"The Next level thing"

Mr. XYZ you could have won 25 lakh if you had answered this question correctly. This is what Amitabh Bachchan used to say when he was the anchor of the show "Kaun Banega Crorepati". And the person on the "hot seat" would start feeling miserable. Instead of feeling that he will take home some amount, Mr. XYZ will go with a feeling that he missed a chance of having 25 lakh.

It is very natural of human nature that its needs are ever increasing. It wants more and more [not Aditya Birla's Retail store ;) ]. In this process Man's level of happiness is decreasing. Be it his career or salary or any other material possession, he wants the "next level thing". Well this is good when it is in terms of gaining knowledge or progress in career. This is his intellectual or calibre thirst which will make her/his personality more and more refined each time it is quenched. But when it comes to material possessions such thirst will lead to nothing but unhappiness.

Perfection is a very subjective term. According to me, it can never be attained. One can only strive to attain it throughout her/his life. But satisfaction can be attained and enjoyed. And dont confuse satisfaction with complacency. To be complacent is to be satisfied with one's faults. The satisfaction that I am referring to here means contentment you gain when you feel you have done something right. This leads to happy state of mind and that makes mind free to mingle with the world that is very typical of you.

Rampent competition in all the walks of life is giving a feeling of being "incompetent" to a person who dosent achieve the standards set by society. And he/she feels satisfied when he/she attains those. But do they think why are they strieving so hard to attain those or how will he/she meet her/his personal goals by meeting those standards set by society? ( well ..how many of us have personal goals here).

So the bottom line is, satisfaction be it materail or spiritual, can bring true happiness to you and its better if one sets his/her standards to attain it. ( It is assumed that standards here mean something that one considers to be ideal).

Head Hunting

There is an immediate requirement. This position needs to be filled or else there will be role erosion of other employee. How to go about it? The main selector is so much held up with her own job that she doesn’t have time to hunt for the candidate, conduct interview, set terms and conditions and appoint. A facilitator has come for the time being and wants to help main selector to come out of this crisis situation.

She decides to go for searching the candidate right away. She directly goes into labour market and finds two candidates who were on their way to existing jobs. Facilitator establishes a quick conversation with both of them on one-to-one basis. She assesses the likelihood of both the candidates to perform the job and finally requests both the candidates to come to company and perform job.

Of the two candidates only one turns up and gets the word of appointment.

The candidates in the description above are none other than maid servants for washing clothes. Main selector is none other than my mom and facilitator is myself. This is "Kahaani Ghar Ghar ki " these days.

With mall culture entering India, westernization happening in the retail sector is affecting the supply of all the labour intensive sectors. They are attracting the labour force. All the maids that used to work for you a year back are all joining mega stores and hypermarkets to make quick and big money. So be prepared to be self reliant for all household chores. (Especially working people, this is like ringing of death knell for you).

The Shadow

I got reminded of this sanskrit sholk today. There was this Sanskrit shlok competition in 7th standard and my mother taught me 3 shloks for it. Of which one is as follows:
"आरंभ गुरवि क्ष्यानी क्रमेण lअघ्वी पुरावृधि मति च पश्चात ।
दिनस्य पूर्वार्ध परार्ध भिन्न छाएव मैत्री खल सज्जनानाम ॥ "
It means the friendship of a true friend is like the shadow during the morining and the evening time. The the friendship of a false friend is like the shadow at noon.

Such shlokas of wisdom spring from some corner of the brain when some relevant things happen around us. What a brain and what a mother ( कोटी कोटी वंदन)

Substitution

If the thing is not there some other thing will take its place. And world will forget that thing as time passes by. Thats the law of nature!!

But it makes me feel really bad that the substitute coexist with the real product and is waiting for its disapperance. A substitute is a substitute at the end of the day not that thing !!

This is not what we expect out of this exercise!!

Two days back I read an article about the "labels" that we humans carry. It appeared in the cosmic uplink part of the Chennai edition of The Economic Times dated 28th February 2008. It said that we carry labels like " manager " , "head", "businessman"..etc... These labels interfere with the very human behaviour that is expected out of us. We think that I am a businessman and so I can be rash and rude to others. We forget the material (human soul) which is inside this package (human labels).. as the packet passes from one destination (birth) to other (death)...through the journey (called life). The author PARAMAHAMSA SRI NITHYANANDA at the end of the article asked us to seek the inner being and let go these labels.

After reading this article, all my and other peoples actions are judged on "whether he/she became egoistic about the labels or retained his/her true self."

Today we had a MDP with executives of some well known (upcoming) firm as a part of our course named "strategy". We students were asked to make presentations on the scenario thinking related to a place where the firm plans to launch its products. Our "DEAR" ( I truely mean it :) ) faculty had guided us to be less statistics oriented and have a more creative approach. We followed his instruction and prepared the presentation accordingly. We did a pretty good job. But according to some we just over did with the creativity part ( all because of our wild imaginations :D)...

We started the presentation. Everything was going on smoothly. Camera man was recording the session. I was looking at the audience as one of my team mate was presenting. All were attentive. Those who understood the humour hidden in the content were laughing at those points. Our faculty was also happy ( I want to put a better word here , but cant find it) and satisfied. Suddenly after 10-12 mins, one executive stoop up. He is the Senior Vice President of that firm. He said rudely, "This is not we expect from this exercise." He asked the camera man in Tamil to stop the recording and cut that part of the tape very arrogantly. We all were taken aback. Our faculty asked him to let us finish the presentation. He refused. My team mate who was presenting asked for a "one minute break"..and a glass of water..!! He tried his best and said two three lines related to presentation and then stopped. He lost the flow.

What can be an apt example of labels that we carry..? Anyways "To Err is Human, To Forgive Divine." A mistake done once out of emotional outburst can be forgiven.

Hope we b-schoolers remain as much "unlabelled" as possible.

Naina Hair Cut

"Anna Stop". I asked the rickshaw driver to stop near the building which had the beauty parlour. I paid the auto fare and entered the parlour. It had a pleasant fragrance. In background song of some hindi movie was going on. (My bad memory :( ). All the staff ladies had features which said that they belong to Eastern India. (Cost arbitrage!!)... Though all seemed young, they had a "mangal sutra" and "sindoor".

Two ladies were waiting for their turn. They were reading some Bollywood magazines. My eyes started searching for more such magazines as I had assumed that I have to wait for some time. Sat in the couch for some 15 seconds and before I made any attempts to grab attention of the owner, she asked me.."How can I help you ? " ...I felt happy. (Lucky day)..I replied," I want a haircut". Then she thought for a while. She asked one of her staff members by calling her name to find whether she was free. As she was busy she herself decided to cut my hair. She asked for my hair style preference. I said," I want Lady Diana hair cut". She said," It will be like a boy cut. Do you want so short hair?". I said," I want that". (A Lady Diana fan said that:)). Then she observed my face and present hair cut for some 2-3 seconds and said," How about a blunt cut." I said, " Ok that would do. Last time I had the same cut and I liked that." Then she again thought for a little while and said, " Come have a seat"...I asked," So finally which hair style?"..She said," I dont know. I dont have a name for it, but I want to try it." ..I said," New things is welcome unless and until they look good on me."...

She started to beautify me with her scissors, hairclips, water sparys and combs. She was making each and every cut meticulously. I was impressed this seemingly seasoned hair dresser...She had a pleasant smile on her face which was also very natural. I was thinking, if I get this kind of hair cut at the same rate as I paid last time for a blunt cut, then its worth it...

A cut here and a cut there...it took her 15 mins to finish her job... She held another mirror at back and asked me," Is it ok?" I said with satisfaction," Yes". I asked her," May I know your name?". She happily said, "Naina". I said, " From now on this hair cut will be known as Naina hair cut". She chuckled. After that looking at myself in the mirror I asked, " So how much do I have to pay?". Naina handed me the bill. I was shocked a little bit. The amount was the double of what I paid earlier. I said that earlier I paid half this amount. Then she explained to me that if you go for a change in hairstyle you will be charged this. There was no space for bargaining. I had to pay the billed amount. So the morale of story is "NEVER ASSUME ANYTHING!!" (For those who have read my previous post "Laughing @ my assumptions and hence inferences"....assumed things again )

Dincharya for the last trimester of MBA course

Wake up...In half asleep state manage to reach the bathroom door. Find that bathroom is already engaged, as my roomie has morning class, unlike lucky me. So go to bed again, keep alram and have that NICE sleep... After some time wake up again as my roomie comes out of the bathroom/alram rings, whichever happens first (well u can assume that both events are equally good to break my sleep. In that matter all roomies will agree with me ;) ).... Brush teeth, wash face and attend nature's call (many times when roomie is in the bathroom, its a real emergency situation). Look at myself in the mirror and admire the reflection. Tell myself that you are "A happy person" and give a BIG smile.

Then while climbing down the staircase, on my way to mess, wish people "Good morning"...See "Dosa" as breakfast. Feel happy. This Trimester I dont have classes in morning. So have the "Luft" (In Urdu this means "Pleasure") of having the breakfast. I also keep track of the late comers of our batch who have morning class. Four of my batch mates are participants of this daily contest of "who is the latecomer of the day?" They ask me whether xyz has already gone or not?.. I enjoy being the nanny there.

After having breakfast with hot class of milk I go and collect newspapers. This is part of my morning duty, assigned by my best friend. The logic is simple. She/he has subsribed to these newspapers and if not collected in morning then someone will take those. And then you will have "tain tain Fish" :) . .... Read newspaper...(mostly headlines ;) )...then take a chhotu nap. .(wah last trimister ke jalse kuchh aur he hain) ...then around 11 am start working for the assignment pending for the class at 2 pm ....

Till now have managened to finish the assignment before lunch..( before 1 pm) ...then take bath..go and have lunch..do timepass/subject discussions with friends..attend class and wait for the coffee break ...again attend class and wait for it to get over...then chat with friends/go to tea shop to accompany them/go for shopping/go to landmark bookshop to accompany best friend/go to sleep if class was really boring or really required lots of mental work/ take bath as in morning didnt get time...

Then my dearest mumma calls..talk with her as if she is sitting in front of me...in her words ..this is "Mumma's daily service" :). Then open mails, orkut, and all such time consumer websites...
Time moves so fast that you never know its dinner time..

After dinner go for a walk to tea shop again to accompany friends...then come back.. do some useful reading, exploring, surfing, blogging, at times group work for next day class...then wicket starts falling ...dozzing off process starts....

Pull my mosquito net..tie all four strings..cover my bed with it properly and protect myself from those sleep disturbers...say my good nite prayers and go to bed ...with the hope of a new , beautiful day ..
Chalo good nite readers..time for me to pull my Mosquito net....

zzzzzzz.....zzzzzz....