Mindlessnes

Though I am not very sure where this writing will lead to, as my writings usually don’t convince any one when I try it with such topics, being a bit of a pragmatic person that we all are. I hope you understand what I mean.

Ever read any case study in which a character just like you and me is going through different kinds of experiences, interpreting them in their own ways. Some times confused, some times convinced, some times compromised, some times convicted.

Ever discussed your day to day feelings with other people sometimes with an intention to find a solution, but alas. Without reaching anywhere but just releasing your momentary mental-stress?

Ever wrote things about which even you are not sure. Things which while writing, even you know that you are manipulating sometimes. In a tone that you are explaining to others, but knowing well-within that you are not sure of it.

Ever watched a movie or a daily-soap where you find your favorite characters acting in weird ways which pleases you. Ever observed those few characters which you hate. The characters who with out letting you know are sinking into your brain in the very same intensity as the others labeled as good ones.

Ever helped a poor/ hungry person? Did you dig down as what made you do so?
A sense of responsibility towards this society? Or a sense of so called ‘Humanity’.
You did it because it gave you a momentary relief that yes you are doing good use of your life. That it made you feel good that you are better than many others who are not helping it. Ever tried to ask yourself the answer of “Why you should do it.”
Because at one or other place when you say that the society is responsible for this person’s present situation, you know that being a part of this society, you are responsible for it some where. That even you have a fare-share of that guilty consciousness which we ignore while moving forward in this curry-in-hurry life.

Our Grey cells play games. Games we don’t understand (At least few of us think so). Games which sometimes please us, confuse us, make us happy, and make us sad. All attributed to the complex organic chemical reactions happening well within this machine called human brain.

These games take us nowhere. Hence more than discussing the questions, what becomes important to us is “To find the suitable answers” which if don’t make us attend the ‘Nirvana’, but at least maintain our ‘Productivity’ through out our life.

So then we have reached to an end where we want to know how we can do that.

Ever been to any Psychologist? No offense, but if you have visited one, you know how beautifully they answer all these kind of day to day ups n downs we think about. Some times even better than our parents do. When I walked in simply to one of them in Apollo just to find what exactly these guys do, I ended up being mesmerized by their simple yet to-the-point answers and getting a list of great books from him when I asked him how he does it so well :)

Now it really does not mean that all of us are supposed to go and meet a P-guy for each of our problems. So then here are our choices.

Go and ask them :) or
Enhance our knowledge to a level when these frivolous questions stop troubling us and we are able to find their answers ourselves. When we even are able to counsel some one or
Stay lost in thoughts or
Just go and do something productive to us, as the greatest form of love is to “Love thyself.”

After all “It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”

India's Economic Growth

Economists always have different views for one thing. If one will say that India’s growth rate would be touching around 8% by 2010, there will be many economists who will agree upon that country has just been riding the waves of rising global liquidity or in plain word, we just have been lucky. Once global economy slows down, so will be the Indian economy.

The causes to think so are many:-

1. The Indian economy has been service-led and not manufacturing-led as in other Asian countries.

2. Almost 90% countries which grew fast depended massively on exports. They also showed high savings and investment rates. Our growth is due to large domestic consumption and has a very low saving rate. Just compare the China’s economy with India’s. When we are in a competition with ourselves to become a consumption-oriented economy, they have been maintaining their investment-oriented economy.

3. Most countries, during their high growth phase, were ruled by authoritarian government. Be it China where people were summarily told one fine morning that they have to give up home and hearth for a new road/dam/factory. Be it Soviet Union where Stalin had used lots of brutal methods. In communist ideology, pheasants were branded a pre-capitalist remnant, to be done away with in the process of modernization. Be it England where centuries ago, the enclosure movement had taken over which led to capitalist-agriculture, hence paved way for industrialization.
Mao Ze Dong had once said that “Force is the mid-wife of every old society pregnant with a new one.” But do we have any scope for this. If you see it, please give me your spectacle, so that even I can do the ‘Darshan’ of it.

India is a chaotic democracy and economic growth has been largely in spite of the government goofing up on everything from infrastructure to education. In any historical growth models, a strong emphasis on infrastructure, development and education helped sustain the booms and bear the busts. In India, growth has happened despite poor infrastructure and education. If we see the complete history of this land, we have been a closed society for a long time, where the slaves where being created at a home level using our great Manu-waadi Hierarchical system. In such a society, where the understanding of new economy is different for different class, the very first question which Indian face is the definition of IT era. Most of these people are living in a comfort zone. How many of them are really willing to wriggle out of this comfort zone and see beyond. There are few names, but they do not seem to suffice the need on a long term. To drive an economy of 1122 millions people, more hands are required. Hands with vision, hands with mission. More and more Entrepreneurs are needed to be promoted. Shit, what the hell am I talking about? Am I day-dreaming? Yes indeed. I better stop talking these idiotic things else people will start thinking that I am going nuts.
In such a case, the only statement which gives me a sense of relief is “Brain drain is better than putting brain into drain.”

Imagination: When perception becomes reality

We think that we can do evrything with the help of will power.But thi is not true.There is something more powerful than will power.It is the imagination which comes spontaneously to our mind.
Suppose,there is a wooden plank 20 ft. long.You can easily walk over it.But if the same is placed between two tall buildings,you will not be able to walk over it.This is because the imagination comes to brain that you may fall down and this imagination is so strong that if you attempt to walk over it,the imagination will automatically be fulfilled and you will actually hurtle down to your death.
If one building is burning and you dont have substitute,immediately you run over to the other building without failing down.This is because you just dont get much time for imagination.
In essence,therefore you try to do a thing only if it is difficult to do.If it is not difficult,you dont try to do it,you simply do it.Difficulty and trying are associated with each other.Unless there is difficulty,trying does not come into picture.

Trying raises difficulty:--->
If you try to remember,the brain imagines that it is difficult to remember.The imagination gets automatically fulfilled,and it becomes really difficult to remember.
For example-
1.When you are reading a novel,your factor of trying is practically nill and you can recall what you read easliy.
Ask people,who have read Lord of the rings and how they felt it difficult to remember so many names and how they were confused between the diffrent characters till they finished the novel :)

2.When you are watching a movie,you are not trying to remember anything and you can easily recall the whole movie :)

3.But when you are reading a text book,you are trying to remember each and evry line of it and you know the results ;)

Trying to answer one of my friend's query--->
I remember one of my friend asking me this question,that why i used to read my text book as a comic book in front of everyone.I used to call it 'Blank Reading' which i used to do before i used to read it seriously.
It is tough for a telephone operator to remember phone nos. initially. Because she is actually trying hard to remember it.But after some days,she finds that she is able to remember everything without any effort.By this time,her efforts in trying to remember becomes less.
I hope,this article answers his question...

Cricket: Much Ado About Nothing

The day has come for me, I think that even I would be shouting that Cricket is "Opium of mass" as few people call it which first creates the enthusiasm to taste it once again, makes us feel drowsy, lazy n blah n blah, we reach to a peak and then in the end it takes us nowhere. Now that India is out of the World Cup, watching the games has become a pleasurable, anxiety-free, almost aesthetic exercise. My nails are beginning to grow back; hair fall rate as decreased; I go office peacefully. I have stopped giving the sofa a hammering every three minutes; and my family, I hope, will soon stop scolding me once he begins to forget the swear words he picked up by being in my presence during the India games. It’s great fun, unadulterated fun, watching the cricket now. (In fact, it’s a little like the football World Cup: No India, great games.)But there is this one thing: Is it ever possible to watch any sport without actually supporting one of the two sides? (Or players if it happens to be an individual sport.) I think not.

While watching England play Australia (or X plays Y when neither is India) I am not as tortured as I would be if India plays, but I am very engaged with the fortunes of a particular side. The game itself gives great pleasure; but we need to identify with one of the two teams to give the experience of watching that extra frisson. But I am yet to decide which side I really want to go all the way. (In football, it’s always an easy choice. Ever since Diego Mara Dona arrived, I have been an Argentina supporter.) But I shall have to make up my mind soon. This ends my views, which of course are the results of sheer emotion coming with certain oh-so-not-met expectations, anguishes, anxiety etc.

Let’s talk about the bit of politics or say ‘The way it works” behind all this, for which, one big chunk of credit goes to our well-known Indian bureaucracy. In politics we say that your enemies can't hurt you, but your friends will kill you. It is the same here. Regarding the great BCCI, The Board of Control for Cricket in India has the dubious distinction of being the only full member of the International Cricket Council (ICC) which does not have a website. This, in the 21st century in the home of computer software, is a shocking commentary on the administration that's engaged in running cricket in India. What an irony. Coach Greg Chappell may have become the fall guy or say has been made the main fall guy in the wake of India's disastrous showing in the World Cup, the best replacement money can buy can be recruited, younger players can be phased in and older players phased out; but there will be no material change without a complete reform of Indian cricket. But will it really happen is again a question our bureaucrats must answer.

Given the money at the BCCI's disposal - obtained directly or indirectly from the Indian people - the millions that play the game in India, they ought to have been world champions or thereabouts a long time ago. This would have occurred if only the sport had been administered proficiently. Australia, with far less financial resources, has achieved sustained excellence because cricket there has been administered professionally. So yes. Bravo Aussies. You deserved it. While writing so, I am a little scared though. It may happen that after four years again, I will be writing a similar stuff with Australia replaced with Bangladesh.

Let’s come back to BCCI. It takes days, some times weeks or may be months (God only knows) for the BCCI to summon a meeting of their members. The executive has to move from the hands of part-timers to full-time employees, from the incompetent to the competent, from the corrupt to the clean.

Now calling our players to the Janta ki Adaalat, the players concerned are certainly answerable - and heads must roll. Greg Chappell could only take them to the water, but not forced them to drink. But the BCCI is responsible for the snail-paced progress of Indian cricket in the international arena for 75 years, and some times even for the wheels going backwards. From the maharajas to the new barons, they have let India down rather badly. There has never been and there still isn't any blueprint for excellence.

The centre thinks cricket is of such national importance that it muscled in legislation to force private TV rights holders to share cricket coverage with the state broadcaster, Doordarshan (the only terrestrial broadcaster in the territory), so that people who cannot access or afford cable or direct-to-home (DTH) TV are not denied contact with cricket; and all political parties deemed such a bill to be equally significant to pass this unanimously. After all this is one way you can keep whole India busy in things which, in current scenario are the least important things. But what to do. We are also not ready to change. We want to “LIVE OUR PASSION” and we are living it ignoring all other more important things aside.

Both the central government and parliament, who in the name of acting in the interests of the wider Indian public made it compulsory for TV licensees to provide footage to DD, now have a duty to demand on behalf of the same Indian populace why Indian cricket has not dominated world cricket, as it ought to have? And why it degenerated to such depths in the World Cup?

Academies exist for the sake of them, rarely producing any exciting cricketers. Domestic tournaments are uncompetitive and held unsystematically. They are also never integrated with India's international calendar. The program is flush with one-day internationals, which fill the BCCI and their affiliated state associations' coffers, but achieve little by way of honing skills. I had laughed to the core when I had heard that our players had been given the commando trainings. Now even Mr. Subhas Chandra has thought of entering into this big business. Let’s hope something comes up because ultimately the only way out of it is the complete privatization of Cricket Industry. A dream… Huh.

There is typically no sense of tradition. International matches are allocated any and every where to keep various state federations happy and induce them into voting in favor of the controlling faction. There is no exploration of eligibility, no process of making venues compete with each other to earn the right to host important fixtures. Most of the stadiums are not only third-rate - despite the money sloshing through the administrators' fists - but the infrastructure of some of the cities and towns hosting matches is embarrassing.

The lawyers, politicians, bureaucrats, businessmen and even policemen who comprise the Indian cricketing hierarchy need to surrender their executive powers. The operations of the board must, within a stipulated time frame, pass to an efficient, knowledgeable and caring corporate structure. Unless this is initiated, all this chaos will be much ado about nothing.

Why this blog

At this place,I would like to thanks one of my respected colleagues in my firm Deloitte, whose blog writing habit inspired me. After coming to the corporate life, my reading habit was still with me, but i lost the writing habit. As i have named it, we as a human being keep getting certain thought in our mind .Only if we pen it down,in the end we realise that some of those thoughts.How important they are. So I will just be trying to share these thoughts with you. Your comments would be really appreciated.