A Generation Awakens

No Parking

2006-08-10T01:38:00.000-07:00

Things will be sold out if you are sitting complacently. No train reservation tickets, no movies on the weekend, no parking slot and no place inside your favorite restaurant. You need to fight for everything and you need to run for everything. Yes, this has become the reality of Indian metro cities. You go to train reservation counter three weeks before and find a waiting list in three digits. Even if you are willing to pay rupee one fifty extra for a second class or rupee three hundred for A.C class using online “tatkal” facility you will not get the tickets without grabbing them as soon as possible. You want to go for a movie in the weekend and stand in a long queue to get the tickets, but by the time you reach to the ticket window you would just get the “sold-out” notice. All the PVRs and other multiplexes would be jam-packed in the weekends with exceptionally few vacant seats immediately facing the screen. How often you find a parking slot very easily when you go for shopping? Free parking is barely seen nowadays and high parking rates, as high as rupee 30, are not the deterrent for many people to drive their cars to a walking distance place. I find people searching for a corner to park there Octavia and Mercedes in office areas where no proper parking space is provided. The parking situation in both residential and official areas, is really pathetic and horrible, people are forced to park vehicles roadsides, which invariably creates problems and havoc for others. All the above problems are growing and will take devilish form if not contained immediately. It is the responsibility of the government to plan for any future expansion of metro cities. The load is astronomically increasing on cities such as, Delhi, Banglore, Hyderabad, Gurgaon, and Noida and that load can be dissipated only by government intervention with proper planning and management.

Living on the Center, Corner or Edge?

2006-07-10T23:00:00.000-07:00

A jingle from the older days “Beet gaye din bachpan ke, aaye nahin din shaadi ke to fir kyon na khaein Amul chocolate” sometimes hits my memory. When I was a kid I wanted to do the things, which grownups used to do such as, going out movies with friends, driving a motorbike, taking their own decisions.. ba bla bla . Now I have already hit 25 and find grownup stuffs not that tempting as they looked to me earlier. As a child we all pursue our interests with ardent fervor and zeal, say its kite flying, bicycle racing, our local sports, comics reading and list goes on. Now for most of us grownups what we do is just a matter of sustaining ourselves. We lack the stirring and unflagging desire of doing something.

Why our society is still a mammoth orthodox? Why can’t it think beyond Doctors, Engineers and IAS? How many great painters, writers, novelists and sportsman we have produced in last fifty years? Why our count finishes after Tendulkar, Vishwanathan Anand and A.R Rehmaan?

When we hit 25, we think of getting married and become settled. I am not reproaching who do the same but I find an imbalance in the societal configuration. If we need people in the society who inspire to follow a secure path then we also need people who preach us to live on the edge. This feeling of security is pushing the whole society towards selfishness and self-centeredness, forget about philanthropy and patriotism.

We have to accept the fact that a greater percentage of population is not living a quality life, leaving apart 40% below poverty. We are not good as a democratic country (see scams laden political parties and ministers, obstructed government projects, unethical government policies as in reservation and controlling top educational institutes), we are not good at sports, we are not good at infrastructure…the bottom line is that we are still not good at many areas. If we are good at services why we are not good at manufacturing, if we are good at cricket why we are not good at football, tennis and athletic games and again why and why we don’t have a trace of Noble and Oscar awards in our plate.

I am not in a state to pass any judgment or give any outright solution for the complete mess in which we are living today. This is the time when entire society needs to be awaken from a long state of ignorance. We have to break the myth that in India there is no career other than doctor, engineer and IAS. Opportunities have to be provided in every area including arts, sport, research etc and masses has to be convinced with the positive results. If we want to create a better world for us and for future generation then the bell has rung.

RAJ, PREM and RAJ

2006-05-04T12:43:00.000-07:00

In order to digest this blog you have to be an Indian, with an average general knowledge of bollywood. You can be a Pakistani also because they too have immense interest in our hindi masala movies (I know…how Preeti and Shahrukh are loved by our biggest foe and how movies with dialogs like “Pakistan zindabad” and “Pakistan ki Kasam” get flop in their own land).

Anyway, let me tell you what this article “Raj, Prem and Raj” is all about. One of the Raj is our chocolateee protagonist from movie Qayamat se…Tak (QSQT), Prem is our own never wearing shirts from movie Maine Pyar…(MPK) and last but not the least...heeyeeeee.. Raj from DDLG. Actually, I ponder that how the great management gurus of corporate world would have changed the lives of our great heroes had they been counseled by these motivators.

Management jargons like Planning, Proactiveness, Bigger picture, Short term goals, Long term goals…ba blabla, which I hate like anything, might have helped Raj, Prem and Raj.

I remind you if your memory has gotten dim that Raj_QSQT was in love with Rashmi who happens to be the daughter of his father’s greatest antagonist on the planet. Raj and Rashmi abscond from their homes, get married and start living together in a make shift house on the top of a rocky mountain. Now management gurus would criticize this move as unplanned and unwarranted action from these two love struck souls. Gurus would not have ignored lack of planning and poor risk assessment in this case. Two graduates living on a top of the hill without mobile phones, ATM & Credit cards and Wi Fi would draw two more people under poverty line. Had Raj planned in advance considering all the risk factors then both Raj and Rashmi would have lived happily thereafter.

Now I am taking up second case study for you dear readers from our very loving MPK of 90’s. Sallu bhai…urf ..Prem in MPK (don’t confuse, he was Prem in Hum Aap ke…and Hum saath….too) falls in love with Suman- daughter of a poor motor mechanic. Here the rich-poor divide compels this graduate from US University to fight the entire world and get the ravishing Suman. The story till here is digestible, but henceforth management gurus would be totally clueless and baffled that why a US graduate would take up a menial job of stonemason just to earn Rs.2000 (around $45). They would have asked Prem to focus on his core-competencies i.e. his exposed body. With that face value and body Prem could easily have gotten an assignment in an Ad or modeling agency.

Lastly, I believe that memories of DDLG are still alive in your minds. I don’t have to repeat that Raj comes all the way from London to Punjab to get Simran. Management gurus would have done goal setting for Raj, had he met them during Europe trip with Simran. They would have asked him to propose Simran right there without missing the opportunity. Raj invested lot of pounds for coming to Punjab and was beaten up badly by the Punjabi gabroos….and he also let his pops beaten up by those Punjabi gabroos. Raj could have avoided this “Maar-dhaad” and could have saved thousands of pounds had he proposed Simran in Zurich and this way would have shown an example of strategic move.

***This article is a tribute to the all the managers who believe in giving such “fundas”, as mentioned above, to their colleagues and subordinates.