First Available Reason:- Do we take it too FAR?

Over the last several years, i have been exposed to an interesting phenomenon which seems gives a rational explanation to some of the irrational aspects of human behavior. I should thank my boss at work, a very wise man who triggered this thought process. This phenomenon is what i would refer to as FAR - First Available Reason.

Whenever a human is asked to provide a rationale for his decision/judgment, FAR invariably kicks in and we get into an endless mechanism of excuses/explanations which collectively sometimes makes sense but unfortunately fudges the point of view. A simple illustration is as follows:

"A subordinate is expected to be in the office at 9:00 AM in the morning for a client meeting. At 8:45, he calls up his boss to mention that he is stuck in a traffic jam and so can't make it to the meeting"

Upfront the excuse seems reasonable. However to understand FAR, you need to read between the words. The main thing to focus on here is the word "so". Without the so, the statement is fairly innocuous and is just a status update. The "so" transforms the sentence into a "cause and effect" syndrome. Here is where FAR kicks in. The subordinate is pretty clear that the reason why he is late for the meeting is because of the traffic jam. However his boss is aware of the FAR phenomenon and so decides to have a nice chat with him. Here is how it goes

Boss: "Hmm, traffic jam eh? Interesting! So where was the traffic jam?"

FAR subordinate: "Oh, it was near the airport.”

Boss: "At what time, did u get to the airport?"

FAR subordinate: "Well, at about 8:40"Boss: "Is it the usual route that you take from home?"

FAR subordinate: "Oh yeah. It is. I am an expert on this route. The traffic jam around this time is absolutely dreadful. The police don't seem to want to do anything and keep frustrating us every day"

Boss: "Indeed you are an expert. So i am sure you would know that the airport is about 35 minutes from our office even if the road was absolutely empty".

FAR subordinate: "Absolutely. I always hated our management team for putting up our office so far"

Boss: "So let me get this straight.

• You take the same route everyday
• You are aware of the fact that you will hit a traffic jam at a specific spot at a specific time
• You are aware that even if there was no traffic jam, you could still not make it your appointment.
• You also know in advance at what time was appointment.
• Still the traffic jam is the main reason why you could not make it to office in time today?"

FAR subordinate: "No, No, No. I think it is our management that doesn't seem to understand that we have to travel so far.”

Boss (with a smirk): "Oh, that makes sense. So it is our management that screwed up things and made it difficult for you to attend the meeting today. But I understand that you were among the guys who preferred this office as opposed to the one downtown which was not that spacious.”

FAR subordinate (now stuttering): "Of course, of course. To be honest, the real reason why i am late is actually the irresponsibility of the traffic police. They are so callous to the challenges faced by us and don't want to do anything about it. They are a disgrace to our nation.”

As one can see, in such a situation, the FAR phenomenon does provide some explanation for the ridiculous responses of the subordinate.

• The subordinate decided that the FAR - "the traffic jam" was why he couldn't make it to office on time.
• When his boss made him realize that the traffic jam was an expected event, the FAR became the "The management which decided to put up a office so far"
• When his boss again made him realize that the subordinate was an advocate for the current office, the FAR became "The irresponsibility of the police" and further the "the police have become the disgrace of the nation".

Normally the FAR cycle does continue till a point where the subordinate runs shot of excuses or does figure out the actual reason. In this case, the actual reason was that he had actually forgotten about the meeting and started for office in his usual time. When he got a reminder on his cellphone that he had a meeting at 9:00 (15 minutes before the meeting), that is when he realized his predicament and decided that the traffic jam was the cause for the problem.

Now this situation is not unusual and manifests itself in every walk of life. I have also been a victim of FAR for however long i can remember. However recently, i have realized a couple of things as the reasons for FAR

• An inherent hesitation to take responsibility for our actions
• An inclination towards self pity which subsequently becomes a comfort zone where poorly developed habits reside
• A desperate need to transfer the blame on to extraneous factors.
• Trying to find reasons to justify the point of view, just to satisfy our ego

So do we take FAR too far? I think so and this results in a number of unnecessary side-effects

• Breakdown of trust and credibility
• Unnecessary mental tension as we focus our mind towards finding the next FAR rather than sort out things in a rational way
• Poor problem solving skills. This results in poor judgments that can impact our life in fairly dramatic and painful ways.
• Sometimes, it can affect our families and subordinates and can dictate their behaviors as well. Just as mosquitos transmit malaria from person to person, we do transfer negative behavior very easily over our spheres of influence.
• Also often results in incomplete solutions. We think that the solution to the FAR will solve the problem only to find that it just cleared the way for the next one to be rearing its ugly head. This then turns into a situation which i would call as "Running like headless chickens".

How do we combat FAR? No easy solution but here are a few tips.

• Stop blaming others for your situations. It is very likely that you are in a specific situation because of your actions/decisions.
• Stop giving excuses. They are the biggest single deterrents to logical problem solving.
• If in doubt, if something is the reason for a situation, very likely it is not. Most situations have a very simple and logical explanation. Simple doesn't mean it is easy to identify or accept but it will be definitely be logical.
• Be unemotional when you are doing this introspection. Emotion is like a smoke that clouds our judgment.
• Learn to take full responsibility for your actions. Do realize that it is ok to make errors in judgment as they indeed do provide tremendous learning opportunities.
• If your subordinates or folks within your sphere of influence get into FAR, don't hesitate to correct them.
• Not letting ego come in the way of logical reasoning. Don't try to bully facts into a rationale just to satisfy Mr. Ego.
• Last but not the least, accepting your mistake and saying sorry is a virtue and not a self-defeating proposition.

Hope we can do something FAR? After all, taking anything too far has never been helpful, isn't it?

Manmadhan Anbu - A ridiculous waste of talent and resources

The latest offering from Kamal haasan and Director KS Ravikumar had everything going for it

• A pedigree of succesful and funny movies - Avvai Shanmugi, Thenali, Panchathantiram
• An enviable star cast - Kamal, Trisha, Madhavan, Sangeetha, Ramesh Aravind, Urvasi,  Usha Uthup and in a guest role, Surya
• The marketing of the movie including the promos made it clear that it is going to be a visual treat covering Europe including a cruise.
• A powerful production banner which is owned by the son of the second most powerful person in the state. However, considering that this person or his cousin pretty much produce every movie these days, it might not be such a USP after all. Nevertheless this was a sure indication that cost would not be a constraint for the film and that it would definitely be an extravagnaza.

Considering this powerful background, the film turns out to be a major disappointment. The first half of the movie is relatively palatable with the gradual build up of the plot - A jealous &rich boyfriend (Madhavan) of a major movie star (Trisha) sends a detective & ex-army major (Kamal) to figure out if Trisha is going to be doing something naughty on an European vacation, that she is enjoying with her childhood friend & now divorced single mother of two (Sangeetha). The major is undertaking this trip to help his friend (Ramesh Aravind) who is suffering from cancer. Amidst a slew of funny one-liners and slapstick comedy, the plot slowly but surely leads to an interesting twist by the time of intermission.  As i went out to get some popcorn from the stalls at mayajaal, I was still looking forward to how things would shape up from then on.

Nothing however could have prepared me for the ridiculous fare that took place after intermission. It was almost like the script-writer and director were so caught up in the beauty of Europe that they forgot their primary job. None of the actions of the characters really make any sense leading to the absolutely ridiculous climax. I have never been disappointed by a Kamal movie ever since he started his experimentation with the epic Nayagan in the late 80s. Have thoroughly enjoyed all the different genres that he has attempted (Anbe Sivam, Guna, Michal Madana Kama Rajan, Apoorva Sagotharargal, Hey Ram, Dasavatharam, Indian, Unnai Pol Oruvan to name a few). With this record, i just could not undertand how Kamal could have allowed this ridicuous fare to have been made. There is a song which is supposed to have been uniquely picturised which outlined Kamal's flashback but it left us quite confused and with a headache at the end of it.

Now coming to the positives

• For those of us who are not that lucky to go on an European tour, we do indeed get a visual treat.
• Trisha, who is never really renowned for powerpacked performances probably seems the only sane character in the entire movie through her simple portrayal.
• The slapstick comedy does work in parts. You might actually enjoy it if you ignore the lacklustre script.

I hope that the Ulaganayagan realises that he has a reputation to live upto and makes sure that he does not tread the path what his supposed successors seem to be doing these days. As far as i am concerned, this fare is money down the drain.

Benaami by Anish Sarkar - Dan Brown meets Frederick Forsyth in an Indian milieu

Anish Sarkar, a vice president with information major with Cap Gemini and an IIT-IIM alumnus is the latest to join the bandwagon of high ranking professionals with enviable academic pedigree to storm the literary world. I also happen to know Anish personally as an ex-colleague. In his debut novel, Anish has attempted to create a Da-Vinci code kind of feel against the background of the Great Indian mutiny of 1857 which was probably the closest that India came towards upheaving the colonial rule of the British until Mahatma Gandhi came up the more subtle mantra of non-violence.

The book follows the adventures of an Indian software engineer, Arjun Chaterjee who has been struggling with certain dreams since his childhood and has been trying to make some sense of them. He meets the attractive history professor Dr. Guha who is an expert on the Great Indian mutiny and before they realize, they are sucked into a major terrorist conspiracy by a crazy business tycoon whose inspiration also lies in the mutiny.

The book shifts between the past and the present (with the past being printed in italics) keeping the reader glued to the inevitable point where the two have to converge. And when it does, it is indeed quite a revelation. There are numerous threads intertwined within the plot, some of which include

• A view of the thoughts, challenges and deeds of the Indians of the mid 19th century.
• A secret unknown society which was the brains behind the mutiny and whose presence has been lost in the annals of history.
• Romance between an indian man and a British woman who eventually becomes a key member of the secret society.
• Widow remarriage
• The inevitable romance between arjun and guha
• Nuclear technology and a view of what happens when this falls into the wrong hands (even if the ulterior motive could be one of extreme patriotism)

Anish keeps sprinkling the plot with a number of sub-plots and then subsequently ties all of them up towards the climax. The best part is that pretty much all the threads get neatly tied up leading to an action packed climax. In my opinion, the plot offers significant potential to be made into a movie. Overall, the book has a Dan Brown feel with the climax drawing similarities to Frederick Forsyth's book 'The Fourth Protocol'

A couple of things that could have been better include the following

• The plot of the tycoon seems a little rushed towards the climax
• One thread which remains open is how did the tycoon figure out what finally happened to the benaami bcos all of them are shown to have perished while unleashing the 'brahmastra'?
• The book could have had a different title. It is an apt title once u have read the book but it probably distracts the audience because 'benaami' in modern india stands for illegal hoarding of wealth using an alias. This is one place where Chetan Bhagat and Ravi Subramaniam seem to have got it just right.

Overall, the book made for fascinating reading and I hope that Anish continues to churn out such interesting plots in the days to come.

Back Again

After a year dominated by plenty of work and a lucky promotion, am back to my favourite pastime. Hope i can sustain the momentum this time around. Have started using facebook and twitter as well.

A nice perspective on work

Lucy Kellaway is one of my favourite columnists. For those of you who dont know her, she is a popular British columnist on Financial Times and her columns are witty and is especially known for her jabs at management fads/jargons. This recent article (If you are unable to log in, just register for free on the site and proceed) by her presents a different face of our pet hobby/crib - Work. It takes a deviation from the classical way of looking at work as something that is done as a means to sustain yourself financially to one that is an absolute must. If you read past the obvious British sarcasm, it is quite insightful. Happy reading and of course, WORKING.

Chetan Bhagat's latest offering confirms his status as a mass story teller

Chetan Bhagat's writing represents a curious combination of unique things. He is definitley someboy with a high IQ (IIT-IIM, Goldman Sachs background), has a rather simple style of writing (no complex plots, characters that represents the comman man, takes a light & humorous stab at some of our indian idiosyncrasies and while the end is quite predictable, there are sufficient twists and turns in getting there), there is always reference to some sexual escapades of the protagonists and the books are priced quite attractively His intellectual reputation further promises a nice opening at the book stores for his books. His latest book "2-States:- the story of my marriage" (costs Rs 95) is almost an autobiography of his unique marriage (his wife Anusha (or Ananya as portrayed in the book) is a classmate from the prestigious IIM and is a Tam-Bram while Bhagat is a punjabi. For those of you who dont understand what these terms mean, read the book :)) The challenges faced by this intellectual duo as they decide to get married with the blessings of their parents is bought out in a rather uniquely humourous way through this fast paced novel (I bought the book and finished reading the entire story in 2 hours flat). The clumsy Hari of 5 point someone becomes the dorky Krish Malhotra here (including the references to strained relations with his father, a tough college professor, disciplinary issues at IIT and of course, a college sweetheart). At some level, Bhagat must be ruing the fact that he did not cast Hari as a punjabi. If he had, this would have been a logical sequel. Bhagat uses the opportunity to throw some potshots at some of the ridiculous customs, both sides of the Vindhyas without either getting preachy or banal.

The concept is hardly novel and there have been some interesting movies in the recent past (Abhiyum Naanum is one that comes to mind first) around a similar concept and this book also presents an ample opportunity for a nice and humorous family movie. (1 of Bhagat's books has already been made into a movie and one more is in the offing). The book is particularly pleasing sheerly because it does not aspire to be a masterpiece. It is completley unpretentious, humorous and would resonate with the the common man who has a simple view of life, does not take it too seriously and would not mind reading a light book to trigger his imagination. So for those of you who like such books, Bhagat's latest offering is a nice and simple story for you to enjoy a peaceful evening of book reading. And to those parents who frown down on cross-community marriages, here is some intelligent and humorous food for thought.

Tamil Cinema's coming of Age - hope the spark continues

This year's Gandhi Jayanthi (october 2nd) found my wife and i watching 2 brand new movies at the Theatre, one after the other (yes, we decided to do some crazy stuff) and to our luck found ourselves thoroughly satisfied with both of them. Considering that tamil cinema in recent times has been littered with depressingly crass, mediocre and senseless movies (Kanthasamy, Ninaithale Innikum to name a couple) which ended up getting much fanfare sheerly through a combination of aggressive marketing and some star power, we found ourselves thoroughly surprised. The two movies that we saw were Eeram and Unnai Pol Oruvan (the remake of the much critcally acclaimed " A Wednesday"). The fact that i enjoyed most about either of them was the fact that neither of them had any stupid gravity-defying fights, crass item numbers or irrelevant comedy sequences, which over time, despite their "insult to intelligence" characteristics have become to dominate tamil cinema over the last couple of decades.

Eeram is a brilliantly shot and innovatively told murder mystery. The director, a Film institue gold medallist clearly had the audience engrossed through this unusual movie through a combination of brilliant camerawork, logical & clear story-telling as well as employing little-known actors (though i am sure that all the key characters should have a bright future if they chose their projects wisely). Every scene in the story depicts the wetness (Eeram means wetness in Tamil) with water being vividly shown in some form or the other. Another novelty pertains to showing a red-colored wet object to highlight the onset of the next murder is very clever. The color of the frames depicts the dark nature of the story very well. The climax could have been thought through a little more but is nevertheless smart in its own way. Director shankar has once again revealed his keen eye in identifying different stories and sponsoring them to unravel fresh talent into the industry.

Unnai Pol Oruvan is an outstanding story of how a common man holds the entire Chennai police administration to ransom for an entire day to administer a very different form of social justice. The ensemble of brilliant senior actors including Kamal Hassan and Mohanlal as well a bunch of fresh-faced new comers combined with a fast moving story line (the entire hardly lasts for an hour and a half) keeps the audience spell bound. The police officers shown here are not the stereotyped caricatures that we have been used to. The challenges and difficulties that they face in a typical day are depicted very realistically. The sharp and witty discussions between the police commissionar and the Chief Secretaty as well as the hard-hitting chats between the common man and the commissionar (not to mention the hillarious Telemarketing call that frustrates the commissionar while lightening the grim mood) are very realistic and entertaining.

I sincerely hope that 2009 heralds the onset of a new and sensible year in Tamil Cinema and that we do get to see more of these masterpieces in the days to come.

Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ - A book review

I recently completed this masterpiece by Daniel Goleman and it made for some absolutely fascinating rumination. The concepts mentioned in this are quite profound and extremely relevant in today's world. Though this book is more than a decade old, it is all the more startling as to how much importance is still placed on IQ in today's world. Possibly because there are no consistent ways to measure EI, IQ still retains its importance.

Couple of things that are currently at the top of my mind long after i have finished the book are the following

• The absolute need to prevent the hijacking of the mind and the brain during sudden surges of emotion mostly on the temper side. A single such hijacking can potentially alter one's life for the worse and that too in a matter of seconds. Temper or Anger as a controlled emotion can be a very effective tool in bringing about change but the same, if unchecked, especially during a sudden surge is akin to a power fluctuation that blow out the fuse of the entire neighbourhood
• The need to start ingraining in our younger generation, the abilities to handle failure/anger/loss at an early age as these are likely to help them much more than the information overload that is likely to litter their brains in the name of IQ.
• To absolutely refrain from curbing one's creative senses based on some silly IQ measurement and to channelise their energies in their chosen interests is likely to help them be more succesfully and also be more emotionally balanced.

This book is definitely a must read to help us get a reasonable perspective into the behaviourial patterns that we see all around us. For after all, any better world needs to be far more emotionally balanced.

From IIM to Tollywood

As the wife and i were reading through reviews of the recently released movies in order to chose one for our weekend outing, we came across this interesting one. A person who shares my first name as well as a similar background seems to be stirring some interest in the Telugu movie industry (popularly referred to as Tollywood). The portion that stuck me was that the variety of things that this person has tried out since graduating from one of India's leading business schools. He started out with a Pharma firm, dabbled into stock broking, worked for an advertising firm, started a shopping mall amongst others and has recently even produced a movie, Ashta Chamma. No doubt, his thrilling career journey has found its way into a case study on entrepreneurship at the Indian School of Business

It is quite refreshing to see more and more professionals entering the Indian film industry as the world's largest unorganized glamour & glitz factory comes to grips with the challenges of corporatization and globalisation. Also encouraging to see smart young people dabble in different things rather than take the stereotyped Indian-middle-class dream of a good education and then a job till retirement. While these adventures are quite common in the west, the average Indian professional is still a novice in figuring out what he/she wants to achieve in their careers. Kudos to guys like Ram who are prepared to defy convention and are willing to experiment.

Nono to Nano? Or TATA to green environment?

Two very interesting but quite related incidents took place over the past week

• India's vision of seeing a Rs 1 Lakh ($2500) car finally became a reality as the Tata motors delivered the Nano to its first customer. This project went through significant challenges and this event definitley deserves mention amidst this background.
• India's Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh recently signed a declaration at the Major Economies Forum (MEF) in Italy, committing India to curbing its carbon emissions. There is a debate still going on in the India media on whether this has caused india to compromise on its development agenda.

As one can see, these 2 developments seem to be a classic case of the right hand not being aligned to the left hand. The Nano, albeit an engineering marvel is all set to do its damage to the environment in terms of flooding the already bustling indian roads and potentially increase the carbon emissions exponentially. With a 620cc engined, Nano in itself is unlikely to be an issue but imagine the impact of having a million nanos on the roads over the next couple of years. Considering this fact, is the Government really serious on what it is committing to ?

If we step back for a minute, it just seems to be a case of bickering over insignificant spoils. Sure, the western world has contributed to most of the environmental destruction till date but can the developing countries use this an excuse to add their own piece to the pie? At the end of the day, quite a few of these destructions are irreversible damages and it is unlikley that a significant portion of the world population will be able to enjoy the benefits of such ill-conceived development (if it happens).

With a bulging population (that is showing no signs of slowing down) , unplanned development and loose regulatory environment, India is still trying to come to terms with the spoils of globalization. The Nano is something more than just the release of a new model of a car. It possibly is the inflection point in India's growth story as it slowly starts doing for Iwhat the Ford Model-T did for America, more than a 100 years ago. But a Model-T to a 100 million population in 1895 is a far cry from a nano to a 1.2 Billion population in 2009 . So is Nano the begining of the end? I do not want to define what does "end" mean as it is just too scary. Do we have the guts to say NONO to the NANO? Or is it TATA to green environment?

The Great Indian Fuel Hike - common sense takes a backseat

The new government ushered in the month of July 2009 by announcing a fuel hike of Rs 4. per litre of petrol and Rs 2. per litre of diesel. In a sense, the announcement was not completely a surprise. Consecutive governments use fuel price as an effective lever in the political drama by taking advantage of the regulatory mechanism prevalent in the country. It is not uncommon to see a drop in prices in the buildup to the elections during which time the oil companies(most of which are state owned) start accumulating losses. Once the election is over, it is time to pass the buck back to the populace and give a relief to the oil companies. The fluctuating global oil prices have not helped the cause either as India pretty much imports all its oil.

What is surprising however is the reaction by our population to the fuel hike. The most predictable and thereby the most ridiculous reaction is the way, people queue up to the fuel bunks on the eve of the announcement (most times, the fuel hike kicks in only from the following day) and try to fill up their tanks. This silly reaction results in the following

• Huge traffic jams across the board
• The bunks run short of supply very quickly thereby leading to rise in tempers.
• Unneccessary pollution caused due to the traffic jams
• Significant pain to people who really need to fill up their vehicles (because their fuel tanks are empty)
• It is not unusual to see people having heated arguments with the staff at the petrol bunks who reel under the onslaught of the mad rush. In a number of cases, the police had to intervene to bring the situation under control

If you step back and think about this reaction, it makes absolutley no economic sense. For a car, if an average person fills up 20 litres of petrol on a price-hiked day, he stands to gain Rs 80 (which is equivalent to saving up of 1.75 litres of petrol) vis-a-vis filling it up on the next day. If it is diesel, this number goes down to Rs 40 (which is equivalent to 1 litre of diesel). Considering that a litre of petrol gives an average petrol car user a mileage of 12 kms/litre in the city and a diesel car gives a mileage of 15 kms/litre, one is left wondering at what the fuss is all about. It is quite clear that for 4-wheelers, there is just no gain in queueing up on D-day at the bunks. The argument is slightly different for 2-wheelers who do stand to gain slightly more because the average mileage in the city for a 2-wheeler is about 45 kms/litre and thereby makes slightly more economic sense. But if you think about it, a 2-wheeler only runs of petrol and an average 2-wheeler user does not fill up more than 3-4 litres at any point in time, the savings are just about Rs 16 and thereby they really do not save much either. Of course, 2-wheelers are less inclined to cause a traffic jam and also take lesser time to fill up their tanks.

Agreed that this hike could eat into the meagre savings of the middle and lower class who are already reeling under the impacts of the global recession but this mad-rush does not in any way alleviate their pain. As a matter of fact, it just increases their frustration at the eco-system. It is time that we as a population, get mature and stop reacting in such an emotional and senseless manner to the Great Indian Fuel Hike.

Sabbatical - the panacea for the modern-age overworked executive?

I recently caught up with a close pal of mine from business school. He, would to a large extent, is a good respresentation of the modern Indian executive. He is a child of the Indian globalisation phenomenon (read that as someone who did his education in the mid to late nineties), has sterling academic qualifications (read that as belonging to the elite IIT-IIM brigade) and was dishing up a nice career in Corporate India (read that as a Sales/Marketing executive in a FMCG firm). Not to mention the fact that he was married to a lady with a similar background. And as a couple, who have just entered the dreaded thirties, it doesnt get better, does it?

As i listened with open-mouthed amazement, he announced that both he and his wife have resigned their jobs and are going on a sabbatical for a year. And what do they intend to do with eir precious time.

• Go on a long planned European tour (he has even booked apartments in Paris and London for the same) on their own terms.
• Pursue their individual creative interests.
• Get their heads together on starting out on their own entrepreneurial venture.

As one would expect, this took poor me quite a while to digest this tsunamic decision. As someone, born and bought up in the under-belly of the indian middle-class, i was always conditioned to think that a job is the perfect reflection of adulthood (Udyogam, Purushalakshanam) and where the purpose of working was to save for future generations as well as to serve one well during retirement. Consdirdering that this couple too came from a similar background, a torrent questions flew out of my mouth as my bird-brain tried to wrestle with this challenge against conventional wisdom.

• Do you realise that it may take a couple of years for the economy to improve?
• Are you sure that you have taken care of your commitments?
• How do you plan to sustain your medical insurance and other needs?
• Arent you sacrificing a whole year of vibrant youthfulness (which went multiplied by inflation) would mean losing out of one quite a bucket of retirement money?
• Why couldnt you do all this fanciful stuff while you are still working. After all, both of you worked for multinational firms which would be glad to give you an international posting?

All this was met with a calm smile and a logical explanation of why this action actually makes sense. After all

• Both he and his wife were getting bored with their careers, which albeit going well was turning their lives into a mundane existence. There were occassional challenges, no doubt but they had pretty much exhausted all that in the last decade.
• They have always wanted to go aroudn the world and did not want to wait upto 60 to figure that out. Also with the workload in their current jobs, they are not going to able to spend time on their pursuits.
• W.r.t their financial commitments, either ways they dont expect very fancy pay-hikes for this year and so it is not a big risk in itself.
• Another interesting observation was that a healthy sabbatical from work would mean that they are conserving their good health (both physical and mental) to take on the onslaught that future corporate life is going to throw at them in the future.

Of all the ones, the last one made a lot of sense to me. There have been different studies all over the world that have pointed out the drastic increase in people who are suffering from life-style ailments - more and more overworked executives are grappling with diabetes/blood pressure/cholestrol flucatuations. Bear in mind that the wealth that is gained at the altar of their health gets eroded at a faster rate when it is used subsequently to manage the after-affects of these ailments. As we take on more pressure in both our personal/professional lives in the never-ending pursuit for corporate glory, we do very often forget to live in the current moment. We either keep mulling over the demons of the past or keep planning for the promise of the future. After all, a corporate career is expected to last anywhere between 30-40 years and what negative impact can 1 year make, particularly when you are devoting it to rejunevate your mental/physical health and to figure out exactly what you want to do? After all, most of us do keep talking about work-life balance and how we should learn to dictate work and life and not the other way around. Adequate rest and relaxation are equally important for corporate success as much as knowledge/hard work.

So does sabbatical offer the right panacea for the overworked executive?. I would say yes, provided one is absolutely sure of what one wants to do during this period. If the time is whiled away in useless pursuits/activities, it would end up having an adversely opposite effect. One may realise that one has blown up money/career for just about nothing and would then overwork himself to catch up on the rat-race. So if you are clear about how to use up this well-deserved rest, go ahead. It may just be the perfect medicine to keep the medical fraternity out of your life for the reminder of your existence. Interestinginglly wikitravel has a link for such endevaours which it calls as gap year

I am back

The last 3 months have been quite hectic from a work front and i did miss out on blogging. So I was down but not out and will resume blogging shortly.

The Satyam Fiasco - A good opportunity for corporate India to come to terms with reality

The last 3 days have been probably the most dramatic in the history of Corporate India for quite some time. Satyam (which ironically means truth in Sanskrit) - India's 4th largest IT Exporter which is listed even on the US bourses saw its fortunes crumbling overnite with an interesting confession from its chairman that it has been lying about its accounts and that the firm was an artificially stacked up pack of cards hanging on a slim thread. He equates his journey to a ride on a tiger not knowing when to get off and also avoid being eaten up. What followed was absolute chaos. A quick team of Satyamites with equally dubious credentials tried to cough up a task force to handle the impacts of this confession which ended up only making the scene worse. No doubt, this has been talk of the town in just about every television channel/radio/newspaper and just about everywhere. Of course, Satyam claims to have over 53000 employees who are supposedly facing a blank future and this is supposed to be a complete blemish on India Inc's image. A hero became a vilain overnight as India came to terms with its own Enron. The parallel with the failed Energy giant could not be ignored as we do have an international auditing firm Pricewaterhouse Coopers doing what Andersen did to Enron. The auditors seem to have ignored some very simple measures like Cash position/Accrued Interest. Suddenly IT is no longer the spoilt child that Indians thought was going to be their gateway to a super-power. We have had some ridiculous programmes on the supposedly intelligent media channels where reporters try to dramatise the accounting disasters emerging (bear in mind that all of these are based on pure speculation as it is going to be a while before the true financial statements come out). Of course, the SEBI, Ministry of corporate affairs (i dont think that many realised that there is such a ministry around) the Andhra Pradesh Government (which till a few days ago was calling Ramalinga Raju as one of its illustrious sons) and the ICAI have all stepped into the game in an apparent move to get at the truth. Of course the share markets did their bit by battering the stock to just about par value which has resulted in a new bunch of stakeholders holding the stocks and pressurising the governement to incldue them in the scheme of things as it tries to assemble a new board.

When you step back and take a slightly more objective look at things, one would realise that this is not such a bad thing after all. It is an essential part of any sensible capitalist market to have a few disasters along the line which generally tend to only improve things. You do need an Enron to get a Sarbanes Oxley act and to get the Accounting firms which also used to offer consulting services for the same clients, to part ways. (Imagine advising a client to do a certain action and then auditing the same). Anybody thinking that Indian companies are world-class in corporate governance or financial transparency must be truly kidding. We are still an infant in the big brute world of globalization and will grapple with challenges. There are definitely more Satyams lurking in the background (The American markets did have Worldcom/Tyco/Xerox/CA among a host of others which did similar illegal stuff and some of them survive even today). Regarding the employees facing a bleak future, they do face some uncertain times but the good ones will find happy homes soon. Satyam was to a large extent, an unusually succesful also-ran that was intelligent enough to make some inroads during the Y2K and the boom period for outsourcing that followed. More than anything else, this is a great opportunity for Corporate India to step up and clean its house. The financial world is no longer constrained by geographical boundaries and is extremely inter-twined as the sub-prime crisis taught us. A bad quarter for Wal-Mart means closing down of a few textile mills in a remote city of Tamilnadu in India. At the end of the day, India might probably be the world's second largest populated country but it is still a blip on the world's corporate arena and most of this noise will have negligible impact globally. The western world to a large extent hardly gave more than a passing reference to this episode as it tries to grapple with even larger issues like rising US unemployment and the Gaza crisis. But let us make sure that we crank up on our regulatory mechanisms and use this to clean our act. The US did send a strong message with the succesful convictions of Bernard Ebbers (Worldcom)/ Kenneth Lay and his gang (Enron)/ Dennis Kozlowski and quite a few others. Bear in mind that the actions of these exalted professionals with amazing qualifications has significantly larger after-effects than what Mr. Raju has done. Above all, don't let the crazy folks from the stock markets prevent the business leaders from taking tough decisions that may be painful in the short run but would offer benefits in the long run. A bad quarter is sometimes the right panacea for sustainable long term growth. Let us learn from this minor disaster and reduce the risk of major ones happening in the future. After all, nothing like a good crisis to fuel such actions.

Varanam Aayiram - Movie Review

The wife and i spent yet another friday evening at the sathyam multiplex complex catching up on famed director Gautham menon's latest offering staring his favourite hero surya. The promos of the movie were pretty cool showing surya in various getups including one with a awesome six-pack. The movie had also been in the news for various things including the fact that it was for 2-years in the making, financial problems with the rights being ultimately purchased by the infamous MK Azhagiri , the son of the Tamilnadu chief minister and its final foray into the theatres was eagerly expected. The music by Harris Jayaraj was already a hit with a number of soothing pleasant numbers.

At the end of the unusually long film (about 3.5 hours), i would say that it is a pretty good effort overall though by the time, we reached the end, most of the guys in the theatre including myself were yawning and this was not certainly due to the fact that it was 2:00 AM in the morning. The film tracks the life of Major surya who is embarking on an important mission to rescue a journalist who is held by terrorists and who has just been informed that his father krishnan (surya again) has just passed away after a fight with cancer. Krishnan has been surya's hero right from childhood and they have shared a close bond over the years. The film tracks the time from the glorious 70s when a smart young college goer, krishnan woos his college mate malini (Simran with a hideous wig) and marries her. Subsequent scenes then turn their attention on to the adventures of their son Surya who cruises through his life right from being a naughty teenager to a fun-loving college goer to his romances/failures and subsequently Surya discovering a mission for himself in life. A number of characters/ events are throw into the mix including: Sameera Reddy as the smart, acadmically brilliant Meghna who sweeps Surya off his feet in their fist meeting itself, which leads to a cute albeit cinematic romance which ends in a terrible tragedy; Divya Spandana as the calm neighbour pining for Surya and who ultimately marries him; the romance/love between Krishnan and malini as they help their son navigate through life etc.,

At the end, one was left wondering at a couple of things. Surya's outstanding performance in changing everything from his body language to his physical side in conveying the different characters. Rememeber Krishnan and Surya are characters essentially being essayed by the same actor but they have to appear on the same frame on a number of occassions. Think about the 6-pack clad Major surya and the aging Krishnan who can hardly talk as cancer grips him talking to each other in a single scene. The movie is an example for brilliant editing and the fact that surya has to transform himself into a number of characters itself justifies the 2-year long wait. Nevertheless, the movie was a wee bit too long and a number of things like surya's foray into drugs due to Meghna's tragedy, the susequent helping in the rescue of a friend's child from terrorists etc., only serve to elongate the story without any meaningful reason. Also the movie focusses little on surya's sister as all the action seems to be around Surya and a little more diligence in this angle would have aided the storyline better. This further frustrates the audience as an end seems nowhere in sight. The movie cannot expect a repeat audience and will be a product that can be consumed just about once.

All the actors do justice to their roles. Surya is outstanding, Sameera fits the role to a glove, Divya spandana is adequate and Simran is just fabulous as the ageing mother/wife (her natural outburst when krishnan is diagnosed with cancer is lovely and extremely natural) though her makeup as a college student was just plain hideous. Also this is one movie where the last line in the movie explains the rationale for the title as the family comes to terms with Krishnan's death (describing krishnan as the person who can tackle a thousand elephants with each elephant being linked to a new problem in life and who comes out succesful). Gautham who has been mentioning that this movie is a tribute to his own father who has been his mentor in life has done a competent job, however the issues in the movie especially the length of the movie are not going to set the box-office on fire. Gautham is defiintley one of our best directors with some really brilliant movies and i am looking forward to him learning from his mistakes and giving us some classics in the days to come. And surya does stand alone as the only beacon to the futue of tamil cinema as the only really talented hero from the current pack who really has the potential to become an extraodinary actor (and who does not get tied to the image hangover)

The White Tiger - A book review

I have always held a perception that the books that win literary awards are probably the boring ones which are only understood by a select pretentious few who like to portray themselves as guardians of literature. It is with the same skepticism that i began to read Aravind Adiga's book, The White Tiger which recently won the Man Booker prize for fiction and to my pleasant surprise, discovered a masterpiece. It is indeed a hard-hitting work sketched on a canvas filled with a liberal dosage of dark humour and sattire. The narration is rather unique as a series of letters to a fictional chinese premier. The darkness that the protagonist battles in his quest to break the shackles of a complex India - which is a seeming potboiler of contradictions and imbalances, has been narrated in a rather humourous and novel way. The Rooster coop - is arguably the most creative way to describe the average Indian mentality - one of the biggest contradictions of the 21st century - a land where the people laugh at the west for lack of culture but find it extremely difficult to maintain even basic cleanliness; a culture where collective good is conveniently sacrificed at the altar of individual prosperity; a nation struggling to bridge the widening gap between the haves and have nots; The transformation of Balram Halwai from a munna(caught in the shackles of a low-trodden north indian family) to an enterprising entrepreneur is to a large extent, a reasonable depiction of India's struggles to come to grips with these contradictions amidst the significant economic developments of the last couple of decades. I have not read any other books which have won a booker but if any of them have characters like Balram, they are definitely going to occupy front places on my book shelf. The White Tiger is worth a read and its stripes are definitely endearing. Of course, i will definitely be keeping an eye on my chauffeur

If God was a Banker - Book Review

The latest book that i devoured was the fast paced book by Ravi Subramanian, a leading Indian Banker and who went to the same business school that i did (though i was almost a decade behind him). The book is highly entertaining and gives a very interesting perspective of how Consumer Banking in India developed over the last couple of decades. It tracks the career of 2 diverse individuals, Swami and Sundeep, both of whom graduate from leading Indian business schools at the same time and who embrace the changes of a modern India. Each of them follow their own recipes to success, with Swami being the more mature, good-old ethical way while Sundeep pursues life on the fast track using every possible trick in the game to achieve his objectives. The book takes a potshot at some of the corrupt practices prevalent in the banking industry including the rampant misuse of the fine print in banking products, illegal liasons with business partners and the sales tactics used to thrust products upon the unsuspecting public by the relationship managers. It has also tried to portray a realistic view of how corporate politics operates and engulfs unsuspecting individuals in its tight grasp. The build up to the climax where Sundeep's sins catch up with him is a fitting tribute to the old management whim 'The opportunity cost of sin, when it catches up with you in the future has an compounded interest variant to it". Overall, an interesting fast paced novel which should pave the way for an interesting movie in the near future for the multiplex goers. Mr. Madhur bhandarkar, Are you listening?

Obama & Dhoni - paving the way for strong and sensible Leadership

The last few weeks have seen a couple of interesting personalities taking over leadership mantle for 2 of the toughest jobs in the world - The President of United States of America and the captaincy of the Indian Cricket Team. Strangely enough, both Barack Obama and Mahendar singh Dhoni bring a lot of common leadership traits to their seemingly diverse and tough roles.

• Both of them have risen from very modest beginings. Nobody in their wildest sense would have imagined an African Amercian from Hawaii rising up to become the president of the most powerful nation in the world. Equally startling is the rise of the boy from Jharkand, an indian state locked up in the heart of the Indian peninsula where dreaming up to play for local club would itself be considered a stupendous achievement. The celebrated writer, Peter Roebuck, who in my opinion is one of the best unbiased cricketing minds in the world today recently had a profile of Dhoni which did highlight the rise of Dhoni as well as the challenges up ahead in a captivating article.


• Both of them bring together a rare calmness and a cool head to the table. Obama's tackling of the Mccain tirade especially on the Bill Ayers issue revealed that he was a mature and confident individual who could articulate his logic clearly without getting unneccessarily emotional. Dhoni's calmness and maturity has recently been seenin a number of terrific Indian victories in different facets of the game over the last couple of years. His leadership has been calm, clinical and to a large extent, well in control of his emotions - clearly not what one would expect from a small-town boy in a nation which is so cricket-crazy that one poor performance by the team can lead to bloody riots.


• Both display an ability to stand up to the system if there is chance of it being a deterrent in their quest towards excellence. Obama's masterstroke of not relying on public financing (the first presidential candidate to ever do so) and rely on his own fund raising campaigns can be quite compared to Dhoni's stand of not going on the Sri Lanka tour citing exhaustion. Not even somebody of the stature of Sachin Tendulkar has had the gall to stand up to the system and mention that they were exhausted and needed rest. While Obama's stand resulted in the owerflowing of the Democrats , Dhoni's self imposed rejunevation resulted in a well charged indian leader who was ready to handle bigger challenges.


• The challenges ahead for these 2 personalities, although extremely diverse are indeed tough. While Obama has the challenge of tackling the worst ever economic catastrophe since the Great Depression, Dhoni will have the prying eyes of a billion Indians watching over his every move as he strives to make India the leading Cricketing giant. (considering the absudity of the average indian's reaction to cricket, one might even call Dhoni's job, a tougher one than Obama's)


• Just as Obama is getting ready to tackle the excesses left behind by an arrogant bush Administration that has left the world in a far worse state than what it was a decade ago, Dhoni needs to find alternatives to the stalwarts who are in the sunset of their careers in the current team


• While Obama tackles a economy that is woefully short of liquidity and weakening markets, Dhoni needs to sharpen his skills to match up to the politics of the BCCI, the most wealthy cricket body in the world today which is changing the dynamics of the gentleman's game.


• While Obama has Putin/Osama/Zardari et al to deal with, Dhoni has BCCI/IPL/Bollywood to handle.


• Both these leaders avoid making knee-jerk reactions. They are well planned which in turns opens up opportunities for their maverick oponents to make fools of themselves, thereby locking them up in a vicious cycle of stress from where redemption is anything but difficult. Mccain's ridiculous acts including the choice of Sarah Palin, the publicizing of Joe the Plumber and the drama during the passing of the Finance bill were clear indications of the crumbling of his knee jerk campaign against the well organized smart tactics of Obama. An equally comparable situation would be what swept away Ricky Ponting, the flamboyant Australian skipper during the recently concluded test series. Ponting, considered one of the shrewdest minds in cricket with a captaincy record that even Dhoni would kill to have, found it extremely difficult to keep his act together. The slow bowling rates as well as an overall defensive mindset (which is so uncharacteristic of the Aussies) were all part of a well thought out trap that Dhoni put together.
  

As roebuck puts it, both these personalities do not bring hope but expectations. They have demonstrated the uncanny ability to balance their immense pressures while keeping their senses fairly stable and human. To a curious watcher like me, this represents strong and sensible leadership. All i hope is that this is sustainable and not a flash in the pan. Kudos to the underdogs. maybe their flock grow

Fashion - Is Madhur Bhandarkar becoming stereotypical?

My wife and i burnt some midnight oil yesterday catching up on the latest "Fashion" in town. For a night show at the Inox in Chennai, it was houseful revealing that Madhur Bhandarkar has built up quite a strong brand loyalty among the multiplex goers. I have been impressed with his Page-3, Corporate as well as Traffic signal (i havent seen Chandni Bar yet) and was eagerly looking forward to Fashion - his latest biopic on cracking open the insides/travails/gliterrati of this industry. At the end of 3 hours (peperred with some bad nachos at the counter and some moderate popcorn), i could not relate to Madhur's creation as much as the earlier ones. It is quite possible that this is a world little understood by the likes of myself with middle-class upbringing and whose ambitions/dreams still fall within the realms of having a normal, non-glamorous existence.

There is also a strong possibility that we have got used to madhur's story-telling technique which seems to falling into a pattern - Giving an initial sneak preview of the industry, the protoganist with either dreams or idealistic views who quickly understands that all that glitters is not gold and who initially finds caring gay/straight friends (she does indulge in a romance with one of them which breaks as she catapults into stardom) and the gradual sucking of the protoganist into the muck (at least of one of whose adventures will shock us) and finally nirvana. To a large extent, all the 3 of his earlier movies seem to follow this pattern and Fashion seems to follow the trend. Meghna Mathur (potrayed by Priyanka Chopra), the starry eyed, spunky middle-class lass from Chandigarh whose journey into the Fashionable circles of mumbai is the protagonist and the movie diligently follows this journey. A standout performance by Kangana Ranaut as the hotshot model Shonali Gujral who gets sucked into the muck of the industry is the highlight of the movie. This resonates strongly with the recent discovery of a model who was found begging in the streets of Delhi.

Overall, all the ingredients were around but somehow the overall dish did not taste as well not because it was not well made but because we have got used to the taste. I can see a clear pattern emerging between characters of Meghna Mathur, Madhavi Sharma (Page 3), Silsila (Traffic Signal) and Nishigandha Dasgupta (Corporate). I am still a big fan of madhur who can be assured that i will definitely buy tickets for his next movie but i would like him to re-invent himself as he strives to be the most intelligent director that bollywood has seen for a long time.

Demystifying the Financial Crisis

The last few days have been quite nerve-wrecking for investors across the world and for the Average Indian Investor (AII) in particular, who would have seen his portfolio come crashing down by almost 125% vis-a-vis the peaks achieved in the early parts of the year. World famous financial institutions have fallen like nine-pins erasing trillions of dollars from across the world. Goverments have been spending sleepless nights trying to saving the erosion of public welath even it means putting some more taxpayers money back into the same hands that caused the crisis in the first place. Oil prices have widely fluctated from all-time peaks to depressing lows which makes one wonder at the potential of that eternal hope spoiler - Speculation. The crisis is definitely out there and it is time for us to sit back and understand what is going on so that we are prepared for the economic famine in the days to come.

I would probably call it as the wake-up call for the AII to realise that the honeymoon is over and it is time to get to the reality of an integrated world built on the platform of globalization where the pains as well as spoils are quite universally distributed. I have recently had a number of questions from colleagues/friends about the sub-prime crisis, the continuous collapse of financial institutions around the world and the impact of this on their personal wealth creation/erosion. While i am by no means an expert, i decided to put up a list of material (put together by other experts) which would help demystify the chaos that is currently pervasive all around. Nevertheless i am still a fan of globalistion/capitalism as this does hold the hope to a world of creativity and independance where people can compete and excel as per their choice

• The hindu carried an interesting article a few weeks back which explains the sub-prime crisis in a simple and lucid manner. This is definitley something which a layman can understand.
• There is understandably a wiki on the sub-prime crisis which gives a detailed view of the housing crisis - the genesis for the current disorder
• Mr. Warren buffet, the Oracle of Omaha who bailed out Goldman Sachs with a pyshic investment of 5 billion dollars has advised investors to use this opportunity to build up a portfolio of good stocks with good fundamentals at a low price. As he says, fear is the best time for investment.

Here is my view on 5 trends that are likely to hit the AII in the days to come

• There is going to a bloodbath in the construction industry as people have jacked up the housing prices based on the eternal hope of housing prices never coming down. Though i dont see prices coming down over the short term, the number of quality properties in the market is going to go down which will subsequently lead to a price decline and the evolution of affordable housing will once again become a reality. So for guys planning to buy a house, your dream house will still be some distance away but it might be worthwhile to wait.
• Interest rates will come down as there is an imminent need to put in liquidity (not just to boost the stock market but also to keep investments going to keep up to our GDP rate)
• The Sensex will probably bottom out at the 7000 levels, keep fluctuating for a year or two and will then again start rising in a more systematic manner. The bull run during 2006-2008 will be a distant dream
• Inflation will come down but will still be a cause of concern over the next 2 years as the growth in salaries is likely to become more flat.
• Sizeable investments in alternate energy sources (Wind/Solar etc.,) as well as next generation automobiles which will run on alternate energy (Barack Obama has committed to massive investments in this area)

Cuil - Is there finally a worthy challenger to Google's supremacy in the Search space

www.cuil.com - started by a bunch of ex-Googlers is a new search engine that claims to have the world's largest index. For those who are amused by the name, it apparently means "knowledge" in Irish. Even for a hardcore Googler like me, Cuil does offer a number of interesting features.

When you type the words on the Search edit box, cuil throws up a list of similar sounding words from its database ( and not from Autocomplete of IE), thereby helping you to limit the amount of typing that needs to happen through an intelligent choice mechanism

The Search also throws up results in an interesting organized way as opposed to Google's rather cluttered form. Look at what a search on "Dermatology" showed up.

It has been rumored that the Cuil team has received over $30 million in funding to improvise on its endeavors. Though it is still early days to determine if it is going to be worthy competitor to Google, it is really exciting for power users like me to have more choices. Also remember that Google has been quite faithful to its original Search User Interface and has kept things rather simple. Maybe it is time to see if it needs to bring more sophistication to the interface.

P.S. Please be extremely careful while typing the name of the Cuil URL. A mix of words would lead to http://www.culi.com/ which is an Italian hard-core porn site. I am sure that one would not want to put one's job at jeopardy if your organization's firewall catches you unawares while trying to attempt an innocuous search.

Dasavatharam - Almost a Magnum Opus by an Indian Genius

Recently, my wife and i went out to watch this attempted masterpiece at the INOX - one of chennai's attempts at Multiplexing the cinema goer's experience. We went to watch this during our favourite timing (9:00 AM on Saturday) but it was quite a full house. We ended up a few minutes late but still in time to catch most of this fast paced movie where India's greatest actor, Dr. Kamalahasan has attempted to dorn 10 different character roles. Other than 1 character which is based in the 12th century, the rest of the characters are set in contemporary times and keep constantly bumping into each other. Of course, some of the characters could have been played by anybody and have a thin thread to the overall story but the attempt is to get to Ten to give some credulence to the story's title.

A mish-mash of concepts bundled in this attempted sci-fi flick include

• Chaos theory and its application in contemporary philosophy where one presumes every event in the universe is connected to every other event and there is a method in the madness after all
• Theism or rather, Kamal's thoughts on the subject. As a matter of fact, i could resonate with Kamal's last word on the subject in the climax. By the way, there was nothing out there that would have hurt any religious sentiments unless one is a psychopath.
• The tsunami of 2004 - where this has been portrayed as nature's way of averting an even larger crisis.
• Biotechnology and its misuse
• Illegal sand quarying in Tamilnadu - which is indeed a worrying thing today where the urban elitist populace including me contribute to deprivation of natural resources in our bid to become more opulent at least in monetary terms and end up buying additional shelters than what we need.

By the time, we got to the finish, though one was amazed at Kamal's versatility and his dedication to his craft (whether it be the bumbling India RAW Agent - who can speak 5 languages in Telugu, the CIA Assassin, the Iyengar priest at the begining or the Dalit who is a genuine social worker, the portrayals were just breathtaking and for a few minutes, one tends to forget that they are all being performed by one person), one was definitely left wondering at how much more could have been accomplished. Also, the heroine's childish portrayal as well as the ability of the main hero character and the heroine to go through multiple accidents including an overturned lorry and escape absolutely unscathed were too juvenile in their portrayal.

Overall, it was definitely a magnum opus by India's greatest Film personality and is laudable for the effort that has gone in. Well almost....