And they ask me why I love Mumbai

And they ask me why I love Mumbai
A week in Mumbai and life seems beautiful again. Sweltering humid heat, loads of pollution and from the IIM B greens to the center of a concrete jungle where there is so little space for anything, I am still glad to be in Mumbai.
A week in Mumbai and I already caught a play - I am not Bajirao (and what a brilliant play that is!), something that I could not do for two years in Bangalore. Not that there were no plays - just that there was no theatre culture...an overflowing number of plays so that you just cant not get a ticket, and trustable friends who do the grabbing of the ticket for you.
And then there is the local train - that beauty which lets you traverse the length of the city in a breezy speed that nothing else can equate. Happy again to be spending hours commuting (not regularly and in peak hours thankfully) - time to catch up with meditation and sleep too! And of course sitting in a ricshaw is a totally different experience, Instead of glancing suspiciously at the meter and then thinking how fast its clocking, pre fixing charges and then haggling at the time of getting down, dumb midnight charge tantrums and irritating impolite rickshaw drivers are replaced by the honest trustable Mumbai rics. Clean clear rules, no haggling. The other night I was blown out when the ric was cool with recieving 2 bucks less....reminded me of overcharging rics who would keep the change :)
Of course the final nail in the coffin is the food - loads of vadapavs, the good 'ol college canteens and cutting chais. Somehow eating on roadside at Bangalore never ever happened - 'tis not the same! Being pampered by the home food rocks as well :) Friends who have time for long chats (and dont talk about PLACEMENTS but some really interesting stuff in life), a sis with whom you can do time pass all along, and mates who pass on, not the Vault guide to investment banking but 'Values of Belonging' are the norm - is that kool or what?
And the irresistable beach, the pani puri, the double decker bus, marine drive and bargain books - the best things of the city are waiting to be re-explored..... just cant wait on them!
And then they ask me why I love Mumbai

A few interesting insights

Wanna take this chance to share some really deep insights that hit me.....

Dont want them to be judged......but maybe some of these apply....

- Paradox principle

Its interesting how I behave in an almost opposite manner from what I am originally seeking - like being humble coz I wanna be appreciated for that too! Look at your own behaviour and check it out....maybe you are doing as people tell you to do, coz u wanna control them, drive them......maybe you are acting very very confidence to really try and hide the insecurity within......you're excessively quiet but go on talking at the slightest chance if someone comes to hear....??

- The blindspot principle

Your biggest insight is generally the one that you need most in your life.....its interesting how because its so close to us, we are blind to it...the most common gyaan that you are dishing out is exactly what you need.....but you dont realise it coz you're so blind to the issues you are facing.....

- God's always there

My bracket tagline read "God I'm stronger than you think :P" .....only for me to realise eventually that it was He who was helping me.......through the most unexpected channels but he was always there

Learnt to talk to Him.....and get some really amazing replies....most of these answers are within....no one needs to tell you...you just need to slow down enough to hear them :)

- The test is the toughest

Just went through a really hard patch in life....and when the test is on, NOTHING...almost nothing helps.....it becomes almost impossible to survive...the pain reaches a cresendo and then you are about to break...but instead of breaking down, you break out of it...you break out and come out of it stronger....something within you knows its ended...and suddenly you have people all around, everything going great again...the test is over and its celebration time...but while that test is on, its SO CHALLENGING to apply what you already know in practice......mebbe thats a part of the test....I think the real learning is what sticks to you when you are going through that patch


- Screw the ego yaar

When I had a problem, my enthu to handle it on my own was too much....and enough to blind me to the fact that I was not actually handling it myself.....the reality was that I was dependant but just not aware of it....the ego is the biggest illusion to happen to ourkind....obstructs us from asking for and getting so much.......The I-ness....the approval....all that went out in one go....but while it was there....things were really bad :)




More on these later......

Celebrating the senses

A movie like Black touches everyone.....I wasnt an exception

The realisation of what we take for granted is so often amazing :)

So what I developed was a ritual - a ritual to celebrate the senses. The movie actually made me realise that not having a sense organ makes the experience of life so much lesser....and imagine what happenens when three are missing - all you have is taste and touch :(

So now what I do is this (and I plan to do this once a week) - just turn on my Winamp with some of my favourite songs, and just listen.....purely listen and to ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE....you know we dont give music the respect it deserves - its mostly a time filler ....but in celebrating your hearing sense, the end result is to LISTEN - something so wondeful about being able to listen - being able to hear the sounds ....and letting yourself get drained into them....this again need not be with songs - it could be with sounds of nature as well.....

Similarly I plan to celebrate all the senses - the sense of eating with a totally diverse tasting food menu and eating deliberately and doing only that......the sense of smell with flowers and scents....the sense of vision with beautiful pictures or places....the sense of touch too....

but I started with hearing - coz thats what I love the best :)

The thrill of doing the REAL thing

It was about 3:30 am..... Computer Center, IIM Bangalore.

I was with my team discussing stuff about our camp - the entry strategy to be precise. Room was energetic, eyes wide open as well as minds......

Another room in the lab, and there was another group....tired and bleary eyed....working on the PnG case study due the day after.......

I couldn't but help see the contrast.....it was cool.....

The group solving the case study possibly wanted the prize, or a bullet point that would help them get placed better. They were not being paid by PnG for this, and they were not even recruited for that matter......

The case was possibly something that vaguely resembled life....the winners solution would at best prove to be some entertainment to the judge evaluating it.....

And on stake was nothing much....just time.....

And the case was to do with marketing....

For us, on the other hand it was almost diametrically different

For us we were doing it for a real life busines.....it was not restricted to a particular silo like marketing but involved switching every few minutes from strategy to ops to hr...across domains......

The pay off was great and we were working for something we owned....what we would come up in that meeting would actually be executed by us....and our stakes were ...our lives and our careers....

Friends came into the meeting and sat there for time much more than expected....realised later they too loved that thrill...the challenge of starting fresh....something new, something of your own.......a real life case study, the ultimate live project.....

The truth about the normal curve

'The worlds a normal curve', said Rooshiji, 'and you can't really fight it....'. There are 5% people at one end - the achievers, the doers, the artists, the scientists...and then there are the other 5% at the other end - the criminals, the problem kids....and the middle 90% who spend all their lives just talking about the two tails, doing little themselves.....
On the eve of Unmaad, the reason I remember this statment is coz about 5% or 20 odd of us (a little more than that) form the culcom - the cultural committee here, essentially responsible for doing the fest......
Add a few more who are working almost as hard as culcom if not more.......
and then there is the huge tail - this group of people ready to put culcom right on the throne, or to condemn it forever....
Its like that cricket match, where the audiance, all it does is hoot and cheer.....its the players who concentrate on the game.....and try to ignore the audiance when it gets painful.....
I realise that I speak here from a belief that being in that 5% tail is something superior, and implying that I am there....maybe I am not .....maybe I am not a player in the match (just a commentator mebbe! :)
But then the question is - is this how we are going to be as a race forever? Whatever the progress, the shape stays unchanged....destiny? choice? Can't say.....perhaps, as long as people conciously choose where they wanna be on that curve, there is nothing to complain....only that the choice should be fully concious ..... and with full awareness, that each one of us has a choice to be anywhere on that curve.....
Personally I think I wanna be right at the tip of the tail.....at a level in my field where anything new I do is new to humanity....like that scientist who invents and thats the first time a human mind ever thought of that....like the man stepping on the moon - a small step for yourself is a giant leap for yourkind....
And maybe that solves the normal curve riddle too.....if each one of us does this in what we are best at - there may be a normal curve for a given field - but for each, there will be different people at a tip....imagine a three dimensional distribution where everyone is at the tip in some plane or the other......that perhaps is the answer to the truth of the normabl curve.....

An MBA forever?

There are insights and then there are insights....a true insight hits you when you least expect it - and then the moment it hits you, your entire existence goes "Ah!" - the realisation or the tubelight reaction, whatever you call it spreads like waves all over your brain and mind, till all you can think of is the obvious truth that insight carried, which you could not see.....

One such insight happened today with Prof. CM Reddy, a wonderful seeker, and a professor at IIM Bangalore. Over our interesting conversation, he said something very true - that for our physical selves we have mirrors so that we can see and improve on surface. But what is missing are the psychological mirrors - the ones that let us see our blind spots, and areas that we constantly deny.

And he held up one such mirror for me today.

In sharing with him my plans, I was very keen to know what should be the next thing that I should learn. I was trying to find out all I could - books to read, things to know so that I could incorporate them in my workshops, and sessions to attend.....at first he casually pointed out this urgency to me....and I passed it off......

Somewhere however he reminded me of the MBA story that he'd told me the last time. An MBA, disillusioned with years of corporate life decides to leave to a monastery. He is tired of the competition he says. Time for some spiritual upliftment. A few days into the monastery, and he is working as hard as possible to be the best monk. He is getting impatient in learning patience! Though he might have changed the domain, the inner pattern of competition and aggresion still manifests.

Opting out of placements also to some extent for me I realised is similar. Of course I get a big high out of having the balls to say no to some fairly decent jobs! But what was awefully insightful was the illusion of differentiation that I created - and sold both to myself and others. That what I was doing was something really unqique, something awesome and something totally kool and non-MBA ish. Yes I even sold the idea to myself - that I am doing something totally kewl and unique........

And yet come to think of it, just like the MBA story, what I have achived as yet is just a change in the domain. I still look at competition. I still plan aggressively and acquire skills. I still have a very clear profit focus on my camps and training. I do things but fully aware of the benifits they will generate. To the whole extent that this entire call is a carefully calculated one. Nothing wrong and I am not belittling what I am doing as well....wld be the last person to do that....

And yet at the same time I just cant stop wondering at this beautiful fact - that competing, getting to the top and cracking it - in whichever domain, for whatever goals we set, is perhaps so deeply ingrained in me....that perhaps it will require a totally different level of awareness to break free....to reach a level where I do things just because I love doing them and for the sake of the activity itself....

Again as paradoxical as it may sound, if I want my work to be the best, to be immortal, my chances are going to be much much better if I move to a level where I dont want to achieve those goals themselves......

Me-too mentalites and The Power of Perfection

So it finally got to me ..... blogging..... Never thought I'd let my thoughts be available for public scrutiny....I love my own space too much to let anyone enter.....and yet, maybe, a part of it can be thrown open....open to be judged, to be appreciated, to be shared.....

I must be some 2,342,435th person starting a blog....doesnt feel too good to be that late on a fad....in fact once you've decided not to hop on, it becomes even more difficult to do so later on.....

That reinforced by the fact that I could not get the first three usernames that I wanted, and I knew I was in the already crowded bloggerville....too hard a fact to take for my bloated ego perhaps, that wants to be unique....like everyone else........

And yet here I am, sharing some thoughts.....some deep thoughts that strike me.....and hopefully I will be able to divorce myself from the fact that these are going to be read by someone, atleast when i write it.....writing for the sake of it.....

Was hosting at Yamini, the all night classical music concert at IIM Bangalore. Amazing fun hosting with a more polished KanuPriya....always so much more to learn.....and the dancers....man they really got to me! The grace, the charm and all that.....in every movement, even as the speak or smile. I think I need to seriously consider marrying a dancer :)

But what really struck me was this - with our hosting job, we were doing our best possible (though I ended up making the mistakes). It was amazing how dhyaan se people heard us - and came to us pointing our errors.....initially irritating for me atleast.....till I realised something....realised why perfection is perhaps so beautiful. The mind, I believe keeps on looking for that odd spot....for that mistake....and the moment it spots one, it clings on to the error, refusing to see the beauty of the whole.....and when it encounters something perfect, like an accomplished artiste performing, it has nowhere to go.......It just CANT escape.....and thats why perhaps absoulte perfection is not only so enjoyable but takes you to a totally different level.....

And then of course there is the ability to see perfection in the imperfection around....to be able to see the plastic cup as much as a part of the lush green IIM Campus, as are the fallen leaves or the still blooming flowers in the morning sunlight....that too I am trying to develop....and you too can make a start....with seeing this blog, with all its imperfections, as perfect :)

The tryst with commonality

A tryst with commonality

Before making it to IIM Bangalore, I was a really common person. I mean I was just another commerce guy, with nothing major to boast about. Eating at roadside stalls and travelling in crowded Mumbai trains was the common routine....
And yet, come MBA and how life changes! Maybe it was bangalore. Maybe it was IIM. Maybe it was the NPV of my future cash flows - but things changed. Moving in rics or cars, having travelled all over the world and dining only at finest places.....somehwere I realised that I had lost touch with commonality......

The beauty of common things - common people...just like I was....a small trip to Lalbaug (who would EVER go to that place) on a special 15 rupee ticket took me to a beautiful flower show...some of the prettiest flowers.....loads of people all around me - people with huge bulky cameras and software pros with sophisticated cameras....people enjoying....a passing thought told me that something similar in Europe would be a 5 EUR show...

And then the steeply priced 10 rupee sugarcane juice was too tempting - oh the joy of roadside stuff! Long long forgotten in the triamasus and sticky tofee desserts was the candy floss.....and as funny as it may sound, I decided to pick my last CCD bill, about 150 bucks for 2, and see how it stretches in the common world.....and man i did splurge! Suddenly money had much more power :)...something i had almost forgotten....MTR dosas and Coffee board coffees ....so much better and the fun of having so many others with you rather than in exclusive retreats
Luxuries are great....but not as much if you get used to them.....reminded me of Jagjit Singh - i mean how finicky can people get....artistes who can be at peace only when they are in a certain suite of a five star hotel, and are served teas in china cups, and hazaar other things that NEED to happen....funny as it may sound, i realised that in some ways I was also getting used to things....
Nothing like a trek to show you the value of comforts that you take for granted....try sleeping with a single blanket in the himalayays, or on a hard bed in rural maharshtra, and your bed aint the same. Eat naachni and brinjals, and mess food will seem heavenly.....

And yet as I move high up, if there are 1934 things that need to happen correctly before I feel happy, is that really worth it? If I lose the common touch, i believe its more likely....sometimes maybe to be truly grateful to life's gifts, you need to miss them for a while.....if thats the price for gratitude its really a small price to pay....