#PictureStory 2: Fairy tale

I am not a part of any imagination or an illustration from a kid's fairy tale. I am a place that exists. Very few people visit me and I prefer it that way.

Pic Details: Clicked in Brugge, Belgium in 2012.

#PictureStory 1: Stability

As clouds travelled in one direction and cars travelled in another, it was the tree that stood its ground showing how life can move to and fro, but it is the stability within that allows you to face it all!

Pic details: Clicked at Worli Seaface, Mumbai

Don’t Fall for That Resolution Trap!

Image Source: www.forbes.com

Yes, you read that headline right. Another year is here upon us and there will be people all around you talking about their New Year resolutions, flaunting them like gold medals only to be disappointed a few weeks or months later when they fail to keep up with their resolutions. 

Statistics worldwide have shown that only a small percentage of people are able to keep their resolutions, while most of them start faltering and then feeling miserable. One of the best proofs of that is in the increase in the number of gym memberships at the start of the year and then the actual number of people really coming to the gym from the third month onwards. 

Resolutions are inherently flawed as they are set on the premise that you cannot break them and the minute they are broken, people tend to think that they cannot be fixed or mended resulting in disappointment with oneself, waiting for yet another year with another set of resolutions to conquer. 

I stopped keeping resolutions many years back when I realized about this flaw. I believe that a ‘Theme’ based approach for the year is a more powerful way of achieving something because there is no concept of breaking it. You keep doing things and moving forward with a theme-based approach and every incremental gain is another step closer to your goal. 

Let me explain by sharing with you all the Theme that I have chosen for myself for 2019. My theme for this year is ‘Value and Growth’. So, everything that I do should help me in delivering Value or Growth. 

Now it is important to elaborate further on what I want to do to stay true to this theme: 

1. Increase my own value intellectually, financially and emotionally: As you can see, through this single statement, I can push my boundaries on my knowledge, my reading, my relationships and my investments. 

2. Give value to people through knowledge, content and charity: It is not only about the value that I seek for myself but the value that I give out to others and there are various ways to do it. I can give my professional knowledge to my juniors and people I know or work with, I can share content on social media and digital platforms to known and unknown people which they find valuable, and I can give value back to society through financial support or any other kind of support to people who need it and do not have the means. 

3. Growth for self, for others and for the organisation that I work for: I can grow significantly and also be the catalyst of growth for others – people and companies by following points 1 and 2 consistently throughout the year. 

Now as you can see, everything that I do or achieve will only help me in staying true to my theme and by the end of the year, I will only feel nice about the distance I have travelled rather than feeling miserable about a resolution that I broke. 

So, what will your theme for the year going to be? 

Elon Musk - The Game Changer

One of my previous line managers gifted a book on Elon Musk to me a few years back. The book was called 'Elon Musk - How the Billionaire CEO of SPACEX and TESLA is shaping our Future' by Ashlee Vance.

Although the title and the topic seemed very interesting, but yet for some reason, I was not able to come around and read this book until now. I am so glad that I was finally able to get the time to finish reading this book. It is a great #biography on a man who is on a mission. A mission to change the world, to do what has not been done till now, to challenge the status quo and to ultimately make lives better for humans – directly and indirectly.

This book is a great insight into the person and the personality that Elon Musk is. Not everything is good and wonderful about him. It is clear that he is not an easy person to work with or work for. However, what you tend to appreciate is his genius mind, his thinking ability, his challenging mindset and his clarity of goals. The way he sees interconnections between the work on rockets, cars and solar energy and how he and his team apply learnings from one industry to another is quite fascinating!

I have always enjoyed watching some of the #TED talks and TED interviews of Elon Musk as well as his key team members. In fact, for the past many years, I have been in awe of the kind of work that #Musk and his companies are doing, but when you go deeper into their journey, their obstacles and their plans, you tend to understand and appreciate it much better. I would hope to see these companies churn out more path breaking initiatives in the years ahead and change the world for the better.

Finally, a big thumbs up from my side to this book as Ashlee Vance has written it quite well, getting interviews, opinions and anecdotes from people who have interacted with Elon Musk and been in some part of his life, either in a good way or bad way.

Open that Jam Bottle to enjoy its Sweet Taste

Have you ever been in a situation where you were keen to enjoy the taste of jam from a jam bottle that you were trying to open, but somehow you were not able to enjoy its sweet taste once the bottle was opened? 

Source: https://www.graphicsfuel.com/2016/01/jam-bottle-mockup-psd/

Now before you start imagining what I am trying to say, let me give you two scenarios: 

Scenario 1: You have guests over at your place and at the breakfast table, you decide to open a new bottle of jam. Imagine that you are using all your strength in twisting the lid of that jam bottle. You are huffing and puffing, your arm has started to pain and yet that lid does not open. You look around and hand over the bottle to the person sitting next to you, requesting her or him to open the bottle. She/he now applies a similar tactic like yours and Voila! Within a few seconds, the lid opens; there is a smug smile on the face of the person who opened the bottle. Everyone around applauds the effort of that person and looks at you sympathetically with a presumption that you do not have the strength that is needed to open a jam bottle. What you nor does anyone else know, is the fact that with all your efforts, the lid had started loosening from the neck and if you had persisted, you would have been able to open the lid within another a few seconds. 

Scenario 2: You are busy applying your strength to open the jam bottle and someone comes and offers help. You gladly hand over the bottle. As expected, the bottle opens soon. The person who helped you now starts telling the entire world that it was he or she who opened the bottle and not you, even though it was your job to open the bottle. They take the entire credit without bashing an eyelid. 

Does this sound familiar to you? Has it ever happened with you? 

In life as well as in organizations, this common situation happens to many people. Some people learn fast and avoid such situations while there are others who keep falling in the same situation repeatedly. 

Here are a few simple tips and suggestions that can help you to open that jam bottle and enjoy its benefits completely: 

1. Do not give up: This one is easier said than done. I do understand that there would be situations and times when you think that you have tried all possible solutions and yet you are not able to move forward. That is exactly the time when you need to draw your utmost inner strength and continue finding ways to achieve a task or overcome a problem. Remember, there are chances that the lid has started loosening from the neck. You do not want to miss the great tasting jam at this stage. 

2. Be careful of who you seek help from: If you have been a victim of your jam bottle credit being taken by someone else, then you should know who are the people who will happily open the botte and give it back to you without even mentioning it to anyone. These are the ones who deserve genuine thank you. You would also know the ones who would love to help in a situation, but would then let the entire world know. You should not be asking for help from them at all. 

3. Give enough visibility of your project milestones: If your project has high stakes which means, that if delivered it can help the company move forward in a significant way, then there are chances that people will come forward to help and soon they will be talking as if they are the ones leading the project. To avoid such situations, it is extremely important to share key milestone achievements of the project with various stakeholders at different stages of the project so everyone knows who the commander of the ship is and how you are steering the ship forward even though the other person might claim credit to the project. 

4. Confront the person: If a person is repeatedly doing this to your projects, it is best to sit down and confront the person. Understand the reason of their behavior, their concerns with you and let them know your discomfort. You will be surprised that sometimes they may not even realize what they are doing and how it is affecting you and just bringing it to their notice can work. 

What I have mentioned above is quite simple and obvious but sometimes it is the simple and the obvious that gets missed out in the chase of the complex and difficult. I hope that these suggestions help you to enjoy the sweet taste of your jam more often. This is not an exhaustive list, and depending on your circumstances, you would discover other ways and means of enjoying your jam and I would be happy to know some of the suggestions that you may want to offer.

2018 is ready for you. Are you ready for it?

Another year is behind us. Another year is ahead of us. It is a matter of how you look at things, how you look at life. As some say ‘The glass if half full’ whereas some others say ‘The glass is half empty’. None of the two statements is wrong, but it is a matter of perspective, and perspectives, dear readers, can change for you depending on the context, your frame of mind, your situation in life. Who says that if you see the glass as half full today does not mean that you cannot see the glass as half empty tomorrow? Maybe you would, maybe you wouldn’t. 

Coming back to where I began….another year is behind us and another year is ahead of us. The question is whether you want to look back and reminisce in nostalgia or look forward and see the frontiers that lie ahead. In my opinion, reflecting on the past is not wrong, but the past should be like that rear-view mirror in the car that you would look at every now and then to avoid any mistake. Rear-view mirror is there to guide you and let you know about the cars behind you and the pace at which they are coming, to ensure that you are not blocking someone’s way and to enable you to change lanes without harming yourself or someone else. However, you cannot drive a car and move ahead by just looking at the rear view mirror, but rather by looking ahead at the road, the signals, the signboards, the speedometer, the lanes…

2018 is that road ahead. Every day, every week and every month are those signals, those signboards and those lanes that you need to traverse to keep moving forward. There will be traffic in the form of distractions, things that will take away a lot of your time and slow you down but are not the ones helping you to move ahead. You will have to navigate through them, be patient yet firm with them, be willing to avoid them through alternative routes yet always remember that you cannot let go of them completely. 

What is important is that on 31st Dec, 2018, when you look back from where you started and where you have come, that is the time you should reflect on your journey, feel proud of the distance you have traveled, the road blocks that you have overcome and once again say and say it proudly ‘Another year is behind us’. 

Cheers to a great 2018. Let the road ahead lead to many milestones that you cross - slowly but surely.

Why Don't You Write?

`Why don’t you write these days? It has been a while since you wrote something.`

He did not have a response. He knew he was guilty. Guilty to her and guilty to himself. There were thousands of stories within him, hundreds of poems bubbling, waiting to be leashed out and a string of words that came into his dreams every night, but yet there was something that was stopping him. Was it the famous writer’s block? Was it inertia and laziness? Was it distractions that gave him instant gratification without much effort in comparison to writing which took its own time and effort and the gratification wasn’t even guaranteed?

Yet, whenever she would ask him innocently on why he wasn’t writing these days, he felt as if he owed it to her to sit down and write something. It was even ironic that while he himself was struggling to write, he kept pushing her to write every now and then and she would oblige by coming up with the most beautiful stories that were recognizable and relatable to all, stories that resonated with its readers, stories that stripped the outer layer of human emotions that were all made up and went deeper. It was as if she had access to the realms of people that they themselves weren’t aware of, but yet, every time they would read what she had written, it would leave them with a pang of pain, a sense of moral dilemma or deep pathos that made them sit back and reflect.

He was her biggest critic as well as her biggest admirer. He would read lines and words in her story that would make him wonder in awe on how she thinks, what brings to the surface such deep lines and how she surprises him by going one step further in her craft than what he would think is her limit.  Oddly, he would feel proud that she belonged to him and loved him, that she had the purest heart which got reflected in her stories, that she wrote on his insistence every time and yet his writer mind would also feel a tinge of jealousy. He would happily tell the world that she writes and would urge others to read what she wrote and yet he would wish that someday his craft would get sharper enough to stand next to hers. He knew there was some distance to be covered, he knew that her writing was the spark that he needed every now and then to improve his writing but what he kept forgetting was that to even come close to her, he had to write first.

Why don’t you write these days was a question that she asked him innocently but she didn’t know that it started the rusting machinery once again. 

Swimming in the Shark Tank for Lessons

“Television is an idiot box” was a term that was coined decades back, but this is so far from truth today than it could ever be. Today, television informs, educates, inspires, trains and does so much more.

They say that if you want to swim with the sharks, then you better be a good swimmer and a good communicator because sharks are not the gentle and docile creatures that dolphins are, and one wrong step can turn out to be fatal. This brings me to one of the shows that I am hooked onto – Shark Tank.

Before you read any further, if you have not seen Shark Tank, then click on the links below and have a look at a few of these episodes:

Shark Tank: Season 8, Episode 15 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IromI9Nyfuc

Shark Tank: Season 8, Episode 17: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipyc0-V0kR0

This show is in its 8^th Season and it is only growing bigger with more sharks coming into the show. As you would have seen, this show is all about dreams. One person dreams, comes to the show to sell his/her dreams and the sharks then invest in his/her business if they see merit and value in his/her dream.

I believe that there are lessons in this show for everyone, whether you are a businessman, a venture capitalist, a startup entrepreneur , a corporate employee, a marketer, or a student.

I have tried to put together a list of lessons that I think anyone and everyone can get from watching Shark Tank:

1. Presentation: One of the key lessons that you learn from watching Shark Tank is the different styles and ways of presenting your idea. Some present their ideas the way they would in a serious corporate Board Room, whereas some others go over the top and present their ideas with complete playacting, costume and voice modulation. Some others use their props in a smart manner and make it a part of their presentation like this person:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6N4v17aWzjs

The lesson here is that there is no right or wrong way of presentation as long as you are able to tell your story to the audience and make them feel involved.

2. Negotiation: In life, irrespective of what you do, you come across situations where you have to negotiate with someone else. The amount of negotiation may be big or small, but if you do not want to be shortchanged, it is important that you know proper negotiation skills that involve knowing when to draw the line, when the other person is pulling a bluff on you and when the person will take your bait or leave it. Shark Tank will teach you amazing skills in negotiation not only from the sharks who are experts at this, but also from people who have come to sell their ideas. The best parts in the show are when either of the two parties are raising or dropping the bait to see who falls first. It gives you a good insight into human psychology and how desperation makes people do stupid things or how false bravado makes them miss their deals.

3. Innovation: The entire premise of this show is built around innovation. The sharks are not interested in investing in your business if you bring them run of the mill stuff which does not have a competitive advantage or where the barriers of business are too low. This show opens your mind to the world of innovation and the kind of ideas that people are coming up with. It changes your perspective on categories and makes you think on a different dimension.

4. Consumer Insight: The most creative and innovative idea is a waste if it is not built on a strong consumer insight. Every idea should solve a problem/cater to the need in the consumers’ life, even if the consumer is aware or not aware of that problem or need at that point of time. The kind of ideas that people come up with in this show and the genesis behind the creation of those ideas gives a fantastic lesson on how consumer insight can be mined or formed. Sometimes, the insight that the presenter presents on a category seems like an Aha moment because it is so obvious and yet it never struck you or any other company so far.

5. Vision and Valuation: It is important in life to know your worth and for others to be able to see your worth. Shark Tank is a great place to see how people are able to carve out a vision, value themselves and their vision and then ask for the sharks to invest in their vision. Sometimes the sharks agree with the vision and valuation and sometimes they do not and they give advice to the presenters on what the right value should be. Some of them agree whereas some of them take this on their chin with a clear agenda to prove the sharks wrong.  

6. Marketing: There are people on Shark Tank who come with sales figures already running in millions and it is a delight to hear their marketing approach on achieving these figures and reaching out to their audience. If you are smart, you can easily take some of those marketing ideas and adapt it to your own job or category.

7.  Selling: I began my lessons by talking about presentation but Shark Tank will also teach you that while a great presentation is helpful, you can still sell your idea or your business if you are a great salesperson. While a good presentation is normally a prerequisite, but even if that is not your forte, as long as you know your business and your passion and you are able to serve the fusion of this business acumen and passion to the sharks on a platter, their money is for yours to grab. “I’m Out” is one of the statements that no person presenting to the sharks ever wants to hear and only a good salesperson can avoid that.

I am confident that these are not the only lessons that Shark Tank teaches you and am sure that you would have your own lessons from this show. I would be glad to know what those lessons are so please let me know what lessons have you learnt from Shark Tank.

One thing that surprises me is that how come, India being a country of so many start-ups doesn’t have a show like this yet, or is it that a show like this exists and I am not aware of it. Do you guys know of any such show?

Respect - What It Means

Respect. It may seem like a simple seven letter word, but it is powerful enough to be seen as a complete sentence as well. Respect condenses within itself the power to sustain many relationships, it contains within itself the ability to show other people your emotions about how you feel about them, about a situation or even about someone you may not know personally. 

Let me explain myself a bit. One of the foundations of any relationship is the presence of respect in that relationship. Right from our childhood, we are taught that we need to respect our parents, our teachers and our elders and those are the building blocks of our relationship with them. Respect is the adjective that you use when you want to address people from stage. It could be “Respected Guests” or “Respected Judges” and that is the badge value of respect. 

Go deep into the healthy relationships of any couple and they will tell you that the reason our relationship is so strong is that we respect each other. Many broken relationships occur because one of the partners did not respect the other. 

In a professional set up, respect as a value comes into play once again and people like to work for organizations and bosses that respect them.

The beauty of respect is that it does not differentiate between strangers and familiarity or between gender or hierarchy. You could respect someone you do not know as much as how much you would respect people you know. When you react to a video of a friend who has done something that is admirable, you show respect for that. Similarly, when a soldier of your country shows an act of valour to protect you and your borders, you show respect for that as well, even though you may not know the soldier personally.

Respect is something that needs to be earned and one has to work hard for it. Often, our heroes earn our respect because of their acts and deeds, and sometimes they earn this respect at different stages of their lives. No one knew Malala Yousafazai when she was a young student until the time she got shot by the Taliban and then became a Pakistani activist at a young age. The world started respecting her from then on. Nelson Mandela become a worldwide respected personality only after he was sentenced to life imprisonment at the age of 44. 

              Respect is for those who deserve it and not for those who demand it.

While it is difficult to earn respect, it is extremely easy to lose respect. We see this many times when our heroes and our idols fail us and our first reaction is “I have lost all respect for him or her.” World famous cyclist Lance Armstrong lost lot of respect of his fans when he confessed taking drugs to improve his performance.  

They say that knowledge is power but it is respect that defines your character. A true character of a person gets reflected when he speaks ‘respectfully’ not only to his seniors or people who are higher than him in the economic society but also to his juniors and to people who are lower than him in society. So you may be very successful in life and maybe earning a lot of money but if you do not have the respect of others and if you do not show respect to others, then you are still very poor.

Another aspect of respect is that it is not only outward driven, but it is also inward created. That is what self-respect is – the respect that you give to yourself as an individual and that is a sacred wall that no one can trample on, because when people trample on that, it causes lot of hurt.

As the saying goes:

               Respect is earned. Trust is gained. Honesty is appreciated. Loyalty is returned.

While you may be a trustworthy person, a loyal person, an honest person but you would never call yourself self-good, self-loyal or self-honest but you wouldn’t shy away from calling yourself a self-respecting individual. That is the power of ‘Respect.’

The Power of Non-Verbal Acknowledgement

Have you ever been in a situation on the road, where you have left someone else pass the road ahead of you and the person has acknowledged your act through thumbs up sign?

Alternatively, a scenario where the road ahead was too narrow and you have reversed your car to let the car on the other side to come across before you went ahead on that road, and the other car driver has held out his hand to acknowledge and thank you for your act.

On the other hand, what about a situation where you were presenting something to a room full of people and you said something that you wanted validation for, you gave a quick glance to your boss and she/he gave a slight nod of validation and acknowledgement that what you said is absolutely fine.

How about a romantic scenario where your spouse or your partner is sitting a little away from you in a party and you both look at each other and blink and smile to say that I hope you are enjoying the party.

Moreover, how can we forget the many non-verbal acknowledgements that we give and receive on a daily basis on social media in the form of likes, retweets, hearts, etc.

There could have been many other situations like where the person inside the elevator held the door for you as you made a rush towards it and you just smiled in a thanking way, or you stopped on seeing a pedestrian as he crossed the road and he held up his hands to thank you and acknowledge your act. These are just a few examples but I am sure that you may recollect many such situations where there wasn’t any conversation through words but yet there was an exchange that took place through non-verbal acknowledgement.

The beauty of an acknowledgement is that you do not need to know the person, it does not come with the inhibitions of a conversation where an icebreaker is needed and it is a universal language that is understood by all, even though the receiver and the giver may speak completely different languages.

It is an extremely powerful non-verbal tool, which doesn’t have a fixed way and each and every non-verbal cue is acceptable – be it a thumbs up, a nod of the head, a smile, blinking of eyes or any other non-verbal movement as long as the people involved in the exchange of this understand it. It is a small act but it makes both the receiver and the giver feel positive, where the person who is acknowledging appreciates the act of the other and the person who is being acknowledged feels nice that his act has been noticed.

Quite often, in our busy lives, we forget the power of such non-verbal cues, but it is one of the simplest, purest and easiest forms of communication that any two individuals can participate it. It doesn’t take much of an effort but the positive feeling that it leaves you with can suddenly uplift your mood, improve your day, energize you and make you feel thankful for the beautiful life around. Next time, pay attention when you get acknowledged or take the effort to acknowledge someone and you will see the power of this universal language. 

The Misadventures in this Adventurous Trip!

Every time, man thinks that he has become the most powerful being on this planet, nature has its way of telling the person who is the boss! Who said reaching the mountains was easy? Every mountain comes with its own story of adventure, surprise, excitement and many other emotions. 

Last month, that is the month of Aug’16, I got a chance to visit two mountainous areas in two different countries – The Highlands of Scotland and the Cliffs of Moher of Ireland. Technically, both are not mountains that I had to trek or climb, but yet the view and the experience was just like that of a mountain. 

Taking a flight to India and then a car to the highlands should seem like very normal and easy but like I said at the beginning, mountains will test you, your patience, your perseverance, your passion before they reveal themselves to you. So what really happened and how did my story unfold?

Let me begin from the time I left India. I was flying on an Emirates flight, which had a stop over in Dubai and just two days before my flight was when Emirates had a crash landing in Dubai, which was in the news all over the world. Do you see the similarities? I am flying the same airline from the same country (India) to the same country (Dubai), where one of the planes of the airline had crash landed! But I wasn’t changing my plans because of this incident so I decided to go ahead.

Changing of flights at Dubai airport was hassle free and I was amazed that the airport seemed absolutely calm, two days after such a big event. Little did I know that there was a storm that was brewing at the back end of the airport, which we would only get to know about much later. From Dubai, I landed at Glasgow airport and kept waiting for my luggage at the conveyor belt. From ten minutes to half an hour to an hour and there was no sign of my luggage. And then I saw a few other passengers from my flight filling up a form at a temporary table that had been set up at the airport. On going there, I got to know that about 200 bags had not been loaded at the Dubai airport due to the ongoing chaos and so people were filling their baggage details so that the airline could get in touch with them once their bags would arrive. Obviously, I was one of the victims! So here I was, in Glasgow for just three days with no clothes, no toiletries and no other items that I had carried. I was sure that I would get my baggage in a day but that was not to be! Multiple calls and follow ups later also, the authorities weren’t able to locate my baggage. The day I was supposed to leave for the Highlands is the day I decided to go to the airport to the Emirates counter to inquire about my bags once again but they had no trace of it. What that meant was that I couldn’t hire a car to drive into the highlands and at the last minute, I had to take a bus to reach my hotel in the Highlands with still no trace of my baggage.

The bus ride was smooth except the rains that were coming. I kept thinking to myself that how would I go to my hotel from the bus stop in this rain. Since I had not managed to get a hotel in the main town of Glencoe, I had booked a hotel in another town called Crianlarich, which was about an hour’s drive from Glencoe, which I thought could be covered easily since I would have a car. As soon as the bus reached Crianlarich Bus stop, I got off and right in front of the bus stop was my hotel. Now that seemed like a good sign till I realized that all of Crianlarich town was this hotel plus a few houses! That isn’t the best of places for a solo traveler, but then what choice did I have. 

The next morning, I took the city bus and got off at the entry point of one of the National Parks. I realized that I was one of the first ones to arrive at the pier and there was no one in site. I soaked in the beauty, took a few pictures and by the time I was done was when a few tourists started arriving. I decided to stay back and spend more time with people around. Soon I realized that most of them had come in huge groups and were a part of the tourist buses that had come in from Glasgow. I decided to try my luck and requested many bus drivers to add me to the tour so that I could also see the other sites along with some company. Unfortunately, either the buses were full or they did not have a policy to add one more passenger in the middle of their tour. With no other choice, I once again took the local bus and decided to go all the way to Glasgow and get off there. I enjoyed the sights of many mountains as the bus drove to Glasgow, got off and took a lovely walk in the town of Glasgow, enjoyed a hot chocolate in one of the cafes and spent a couple of hours before the same bus was to pick me from here and drop me back to my hotel. 

Now if you are thinking that what happened to my luggage all this while, then here are the details:

a. My calls to Emirates call centre continued throughout the day.

b. I had done a bit of shopping in Glasgow to manage clothes once my baggage didn’t arrive for more than 2 days. 

c. Emirates finally located my luggage and sent it to my hotel in Crianlarich a day before I was leaving Scotland!

But then again, these were not the only mountains that I was visiting. So the next set of mountains brought its own set of challenges. I flew from Edinburgh to Dublin and landed with the intention of hiring a car and driving to the countryside and spending a few days there. For some reason, there weren’t any small cars available and I did not want to pay a bomb for a bigger car for a single person. I decided to use the RyanAir website to book a car as I had flown through them and they were offering me an option. Once the booking had been done, payment had been made is when I got a mail that said ‘Your booking is being processed. We will let you know once it gets confirmed. It may take anywhere from 15 minutes to 24 hours.’ Ouch! That was not what I was expecting. I kept waiting at the airport for a confirmatory mail for two hours but when I couldn’t see a ray of hope, I decided to approach the RyanAir counter to seek help. They were kind enough to give me the Customer Service number, which I called. They regretted that the booking hadn’t happened as no car was available, but they could book me on another car after half an hour, but I had would have to pay more than what I was paying earlier. With no other choice in hand, I decided to go ahead with whatever I could get. 

I got a nippy little hatchback of Volkswagen and I went off to continue my trip. After driving about 100 km, I decided to take a break and pulled myself into one of the food courts that come on the highway. On coming back in the car, I realized that my car was not getting into reverse gear. Now that was not good! I tried changing the gear multiple times but to no avail. Finally, I saw a young man passing by and I asked him if he could help me with this problem. He got into the car and was able to put the car in reverse within seconds. He then told me that there was a particular way in which this car would go in reverse gear. I heaved a sigh of relief. 

Going ahead, another 50 km down the road is when I reached the toll plaza. Due to some miscommunication, I thought that all tolls on my hired car has been paid and so I decided to drive through the unmanned toll plaza but the boom barrier did not open. Now I couldn’t figure how to operate the toll machine. Thankfully, there was an old gentleman in his car right behind me who told me about the Assistance button that I had to press and speak to toll help. After about ten minutes, a toll assistant came to my rescue, explained to me how it works and then I was able to move forward. 

It took me 5 hours to reach my hotel near Cliffs of Moher and I was so relieved that I finally made it. 

On reading this, you must be thinking that this trip must have been so much of a hassle and pain for me. Let me tell you that once you see the beauty that nature has kept in store for us, all these hassles and pain just go away as you realize that the world is so beautiful and one has to take some efforts to witness this beauty. As the old adage goes ‘No pain, no gain’ and these pictures below will prove that!

Who is a RJ these days?

During my college days, one of the professions/hobbies that I wanted to pursue was that of becoming a RJ – Radio Jockey. There were a number of fantastic RJs in the country who were inspiring me to follow their path and I thought that I had the voice and the knack for something like this and hence I even went to a couple of studios. One of them asked me to come back after finishing my graduation as they did not hire undergraduates as a RJ (never understood how is a degree going to impact the delivery on radio), whereas the other studio told me that they do not have openings at the moment but they would be doing a RJ hunt which I could participate in.

By the time I was nearing the final year of my graduation, there were larger dreams and the goal of doing a MBA had taken over, pushing this desire to the back burner. Of course, over the years, since it was still an idea that had not left the head, I have always been a fan of the radio and I spend more time listening to the RJs talk rather than listening to the music being played. In fact, it would be no surprise to know that while others change channels to listen to their favourite tracks as soon as a RJ comes on air, I stick around and listen to their talk. 

But I am seeing a pattern emerge in the last few years that has left me feeling dismayed and is pushing me to change channels more frequently as soon as the RJ comes on air. So what has changed in the last few years?

To begin with, RJs now do not seem like Radio Jockeys but rather seem like ‘Rude Jockeys’. I know it is a bit unfair on my part to paint all of them under this title, but the truth is that most of the RJs these days across channels are obnoxious, loud, and disrespectful. The kind of language and words used are very casual and filled with slang. Most channels have certain prank calls lined up that are done by the RJs and these calls are filled with abusive language where neither there is humour and nor there is class and yet channel after channel is going after this kind of a format. 

What’s worse is the fact that these RJs seem to have become judges in their own right and they have started giving verdicts on matters and cases that are sub judice and where conclusions haven’t come, decisions haven’t been made and people haven’t been proven innocent or guilty. Most of these RJs do not even seem to have done their research before giving their opinion openly on air, forgetting the fact that as a voice on air, they have tremendous influence on their listeners and so they have a moral responsibility to not pass judgements till the case is complete. 

I think they need to remember that they are working at a radio station, where their job is to delight and entertain and not become the ‘Voice of God’ who seems to know all and who can get away by saying anything.

I am still a strong believer of the platform of Radio and there are still a few good men and women out there who are trying to withhold the respect and integrity of this profession. I hope to see many more like that coming back into the fold. 

Last but not the least, as far as my dream of being a RJ is concerned, I am extremely glad to let you all know, that despite what is happening on Radio all around, in 2015, I was able to carve out an opportunity of being a RJ for an afternoon show for an hour and that ensured that one of the items on my bucket list did get tick off!

Random Musings on a Sunny Sunday!

It has often been seen that once you are out of habit of something, when you get back to that act, it seems that you are starting from scratch again. All the momentum that had built up has gone. It takes considerable effort, discipline and consistency to come back to the same level.

Writing also follows a similar philosophy. Nowadays, when I pick up the pen and tend to write for a little more than a few paragraphs, my palm and fingers start aching as I have lost the practice of writing for hours and filling copious amounts of paper. The world of technology, where everything is on my fingertips has had such an effect that now the fingers that grip the pen ache whereas the fingers that tap the keys feel very normal about it. 

Now when I extrapolate and extend this philosophy to blogging, it seems very similar. Coming back to put down a blog after months and it seems like a tedious job. The mind doesn’t know what to write on, where to begin, how to keep the flow going, how to connect the various pieces. This is despite the fact that thoughts come to my mind at regular intervals of what can be the next interesting topic to blog on. The problem is that these thoughts do not come when I have the resources – my laptop and time for a blog, but rather they strike me at the most unexpected and unprepared places. These thoughts will occur to me when I am trying to concentrate on my run, or when I am trying to pay attention to the speaker in a meeting, or when I am enjoying the cold shower in the hot summer of Delhi or when I am counting the number of red lights that I am encountering on a day when I am supposed to be at a place at a certain time and I am already running late for that. It seems that these thoughts have an evil mind of their own and they just want to tease me and titillate me but they have no intentions to let me enjoy them when I am waiting for them! 

Maybe, here is an opportunity for some brave and bold entrepreneurs as well as scientists to work on a technology that allows thoughts to get converted into meaningful ideas or blogs as and when they strike us so that a lot that has popped in the head comes out in the open for the world to witness, see and read! If anyone puts up a technology like this on kickstarter, I will be one of the first ones to put my money behind their venture as I know that not only will it help me immensely, but it will also be a winner in this crazy, chaotic world.

If I have still been able to hold your attention and if you have reached till here in the blog expecting some more nuggets or gems from me, let me burst your bubble right here and tell you that this blog is nothing less than a random musing on a sunny Sunday, where just like the rains that are being a spoilsport by not making an appearance, a similar conspiracy has been hatched by my thoughts as well. 

So till the time my thoughts do not show some empathy and kindness towards me, you – my reader friend will have to do with this blog that just speculates of what could have been, had my thoughts not deserted me.