Getting and Giving Compliments

 I got a few this last week or two. From different people, the common thing being that they were doctoral students, and faculty. One was a total stranger, Ananya Ghosh, and I had met her for the first time at a Doctoral Consortium-Colloquium- at XLRI. Anyway, the point is it felt good. 

Some of the actors involved- Prachi Jain, Akansh Khandelwal and Vartika Varyani with hubby in the second pic

At XLRI, Anjana Dharmani, who exchanged some compliments with me- she's a Ph.D. student in Marketing-above, second from right. 

Below, Ananya Ghosh, from St. Xavier's university Kolkata.

Giving compliments is an art, I think. Not everyone can do it. I try, and succeed at times in getting the message across. I enjoy giving them too. Usually brings a smile to the face of the recipient, and I like smiling faces much better than grumpy ones. That was my major complaint against denizens of Kerala when I lived there. They seemed unnecessarily grumpy! No idea why. Not so the Mallus I know from all my places of work, though. Many had a great smile too! I remember Sandhya Sajeev and Pooja Daniel from KIAMS, Harihar, for example. And  Vidya T.C. and Smita Mohan.

Happiness or Long Life?

What is your goal? Is it to be happy or to live long? Or something else?

One must try and achieve whatever goal one has. If you want to be the owner of your own island, you have to try and generate wealth so you can own one. Like one of those Bond film villains who all seem to live on an island-could be just a correlation, and not causation! Also, Bond could come and destroy it all, so think carefully.

But the point is, if you want quick money, you can try and trade in something that has the potential to get you there (with the downside being that it may wipe out what you have got)- real estate, stocks, commodities, or any other legal methods of gambling (include Las Vegas trips, and lotteries).

If you want long life, you should not go out on the road, because given our traffic, anyone can kill you in a minute -it's dangerous out there. I can vouch for it-I nearly got killed a few months ago. But seriously, you may have to get into watching what you eat, and exercise (why do I see a frown on your face?) and so on.

If you want to be happy, all you need to do is smile a lot, read funny stuff (Wodehouse, Woody Allen, Bill Bryson, Dave Barry etc..) and generate smiles around you. Sounds easy? Then try it-but only if that's your life goal.

Services Marketing- Lessons from Thailand

Why do I get the feeling that we are a nation of sour-pusses whenever I visit Thailand? What does it take to smile, joke, be friendly with anyone you come across? Why are we 'like this only?'

Just came back from another visit to play golf there. But this is not about golf. It is about service. Even apart from the smile, I saw a few things and they left me thinking, "Why can't we be like these guys?", on the lines of the My Fair Lady Song, "Why can't women be (more) like Men?" The Thai people are prone to smiling, and even joking, with the limited knowledge of English that they (the people on the road) have. More importantly, they take pride in doing their work, mostly without direct supervision. Can you imagine that happening in our country? I can't. One of the managers in a company (in India)used to joke that"follow-up" was the largest industry in our country, because people will not do what they are supposed to, or what they promised they would.

All appointments, like the taxi driver, the tour guide, were kept meticulously. People apologised even when they didn't need to, because it was not their fault. Smiling is like a religion. So is light hearted banter with anyone at all.

I also saw Alcazar, the revue or variety show again. It was amazing the second time too. Why can't we do something on those lines, beats me.

Of course, it's not all hunky dory. They have their problems. Education seems to be missing in a big way, for example. But looking at them, you wouldn't guess it. We seem to be carrying the burden of the whole world, on the other hand.

One other thing. Their lyrical, sing-song way of talking is really nice to hear.