Disconnect, switch off, cycle and sleep under the stars

There is a notification on Facebook, a friend has pinged on Whatsapp and another on Gtalk. This is so typical of our lives today. And, honestly, it has become irritating, energy sapping, boring and pointless. Yet, we connect, switch on our tablets and smart phones and laptops and ensure that wifi is on.

I posted a link to a DD News clip on YouTube in Facebook where Kaveri Mukherjee and Sukanya Balakrishnan present the day's news.

Sample these comments on the link:

i miss the 90's ...while growing up back then, it was a lovely time, a lot simpler, happier and filled with contentment

never ever ever ever ever ever ever remind me of the 90's! it was so good!

Now, why were the 90's so good? Partly because, we led simpler lives. By simpler, I mean uncluttered and less noisy lives. Today, a scary profusion of choices make our lives complex, decision making, stressful and consequently, attention and concentration get diverted easily.

Just imagine these:

• so many multiplex screens to choose from for a movie
• 100s of restaurants to eat out
• half a dozen messaging and chat applications
• so many news channels and some news is always breaking in all of them 

And now compare this with the 90s. Two television channels, a few good restaurants, no messaging, no breaking news, to simplify, no explosion of choices.

I gazed at the stars, actually noticed the moon, played cricket on the streets, saw a serial on DD Metro every weekday at 9 in the evening, waited for Rangoli and Mahabharat/Ramayan on Sundays, chewed boom boom Boomer, drank Rasna and Complan, read the good old Hindu, met friends in the evenings and chatted away under the light from the street lamps, got lost in faraway worlds by turning the pages of Famous Five and Hardy Boys.

Today, by giving in to these choices, we have made ourselves restless. Once in a while, we should

• cycle instead of taking out two wheelers and cars
• switch off our mobile phones for the weekend
• unplug the modem
• sleep under the stars
• make it a point to meet people instead of calling or chatting
• write letters and read comics

Life is simple and fun, it depends how we choose to live it. 

Why I love Parineeti Chopra

Hasee Toh Phasee was my first Parineeti Chopra movie. Ever since the trailers came out, I had decided not to miss this one. 

Parineeti has done a great job literally carrying the movie on her shoulders. She makes us laugh, cry, angry, incredulous, jealous and irritated. For a fourth outing, she has done remarkably well when it comes to emoting. 

Some observations - Parineeti

• comes across as completely natural in front of the camera
• has an adorable smile that warms the viewer's heart
• carries herself elegantly in all the costumes she is shown in this movie 
• is not obviously obsessed about a size zero figure
• has a powerful screen presence and an unmistakable charisma
• looks pretty wearing her hair short 
• looks prettier in glasses
• can carry off both a nerdy and a sexy look with aplomb
• overshadows other characters in a movie by a big margin 

Doing away with bullet points - 

She  can steal, romance, prance, eat toothpaste, fix a car battery, earn a doctorate in chemical engineering, rattle about cricket, throw a cricket ball accurately at the wickets, speak Chinese, drink and eat with abandon and jump a compound wall.

Of unpleasant visions

Visions of

Tangled wires,
knotted threads,
cluttered rooms,
rickety constructions,
jumbled thoughts,
noisy conversations,
chaotic crowds,
cloudy skies,
foggy mornings,
buzzing insects,
muddled waters and
hazy views

haunt and disorient.

The mind and the heart alike yearn for clarity: the clarity of a pristine stream and a cloudless sky. A clarity, perhaps nature alone can help bring.

Of assumed responsibility at the workplace

Responsibility, the word's definition goes thus : a duty to be in charge of someone or something, so that you make decisions and can be blamed if something bad happens

I remember reading in an article recently that responsibility is the word most often used by people in their résumé. Responsibility is also what most people, ironically speaking, shy away from at their workplace. These are the people who can be easily identified when they say, 

1. I am not responsible for this. Mr X is. Please talk to Mr. X
2. Actually, you are the one responsible for this. So, you must take this up and drive it.
3. I cannot take decisions here. Mr. X has to. You need to present this proposal to him. 

 Taking responsibility means having the courage to take ownership; it means putting your foot forward when required;  it also means understanding that we are accountable to achieve something and that it will have an impact on the larger scheme of things. It is the first step toward demonstrating leadership. After all, leadership means having the ability to decide and having the courage to believe in the wisdom of your decision.

This is where assumed responsibility comes in. To me, it means that I decide what I am responsible for and I fully understand the implications of the same. Somebody else cannot tell me 'You are responsible for driving topic X to closure'. I am not, unless I assume that responsibility which implies that I won't be able to drive X to closure just because someone tells me unless I tell myself.

One can perform several notches better than how one is expected to perform only by assuming more responsibility than  what one's boss entrusts one with. In the end, the benchmarks we set for ourselves should be against our own selves. Nothing else matters.

Effective meetings - Some best Practices

It is just amazing how so many people manage so efficiently to bypass some basic meeting etiquette. Imagine the following:

1. People don’t accept/reject/respond to the meeting requests you send
2. People don’t invite the right participants for the meetings/discussions they call for
3. A clear agenda is not sent out
4. All the participants have little idea of what their fellow participants’ role in the meeting will be
5. Meetings are always called for more than an hour
6. No one moderates a meeting with participants exceeding 5
7. Minutes of meeting is nonexistent as a practice but in a few rare instances, when minutes are sent out, nobody reads it
8. Context setting never happens in any meeting
9. At the end of the meeting, participants leave with no clear action items and next steps defined
10. People take calls in the middle of the meeting, return and expect other participants to update them
11. Half of the participants always come late to the meeting
12. Most meetings are sent out with no location details
13. Most people don’t take any decision in most meetings
14. Most people do not talk even when the points discussed concern them

 Now, imagine this: 

1. Only in cases where decisions/outcomes have to evolve during the course of the meeting, meetings are called for more than an hour

2.  The right participants are invited to the meeting

3. Before the beginning of the meeting, the participants know -
•  The objective of the meeting and consequently the outcome expected 
• Their respective roles
• The context of the meeting 
• Where the meeting will happen

    4.      If the participants number more than 5, the meeting is moderated 

     5.     The participants arrive to the meeting on time and if they have to take calls/attend    to  other work, they get updates after the meeting (on what transpired in their absence) from fellow participants/meeting minutes

     6.     Participants participate when it comes to topics that are related to them

     7.     After the meeting ends, participants

•                  Know the action expected from each of them
•                 Know the time by when they should complete their action items 
•                 Are aware of the next steps  
•                 Get the meeting minutes from the person who called the meeting or the participant  who volunteered/is assigned the note keeper. 

It doesn't require an understanding of rocket science to see which set of practices is  better and more conducive to effective meetings. 

After all, in a collaborative world where decisions increasingly involve concurrence from multiple stakeholders, conducting effective meetings (and consequently productive meetings) is an art in itself!

The Truth about me - A sad commentary on our attitude toward hijras

I was browsing the racks of MyLib, Jayanagar when I came across this title. I remembered a friend wanting to read stories of Hijras and other sexual minorities and so immediately decided to borrow it. Back home, I started reading the first few pages and was hooked.

Haven't we all seen hijras near traffic signals, in trains and in railway stations? What is the first feeling we experience on seeing them? Please give it a thought. Speaking for myself, I have experienced fear and a strange anxiety. When they have approached me, I have always increased my pace and avoided them.

This true story of Revathi, born Doraisamy in Tamilnadu, is by turns sad and shocking with rays of hope emerging, only to vanish into darkness. She asks in the autobiographical account (Originally Unarvum Uruvamum in Tamil and translated by V. Geetha into English):

"If society scorns us, then we turn to our families, if we have a family. But if family scorns us, who do we turn to? Is this why people like me do not stay in touch with their families? Could not God have created me as a man or a woman? Why did He make me this way? Why is He savouring this spectacle that He created? In a rage, hitting my head against the wall, I began to cry."

The book recounts Revathi's struggles, hopes, fears and wishes. It is a mirror that shows our society in a very poor light for the way we treat hijras. Revathi shares her experiences living with fellow hijras in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. In each of these cities, she is exploited and treated with disdain. During her visits to her hometown, she is mocked by the public when she travels by local buses. However, not everything in the book is disheartening. Revathi is cared for by fellow hijras and the odd non hijra. Her family hates her and loves her. Eventually, they seem to accept her for who she is.

We are also exposed to the inner world of the Hijra community, their rituals, traditions and language. Paampaduthi, chelas, gurubais, guru, naani, kaalgurus, nirvaanam, pottai, danda - words that disturbingly get into the reader's head and work their way through his conscious to imprint themselves firmly and powerfully.

What I find inspiring about the book is the author's - Revathi's - resolve to keep going. She seems to get up everyday and as a Hijra, does her chores with a resolve and strength of character that many of us would shudder to even think about! For this reason alone, it is a must read.

Those days - My love affair with books

My love affair with books started, thanks to my mother and cousin brother. I remember days when I used to go to the annual Chennai book fair with my mother. Oh, how crowded those stalls used to be and how many stalls! It was my cousin brother who introduced me to the world of Famous Five. Julian, Dick, Timothy, George and Anna, if I remember the characters right. It was as if someone pulled the curtains aside to reveal a whole new world, a world much more colourful and adventurous, when compared to the small town life I was leading.

I am unable to recollect when I started reading serious fiction. It was probably not until the first year of my college education. I used to commute from Maraimalainagar to Chrompet, a distance of ~22 kilometres by Chennai's local trains and my favourite pastime during those everyday journeys used to be books. Thanks to my membership at the British Council library in Chennai, I got access to a wide plethora of authors.

Even a break of 3 or 4 hours between classes and I used to catch a bus and head to the library in Mount road. Patiently I used to browse the collection there. There must have been 2 to 3 racks dedicated to works of fiction but what a treasure trove it was. After an hour or so of intense browsing and weighing of options, I used to pick up the one or two books I was eligible to take as part of the membership and then the love affair would start.

F Dostoevsky, Jose Saramago, Iris Murdoch, Christopher Isherwood, Salman Rushdie, Rohinton Mistry, JM Coetzee, Amit Choudhri, Somerset Maugham, J Krishnamurti, Isabel Allende, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Pat Barker, Helen Dunmore, Amartya Sen, David Davidhar, Kazuo Ishiguro, Khushwant Singh and Orhan Pamuk - Each of these authors, I got introduced to only through that wonderful library. Then there was this set of two or three Orkut friends who I connected with and I started reading the books they talked about and recommended. I remember a phase of classics, a phase of second world war based novels and a phase of novels based on stories set in conflict ridden zones.

As I read, I started maintaining a diary. My own private journal in which I used to jot down the extracts I loved most. Now, am in my second diary but I have sadly become less disciplined. Nowadays, even if I like something I read, I am too lazy to open that diary, take a pen and jot it down. Perhaps, I should not be!

Thanks to an acquaintance I got connected to today, I felt the necessity to put this down. Perhaps, it was long due.