10 things I miss from TV in the 90s

This discussion actually started off as a minor chatter on the balcony of our hostel a couple of weeks back. As our academic calendar draws to a close and every body is reminiscing about the good old days, we decided to really step into the past and pick up 10 things from the 90s television we would love to have in our lives once again. This is the list which we discussed after 2 hours of non-stop, non-utilitarian discussion and does not appear in any order of preference. So here goes: 

1. Chitrahaar and Rangoli:

Our weekly dose of Bollywood was limited to these to programs. My guess is Chitrahaar was on Wednesdays and then moved to Fridays.. and then again moved back to Wednesday evenings but Rangoli was part of Sunday morning breakfast ritual. Dahi-jalebi with Rangoli... yummy!!! or in winters... watching Rangoli while hiding inside the razai.

2. Byomkesh Bakshi:

The baap of all "who-dunnit" serials in the world. The serial involved a complicated mix of medicine, chemistry, logical analysis and intuition, all the while keeping the audience on the edge of their seats. While many people might consider it as the Eastern rip-off of Sherlock Holmes.. with the doctor accomplice but to me it is probably one of the best detective series ever made, with a very simple production backing strong stories and some great acting.

3. Surabhi:

The Sistine Chapel of Indian TV's cultural revolution. Only person who could have rivalled Siddarth Kak in popularity might have been Arun Govil (who played Ram in Ramayan) but Renuka Shahane with her broad grin and emphatic namaskar was miles ahead of any female on Indian TV at that time in popularity. The show brought many cultures, many cuisines, sight and surroundings into the Indian middle class household for the first time, taking us on exotic travels and fuelling dreams of far and wide for many of us. That and of course, the huge number of postcards they used to receive for their TV competition, leading to the launch of the Rs3 special postcard by the Postal department. Some oppurtunism that !!!

4. Potli Baba Ki, Baloo (Talespin) and Duck Tales:

Bachha time now. Sundays 10 to 11.30 am were reserved for the kids of India, with the dubbed versions of Disney cartoons playing out on the small screen. While Baloooo was serenading his boss, Uncle Scrooge and his 3 nephews were always out on some crazy adventure involving mummies and genies, making our Sundays all the more fun.
This generation was followed by legends like Daanu the Danasur..of chipkali ke nana fame!!!
5. Alif Laila: 

The pre-cursor to all those special effect serials that we now see on TV. Ramanand Sagar was immortalised by Ramayan, which was said to have brought the whole country to a stand still. But Alif Laila has a charm of its own. Right from its opening soundtrack to all those crazy sounds and special effects. Not to mention the fact that it had some of the more scantily dressed female protagonists for its times. With all the djinns, pari and shaitans, the serial would take us down a never ending path of fantasy and magic, with the good triumphs evil message splattered all across the storyline.



6. Shanti:

UTV Pictures presents Shanti...Shantiiii... Shantiiiiiiiii.....
After the baap of who-dunnits, we have the grand momma of all the modern day tear jerkers. In a convoluted plot of an illegitimate child, avenging a rape on a decaying family housing an underworld don as its servant, while the family itself is in self-destruct mode, our country's Lady Cricket Mandy Baby rocked the world with her reporter-giri and badle ki aag for Kamesh Mahadevan and Raj G J Singh. Bhandari with his crazy underworld act and finger-tapping dialogs and Nanu Jasoos were essential props to the Shanti success story.

7. Nukkad/Mr. Yogi/Mungeri Lal ke Haseen Sapne:

We hark back to the time when comedy did not mean stand up comedians dishing out corny one liners full of double entendre. Good clean humour, involving Mungeri's day dreaming, day to day happenings at the nukkad or the eteral search for his bride for Mr. Yogi (unsuccessfully ripped off in Wats your Rashee!!) is still a treat for the mind after a taxing days work.


8. Archaic ads of Laxman Sylvania, Link Locks and Nirma Detergent:

Everytime I see a bikini clad woman walking ashore for advertising JK Cement (the seriously WTF ad of the century!!!... if only sex and sleaze could sell everything) I am reminded of the Laxman Sylvania ad .."arre wo Ram Laxman wala bulb dena" or else the legendary Nirma gal or Link locks... featuring never seen before animation..where a filing rod is being used to break the lock and instead the rod breaks with lots of sparks flying around it!!! Simple, almost laughable and yet we are able to atleast relate the ad to the product.. Some times I wonder if we people have progressed o degenerated mentally!!!

9. Dekh Bhai Dekh/ Sarabhai vs Sarabhai/ Tu Tu Main Main:

 









The second generation of comedy serials, featuring up market families and primarily aired on the DD Metro network. DBD was a legend in itself with Deven Bhojani and Shekhar Suman pulling of comedy scenes with aplomb while Rosesh Sarabhai ki sadi hui kavitaon ka kya kehna.  Sachin created the first ever saas-bahu item on Indian TV and all Indian male population would agree that it was million times better than the stuff being dished out now. Goooooooooooood ollldddddd daysssssss of laughter Momma!!!

10. Ajnabee:

My favorite army serial, featured Danny and some other leading actors and was about the life in terror stricken Kashmir... one of my favorite characters was a terrorist name Shakoor Rana, who could generate enormous hatred and revulsion through his cool attitude and devilish dialogs. No over hyped, false bearded terrorists as in Sunny paaji's  movies. Just plain and simple story.. and yeah the opening sound track was good too.

So this is my list of 10 things which I hope would come back on TV and I can be happy again. Ofcourse, we discussed many other candidates like Hum Log and Buniyaad ( of which I have no great recollection!!), Vikram Betaal, Shaktimaan and Chandrakanta, Captain Vyom (I am sure this suggestion was more sarcastic than genuine!!) and the legendary Ramayan and Mahabharat. But I am sticking to these ten things... do let me know in case I am missing something else!!!

A case in favor of abolishing Valentine's Day!!!

Unlike other posts, I am not wasting any time before coming to the topic. This time of the year is certainly one of the most stressful to me and to many others of my ilk.
 As soon as India finishes observing a minute's silence to remember Gandhiji's martyrdom, the next big thing on the agenda for everyone is Valentine's Day. But why so, I must ask??
 Yours truly is leading a solitary life and my relationship status is well-publicised among my friends and yet, I have already been bombarded with a substantial set of queries asking about my plans on V-day. Further, what is with these colors and how can a color really be used to indicate "if I am on the market"?? Every time somebody asks me the question ..so what color are you wearing this V-day... I am reminded of a stupid gimmick many ppl carried out on social media to increase awareness about breast cancer. Only I am not sure what is more embarassing.. flashing my underwear color on social media or wearing my relationship status all over my physical existence on V-Day. To an average bachelor residing in a hostel, managing two clean pieces of clothing is tricky enough, without the additional of complexity of colors conveying your love life's deepest secrets.
    I googled out this whole color coding phenomenon and I am listing here the most popular connotations of colors:

• Blue- I’m free
• Green- I’m waiting
• Orange- going to propose
• Pink- accepted just now!!!
• Black- proposal rejected
• White- already booked
• Yellow- broke up!!!
• Gray- not interested…
• Red- leave me

While I am not contesting these codes, I do have some questions in my mind. Does a deeper shade of RED mean a strong "leave me" as in "dont even think about it!!" or did the people wearing PINK keep it as spare, just in case, and just got lucky?? On the whole this entire coding business is driving us back to racial discrimination in its most sophisticated form, differentiating people on the basis of color. 
  Imagine the scenario, you enter a pub and see a person wearing BLACK or YELLOW, do you really want to sit near this character and hear their sob story (my gender neutrality begs appreciation here!!).On the other hand, you probably want to sit next to a PINKy person and try to grab to a free drink or two as celebration. Bingo... discrimination on the basis of color!!! (Me thinks, worse would be actually landing up next to an ORANGE and end up as his dress rehearsal partner...take that!!)
Now that socially essential arguments have been put forward, let me come down to the more personal/emotional arguments.
The two broad lines of argument on this topic are as follows:

1. this is a day for all the lovers to celebrate Love (almost as if its Diwali!!)
2. this is a day for all the others to find Love

Now lets rip them apart systematically.
Argument 1 is nonsense. Don't all lovers make/create/manufacture/concoct love for the remaining 364 days of the year. Its not like Diwali when you are bombarded with sweets and crackers for just that one day. We, the single, have been painful witnesses to your public cuddling, kootchi-cooing and what not!!! So don't tell me that you are celebrating Love on that particular day and abstain on the other days of the year. And what the hell.. when did you folks ever need a reason to gift a teddy bear, a chocolate box or watever else is in vogue now!!! Just don't call it the festival of Love...and to think that you are actually celebrating somebody's death!!!

Argument 2 is offensive. Nobody, take it from me NOBODY, ever finds love during Valentine's day. Not only does it provide false hope to the usual-suspects of solitary living, it also gives the whole romance thing a marketplace atmosphere, feeding on supply and demand. You are either already in love and the mass hysteria is helping you express it or you are just feeling the peer pressure of not being found alone (screw the subtlety, without arm candy!!). In the first case you get your hindside kicked and in the second case you are in deep $h&t with either a wrong decision or worse, a compromise!!! Anyways, in case any of you thinks that it is possible to find love on Valentine's Day, this is what I have to say on it:
 Planning to find love on Valentine's Day is like selling notional futures contract in love. You will most probably end up squaring up your positions in the spot market!!!


 Thus, having successfully and single handedly, sounded the alarm bell on Valentine Day celebrations, I request the powers that be to abolish the celebration of V-Day thus, protecting the society from racial hatred and keeping the population on a realistic leash of romanticism.
 My Lord, I thereby rest my case!!!


P.S. Now time for something useful:
 Check out this new cool Facebook group, as a designer you might be interested. Otherwise just spread the word.

Looking back on 3 Idiots!!!

The entire IIT Bombay campus is getting up from the sleepy hangover of Mood Indigo 2009. An extravaganza in itself, it deserved a fitting finale, a finale as delivered by the awesome trio of Shankar Ehsaan and Loy on the last ProNite show of MoodI last night. The entire OAT was up and rocking for 2 hours as we sang ourselves hoarse and danced till the body could take it no more. At that point I could never have thought that anything else could go one up on that show that evening. But then there was the premiere of Mr. Perfect Khan's "3 Idiots" to contend with!!!

 Well not many Bollywood movies move me enough to write a blog post about them, and those which have done are for all the wrong reasons but "3 Idiots" deserves to written about, talked about and felt good about so here goes....

 To start off, the passage to the movie hall itself was a thriller, what with a hitched ride to the IIT Main Gate and a Bollywood ishtyle sprint to get on to the running bus, all of which enabled me to reach the place about 10 mins in advance. Only one thought ran in my mind ...this movie better be worth all the running around!! But after having read Chetan Bhagat's 5 Point Someone, frankly my expectations weren't very high.
But then if we take one of the finest acting talents in Indian cinema and mix it with the directorial talent of the legendary MunnaBhai series, fireworks are guaranteed.
3 Idiots has masterfully uncovered the dirty underbelly of the Indian education system. Right from unrealistic parental expectations and peer pressure all the way upto some of  the drastic steps that students are forced to take, all of them have been dealt with seriously, delicately and passionately.
The storyline is not straight of the novel, which is good and makes it a TRUE 'adaptation', with a few unexpected twists and turns. The screenplay is crisp and the songs make sense ( and will be on your lips, on your way out!!!), and probably the only place where the script falters is towards the end, where the entire childbirth scene is a bit too much to handle. Apart from that I guess there are no gaping flaws in the movie.
Coming to the actors, well.... singing anymore praises to Amir is a waste of time because we have come to expect him as being nothing short of real, fresh and brilliant. To quote Amir aka Rancho from the movie itself... "strive for excellence and success will follow you around." and he has proved himself right. Madhavan as the narrator is restrained and yet full of energy, while Kareena as Pia is a deadly combo of sweet and sexy!!! After seeing him play the dean in Munnabhai, one would have thought that Boman Irani couldn't go one better but he has actually outdone himself with the potrayal of Virus, a hugely competitive and eccentric professor but also a defeated father. The chap who does the role of MadanMohan..or Millimeter is also good.
 But for me the best performances came from Raju Rastogi (Sharmaan Joshi) and Chatur Ramalingam. Typical rags-to-riches boy, Raju is torn between his responsibilities towards the family and his loyalty to his friends and this internal conflict is reflected in all his actions in the entire movie. Sharmaan's ability to make those straight faced jokes really brings alive the character even though some of the jokes in the movie are oft-repeated college humor. Chatur Ramalingam is the quintessential padaku, a person who has mastered the current system and is so sure of tiding over any anamolies like the 3 Idiots with supreme arrogance and sheer weight of memory power. However, like all good Hindi movies, the supremacy of our hero is emphatically stamped on this rote-machine and he accepts defeat with a traditional salaam at the end. The balatkar speech delivered by Chatur will surely become part of college folklore for years to come.
 The  Kareena-Amir chemistry deserves special mention for its vibrance and "chooo-chweeet" factor. So much so that by the end of the movie you are almost rooting for Kareena to slap him and seal it with a kiss ( which she does). And to think that moi was sceptical about the pairing initially!!!
Who should watch the movie?? Well almost everyone, the junta studying in engineering colleges, people passed out of engineering colleges, people who couldn't make it to engineering colleges and of course, all the parents who decide at their child's birth as to what their child should become.
Amir and Raju Hirani have given us a great movie to savour and also maintained their tradition of delivering a strong message underneath a light, fun-filled experience.
 As we all agreed last night after the movie... it gets a 4 out of 5 and is a must watch for everyone in the country!!!
"Ohh Bhaiya.. Aal izzz Well!!!"

The Long and Short of a Haircut!!

If I remember well, it was Mark Twain who once lamented on the ignominy of sitting helplessly in a dentist's chair. The other day I experienced the same sense of powerless subjugation while sitting in the chair of none other than our campus barber.
Somehow these trivial incidents make me think deeper than usual, a skill that can be disturbingly attributed to the amount of free time at my hands. My chain of thoughts centred on my impatience, helplessness and of course, the implications of a bad haircut on the impending placement season performance (how can that be missed!!!).
Ever since a boy reaches class 3 ( this is a hypotheses i am working hard to prove.. for now u can take my word for it!!), he is taught by his environment to be the alpha male, the uber cool and the person in control. Seldom of course are guys taught the opposite... to put complete trust in somebody else to handle the situation. And yet there are so many situations where the alpha male concept goes for a toss. The surgeons are a case in point. Not only does their hand writing beat you so does their talking. All you understand is that you are gonna be cut up and set alright. But then the alpha male is no less troubled by the barber. And you can see the parallels between a surgeon and a barber.

• You have no clue if they understand your case and are qualified to handle you.
• You can only pray to God when they wield their instruments
• You have to bear the brunt of their mistakes
• Finally, you hear so many horror stories about both professions, doing to something to someone, who was a friend of somebody

Except for the first question, "cutting karna hai?" not many performance guidelines are sought by them and given their destructive nature of work, questions like "zyada chhota ho gaya kya?" are rendered immaterial. Infact delving deeper into the topic (as the barber was closing in on my scalp!!) I started regretting the existence of the barber himself. Our ancients could have certainly done with the advanced surgeons but i hope whoever invented this concept of barber-ism (pun intened) is roasting in the deepest furnaces of hell.
Some of my friends might argue the futility of this post, coming from me, a potential heir to lot of real estate on my scalp (read "baldness"). But again, my ample time and imaginative thinking was already creating arguments as to why this helpnessness in the barber's chair is a sign of other potential problems areas for me.
Suddenly a voice broke out.."Saheb ho gaya, aapke zyada baal nahi hain na, isliye aur chhota nahi kaat sakte!!!" Great, apart from keeping me in mortal fear of disfiguration, this guy also decides to take potshots at my hair (or the lack of it!!).
"Haan haan theek hai..kitna hua?"
I duly paid him the 30 bucks and vacated the chair, just as thoughts of therapy, herbal oils and wigs engulfed the space vacated by the alpha male, barber-ism and other utopian philosophies.

To Un-learn Social Networking!!!

Today was a wonderful experience. The Marketing Continuum at the Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management, IIT Bombay was a grand success with loads of illustrious speakers and many videos impressing upon us the true nature and color of the marketing profession.
One of the speakers was Mr. Paritosh Joshi ( follow on Twitter @paritoshZero) and he gave a wonderful seat of pants lecture, w/o the aid of a ppt on New Age Marketing. Apart from witnessing some stunning advertisements and marketing campaigns (yes!!! there is a helluva difference between them), we also witnessed a deluge of mentions and praises for Facebook and Twitter, most notably Burger King's campaign that left many people without friends but with loads of Whoopers and of course, the honorable mention of Twitter in bringing the Iran protests.
But amidst all the hosannas sung to social networking and crowdsourcing, I am trying to play Devil's Advocate to the heroes that Facebook and Twitter have become. I am not prophesizing any near term overkill of these phenomena but am wondering whether in the middle of the good these are doing, what is the price we are paying for it.
Of course, the most evident is the absolute lack of privacy for the user besides the issues of identity theft and unsavory incidents of accounts being hacked. On a stratospheric level, these interactions are actually replacing real interactions at the local chaiwalla and not only is that poor guy not making money but we have also lost the personal touch in the middle of the Tweets, RTs, # tags, pokes and quizzes etc etc etc and God knows wat else.
Many of my friends have lamented my absence from Facebook but I have strictly limited myself to one general networking (Orkut), one blog, one microblog (Twitter i.e.) and one professional network (LinkedIn) and if you feel that its insufficient connectivity then its your problem.

/*i have resumed this post after 2 months and in the meanwhile have opened a Facebook account and am regularly playing games and quizzes on it. */

So now with egg on my face I resume my crib about social networking overdose. I have developed a permanent fixation for checking updates on Twitterfox as well as FB and am looking for therapy to cure this.
I am sure many people need it!!!

Posting at 4am is not very good for my health so I'll sign off now!!
Tchao!!!

India: The Hindu Nation

There has been a sincere effort from my side to keep this blog apolitical and hence, before you read any further, you would be well advised to take the following paragraphs as a comment on the social philosophies prevalent in our times and not link them to any political ideologies.... Thanks in anticipation

This weekend really began well for me with a good, albeit long, walk around the fairytale landscape of South Bombay. While my romance with the place might form part of some other post, I was at loss when I quizzed myself on one of the people, after whom a landmark was named in the area. Then interesting enough I encountered the same name in an article I read today. It was then settled that I had to find out more about Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee, and subsequently, Veer Sawarkar.
It was intriguing for me read about these people, who had sown the seeds of Hindu nationalism and in the context of the article I had read, I could understand why these people appear to be, or are made out to be, hardline fundamentalists. Of course, these leaders form convenient ideological benchmarks to classify people in to secular and communal citizens of India but viewed without the lens of political manipulations and hippocracy, they also represent a truth that we are unwilling to accept.
To say that India is a secular country, will be a gross contortion of ground realities. For a country that is the cradle of 2 major international religions and has a huge following of 2 others, which were brought to it by the rulers of the times, we can not be serious when we say that India doesn't identify itself with any religion or we, as Indians, are ambivalent to all religions. Given the fact that so much of religion is intertwined with our social fabric, it is impossible to keep religion out of daily life, the way we eat, the way we greet each other, the way we celebrate birth, enjoy weddings, mourn deaths or almost anything we think. This obviously goes on to affect our interactions with other members of our society, depending on whether their habits are same or different, or if their actions are guided by the same principles as ours. This eventually gives birth to affiliations to some groups while giving rise to discomfort about certain others.

Now that the whole "secularism" rhetoric is out of the picture, let me talk about the Hindu nation. Mind you, a Hindu nation is not a country of Hindus or one practicing Hinduism alone, it'll be completely unethical, and most importantly unHindu, to deny other sects a rightful place to prosper and rightfully propagate but what it also must, and does, emphasise is that India consists of 80.5% people following Hinduism as a religion and a recognition for this fact is long overdue. As promised at the beginning at the post, this is a completely unpolitical post but the social scenarios that have resulted because of the political hubris, has left many Hindus bruised and disaffected with the whole concept of Hindustan.
The concept of a Hindu nation doesn't mean painting the whole country saffron, as has been routinely promoted, nor is it acceptable. A Hindu nation just reinforces the belief of the majority of people of the country that they haven't been converted into eternal sacrificial lambs at the altar of socio-political appeasement in the country. Too long have we been hearing our "secular" social beacons talking of the rise of Hindu nationalism, much in the same vein as the rise of an epidemic and have been warned of religious genocides, that will ensue should the nationalism take hold.
I wish to ask these great luminaries, what good has been their pessimistic acknowledgement of Hindu nationalism? If nothing, it has deepened the gulf between the majority and the minorities and the resultant chasm has been taken up by pea-brained "idealogues", willing to exploit every situation for their petty gains. The Hindu nationalism plank has till now only been used to paint a bleak picture for the minorities and present a "you are atleast better off now than in a Hindu state" excuse to cover up the spineless administrative shortcomings. Any possible constructive implications of a Hindu state have never been examined neither advocated and when such voices do rise, they are invariably branded as marauding fascists, whose sole aim is to create another holocaust and "cleanse" the land.
My closing statement, if at all there is one to this debate, dwells on the "how" and not on "whether". It has been oft said that Hindutva is a way of life. Thats as good as teaching my mom to operate the Hubble telescope. Its time that the advocates of Hindutva operationalise it, put down every inch of its components in tangible form and freely express the intangible ones. Only by practicing it, can we propagate it and remove apprehensions regarding it, among other members of the society. Lets keep in mind that no model or philosophy of life can sustain itself, if its intolerant and rigid in the face of change and amalgamation, thus Hindutva will evolve, should evolve and accomodate other parallel philosophies.
The success of any great nation always hinges on its people... and people means ALL people, not majorities neither minorities alone!!!

Summers of 2009: A mid-term review!!!

Just to prove that my blog isn't dead, I have comeback from nowhere to post this. Two major reasons for staying away for so long are, one that idiot FakeIPLplayer, because of whom, no other blogs were to be read or followed for the past 40 days and secondly, I began my summer internship at a leading organisation in the financial sector.
Ironically enuff, the IPL's over and simultaeneously, my wall of patience has been breached by the rigours of the internship so I am back again to wreak havoc with words and give FIP a run for his shadowy money.
Well, frankly, I got nothing against the company... they have been gr8 to me, right to the point of expecting me to deliver on all commitments in one month so that they can give me more learning assignments. Talk about "9-wives-1-month-pregnancy" but I have been humbled by their faith in the bumbling, stumbling buffoon that I am, who's job no. 1 during the internship is to get appointments from the concerned people and then adjust all prior appointments for this latest one. So wat put me really off today was the fact that after 3 weeks, when I want some guidance on the faint gleanings of a solution, I am told that I have been running behind the wrong the target segment. If I felt like a vegetable in my marketing lectures, I really felt like cowdung during this meeting. I cried out all four letter expletives, at the top of my voice, within my mind and eventually, slowly and almost in hushed tones, promised better results next time round, which, by the way, is day after.
This event actually opened a barrage of emotions within me and hence, I decided to pour it out on this post. Dude, I mean seriously... the only good things that have happened to me in the last one month have been, number 1, the fact that I have befriended the DJ @ Jugheads, to the extent that he concedes one request per weekend for moi and number 2, I have discovered that weekend trips to Jugheads are also a license to ogle wolfishly at beautiful (read sexy, hot... and all other synonyms for stunners!!!) girls, who are least bothered about a random pack of pariahs salivating, while they down drink after drink.
Coming to this point in my post, I suddenly remembered that its the month of May and that this month has historically been unkind to me, so probably its a fitting thing that this May of 2009 be no different. But sorry for the diversion, let me get back to my rantings so that you pervs can get enuff fun off it.
So coming back to my work, there is not much of it actually. All I am supposed to do is to gather data and think about the data. I was, of course, dumb enough to ask around for data. It seems we are supposed to get the data but no one has a clue as to who is supposed to give the data. In this intense game of "ricocheting-balls" syndrome, alike pool, I have already been reminded of my limited time here and that I should now start thinking with watever data I have and let the remaining data, rest in peace. And so I start thinking now, which is somehow too big a task for me and all I can think of is the coffee machine, the water cooler, the loo and lunch time (not necessarily in that order).
Funnily enuff, I luved the title of the project first up and was already dreaming of all the frameworks I could apply in this particular scenario, similar to our marketing case studies. All my dream of SWOT and Porter's 5 forces vanished eventually when I discovered that applying these would effectively dig my grave because I can never get enough data to defend half of the points that I had written on a sheet on the first day of project discussion. The paper was put to its best use next weekend, when I wiped off 2-3 thick layers of dust from the Bible by Mr. Kotler, thus effectively taking away 1 year of my MBA education with all the slime attached to it.
From the dreamy-eyed expectations of becoming Mr. India to the real-life struggle of staying afloat inspite of the teen-guna Lagaan my summer internship has come a full circle in half the period. Of course, this is again in keeping with my company's theory of high expectations.
Finally, what keeps me going. I have asked this question myself and the only answer I get for this is a glass of sugarcane juice and malai-wali lassi.
===================================================================
P.S: All facts, statements, people and feeling are completely fictitious and modified suitably for reading pleasure. Their resemblance to any real fact, statement, person or feeling is impossible. If you still wanna believe this post I hold no obligations regarding setting things right later.

P.P.S: If you are wondering that why I have written such a post only to deny its truth, then keep wondering, its your own sweet time. I am off to make my 1baby with my 9 wives .. (all notional creatures)

60 second guide to Management Consulting....

The last complete book i read was "The Mckinsey way" by Ethan Rasiel. Its a book about life at The Firm and the tips to become a successful management consultant. Most impressive among them being the "MECE" trick... "Mutually Exclusive Completely Exhaustive". While I am not going to review the book and present a judgement on the book (which I assure you is extremely positive), a sudden thought crossed my mind, which I thought best to elaborate here.

Even though it might sound a bit sacrilegious to any Management consultant worth his salt but I feel that any good flirt will make a good management consultant. Though I cant vouch for the reverse to be true, I think the incentive is huge for the consulting community to prove the axiom works both ways. The more i read through the pages of "The Mckinsey Way" clearer it became to me that all the jargons aside the most essential requisite for becoming a consultant is O.A.D. yup ... Obsessive Attention to Detail will get you places in the consulting domain.
Why drive home this simple point with a blasphemous comparision ?? well, there are products and then there are products which sell well. For the latter you need to package it well and thats what i have tried to do.
Well, OAD being the root competency of consulting is easier said than done. The fact you are being called up to clear someone else's mess obviously shows they dont know where to begin and that's where OAD comes into picture. You need to have that animal instinct to pick up a loose thread and it doesn't come easily, read a million cases, follow umpteen principles and build hundreds of reports on your learnings from the previous project but I am pretty sure that a gud management consultant will be sweating his palms on the eve of his next assignment.
When companies call up a management consultant, they generally want a third party view on their set of woes. More often than not, its because they know their processes too well and detailing them will cause them more mental discomfiture than simply off-loading it a consultant.
Sometimes even the most mundane aspects of a process or a product or an assembly line may be the root of all misery, hence OAD can help you get that added edge while going into the project.

Well, as to why I said that a flirtatious guy can make a good management consultant is because on first glance a lot of common things arise between a client and your girlfriend. Both are fussy, confused and need someone to pacify them when the shit hits the fan (of course, going by my brash attitude you would have figured out that I am single!!!) hence, a gentleman who has had the fortune (or misfortune, as the case may be ) to be associated with a few young ladies will by now have developed a genuine obsession towards details. The amount of details involved can give you a headache if you are starting afresh in the consulting industry but if you are in the category just described then any amount of data will appear miniscule in front of all the anniversary's, dog's birthday, three favorite flavors of ice cream, best non-fat topping for pizza and ( this is my favorite!!!!) which PowerPoint Background will go with the color of the dress!!!!
So all those gentlemen who think they have had some success with the fairer gender, feel free to send their resumes to the leading consulting firms of the globe.
happy Consulting!!!

PS: I have to make an apology and give a disclaimer at the same time...
Apology: To all the leading consulting firms. Both for the deluge of resumes that will come your way, with work experience looking some what like this :

Name of organisation (Months)

1. Rita (12)
2. Savita (6)
3. Pamela (3) (present)

and for the crass comparisions made.

Disclaimer: Aspirants in consulting domain are requested to persist with their internships in reputed companies rather than look for greener pastures!!!

Sauce Wars, Embarassing Typos and my ruminations on Democracy!!!!!

I have nothing else to do today so i am clearing up my backlog of posts and now i have settled on writing this too. Interesting things have happened in the last 24 hours.
When I went to Pizza Hut last night, fighting with a bottle of tomato sauce was not on my agenda however i landed up doing just that. For about 2-3 minutes I struggled to get a single drop of sauce out of the bottle while my whole body jerked up and down to the rythmic movements of my hand. The sauce finally yielded to my repeated attempts and finally, out came from the bottle some fresh, tasty looking tomato sauce to go with my Garlic Bread Exotica... yummy.. which brings me back to the question... is there is no standard viscosity for tomato sauce ??? shouldn't somebody look into this matter!!!!
Standardisation also involves weeding out the errors to maintain conformity. I was never a fan of proof reading, blame it on my impatience, but this stance has changed over the last couple of hours. If you have been patient enough to read through my story "Coffee Machine" i have used the word "pantry" a number of times and a crazy typo, in JUST one place, left one of my friends moist eyed, flushed and out of breath, because she (yeah SHE!!!! can you believe it !!!)couldn't stop laughing... If you have understood the whole situation I expect you to be in a similar state as she was and I am now the newest member of the "Proof Reading is Essential" fan club !!!
Tragedies apart, there is an eerie air of political activism in my surroundings for the past few days. Suddenly the most insignificant members of the group are becoming the most-soughtafter souls and words like agenda, responsibility, voting, lobbying and parleying have become common day parlance. Welcome to the world of elections and democracy!!!
The strength of democracy rises from the representative nature of power in the system, "Of the people, by the people, for the people" as it is often referred. It, of course, goes on with the assumption that all people have equal access to the power and the utmost willingness to exercise the same. What this idealism discounts is the inherent self-centred nature of the people and the various "facilitators" that thrive in the system, acting as if on behalf on the masses while in fact serving their own agenda. These "facilitators" are whom we call the politicians and should not be confused with the great leaders of yore, instrumental in envisioning the system. The great leaders of previous era have been replaced by this self-serving polity because the next generation of kurta clad, dreamy-eyed, ideological evangelists could never graduate to leading from following and were promptly replaced by a breed of sycophants, weak on idealogy and unyielding on ambition.
Thus, the failure of democracy lies in a short-sighted bourgeoisie, a legion of self-serving, power hungry polity and most of all, the inability to create a stream of leaders, who are ideologically lofty yet grounded hard in political reality.
It might intrigue people as to my ranking of the three major causes of democratic failure. It has been debated quite frequently, and none less in management circles, as to the procedure that will ensure a steady stream of leaders. Leadership has been mystified over the times and worse still, deformed. However, in its original form, it is the primary responsibility of leaders to envision long term goals and help the bourgeoisie understand the same while marginalising the self-seeking political class. With the advent of leaders, a dramatic power struggle is imminent. The bourgeoisie has to play its part in this drama, no doubt, and so will the incumbents, the current holders of political power but as of now, the stagnation in democracy is resulting from a major crunch in leaders and huge influx of politicians!!!!
Hope the times throw up some good leaders. Amen!!!!


PS: Article has proof read. If you still find typos, please feel free to slaughter me!!!