Shubho Nobo Borsho

A new year, once again. One more of those days which we just celebrate because all the others around us are doing the same. I am neither a Bengali nor do I understand the Bengali culture very much. Robindro Sangeet still remains alien to me. I am yet to understand as to why they pronounce Laxhman as Lakhhan in Bengali. The concept of reading all ‘a’ as ‘o’ is still a mystery. And above all, why do they write my name as Sourav even when I clearly tell them that it is Saurabh and not Sourav as in Sourav Ganguly. But still, I know that today is Bengali New Year. So “Shobho Nobo Borsho” (I hope I maintained the accent well). And all the credit for making me aware of this special day goes to my closest office neighbour who is my cubicle mate and who is one complete Bengali Girl. When I first met her, her Hindi was pathetic. Two years and she has improved a lot. But she still processes Hindi in the same way as she used to do in past. Listen a Hindi word, translate it to Bengali, Prepare the answer in Bengali, Translate it to Hindi and then speak. Generally this process works well. But at the times of crisis when she is under pressure, she mixes it all up. It’s ok. Not a big deal. She is the one who suggested that the Project’s Mid Summer Party should be called “Nobo Borsho Party”. Nothing bad with that name, but come on, we were thinking the names on the lines of “The Bacardi Blast”, “The Summer Splash” etc and she had this to give us. She is one sweet Bengali girl. Anyways the point here is not sketch the picture of a complete Bengali girl but to understand the importance of this new year.
I don’t want this day to pass as just one more new year day. I don’t want this day to be one more resolution day where I promise something to myself and forget it the same day. I don’t want this day to be one more day when I sleep all morning and go out in the evening for a dinner. I want this day to be a day of change. I want this day to be a day of construction and reconstruction. I want this day to be a day of hope. I know that writing a few fancy lines is not a big deal and words like hope, justice etc always fall in place. But my ‘Hope’ is different from the ‘Hope’ that appears in Neta’s speech. My hope is a hope that every common Indian holds that one day I will make my family proud, my friends proud and my country proud. Hope that one day I will be in a position to look beyond my own needs and will fulfil the needs of my family, my society and my people. This hope in itself requires me to develop a lot of courage and strength, and I promise to myself today that I will do it all, whatever it takes, to build myself so that one day all my current hopes turn into reality and I start building newer and bigger hopes.

The ROI factor

Why the youth is not attracted towards politics? Why we always talk about young leaders and end up getting the same old parliament with an average age of 65+? Why the youth participate in the internet protests against terrorist attacks but don’t even come out to vote? Why do we always tend to complain but never care to participate? The simple answer to all these questions is the famous economic jargon called ROI – Return on Investment.
Life of a young aspiring person is mostly driven by this three letter abbreviation called ROI. Almost every action that he performs is first evaluated for its potential ROI. Let us start the analysis with career choices. When we were given an option to choose between science, commerce and arts while going in standard 11th, most of us went for science as the prospects and career opportunities looked better. Yes the ROI at science was better. When we passed 12th and we were asked to choose from engineering, medical or science graduation. Here again we all went to for engineering because medical was hell lot of study and science graduation rarely offered an amazing job. Yes the ROI at engineering was better. I passed my engineering and became IT professional; some of my friends passed medical and became doctors; few others completed graduation in science, arts and commerce and went for jobs. Few years down the line, having worked in corporate India, I am again making a choice, to upgrade myself by doing MBA. I will take loan rather huge loan to sponsor my education. But I am hopeful that the economic situation will improve and I will get a good job. I hope the ROI at MBA remains good. So it total 18 years of formal education and I land up in a situation where I can afford to support my family and lead a happy life. The ROI is education is descent.

Let us now take it other way round. I am person who likes politics very much. I follow what is going on in the country. And thus always tend to think as to what is the ROI of Politics. Education till graduation is a must so I could not plan to participate in politics till then. Taking a hypothetical situation here that I join politics now. ‘Joining’ itself is very vague term here if you are not from a political dynasty. So by joining, I mean that I sign for the primary membership of a party. I will start my work in a small village in Uttar Pradesh. UP because it’s the only place where you can learn politics. I will work for some 5 to six years and then I would be in a position to fight the gram panchayat elections. If things go well, I will be elected. Then 5 more years there and after a huge lobbying I may end up getting an MLA ticket. I may also win. I’ll then start building my image in the party politics and state arena. I may end up getting a MP ticket and win the elections. So finally at the age of some 40+, I will be in parliament. But this situation is as hypothetical as my joining the politics. And having said all that, we also need to keep in mind that before you win any election, its hell lot of investment with no assurance of returns. It’s a situation where you invest some 15-20 years of your life, a lot of money and you might end up becoming just a follower. Take the numbers into consideration and the situation is more horrifying. Just 572 seats in LS (forget RS), the nut seems to be very tough to crack. The ROI figure looks bad, pretty bad.

PS: I am apologetic to you all who intend to join politics for being so pessimistic, but then that is what I feel.

All Men are Dog..

I will start this one off with a note for all the readers. I am neither an anti feminist nor a male chauvinist (I have deliberately removed the third word of this adjective ‘PIG’ as it might go against the elections commissions’ election code of conduct and I don’t want to get booked under NSA). Day before yesterday, I was hanging out with my friends and during the normal course of talk something came up which kind of offended me. One of my very good friends who happens to be a girl came up with one of the most famous feminist adjective for men: ‘All men are dogs’. Even I agreed to it a bit but I was completely against the generalization. There is an exception to almost all the rule in this world and here in this case the volume of exception is larger than the volume of rule itself. Realizing that out of the five of us sitting there three fall in that dog class, she clarified that you guys are not included in that category so don’t take it personally. That was soothing but not healing. I thought a bit and went off to sleep.
The next day we were at Costa café. This time we were four of us. One of the male parties was missing. So the ground was pretty even. Two from the dog class and two from the dog owner class. And this time something came up which was healing, which was so cool that I (any male) started loving to be called a dog. The phrase ‘All men are dogs’ is in itself a complement. After all dogs is the most loyal mammal on this planet. A dog never cares if you are black or white, if you are beautiful or ugly, if you are hindu or muslim. What it really cares is your well being, your safety, your happiness. The dog's visual system is engineered to serve the purposes of a hunter. They have amazing hearing and smelling abilities. Dogs exhibit social intelligence uncommon in other animal class. They take orders, learn things and execute it perfectly. They have been helping police and bomb disposal squads all across the globe saving thousands live every year.
Dog’s fidelity remains unquestioned. And when women convey this same message by saying ‘All men are dogs’, we men get furious. Change yourself guys. Don’t feel offended, take it as a complement. Your female counterpart is actually congratulating you when she says, ‘you are such a dog’. So guys be proud and be a dog.

The Love-Handle

Life becomes lethargic especially when you are working in an IT company and your tummy is growing leaps and bounds. Yes you got it right; I am going through a similar phase. My tummy growth is sinusoidal in nature. While I was in school, I was chubby (I don’t prefer to be called fat). Six packs or for that matter eight packs were not in fashion then, so life was not that tough. I move to college and then the mess food played its role. I lost almost 20% weight and then was in a position to call myself an owner of athletic body. Food was not the only thing to blame. I always kept myself busy in a lot of extra curriculars and sports, thus ended up getting a good body. Once I came out of college, the sinusoid started taking an upward trend. Two and a half years at TCS and I can again boast of having a well rounded tummy. I know the obesity is bad for health but then I am yet to reach that stage (I am yet to become a hamburger eating couch potato American). But still it feels sad at times that I have a tummy and I can not do much to get rid of it.
The emotion to get rid of this tummy was always there but no actions were taken even in this regard. But suddenly something happened and I started feeling proud of my prized possession. A friend of mine came out with a term (Not his invention but discovery for sure) to define the side lobes of this apple shaped structure and the term was LOVE-HANDLE.
A thorough analysis of this term and proposed benefits of this so called love-handle gave us a whole new angle to take our tummies as a boon rather than a bane. love-handle signifies that not only your are earning good but also are busy with your work. At this point of recession when people are losing job and those who are not losing are afraid that they might lose it soon as they do not have any work, this is one great advantage. Besides this the love-handle give you (read your partner) a great grip on you when you are doing some stuff together (don’t shy, you know what I am saying. Yes when you are walking together). I am falling short of space; else I would have written a lot more about the advantages of owning a love-handle.
So guys, if you have tummy, be proud. Boast. Show it off. Make those six packers jealous of the jewel that you own. You lead and the world will follow you.

The Kolkata I know...

Kolkata , name given to the city to make sure that the ‘English’ effect coming out of the word Calcutta is wiped off and to make it sound more Bengali. Although I have read about the history of the city but that is not worth mentioning here because we all either know it or are not interested in that. But just for reference, it is very important to mention here that Calcutta was the city from where the East India Company started their Indian venture which later translated into India becoming a British Colony (leaving apart the French and Portuguese ruled India).

I came to the city around two and a half years back. Not that it was my first visit to the city. But the earlier visits were more touristy in nature with the first visit being was when I was five, so the memories are pretty vague and the second one in June 2006 to meet friends (keeping in mind that I expected that to be my last visit to the city, at least for coming 3 to 5 years). Coming to kolkata this time was for a different, for a different purpose with a different feeling altogether. The city was about to become my home for the coming few years. I had friends in the city, most importantly Varun and Ashok, so initial settlement was not much of a problem barring few hiccups. On personal front I was quite happy to have a shelter to hide myself from the fiery summer Sun and extremely moist and pouring Rains along with my Flat mates, Varun, Ashok, Sumit aka Boxer, Roshan aka Prof and Mukesh, to share my experiences with. I office was also great with amazing friends like Rhea, Anu, Gunjan aka Bhalu, Varni and Avishek aka Chatto. Life was pretty well and frankly speaking, I never felt that I was actually in a city which I never wanted to be in (may be just because the word Bangalore sounded more happening)

The initial one year of stay in Kolkata was amazing or better say Rocking. Every day that passed , everything that I did was filled with fun. We discovered almost all the Rocking places in Kolkata. And it was during this discovery that I realized that transition of Calcutta to Kolkata , to me, was just a change of name and not a change of culture altogether. Kolkata still has roads named Park Street, Camac Street, Hungerford Street, Shakespeare Sarani, Louden and Rouden Street and may more that sound more English than Bengali. Kolkata still has places called Saltlake City and Alopore (and not Alipur) which no way is near the Bengali names. Kolkata still has Dics, Pubs and Night Clubs open till 4 in the morning which is much aligned to the English Culture (If we agree to concept of Westernization of Indian Culture). But having said all that, my question is: Is there any real change in the change in the way people talk, walk, sleep, drive etc after the city was remaned. No. the answer is straight No. Just changing the name does not change the people and their lifestyles. Be it Kolkata or Calcutta, The Babu still goes to the same office, to the same chair. The Rickshawwala still pulls the Rickshaw in the same locality as he used to. The Metro still runs on the same tracks. The people traveling in that Metro also remain more or less the same. Nothing changes. The only thing that changes is the Address. Now instead of using the word you were familiar with you start writing a word that smells more like a politically motivated soup than a real cultural change.

My CAT Journey

It all started two years back in the month of March, 2007. Gunjan, Rhea and I started our preparations for the ultimate goal -- becoming MBA. Although the decision affected our weekend fun but we were young and energetic enough to spend some extra time studying QA, DI and VA. We even managed to do some combined studies which mostly ended up into a fun session. By the end of May, we realized that it’s lot tougher that we thought it to be. Starting June, came up the Mock CATs. 1st mock was a special one. Ready to take on the world, we reached the center much before time. Those 2.5 hours looked long to us. But we ended up managing descent levels of concentration for the duration. Wednesday, results were out for the 1st mock, and it was pathetic. We realized that we are just small fishes in that bigger pond consisting of whales and sharks. But who cares, we continued to fight. Forms started pouring in and we as loyal consumers bought almost all of them. Somewhere back in the mind the thought of going onsite was always running but we (me and rhea) never got the opportunity. Gunjan got one, and that’s where his CAT journey ended. Much relaxed and contended, he skipped all the classes, mocks and for that matter CAT also (citing the reason that the center is far away). That was the time when we were joined by Gaurav Jain, one more CAT aspirant and a very good friend of ours. Three of us attended classes, mocks and study session at Barista together. Preparation was going smooth. In this whole journey I missed three more bright aspirants, Anu, Chatto and The Varun. In the end six of us appeared for CAT and other B School exams. For most of us (read Rhea, Gaurav, Anu and Me) the results were a mere disaster. Chatto and Varun managed Calls for NM and they were smart enough to convert it.

Mid January 2009 and I realized that this year is not going to buy me any happiness, I decided to dedicate myself completely to work. I single handedly managed the whole module and was not only praised my clients, namely Federico and Antonio, for that but also was awarded Appreciation certificate by Relationship director. But deep down somewhere I knew that I was destined to do something else. We reignited the fire in ourselves and joined the same coaching institute again. Similar story for preparations but better results this time in Mocks. I was excited.

November 16, 2009, I appeared for CAT 2008 at St Xaviers, Kolkata. Paper structure modified with 40 question in English and 25 each in QA and DI. Started off with QA then DI. Till now things went very fine. Then came the worst decision of my life. Instead of touching RC, which I was good at, I was lured by VA. Attempted lotsa questions and results show that I performed pathetically bad there. CAT 2008 ended shattering all my hopes of getting into IIMs. Then came JMET, SNAP, NM, XAT and FMS.

Results out, and got some calls. Don’t know where I am headed to, but one thing is for sure, I will and can not appear for B-School exams once more.

Leaders in Making...

Leadership: the work in itself carries a lot of weight. Although leadership the duty and leadership the right both upgraded their importance and relevance over time but the basic definition remains the same. Several management scholars define leadership as “Process of social influence in which one person is able to enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task”. There are several alternate definitions also out of which the one I liked the most was “Leadership is ultimately about creating a way for people to contribute to making something extraordinary happen.”

I think I like the second definition more because of several reasons. The first and foremost will be because it explains the basis task of a leader: “Creation of Way”. Yes that what a leader is supposed to do. He needs to guide the energies in right direction so that collectively it creates enough energy to produce some exceptional results. The second reason is: “Making people contribute”. Although this sounds more of a manager’s role but after all a manager is just a subset of the larger group called leader. Making people contribute is the most important and challenging task for a leader. This becomes more demanding because the outcome of this task does not only depend on the leader’s ability but also on the willingness on the individuals in the team to work. And yes, the leader is supposed to create that willingness.

The third and in my view the most important one is: “Making something extraordinary happen”. And trust me there are reasons behind my saying that this is the most important reason. I think we all will agree that an object becomes more and more important to us if we are more used to it. The more you see your pet, the more you affection you develop for it. Ditto here. All through these days, in the last 10 years, I have seen extra ordinary things happen. I have seen young engineers working day and night to keep the conveyor belts running. I have seen the managers producing some results which were earlier thought to be near to impossible. I have seen entrepreneurs building a new brand everyday.

All this has happened because of the never ending zeal of each and every individual of this nation. With such great results in hand one thing that I am very much assured of is that we always had correct set of leaders who can channelize the contributions to produce extraordinary things. And with the young brigade taking the lead at many occasions, the future lies in good safe hands. With so many opportunities coming and each one of them grabbed by a potential leader I can safely say that Leaders are in making…..