Too little and too late

Dedicating this poem to people who were innocent victims of the bomb blast that took place in Delhi on 07.09.2011


The night grew dark but there was no fear,

The heart grew heavier yet there was no tear.

He knew this was not dope,

It was a life filled with hope.

All this meandering, where will it take?

Who cares when your life is at stake.

Words and thoughts don't matter anymore,

When your goal is at fore.

One shatter to break his sleep,

No thought could be as deep.

He just sat up wide awake,

Every breath of his was equal to a quake.

Now is the time screamed his heart,

His dreams had already drifted apart.

He tried to see his soul,

But all he saw was his body taking a toll.

He finally took his last breath,

With that he embraced death.

She suddenly remembered him again,

But it was too late as he had died with pain.

Rains - Do you enjoy them or hate them?

If there is even a few days of delay in the rains hitting our streets and providing us with first smell of the wet earth from what has been predicted by the metrology department, we start panicking. A few months of the summer heat and humidity does that to us - make us desperate to get respite from the heat and rains act as our saviour. 

We look forward to that first sound of thunder, the presence of black clouds hovering in the sky, a pleasant weather, anything that gives us that glimmer of hope that we are about to get the monsoons.

But I have observed that this optimism and positivity towards the rains is very short-lived by most people. It is not that people stop enjoying the rains after a point of time completely, it is the set of problems that it brings along which makes people want the rains to stop.

The proof of this reality is evident in the popular lines that all of us are familiar with: Rain, rain go away. Come again some other day.

Let me try and explain this. There are two categories of people largely: one category is those who love the rains and the other category is of those who hate the rains. Individuals in these categories are not mutually exclusive. In fact, all of us fall into one of the two categories at some point or the other depending Ron the situation and occasion that we are in.

Following are some of the situations when different people love the rains:
* When you are sitting at home, enjoying a nice cup of tea in the balcony along with pakoras.
* When a group of friends have gone on a long drive and the rain is just making the scenery around look beautiful.
* When heavy rains would lead to an off from school for a kid who hates going to school.
* When a guy is going on a bike ride with his girlfriend.
* When a couple are sitting by the sea and enjoying a hot corn cob between them.

Following are some of the situations when the same set of people despise the rains:
* When you are headed to office and a bit of rainfall is all it takes to bring the city to a standstill and your car to a start stop start stop routine and double the time from your normal time to reach office.
* When women are all dressed up in their finery for a wedding where they are supposed to walk in the Baraat and there are puddles all around.
* When you are living in a city like Mumbai and you are heading home and your means of transport - local trains are either filled to the brim or have stopped functioning due to the heavy rains and you have no way to reach home.
* When you are headed to the airport, already running late and with the rains, your chance of reaching the airport on time looks very unlikely.

Like I had mentioned, none of these are situations happening with different people but rather situations that all of us have faced at some point of time in our lives. So the next time that you are praying for rains, pray for the rains as well as the situation you want to be in so that you can enjoy the rains rather than curse and despise such a beautiful phenomenon.

While you guys read this, let me enjoy a hot cup of coffee while I enjoy  the rain from my balcony :) 

LETTING GO

The topic that I have chosen for today’s blog has some relevance in each and every one of our lives.  As human beings, emotions play a significant role in deciding our behaviour and in building relationships and attachments towards people as well as inanimate objects and things.

Quite often as someone or something becomes ours, we tend to get emotionally attached to it very strongly and the reasons for the same can be multifold. Some people or things bring joy and happiness to us, some others have a certain strong memory/memories attached to it, while some others have been acquired by putting in a lot of value (money or time or emotion or efforts).

From here on, I would like to talk about people and objects as two separate entities as each of the two has a separate emotion and value to it and it would be foolish to talk about the two in the same frame or with the same lens.

I will start with the inanimate objects first as they can be dealt with far easily than people. When I say that they can be dealt with far easily, what I mean is that one can let go off them far more easily. Yes, letting go…..two words which most of us hate to hear when it comes to things that we are very fond of. Letting go is a very strong action which requires one to be strong mentally and emotionally as letting go in most cases also means that you are accepting the fact that the thing will go away from you forever and you will not get to see it again in most cases. It is a very difficult act to perform and that is the reason we see a number of people holding on to a number of things dearly.

Let me illustrate what I am saying by a number of examples.

I have seen a number of mothers keeping the small clothes and toys of their kids, neatly folded/packed, occupying a large amount of space in their houses and cupboards even though the kid has become an adult and has left the home for a bright future. For that mother, there is no monetary value to any of these items but there is so much of nostalgia and memory attached to these items that asking her to let go off these can be very difficult.

Similarly, there are a number of women who still keep a size 26 jeans in their cupboard although they have outgrown that size a number of times over the last few years and they know it very well that they will never be able to reach that size again unless they decide to starve themselves. Yet if you were to ever ask them to let go of this jeans, the response that you will get is that she is keeping it so that she can wear it once again when she comes back to size 26.  Here again, when the woman looks at the jeans what she is actually remembering is that there were those days when she was really that slim. Nostalgia and memories once again play a big role in not allowing her to let go of her jeans.

You have a number of such cases of people keeping things that they won’t use again in future – books, clothes, toys, shoes and the list can go on.

It is always a struggle for them to let go of these possessions but sometimes you need to take that big step and just let it go as most of these things just occupy too much of space, which can be used to store or keep something else. Unless and until the emotion behind keeping that item is way too strong, you should just follow the rule of 6 and let go of these items.

Rule of 6 is an interesting rule that allows or facilitates letting go with some amount of ease. All you have to do is go through all the things that you have/own/possess every six months and ask yourself that which of these is something I have not used/worn/taken out in the last six months and put all those items aside. Once you have got them separated and if they are more than 6 items then what you can do is ask yourself that which of the 6 out of these is something I can let go off without feeling very bad. Select those 6 items and just discard them. You will feel better at this after sometime and you will also realise how much space you have got for new things and items in your life.

Now that the easy part has been talked about, let me talk about the difficult part which involves letting go of people.

Just look around and you will see a number of people who are holding on to another person even though there is no meaning left in holding on any more as there is no love or no happiness or no bond.  You see people holding on to companies (who I will consider as people) even though they are not happy there, people holding on to their partners even though the relationship or marriage has gone kaput, people holding on to friends who are really not friends but opportunists.

In most cases, people are holding on to other people and not letting go because of:

1. The time and effort that they have given – Seen mostly in case of companies, relationships and friendships
2. Kids and Social stigma – Seen mostly in case of marriages
3. Fear of the future and the unknown – Seen mostly in case of companies, relationships and marriages
4. Inertia or the mental strength – Seen mostly in case of companies and relationships

Almost all the people know when there is a genuine bond or feeling between people and when are they really holding on. There is just no point in dragging it for more time when you know that the result will be the same or worse. Of course, in the case of people, one has to try much harder and see if there is any merit and value in holding on or not before deciding the next step.

Yes, letting go in this case is not easy at all and it can really drain you out but sometimes when it has to be done it has to be done. Unfortunately there is no rule of 6 that can work in this case. The only rule that works here is asking your heart and your head whether it is worth continuing any more or will you be happy and better off outside and with that single approach, just go ahead and let go.

IPL – Its Web is wider than you think

Now that the Indian Premier League 4 has been done and dusted with, putting out a blog on IPL is as risky as facing Lasith Malinga without a helmet as you don’t know how the ball will respond. Well, this blog was supposed to be out during the IPL itself but due to laziness, inertia, and the IPL itself, was not able to put it together though the thought kept swimming in the mind all through. As you all know, you can’t hold back thoughts beyond a certain time and they have a tendency of wanting to come out once they get germinated, so here-on I present to you my thoughts on the IPL.

This blog is actually not about how great this IPL tournament was or how well some of the teams played or any of those other compliments and brickbats that have already been seen and read in print and online through various tweets and status updates. This blog is actually about stepping back a bit and noticing how the IPL is a big revenue generator (for BCCI, franchises and players – yes, we already know that) for people/industries that we tend to overlook as part of getting affected through the IPL.

Let me illustrate the people/industries impacted by the IPL through a web:

Let us talk about each one of them one by one so as to understand how they get impacted by IPL:

1. Airlines: The revenue of airlines who are the travel partners for the entire IPL tournament grows manifold as on a daily basis, some sectors (sectors between which travellers are travelling) have a confirmed 25 – 30 seats booked (business + economy) per team, which includes the players, the team management, the support staff. etc. Moreover, all these bookings are done well in advance so what that means is that the airlines is getting confirmed bookings across key sectors for a decent number of seats for a period of 48 days at one shot itself, which is a huge cash amount accumulating through a single booking (could possibly be the largest block booking).

2. Hotels: The hospitality partner for the tournament also sees a surge in their revenues similar to the airlines. Every day/alternate day, one team or the other is reaching the city and staying there in the hotel with each person allotted a single room (executive or superior and not deluxe). Once again, all of these bookings are done well in advance and at one shot, so this block deal boosts the revenue of the hotels involved, in a significant manner.

3. Printers: Local printers of a city who are involved in printing all the posters, banners, the 4s and 6s placards are able to do business equal to 3 – 4 months by being involved in the IPL hype, publicity and promotion.

4. Security Agencies: As we all know, IPL involves celebrities, parties, events, etc.. and all of this calls for additional security over and above the state security. All the big security agencies of the city in which the IPL matches are being held get involved in providing security to these people and events and thereby becoming one of the key beneficiaries of the tournament and its largesse.

5. Event Management Companies: Becoming the chosen partner to host and hold the IPL parties and events is an ambition that each and every event management company of the city has but only a select few are able to really get lucky and strike the deal. The scale of these parties are seen and known to all and any company involved in organising such events is making a killing and adding a few zeroes to its balance sheet.

6. Restaurants and Pubs: The joy of watching a cricket match gets multiplied when you are watching it with a group of friends on a large screen and there is food and drinks to keep the merriment going. The duration of the IPL tournament sees pubs and restaurants running special offers, putting up giant screens, making specific IPL dishes, special discounts for a group of 10 people and above and various other innovative ideas with the sole purpose of earning much, much more than what is being spent to pull the crowds in. This is a win-win for all as guests feel pampered and the restaurants get their cash registers ringing.

7. Liquor Companies/Cola Companies: Till a few years backs, liquor and cola companies used to look forward to the summer season as the sale of beer/colas would go up tremendously. Now, the summer party begins a month or two earlier as soon as the IPL Chairman declares “I declare the IPL tournament open” as what this also implies is a huge fillip to the sales of these companies through alcohol/colas bought at the restaurants/pubs as well as that bought for home consumption.

8. Local transport: Match days are days of extra income for drivers of local transport – autos and cabs. Not only do they tend to get a large number of people heading to the stadium using their means, they are also able to charge extra later in the night once the match is over, knowing very well that the exuberant mood and the desire to get home soon will make people loosen their pockets a bit and won’t mind paying a few tenners extra.

9. Food Vendors: With the kind of security checks and drills in place these days, everyone is apprehensive that if they do not reach the stadium on time, they will not be able to enter before the match starts and they will miss out on lot of action. As a result of this, people land up at the stadiums 4 – 5 hours before the match time, get into queues and slowly make their way to their seats. What this means is that they would get hungry and thirsty much before the match starts and even during the course of the match. This is the right opportunity for the local vendors to be present outside the stadium and inside (licensed vendors) with items like water bottles, cola cans, chips, biscuits, chocolates, etc. which people want and for which they do not mind paying a rupee or two extra. Regular food vendors always keep a track of match days and stock themselves accordingly as these are the opportunities to earn more than what they earn on a regular day.

I am sure when the IPL was envisaged by Lalit Modi, he would not have thought of how it will change the fortunes of a number of other people and other sectors over and above the fortunes of the players. 

The sectors and people listed by me in the web above may not be all comprehensive as I believe that there might be a number of other sectors and people who also make a killing during and through the IPL and either I have missed them while putting this blog or I am oblivious to their existence also in this web of the IPL.

Would be great to know if you, my reader knows of any other sector/people who gain a lot due to the IPL.

The Phone that never Rang

She sat in the balcony with the phone in her hand,

The sun being its cruellest, her arms looked tanned.

Since when had she been sitting here, she had no clue

She had reached a stage that nothing could affect her – heat, cold or flu.


It had been six months since he last came home,

She had no idea where he was – Mumbai, London or Rome.

It came all of a sudden like a bolt of lightning,

Not only was his decision alarming, it was also frightening.


After five years of being together, he wanted to move away.

All her pleading and all her requests did not seem to make him sway.

According to him, the love had gone and his feelings had faded,

But he did not realise that this one decision of his had made her jaded.


Yes they used to argue and they used to fight,

But there were also days that looked perfect, happy and bright.

The day he left her, she thought he would come back as this is just a phase,

After all, they had decided, that together a couple of kids they will raise.


But he never returned, he never came back,

And a few days after that she got her first migraine attack.

After three days of hospitalisation, she finally got released,

But he did not come to see her and she was not at all pleased.


Often these days, she asked herself “Why did this happen, what did I do?”

What puzzled her was that a few days before leaving he had told her “I love you”

She still remembered how he had said once before going to sleep “I can never think of a life without you”

And putting her head on his chest, she had replied “Me too”.


Now it had been six months and she had lost all hope,

It seemed to her as if her life was going down a slope.

Sitting in the balcony, she looked at her phone again, hoping for it to ring or beep,

But that never happened and all she could do was sit there and weep.

Stages of Life through your Seating Position in the Car

The other day while I was driving my car and was stuck in bad traffic, I kept thinking about the amount of time of our lives that we spend in the car and what struck me was that for every age of our life, we sit in different seating positions in the car and with different sets of people.

It is just that life passes by us so fast that we never see the significance of this or how the dots connect very nicely.

Let me make an attempt to put down how an ideal person’s (male) age and stages of life evolves depending on the seat that he is occupying in the car:

Ages 1- 4: You sit in the front seat on the mother’s lap with the father driving the car and you watch the world around with curiosity.

Ages 5 – 16: You have now moved to the back of the car while being driven and you ask lots of questions to your parents as this is the time of building your identity during the course of these years.

Ages 16 – 18: This is a stage of occupying the driver’s seat with the father on the passenger’s seat giving driving lessons to the son/daughter. This is a frustrating time as every mistake of yours while driving the car can get reprimanded by your father.

Ages 18 – 20: Now you have reached an age where you proudly drive the car with a gang of friends and great music blaring from the stereo. This is the feeling of ‘Cool’.

Ages 20 – 22: This is when you sit in the driver’s seat with the father in the passenger’s seat and mother in the back seat. This is when the responsibility of taking them everywhere comes to you and you love that as you get to drive the car on every occasion.

Ages 23 – 26: Driving the car with your girlfriend sitting next to you. This is the time where the enjoyment is not in the driving but in the fact that you have got a beautiful person sitting next to you. You feel as the luckiest and happiest person on this planet.

Ages 26 – 28: You buy your first car from your own money and it is the proudest moment for you at that point of time in life. You take your parents out in the new car and notice their pride. You take your girlfriend/fiancé out in your new car and love the beaming look on her face. This is the stage in life when you feel that life is perfect for you.

Ages 28 – 29: Driving the car with your wife next to you. This is a great period as you have got married recently and together as a couple you want to check out lot of new restaurants in town, watch all the good movies and make every weekend a great and enjoyable weekend.

Ages 29 - 30: Radio is your morning companion as your tread through traffic, all alone on a daily basis trying to reach to your place of work. This is the stage by when you have driven enough that you hate driving to office daily and you know that it is really not the drive that you hate but the pain of using clutch and brake after every two minutes in the crazy office hour traffic that really puts you off.

Ages 29 – 31: The car usually involves two couples: your best friend and his wife along with your wife and you. All of you feel that it is great fun to go out either for a weekend trip or for a nice dinner with a bunch of friends.

Ages 31 – 33: Once again you are behind the wheels with your wife seated next to you but this time she has got your kid on her lap on the front seat exactly the way you had once been in that seat during the ages of 1 – 4.

Ages 34 – 45: This is a stage when a person is doing really well in life especially with regards to his professional career. This is the time of moving back to the back seat and handing over the keys to a chauffeur who will ensure that you can utilise your time better while seated behind. In most cases, this time the car that you are sitting in is not the first car that you had bought.

From age 34 onwards, during the time that you are not heading to office, it is a repeat of all the ages mentioned above, but this time you are playing the role of a father and your kid is playing the role of you.

Thank You Team India

Dear Team India,


I would like to take this opportunity to thank you not only for myself but on behalf of the entire nation. With such a sensational World Cup victory, you have brought joy and pride to each and every Indian living in every part of the world. You gave all of us a moment that has allowed us to forget our worries, our sadness, our struggles, our mundane lives for some time and given us the opportunity to be a part of this celebration.

Your World Cup victory was celebrated in every house, every street, every corner, and every intersection of the country with great chutzpah, zeal and energy. I was out on the streets of Delhi after the victory and I saw people in big cars and small cars, people on bikes, people on foot, people in autos and people on trucks with each one having a glow on their face, a smile on their lips and just one word to say ‘Indiaaaa… Indiaaa’. When I saw a guy standing on his cycle without a shirt dancing and waving to every car passing by and people stopping by to hug him and dance him, I knew then and there that victory is sweet without any ifs and buts. It also told us once again that victory has no caste, no colour, no creed and no regional bias. The sight of young guys and girls on the bonnets of their cars, standing out of their windows, holding the flag of India was a sight of a lifetime. Even the cops did not want to spoil the party and they let people just be. There were some joyous and amusing moments also when I noticed two guys standing out of the windows of a car, wearing the T-shirts of ‘Dhoni’ and ‘Tendulkar’ mentioned on it and the guy on the front holding a big trophy in his hand. It could not have got more symbolic than this.

What also amused me was the same people who were abusing the style of playing of the Indian team during the qualifying stages and criticizing Dhoni’s captaincy, his strategic decisions and his form on Facebook and Twitter after every inning, every session and every match had suddenly done a volte face and were now tom-tomming the same team and captain calling him a great leader and a true strategist. I remember telling my mother how quickly people change their stance and colour surprises me and she summed it up beautifully by saying ‘Ugte hue suraj ko sab salaam karte hain’. I always knew India is an emotional side when it comes to cricket but not only are we extremely emotional, we are also extremely impatient as we expect results instantly and cannot control the urge of lambasting you guys even when the match is not over as yet.

To further add to the drama, there was the Indian media playing its role of Narad-Muni to perfection, building full hype around every player and every match, with complete background music, interspersing movie dialogues with scenes from earlier matches of India and getting everyone from an ex-cricketer to an astrologer to come and give their two bit of what will happen in the next match and who will be the key. Some of the people giving all the tips had never every played cricket or picked up a bat in their lives but that is India, where every person, be it an auto-driver, a fashion designer, a corporate guy or a normal middle-class businessman with a paunch has his own expert comments on what you guys should be doing and what you should not.

Team India – you showed us all how it is done in style despite 2.4 billion eyes watching you like the eagle watching its prey, ready to swoop down on it when there is one wrong move. Achieving the victory through a six was a statement to the world that we have arrived and arrived in style and now we will dominate like never before. Each and every one of you - Sachin, Yuvraj, Virat, Gambhir, Raina, Zaheer and of course Dhoni showed why India is such a formidable opponent.

There was a lot to learn from you guys in terms of team work, handling pressure, delegation of responsibility, managing and leading from the front, never-say-die attitude and I already know that over the next few years, every corporate AV, every new launch, every team-building workshop and every leadership seminar will have pictures and videos of the quarters, semis and the finals telling each and every one of us how it is done.

While it is good to use all these visuals to motivate working people like us, I also feel that there was lot more that the corporate world can learn from you guys. They can learn that one does not have to be made to work for years and years before being given the command of a team. It is not always about experience. Sometimes it is also about the ability, capability, killer instinct and passion that an individual possesses that should decide who should lead from the front. Corporates should also learn from you guys that it is perfectly fine for even a 15 year old senior to work under his junior without the senior feeling any insecurity about it or the junior feeling a sense of over-achievement about it.

Dhoni, by staying behind a few paces and letting Sachin get all the limelight post the victory, you also told us that credit should be given where it is due and a leader should know when to step back and yet enjoy the success of his team. By shaving your head off immediately after the victory, you also taught us that staying true to your word is far important than looking good from the outside.

I can go on and on about what all was there for us to learn but I would leave that part to the HR people and motivational speakers at this point of time as this blog is really not about picking what I learnt but rather about what I saw during the entire duration of the tournament all around me.

One of the things that struck me during the course of the World Cup was that surprisingly China has not picked up this sport as yet. Could it be because cricket is still not included in the Olympics and so it does not hold the same charm to them? I am not ready to believe that China is not capable to play cricket as today they are playing each and every sport, including Volleyball and Basketball, which earlier was not the key sports of China. I would not be surprised if over the next few years, seeing what you guys have been able to achieve, they pick up this sport and we see them participating in the World Cup of 2019. I would surely be keen to see a battle between India and China on the cricket field. It would also allow us to avenge for the Indo-China War. Well I guess there is no point of talking about this as right now China is not a cricket playing nation so there is no point in discussing that further.

From a corporate stand point, being a marketer, I can vouch for the fact that this victory of yours has got a large number of people of my fraternity extremely excited and they have already started discussing new campaigns and new brands having one or lot of you in that. As I had said earlier ‘Ugte hue suraj ko sab salaam karte hain’. You guys deserve it as well and you should it enjoy it to the hilt. After all, a wait of 28 years has been brought to an end. You have brought rains to the land suffering from the drought of the World Cup victory and so once again, I would like to thank each and every one of you with utmost gratitude and with great pride.

Cheers Team India!

NICK NAMES AND THEIR ORIGINS

Nicknames are something that you do not know when, how or where you will be given one. I am not talking about the ones that your parents, uncles, cousins give you lovingly when you have not even learnt how to speak. So knock off the Tinku, Pappu, Guddu, Chintu from here. I am talking of the ones that are given to you when you already have a name and possibly a nickname that has been existing for years but yet you get a new one like the ones that you get in school, college, B-school or companies that you work in.

Nicknames are very similar to a virus – it is caught by someone and then passed on amongst others till the time all have been affected, i.e. all are ready to use it. The only difference is that here the nickname finally settles with one person while all others use it to address him or her. Some people love their nicknames, some hate it, some don’t care about it, while some others reconcile to the fact that love it or hate it, and people will not stop using it once they have liked the hang of it for a person.

I also got a nickname during my B-school days, which till date has stuck with my B-school batch mates. In my case, my surname became my nickname and I started being called Mehta. The funny part is that the reason this nickname was given to me was because there was one more Kunal other than me on campus and so to differentiate between the two, people decided to address me as Mehta but by the end of the first semester even he was not addressed as Kunal as he had also been given a nickname and a rather funny one  - Makkhi but largely due to a short form of his name – Mukherjee. (Makkhi – if ever you read this, must say that both our nicknames have stuck on even after so many years).

So coming back to the nicknames that were given out to quite a few of us during B-school, let me use this blog to relate some of the ones that I can recollect at the moment – Bhattu, PKD, Dutto, Thakur, Chom, Kicha, Kandy, Litte, Scooby Doo, Bhatia, Nimmo, Barju, Jaini, Appu, Uppu, Thussu, Shef, Vasu, Sid, Gammy, Maddy, Teendu, Pratti, Sallu, Pali, Vyji… these are the ones that come to mind…but I do know there were lots more. I also know that even after passing out of B-school 7 years back, almost all of these nicknames have stuck on and whenever people talk about someone or meet someone who had a nickname then, they are still called by the same name.

I am sure a lot of MICANs from then would have got new nicknames at their new work places, amongst their new friends but nicknames are like well nicknames. They do not get replaced, they just get added to the already existing nicknames that one has been given or gifted with.

I guess I digressed… the blog is not to talk about MICANs but rather to talk about nicknames. So nicknames have various reasons of getting originated:

• People want to describe a personality by giving a nickname eg – Guruji for a person who is philosophical in life, King Khan for SRK for his lifestyle

• People want to shorten a name which is very long – eg - Adi for Aditya

• They want to differentiate between two people having the same name – Example given above

• They want to describe the community/caste one belongs to through the nickname – Lala for a person coming from a trading family

• People want to have a code name for a person so that they can talk about him without others knowing about it – Eg – People having nicknames like Hitler for their bosses

• Couples like to call themselves in an endearing manner with a nickname – Eg – Sweety, Jaan etc.

There can be various other reasons for someone to decide on a nickname for someone else but the reality is that people love to pick it up and start using it and after sometime everyone forgets who came up with the nickname but everyone remembers that who it is for.

NEW START ON A NEW YEAR – 1.1.11

What could be a better day to start the first blog of the year 2011 than the first day of the year itself? But this blog is different from others. This time, there is no content or an idea in the mind but the intent is there. On most other days, the content and the idea already exists in the mind, it’s the intent that one has to bring forth. Well, actually it’s not even the intent that leads one to write less, it just sheer lack of time for various reasons.

What is it about the first day of the New Year that brings with it so much positivity? People make resolutions, go to the temples/churches/other religious places of worship. Some people like me make a list of what they want to achieve in this year and how will the year be meaningful to their life and their existence. Some people also believe that what they do on this day is what they will continue to do throughout the year and hence they try to plan that day in that manner. Taking cue from that, I went to the gym today, then played a few games of TT and am now trying to put up a blog before the clock strikes 12 as for me, these are some of the things that I would surely like to do through the year and if doing it on the first day allows it to happen, then so be it.

If one looks at it practically, it is just another day. The date is also similar to what will occur the next month, the day is also similar to the one that will arrive next week and the month is also the same that will come back when its turn is due 12 months later. But yet, this day heralds a new ray of hope, a new enthusiasm, a new optimism. In fact, even what I said in the earlier paragraph about me doing things today is more of putting a discipline in place right from day one and not really about thinking that doing it on day one will ensure it will happen throughout the year. If one is determined, committed and focused, then starting a task even on the last day of the year can ensure similar continuity and results.

What this date surely does is that it creates a halo around itself and everyone wants to be a part of it. People feel that there is an aura on the first day of the year and one can only witness that aura if one does the right things on this day. As far as I see it, I see this date as an opportunity or an excuse for me to sit down, reflect on what all I have done/learnt/achieved in my life till now and what all would I look to do/learn/achieve more. It allows me to pen down my goals – short-term and long-term and also my vision so that personally I am satisfied with the kind of life I am living.

Now, despite not having thought of what to write in today’s blog, I have still managed to put together a small piece, which is more like a personal opinion something written in a personal diary. Since blogs are an extension of one’s personal thoughts too, this definitely needs to go up.

RELATIONSHIPS ARE LIKE PLANTS

Relationships are like plants. They need to be nurtured. The way plants need right amount of sunlight, water, fertilisers, soil, etc., similarly, relationships also need right amount of love, understanding and space.

When taken good care of, plants develop strong roots that gives them stability and strength. Same is the case with relationships. If proper care is given to the relationship, it becomes more rooted to ensure the turmoils that will try to come and uproot it.

Plants take in carbon dioxide and give out oxygen. Often, relationships also do that, where one of the partners takes in all the bad things of the other and yet gives out all the love that he/she has.

Plants prove that they have been taken good care of either by continuing to grow more or by bearing flowers and fruits. Relationships also prove that they are being nurtured properly when the people involved in it continue to be happy and their happiness increases more and more. They love each other more when they know that the relationship is being taken good care of.

Plants react very strongly when you put more water than required or your forget to put water or when they receive more than desired sunlight. Similarly, relationships also react when the amount of love is less, there is no space given to the individuals or there are too many misunderstandings.

Sometimes, one goes out of town and when one comes back, one needs to give immediate to the plants as they have not been cared for. Same holds good for relationships. In order to keep it alive, one needs to keep doing a reality check often so that they know that when a relationship needs more attention to keep it going.

Lastly, plants tend to wither when it gets neglected, when there is no-one to tender each and every leaf of it. Relationships also die when the people involved in it neglect each other or do not take care of each and every need of the other.

STATUS MESSAGES AND TWEETS

Status messages and tweets have become a part of our lives. People even say that they are nothing but mere extensions of our personalities. I don’t agree with this at all. Well, neither is this completely true nor is this completely false. This is partially true.

The reason I say this is partially true is because of the simple reason that there are some people for whom status messages are actually the extension of their personalities whereas for some other people it is just a way of projecting a personality which they really don’t have. For some others, some of their status messages reflect their personalities whereas some other of their status messages do not. In fact, in today’s times when one has a different status message on Facebook and a different one on their Blackberry Messenger and a completely different one on Twitter, it is just not possible for all these statuses/tweets to reflect ones’ personality unless someone suffers from split or triple personality.

What is clear is that there is a reason or an objective behind each of these status messages or in other words the person has certain expectations when he puts some of these messages. The objective could be hiding a cryptic message in the status which only he or a select few can understand. In such cases, these messages are no less than the Da Vinci code… only people who understand would respond or comment on such a status. The other objective of a status could be simply showing one’s creativity and getting a high by noticing how many people like such a status. Sometimes people put up a status/tweet just to vent out their anger against a person, system, company, society or any other thing. Some other times the idea of putting up a message is to open up a discussion or a debate with others. Sometimes when one has been missing in action for a long time, then just to remind people that he/she exists, a status message is put up.

The reason of putting up a status or a tweet could be one or many but the truth is that each status or tweet desires a conversation as it tells the one who has put it that in this widespread social network, where there are loads of friends, followers and contacts, there are atleast a few who have read what they had to say.

I won’t be surprised if few years down the line psychologists, criminal experts and psychiatrists start analysing status messages and tweets along with the body language to figure out more about a person, but the way body language can deceive, these messages can deceive much more… so lets see!!

POSSIBLE CARTELS IN THE WORLD

In today’s times, there is so much of inter-linkages between sectors/companies/countries that an activity or an event at one place can lead to the benefit of the other. I was just wondering that if some of these people decided to come together, they could easily form a cartel and ride on these joint benefits that would accrue.

Following are some of the possible cartels that my crazy mind could think of:

1. On-ground and on-air aviation cartel: Cartel between shops at the airport and aircraft carriers – Try and delay each and every flight by atleast half an hour to an hour. This would obviously give lot of time in the hands of passengers and would result in additional sales at the airport as some hungry ones would go to the restaurants, the tired ones would get a massage done, the bored ones would probably pick up a book or so and the ones with still some dough left would finish last minute shopping at the airport. While the airport stores stand to gain, not sure whether flights would gain anything or not by paying the high ground parking charges unless the retail chains at the airport agree to share the parking charges

2. Web and the Eye Cartel: Cartel between Facebook, Orkut, Twitter and other social networking sites and opticians- Make the content more and more interesting and get people to spend more time on each of the sites. Spending more time would mean spending more time looking at the screen and that would lead to eye strain and other eye problems for which people would have to go to opticians, so it is a win-win for everyone. The web sites would get more advertisers due to their stickiness and it would mean great business for the opticians.

3. Indian wedding and international honeymoon cartel: There are a few dates/months in the Indian calendar every year, when most weddings take place and nowadays a lot of Indians get their wedding fixed by a wedding planner. This is followed by a honeymoon to international destinations like Mauritius, Bali, Malaysia, etc. for a number of new couples. One way of forming this cartel is to for international hotels/airlines to tie-up with the Indian wedding planner, whose job is right from arranging for flowers, deciding a theme, getting wedding cards printed to suggesting interesting countries to couples for their honeymoon.

All a wedding planner has to do to convince a couple is to show some great pictures of the country, the hotel and the special honeymoon suite that he/she can arrange for at a great rate. Throw in a limo pick-up and the new husband would want to give that experience to his new wife. The hotels and airlines recommended by the wedding planner beat competition as the trust in this wedding planner is immensely high. This allows the hotels/airlines to tap into the right profile of customers and the money that they save on advertising can be used to make the wedding planner ‘plan’ the right honeymoon for the couples.

4. Indian and Chinese toy/mobile phone cartel: Chinese goods have made a number of small Indian dealers rich on one hand, but on the other hand, it has also hit a large number of Indian companies making Indian products and selling it in India. One of the possible cartels could be that these Indian companies pay the Chinese companies their margins on these products, buy these products and destroy them. Then they sell their products in the Indian markets at healthy margins (which covers for what they are paying to the Chinese). This will be a win-win for the Chinese manufacturers as well as the Indian manufacturers. The people who would lose out due to such a cartel would be the small dealers who make money by selling these Chinese goods and the consumers who buy Chinese goods regularly at half the prices of what they have to pay for the Indian goods. 

But then who said that cartels are supposed to be beneficial to all. In fact, the word CARTEL is supposed to mean that only. While it benefits a few groups of people/companies/sectors, there will always be another set who will bear the brunt of such a cartel.

I am sure that this way there can be a number of cartels that can be formed. One just needs to sit and look around and see the possibilities. What cartels come to your mind? Do let me know.

Imagination

I-ma-gi-na-tion: It is a five syllable word and the dictionary defines Imagination as the faculty of forming mental images or concepts of what is not actually present to the senses.

If you look at the number of syllables, the pronunciation or the dictionary definition of this word, all of it make it seem very difficult and complicated but reality could not be further than this.

Imagination is a feeling or an emotion that is present in each and every one of us. In fact, I would like to define imagination as the act of letting your mind loose and wild , letting it run amok to come up with something unique that can be called exclusively your own creation.

If one wants to see the full power of imagination and its ability, one should just give blank pieces of paper to kids and ask them to draw/paint what they want to. You will be amazed at how different each sheet of paper will look – be it the situations, the characters, the colours that they choose. This is nothing but sheer evidence that imagination is present right from childhood.

I remember reading about a research that was done between two groups – one group comprised of kids and the other group comprised of adults. Both the groups were shown an image of a black dot in the centre of a piece and were asked what it was. As expected, the adult group unanimously answered that it is a black dot. On the other hand, the responses from each kid were different and diverse. While one kid saw the black dot as a tiny burger, the other saw it as a fly that has been killed while the third said that it is one eye and rest of the face needs to be made.

What this proves is that imagination is extremely wild and open when we are kids as we are not bound by practicality, rules, boundaries and expectations and as we grow up, we tend to curb our power of imagination and use it only to a limited extent.

Imagination is not something that needs to be taught or learnt. It is inherent in us. There can of course be channels to whet this imagination further or allow it to get bound by certain boundary conditions so that it does not wander.

One of the ways of checking what imagination can do within a certain boundary is to give the same book to read to 10 different people and then ask them to describe the two main characters or plot of the book. In this case, despite a boundary condition of a book, all 10 people will have a different way of interpreting the character – his looks, his clothes, where he stays and so and so forth.

As a marketer, I often hear that in order for companies to succeed, innovation has to be at the forefront of their strategy. No innovation can be possible without imagination as any new idea, concept or design needs imagination of the mind for something new to materialize.

I would like to conclude that as adults, it is important that we don’t let our imaginative faculties die or come down. People should find ways and means to keep their minds open. Reading Edward De Bono’s Lateral Thinking is just one of those ways. There are many others too…one just has to open one’s mind to see and find it.