remembering papa

दर्द का एक टुकड़ा
अभी तक मॅन में दबा रक्खा है ....

Its been fourteen years, fourteen long years since I lost my dad, and ever since life has never been the same and never will be... there is a deep sense of vaccum that engulfs a part of me, just like an eclipse, a permanent one in this case... a growing of loss was a part of my formative years... and what was even worse was that I tried to hide this and everything that I felt, never acknowledging my feelings even to myself... I was in general angry and confused with the world around and the one within...

I remember being petrified at the age of seventeen when for the first time I had heard Roger Waters sing in a subdued voice, a song that would haunt me for a very long time, echoing in my ears at nights when I would lye tired and emotionally weared out and could never sleep... still remember the hospital corridor where I sat all night filled with silence outside and my head full of noise, these words playing somewhere at the back of my mind....

Daddy's flown across the ocean
Leaving just a memory
Snapshot in the family album
Daddy what else did you leave for me?
Daddy, what'd'ja leave behind for me?!?
All in all it was just a brick in the wall.

The pain that had been diffused for so long had all of sudden, in one moment crystallised in one moment, in these few lines... There is a lot else that I could have remembered and said on this day, a lot better sounding words and pleasent memories, but again that would have been one more coverup... a facade...

लाल सुरा की धार लपट सी कह न इसे देना ज्वाला,
फेनिल मदिरा है, मत इसको कह देना उर का छाला,
दर्द नशा है इस मदिरा का विगत स्मृतियाँ साकी हैं,
पीड़ा में आनंद जिसे हो, आए मेरी मधुशाला।।

Thoughtless thoughts …

Experiencing a wave of thoughtlessness which comes as a welcome break… sitting in the evening with an idle mind and feeling an inner calm is truly a matter of privilege, so I am in no hurry to let this moment go and neither have any intention of a dissection and/or analysis… a no brainer moment J

We often live an oscillating life; either, buried somewhere in the past - brooding, repenting, agonizing or the most killing of all "what if" ,or, tending towards (in true sense of calculus) a sublime future – loaded with all that we wish (to be, to have and escape from)…

And then once in a while there is a moment that stands still in the time frame of the present… and such moments are literally a present (a gift) which should be acknowledged with a smile, a pleasant surprise and then relished… they are just like the delicate sensuous feel of a chocolate melting in the mouth… a pure experience… and that's how exactly they are meant to be enjoyed… these fleeting moments are meant to be fully and thoroughly lived in the present (the now) in full, just like when standing in the rain and getting drenched, soaking up the freshness, the joy and letting the child within us to take over…

So here I am, after so many weeks of making mental note of forcing myself to post something here and couple of times me and the "compose post" page blankly staring each other, I had lost hopes of coming up with something original, something that I would like to write about, and something thats worth sharing… and then on a thoughtless evening a brainwave J

Hibernate

Seems like an eternity ever since I posted something here... Or so it seems... every other time I have done this there has been a guilt pang, regret, remorse... but this it was plain simple indifference...

In this world of loaded words and loaded meanings sometimes indifference is a relief... and that too indifference by choice... its a mark of impartiality... towards oneself... an unbiased view of the world around with a tinge of amusement...

Psycho-Socio-Mental Impact of SCM

On the eve of the start of second academic phase exams at our college, here I am sitting gloriously with books, notes and hand-outs of Logistics & Supply Chain Management (SCM) which forms a core bunch of the Operations related subjects that we studied during this entire phase.

And as I sit by the window on the sixth floor apartment of my relative and give a half-pondering/ half- blank stare at the setting sun, I get a brainwave :)

Why not start the solution to the case study that we will be getting tommorrow with the noble statement - "Man is a social animal..... " and then proceed further to discuss the sociological impact of demands; the psychological impact of demand management in SCM and what better way to sum up by bringing to light the fact that how demand-pull and forecast-pull create an adverse impact on an poor student like me :p

Follow your heart ....

Amidst all the madness that I am experiencing as the month keeps on progressing I chance upon the beautiful words of Osho -

Look deep into your heart.
Listen to the still small voice within.
And remember one thing:
life is fulfilled only through longings, never through ambitions.
Life becomes blissful only through the heart, never through the mind.
Mind creates science, the heart creates religion.
Mind can give you better technology, better gadgets.
The heart gives you the real, ultimate values:
love, bliss, truth, freedom, awareness, God.
And a life without these values is valueless.

And yet time and again in life we fail to follow the most natural and real, falling in the self-alluring trap leading us nowhere but into a downward spiral of abnegation.

Manic May...

With Manic May in full action I dont think it will be possible for me to blog for sometime now.

Just hoping and wishing to get over it safe and sound......

Off to Mahabaleshwar...

It happens rarely with me, hence thought of acknowledging and penning down the feeling asap.

I am feeling excited and happy about the Mahabaleshwar trip that I am leaving for tonight. The happiness has a freshness which is a rarity for me to experience. Almost a childlike free will which is playing in my head :)

Goal Setting...

During the span of last 3 months, I happened to read about Dr. Ram Charan - first from a blog buddy's post and later read a wondeful book by the same author - Know-How : The 8 Skills That Separate People Who Perform from Those Who Don't .

And just last week happened to find a entire collection of his published articles -> Ram Charan - What Every Company Should Know

It been truely a pleasure to go through the articles and see how masterfully he has broken down the biggest strategic challenges faced by organisations across the world into simple modules and tackled each of them by suggesting real and actionable steps in which they can be dealt.

My favourite one has been, Goal Setting. Here is what he recommends -

Goals should always reflect the opportunities in the outside world,
tempered by what's realistically doable. Here are some guidelines:

• Think about the "how"
Saying "We're going to grow revenues" is not enough.
Saying "We'll grow revenues faster than our competitors" is better, but is still
vague.You need more specificity: "We'll grow twice as fast as the GDP over the
next five years. One-third of that growth will be fueled by new products, which
will be the result of a 25 percent increase in R and D money. We'll fund the R
and D with money saved by cutting marginal product lines."
State your goals clearly, but also understand how they'll be accomplished. What actions will they trigger, and what are the implications for your business?

• Involve others
You want the people who have to work toward the goals to have a chance to challenge them and the assumptions behind them. Then you'll know you haven't overlooked anything and you'll have a feel for whether the goals are realistic.
Some people resist goals because they don't like being held accountable, but others resist because they know that meeting them will do real harm to the business. Besides, people are more likely to buy into the goals if they have a chance to help shape them.

• Consider how goals interact
A single goal -- whether it's profit or revenue growth, or market share, or even a hybrid like shareholder value -- distorts the business as people try to maximize that one measure. Instead, choose multiple goals, and as you do, consider how they interact with one another. No company can maximize everything at the same time. Be sure the set of goals you choose can be accomplished simultaneously. Reducing working capital by 10 percent, for instance, might be impossible if another of your goals is to grow revenue 15 percent.
Several years ago, leaders of one of the world's largest automakers stated their intention to increase overall market share, but pursuing that goal proved to have a negative effect on earnings as the company struggled to support a very wide range of products.

• Consider the context
Set your goals in light of the opportunities that exist internal and external to your business, unit, or department. Maybe there's an opportunity to redesign your supply chain and tap huge cost savings in the process, or a whole new customer segment that could cause a big jump in revenues.Think broadly, and look forward, not backward. And be prepared to adjust the goals in light of what the rest of the
business is doing -- for instance, in response to the CFO's need to increase
cash in the coming year.

The beauty of these guidelines is there simplicity. In the sphere of management consulting where throwing jargons and sounding complicated is considered to be highly desirable, here is someone who can speak plain english and yet make an impact.

The underlying philosphy in all that he speks about is building synergies; hence he talks about goals been based on the opportunities in the external world but the way to achieve is through introspecting, identifying ones strenghts & shortcoming and arriving an optimal. Just as what Sigmund Freud said - "A man should not strive to eliminate his complexes but to get into accord with them: they are legitimately what directs his conduct in the world".

Marketing Mix of Life ...

Passion and Profession are two of the most overlooked 2 P's of life. My management friends will surely understand it right away, and for the rest here is a quick Marketing 101.

We are so often caught in the trap of living upto 'n' number of expectations, both real and percieved, that we tend ignore things core to ourselves. Passion is something thats pure indulgence from the heart. And Profession is where we devote more than half of our waking and walking time. Yet there are so few of us actually think and move in the direction of clubbing these two.

In the ever cluttered space of Indian Online Job Portals there is little differentiation in terms of product offering. And as the dog fight starts for claiming the #1 slot, we can only expect things to get worse. I happened to come across a wonderful business model in the area of Online Recruitment used by Careerspice.

Here is what the section marked - "the careerspice difference" on the website says :

By studying the lives of extraordinary achievers through history, a unique discovery was made for the professional. The single source of all extraordinary achievements is Passion. There is an innate Passion within everyone. When tapped and aligned with properly, ones full potential is realized and great accomplishment is made. Careerspice is founded on this discovery. It is the only online employment service that utilizes deep profiling with passion™ at its core.

The next generation: Careerspice is seizing the opportunity to shift the industry paradigm to a more personalized plane. The Match PSS™ system focuses on deep employment compatibility rather than the current "cookie-cutter fit" practices. Based on key employment dimensions (passion™, strengths, and skills), Match PSS™ captures detailed attributes from both sides of the equation. This system narrows the field from thousands of random results to a highly select cases that are compatible. A win-win for job seeker and employer.

Careerspice services come at competitive rates to employers and are free for job seekers.

Its high time now for the Indian Job Portals to evolve there business models and think about something on similar lines. Or else the moment we update our resumes on any of the job portals, the first impact is a bunch of calls from Placement Consultants forcing upon you an entire range of job offers, ranging from wierd to amusing to downright absurd. And most importantly, having very little corelation with the description that you have had to fill in all those forms while you were signing up as a job seeker with these portals.

mobile blogging

Just installed Google Mobile on my mobile, this is a downloadable Java Application offering a great Gmail experience. Will surely recommend it to all who have a internet enabled mobile aceess.

And the first thing I did was using the Mail-to-Blogger service and send a post to my blog.

Getting a taste of mobile blogging and posting from my gmail account using my Motorola L6 :)