to a halt, and I became thoughtless-yes, just like you can be speechless in the face of some beautiful object, person, etc., you can also be thoughtless. Not thoughtless, as in uncaring, but just without thoughts crossing your mind- there is a red light that stops thought, flashing in your mind.

All gurus talk about how being - just BEING, with no thought, I mean, is the key to many good things. So I decided that being a Thought Leader may be passe, and I need to be a No-thought leader. The more I thought about it, the more it appealed to me. But how would I convey this thought to others, that they should be without thought, I wondered.

Ok, I am still thinking about it. But the idea is good, you must admit...

Cars I Drove Over the Years

Since I am not a zillionaire, these are quite modest and do not include the Ferraris, Mercs and the like, but I just realised that it is an interesting list nevertheless. For example, I started driving at age 18 on a vintage Ford Prefect 1955, which has that old world look, complete with a cranking "handle" to start it like the Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi car, and a floor gear. It also had a footboard on both sides, and we as children used to enjoy standing on it on the drive from the gate to the garage while my father or mother was driving. Great fun! 

The next car was a humdrum "Fiat" which was an official car (parents'), which I did not drive much, as it came with a driver. My next one in the US was a giveaway from Alok, my friend who had finished his PhD and bought a new Toyota Celica in 1986. His old Datsun (from Nissan)- 1976 I think, was what I drove for a year. It was a zippy car, by Indian standards, though it had a leaky cylinder which meant one spark plug constantly needed cleaning, much to the amusement of our American friends.

I then bought a 1979 Ford Granada, and we made our first around-the-US yatra in it, going from Clemson to Los Angeles and back. We later made another longer round trip in a similar Ford Lincoln that we hired. The Ford Granada was a luxury car, and was fantastic for long rides, though a gas guzzler compared to the Datsun. But then, petrol was cheap enough for us graduate students to go gallivanting. So we covered around 25 states of the 50 US states in that tri[.

I celebrated my PhD with another used car, a Subaru with a hatchback, station wagon style. (Pic above- black one), This was a great car for its handling, and carrying capacity. We could stuff almost anything, (though we never tried a small elephant, maybe we could have) at the back and we used it for many short trips, including to the Tennessee mountains in Fall season to see the multi-

coloured leaves. (Above- the Ford Granada)

My first car back in India in 1995 was again a Fiat (Premier Padmini), which I liked a lot for its hand-gears and seating capacity. Six was a comfortable fit. It saw me through Harihar, and my Lucknow days, where I sold it. Next I bought a new car for the first time, the good old Maruti 800. Lasted me 2 years, and I exchanged it for an Esteem (pic above, Silver-coloured) when I moved to Bangalore. I drove a lot of the 800, and I drive a lot less of the Esteem, because I am mortally scared of Bangalore traffic. But I did make a couple of trips to Goa and to Salem, and enjoyed the comfort of the ride.

All in all, an interesting bunch of cars.

Review- Sonchiriya

This Hindi film is avoidable, in my view, as it does nothing that has not been tried before. The only thing I found new was the locations- the ravines of Madhya Pradesh (if it was in fact shot there). The rest has been tried multiple times, to better effect.

Given a stellar star cast -no, not the big Box Office guys, but good actors like Manoj Bajpai, Ashutosh Rana, Ranvir Shorey- I expected a much better script. This drags in many places, and the pre-interval portion is soporific. It comes alive in the second half, with some good dialogues, and a story that has a surprise ending. But it's too little, too late.

If you want a better film about rebels (baaghis), Paan Singh Tomar is far better. If you want a daaku fantasy, try Mera Gaon Mera Desh, or re-watch Sholay. 

Names and Brands

Parents, beware! Names are brands, and positioning a brand is easier when the name is in sync with what the brand is doing. So, think about what your kid's name will be. India has some great names coming out of our history, mythology, and collective cultures.

Ajatshatru is literally, a person who has no enemies. Loved by all, hated by none. Mamata, notwithstanding a prominent politician who signifies anything but, means love of a kind.

I like the sound of some names (may or may not have anything to do with the people behind it- I am not telling)- Alok, Meghna, Shweta, Neha, Shruti, Bala, Frane, Steve, Saumya, Gopal, Prabhakar, Vikas (who doesn't like development? :) ), anything with a Kaur following it (ha, ha), Srinivas, Pooja, Prarthana (you may have guessed why), Anupama, Roshni, Priya, Anuradha, Manju, Raghavendra, Samrendra, Shahida, Divya, Abhinav, Tanaya, Nikita, ...Ok, I can go on. Leslie, Robin, Shirley, Lauren, Ron, are some that are easy on the tongue, and these were/are some friends too.

The point is just that it is easier on the kids if parents give some thought to what the kids and the public at large may think about the name, or the ease with which they can say it.

Meetings

It is a national waste to have meetings of more than ten minutes, in my view. If anything, it promotes an avenue where most people have a right to say anything with no basis in fact or fiction (fiction is rational too), and get away with it.

No, this was not a meeting....just a pic.


Logic is usually missing in action, and rational debate has taken a long holiday, just as it has on social media or national TV debates. Most things can be decided on email, because very few people read them, and even fewer reply to them. And you can easily wear down people by sending long ones. After a few days, decisions can be announced, and most people (not having read the mails) wouldn't remember what the decisions were.

Strategic thinking, you say? Try it, and tell me if it works. Don't blame me for things if they go wrong..OK, you won't, because you are not reading this,..