Some examples:

1. Cigarettes. It is important for us to produce and sell cigarattes because otherwise there would be contraband plus more unhealthy forms of cigarettes. Prohibition never addresses the real issues – it only makes the issue illicit to discuss. We provide direct employment to thousands of employees, and indirect livelihood to millions others through our CSR initiatives. Our CSR initiatives are regular course material at Harvard.

2. Audit. Is not about being the “bloodhound” but the “watchdog”. It is very difficult to detect wilfully perpetrated fraud – that too done with active collusion. We can do justice to our profession by being up to date, exercising due diligence and care and maintaining professional integrity.

3. FMCG. Is ALL about distribution. Once you build this intricate pipeline, all you need is to ride on it, and allow other products and services to ride on it too while making a free profit. Scale pays. You don’t even need to produce your own goods. Our core business strength is marketing and distribution.

4. Education is business. Archaic laws and government perceptions are unable to change with times. If private players don’t enter education sector, the country will remain largely uneducated. Private players provide incentive based services which will surely be better than poorly incentivised Public education. We do make profits to sustain. Like EVERY other business our way of doing good to society is through our products and services.

As you must have guessed by now, these and many more stories not listed here are neither right nor wrong. We need stories to make sense of our complex environment. Less time taken to understand the environment means more time for action in preset direction. Some stories we outgrow with enhanced perception. Some we grow with without realising how it attached itself – through own thinking or otherwise. Maybe I am growing older in mind and increasingly skeptical. But more stories are clearer today as stories than they were than 10 years ago.

Q: How old are you?

A: So old that the internet and email were first used in India when I was in high school.

Q: What ? You did not have internet until high school ? Then how did u do your homework?

A: We read books, and “wrote” by hand

Q: That MUST have taken time! If you did’nt have internet, how did you meet friends on facebook?

A: Oh facebook came much later – after I post graduated and was into my 3rd job. We had something called “orkut” during the college phase, and nothing before that.

Q: Oh so I assume you would talk/ text your friends till such time?

A: Hmmm…yes we did have a landline phone at which school friends would call. I bought my 1st personal mobile phone a few months after my 1st job.

Q: Then how would your family reach you whenever you were away?

A: At other PP landline phones

Q: But landlines cannot store phone numbers !!

A: Yes, I would remember the phone numbers of my close friends and family, and note down the rest in hand-made phone diaries. Some of us had digital diaries.

Q: So you would talk to your friends on the land line in front of FAMILY?

A: Well, it could be avoided at times, but mostly – yes.

Q: Ok tell me, how did you pass time when you DID NOT have any internet?

A: Till the internet came…well, I guess that was in school days, we would read, listen to music on the tape recorder, play “Lock and Key”, “Crocodile”, Carrom, Paandi, Ludo, Pallankuzhil or watch TV. Some others would play Cricket, football etc.

Q: You did not have Ipod or the X Box too?

A: Nope. Those came later too.

Q: Thank God, you atleast had the TV !!! Was it a black and white?

A: No, black and white TV was in olden times, my generation grew up watching colour TV

(pack and run before questions on LCD, Plasma and  3D TV enter the conversation…..)

Some Nuggets again:- (lets see how long or well these last – at least for me)

1)  Taking a tough decision is not easy. But to live the consequences of the decision everyday is tough. To fight self-doubt (or to give in without fighting it),  to fight all the “What Ifs” that suddenly spring on the mind (or to give in to them), to fight the negativity, despair and lack of hope (or to give in to them), during the phase of living the decision, is tough.

An IIMB Prof once said – the real test for sticking to a value, is – when you pay a huge price for it. Do you want to win the real test, and pay the  huge price?  Or lose the test, and save the price for something else that you may find worthy later?  Truth is, one never knows without taking the plunge.  And still, one might not know

2) There are no fool-proof decisions. Ever. Ever. Ever.  The unexpected always pops its head out, as a variable that we did not consider.  Then we factor that in future decisions, and something else pops up.  And then we factor on and on.  The plus side is, there are unexpected variables popping out, that have nice outcomes too.

3) It is very important to have lesser time in our hands, than the things one can manage with that time – because then only we will prioritize and end up doing the things that are important. Freedom with time, quite paradoxically makes one lose the value of both time, and the things that can be done with it.

4) Never lose sight of your basic beliefs of life.  Recall them when you are fine, and positive NOW. The beliefs themselves can be simple, complex, experiential, moralistic or anything. But having them is what makes you, you. Knowing that you have some basic things that external factors cannot destroy can itself be a superb guiding force.

When you are low, and the beliefs forgotten at the conscious level, they will come back at another level to help.

Like they have now, to me.

We shifted house with loads of “samaan”, and the tiny plant was tucked away as a special possession in our car, rather than in the samaan truck.  Would the tiny plant survive the perils of shifting house?  After some days we were happy that it did survive, and became a “small plant”.

We bought many more plants – mostly flowering to grow in the new house. All the flowering plants withered slowly, since there is not enough sun light in our  new house. We were pretty upset, since we had specifically checked about this before buying, and it was agonizing to see one plant after another go.  We were again worried as to what would happen to the money plant – it was still small.

After some months we are happy that not only has the money plant survived all our fears, change of circumstances and even outlived its stronger-looking contemporaries, it has slowly grown from a tiny –> to small –> to a flourishing money plant.  We see it expanding prolifically, with additional leaves/ stem parts emerging almost every other day.

We could never ever have guessed the extent of “love for life” in our tiny money plant.

Here are the 7 random truths about me:-

1. I do a lot of mono-acting at home. I like to act out situations replete with dialogues – I play all the  parts in the scene. Mostly they are humorous  (one polite man can vouch for that), sometimes witty and largely forgotten.

2. I love unintelligent and arbit Tamil movie comedies – both on films and TV. Sometimes Hindi is humorous enough but has never surpassed Tamil. I do not favor the supposedly intellectually stimulating stuff  (read English comedies).

3. I wanted to study psychology, philosophy, religions, arts and literature.  I was good at writing and scripting for short skits. My ad-scripts were re-used by my team, seniors, and others for years. God help people like me who know (in retrospect) their interest and still join the rat race. I mean – God please really help !!

4. I think marriage has quite shaken me up from the roots. I am mostly at a loss to define who I really am today.

5. I can never get enough of sleep. My normal sleeping hours range from 8 hours to 12 hours.

6. My husband gets very amused when I burp. I do often, it now seems.

7. I forget.  People, faces, names, things said, things happened, things studied, and what I learned from any of the above.

Whom would I like to tag:-

1. Rashmi – she has writing phobia. So please excuse.

2. Husband – he has action and writing phobia. So please excuse.

3. Jagdish – unfortunately does not have well established phobias.  Please to throw light.

4. Mani again – Mani never fails anyone.

5. Sesh – 7 random things enough, truth they will be.

6. SMS – the dude with the “blogs target” and upcoming marriage

No you are NOT schizophrenic…but still have you ever tried to escape from your own thoughts?

1. Meritocracy. People in services prefer to “advance upwards” on their own/ based on “meritocracy”. So the old world trade unions – that are essentially formed for wage-negotiation are not really required. Infact standardisation of wages/ promotions might limit “meritocracy”. I have my serious doubts here though. I am beginning to think that the more “degree educated” people become, the more they look out for themselves first, and ambition rules over co-operative, but slow-track growth.

2. Trade unions need not exist ONLY for salary negotiation. Respect at work, respect for personal space are also getting seriously affected. This could be because work descriptions are getting more and more complex, and are not amenable to clear lines of demarcation. Though respect for personal space is to a great extent driven by individual assertiveness, it is also driven to a large extent by organisation culture and practices.

3. Compared to old world trade unions, there is really no distinction between the “capital” and “working” classes. People who get managed, ultimately become managers in services. So if they do demand changes in work culture and systems, they also need to implement them once they become managers. Maintaining status quo actually helps because one can dispense such gyan later - “we also had our dog years – be happy its not worse”. (Not that there is any shortage of hypocrites in work life as such, but still).

4. 360 degree review can serve to be a compromise system to plug some major work culture issues in services industry. If implemented in spirit that is. No, heirarchies can never be equalised, but aristocratic attitudes can be contained atleast.

I have asked my husband what do we really do for our country even when we are living here? Its not as if we are making path breaking contributions or anything.  My husband’s answer was interesting – our “being here” itself is a contribution to the many less privileged people around us.

Very true.

We provide direct salaried employment/ livelihood to our maid, cook and car cleaner. We provide turnover to many tiny scale vendors – milk, vegetable, newspaper, fruits, ironing, carpenter, and plumber.  Plus business to slightly larger establishments – grocery stores, medical stores, and hardware stores. Plus some stakeholders get added in the consideration set for distribution of used articles and clothing viz. – garbage wali  and watchmen.

Indirect impact on the following are not even considered:- (1) impersonal service providers – like taxis and autos. (Sometimes these also get personal – one tends to identify one’s usual taxi wala etc).  (2) the numerous malls, shops, and restaurants where we splurge money but only a fraction reaches the less privileged.

Mostly I am at a loss as to WHOM to give away used clothing and articles. Don’t get me wrong, I respect everyone of the above vendors/ direct service providers who are critical to ensure the smooth running of our home and hence our lives.  I have the mobile numbers of most of the above people. Some of them also have mine. I admire the integrity and professionalism with which most of them work.  They toil so that their children are educated, and some of them hopefully will become as privileged like us.

I am always surprised at the response I get when I ask them – “do you think this used article/ clothing will be useful to you?”. I have ALWAYS got a YES for an answer.

When we shifted house from Dadar to Kalina, I said goodbye to all my old vendors. Our cook and maid were MOST affected and sad because they would lose employment probably for a few months until they found the next house that would suit their timing (the cook had very small children to care for).

Compare this with a standard response that an Indian migrated to US gives – they feel proud of doing all housework themselves.  Dearies – there is indeed a kick in providing livelihood that remains to be discovered !! Outsourcing obviously reduces work, but it also re-distributes income.

Whether we know it or not, we (educated and earning “global Indians”) are really useful out here in our country !!

The Hawaldar doing the beat in our area was to come home to verify my address personally.

This happened only after we (hubby & I) made a trip to the local police station. We were surprised to find an entire department building at the police station manned by policemen for passport verification. It resembled any paper-filled office replete with in and out trays, separate cabin for the Inspector etc.

Anyway the police verification finally happened.

After the police verification was a personal interview by the Inspector, accompanied with verification of proofs (that the passport office had already validated). And the inspector wanted some more proof because we were not owners but tenants (more on the step child treatment to tenants in Mumbai, later).

Finally that also got done (again without any off-record payments), and the papers, we were last told are at the CID’s office for further verification !!! The same set of documents are being checked at least 4 times by various  Government servants.

In the entire process, I discovered that the police actually do a mind-boggling amount of paper work.  Add to that the security they provide to heads of states, politicians, foreign delegations etc (this also I witnessed at another time recently – when civilians were cordoned off from the main road to let a huge security-filled foreign delegation pass).

Probably the police really have lesser bandwidth for civilian protection?

(http://harvardmagazine.com/commencement/the-fringe-benefits-failure-the-importance-imagination)

What moved me more than Rowling’s experiences – is her ability to cull out the most important parts and convey them to the audience in a very effective manner. “Words” really are her friends ! What also struck me is that – “to write” – a person most of all needs to believe that his/ her own experiences  and thoughts are not only valuable to him/ her but are also in some way valuable to others if shared.  I often get impulses to write, but then “reject” them because I suspect any of the following:

(1) the thing to be shared is important/ relevant only to me

(2) what I know people may already know through other means/ their own experiences

(3) everyone has the ability to learn from their environment/ context. What they have not experienced yet may only be theoretical and forgettable (like her own Graduation speaker’s speech that Rowling forgot)

(4) unless there is a topic where you want to know what other people are thinking, there is no need to trouble them with your poor half formed thoughts

Well, this teeny writing somehow got out – because of point (4) is my suspicion, but I am not really sure I often go round and round…