Stop human cruelty

Girl. 11 years old. Grade 2 student. Picture her.
Now imagine her head being banged hard against a desk and then her body overheating from standing in the sun for hours.
She fainted, went into coma and then died. Who made her do this?
Her teacher decided to met out corporal punishment on her because she couldn't recite the alphabet (and probably because she hailed from a lowly family).
Hard to believe someone can be so cruel to a young girl.
Teachers in India, will you please stop abusing your power on poor young kids. Once you are suspended where 's your power then???
Parents should never encourage corporal punishment in schools. Ragging is no different when college seniors abuse freshmen. Such practices seriously need to stop and the media can help. But they need to stop reporting on the visibility of nostril hair of politicians and start publishing more such stories if the Government is to notice.

Money Money Money

	Metallica-The Thing That Should Not Be

So tempting your ways. So luringly evil. Always lurking in the back of my mind, you want me to feed your infinite appetite (have some greens?).  You make sure to get noticed, you attention freak. Get a life! You think you can seduce me while sitting around in bank safes growing fatter?

Not good enough!

I refuse to bow down to you. I shall not be taken in by your evil ways. My definition of success will not include you or anything that you can help me possess. It will solely be about how I change and improve the society and the life around me. My satisfaction will come from being happy with what I already have, being happy with what I do. I will never let you become the sole motivating factor in any of my personal endeavors.

Sorry, but this is the end of our relationship. I can't give you the attention you demand. You already have many other people for that. It's not me, it's you. I'm fine with just staying as friends. Can't handle anything more than that. 

Creativity and yourself

Global Experience - Madras

Ask yourself.

What is your favorite creative outlet?
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It can be anything from devising new chess strategies to improvising on a trumpet.

NOW think about why it makes you feel so good? Is it the fact that you're bringing something of your own out for the world to see. Or is it simply to satisfy your inner desire of unleashing your creative demons?

Now think about what your creative ambition is. What exactly do you want to achieve and where do you want to go with this thing you enjoy doing. Now that you see this ambition, think of what hurdles are stopping you from getting there.

For most people the hurdles are one of the following: laziness, fear (of failure, rejection), distractions (job), complacency.

Twyla Twarp in her book 'The Creative Habit' attacks all these hurdles head on. She shows how creativity can be brought out of the depths of yoru mind. She shows you how it's all in your head, you just have to tap into it.

Here are a few methods of unleashing those creative stallions sleeping inside yourself:

Make a Ritual:
Most people think creativity comes from those 'zenith' moments when you see something so clearly that you can finally do it. Twyla dismisses these moments as garbage. I agree with her when she says that zenith moments without the proper work habits are a farce. A painter that sees the image in his head, simply can't lay it down without having painted many paintings. A dancer has to practice for hours before he/she can comfortably improvise new, unique steps. In other words, practice gives you the basis for allowing creativity. And practice can happen only if you get off your ass, shrug off that laziness. This is actually the hardest part, because laziness is the biggest killer of creativity. So Twyla suggests making a 'ritual' to force yourself into that mode. Some examples of rituals are playing music that gets you in the mood, cleaning up your work zone or even turning off the lights and lighting a candle. These things sounds simple but if you attempt to bring some change in your environment, you will find it easier and more enjoyable to learn that new musical piece or paint that new portrait, becase you are in the 'zone'.

Creative DNA: Everyone has different visions and perceptions. Some see minute details while others see the big pictures. You have to realize where you stand and where you're most comfortable. You might be the passive onlooker or an active scrutinizer. Decide which one and you will know where your strengths and weaknesses are. Different creative projects might require different visions. Study your heroes and see how well they adapted to details when they needed or stepped back to portray the overall picture. Did a movie's director/screen-writer take painstaking efforts to show each character's emotions or did he try to show changes in an entire culture. One great example to test yourself is how you appreciate a photo or a painting. Do you want to see every brush stroke or are you happy to stay back and take in the whole image. Do you like to stay near the middle or do you notice the edges as well? Figure out where you stand so you can effectivly set your creative focal length in a project.

Use your Memory

Your memory is your own precious treasure. There are so many thoughts, feelings, memories of physical objects, things, smells, and actions that you can tap into. It's what defines you and who you are, your identity. There are a few different types of memory. Let's see if I can recall all of the ones she mentioned :)

Muscle memory - You do a dance move long enough, you don't need to think about it. You play a piano piece so many times, your fingers go by themselves. You don't even actively think. This is muscle memory and its very powerful in setting yourself up to be creative. 

Virtual memory - This is picturing your successes. How well you did a business deal, how good that karaoke performance was or how well you danced in that one show. So for the next time, you simply imagine that you can do it again with all the details and you picture it as many times as it takes to make you believe you can do it again. 

Institutional memory - Whichever creative institution you choose, it's very likely someone has done it already. Find how you can be different by tapping into others work. Yes, 'emulating' and imitating your idols is a great way to learn. 

Sensual memory - Ever feel that memory rushing back when you heard that song? An old TV ad or the smell of your favorite childhood cookie. That's sensual memory. Its very refreshing and can sometimes lead to genius because its so true to your own feelings. 

Ancient memory - Tap into ancient art. You may find things surprisingly advanced in terms of creativity. 

These lay out the gist of the first few chapters of Twyla's inspirational book. Everyone who has ever dreamed of achieving or creating something unique can gain from it. She forces you to throw your laziness out the window and unleash those sleeping creative demons. 

(P.S. I forgot muscle memory and sensual memory. I did have a feeling for sensual memory, just couldn't pinpoint the word sensual)

Twyla Tharp - The Creative Habit

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish: A book summary

If you're thinking about reading this book (which you should be) proceed with caution. What you read can and will change you, inspire you, while destroying many long-defined conventions in your head. From author Rashmi Bansal, comes a gem of a book about those who wanted to pursue something more interesting than taking orders from bosses to advertise soap, write code that no one cares about or improving Mr. Rich Old's return on investment by 1%.

The front cover header, "The inspiring stories of 25 Indian Inst. of Mgmt MBA graduates who chose to tread a path of their own making", is an accurate preview of the jaw-droppingly awe-inspiring entries of entrepreneurs who simply don't know what 'giving up' means. They started internet websites, investment banks, manufacturing powerhouses, non-profit organizations, and pioneering educational organizations among others.

So most of these people must've been born geniuses, right? Wrong. Granted, they possess intelligence that's above-average, but a majority of them come from simple backgrounds - middle-class parents who were in one of engineering, army, government and occasionally, in business.

They were just as prone to get addicted to smoking, teasing girls in school/college, to get confused about what they wanted in life, and overall terrified of taking the good ol' leap of faith: the 'red pill' of entrepreneurship. But in the end they believed in themselves and well, we have this wonderful book of true successes. There is no secret key to their success. But overall, it mainly came from the following factors:

1. Passion - These entrepreneurs possessed a passion to achieve something beyond money and fame. They did it, because they wanted to. Often nothing mattered except enjoying the work they did. From passion, perseverance came naturally. The end goal just wasn't money, which helped make seeing one's way through failure that much easier. Success or failure were just nodes on an exciting roller-coaster ride. They dropped their salaried jobs, with the faith that a business based even on a semi-good idea would fetch the equivalent of an average 9-5 job's salary and much more within a couple of years of hard work.



2. Opportunities - They saw, grabbed, massaged, and ingested opportunities. It sounds cliched, but reading the book gives the real perspective on this. These people just had the eagle-eyed vision to go after that new process that no one follows or that material no one has used. And even though, it wasn't profitable at first, it became the biggest source of revenue in certain cases. (Sintex, the biggest producer of plastic water tanks and other chemical products in India used to be a clothing company)


3. Connections, connections, connections! An MBA definitely helps here. It's hard to get the high-level connections upon your own. For example, most people can only dream of interviewing the chief editor of a leading newspaper without pulling a lot of strings! Also, getting angel investors (family, friends, friends of friends, coworkers etc.) while starting out can only happen only through strong connections.


4. Philanthropism - 4 out of the 25 entrepreneurs in the book just wanted to do good. Two of them studied amongst the poor, in backward schools and hated the unfairness of the money divide. Yes, these kind of entrepreneurs are rare, and the ones in the book hardly had any personal monetary success, but they created non-profit organizations that work towards improving the quality of lives all across India.


5. Care - They genuinely cared about their employees. To the extent that those working for them became one with the cause and never abandoned ship. They made farmers rich by giving them company stake, pioneered employee stock options, made sure the work culture was very open, if not the same as a family. The senior most leaders made it all possible by often working the hardest, sometimes sacrificing personal and family lives for the company.


6. Luck - Occasionally come aspects that are out of your control. Although they covered most aspects of their company, there were some times when they had to simply hope and pray for things to go their way. One simple example here is government approval for a near perfect business proposal.

All in all, this book is about the people who brought huge progress to India and the world in some cases. Whichever niche they chose, they brought immense novelty and change, while leaving a long-lasting legacy. They are not the ones who sat gossiping and cursing corruption in the Indian system. They did something about it.

They influenced everyday lives; most products or services we take for granted have reached us after a long and hard-fought battle. This only goes to show that there are many similar stories out there to be discovered. For me personally, the most inspiring part is that most of these people come from a simple, middle-class background. That they're not the rich sons or daughters of business tycoons who had it all from the beginning. It was simply their passion, hard-work, luck and belief that helped them succeed. Fiery Dreams indeed.

PM Book: CH 1: Project Management

Well this blog entry is going to prove beyond any doubt that I'm a nerd. In prep for my MBA, I have already decided to start reading some books on management (mainly from the website 77 Best Business Books). If you yawn or get bored during this entry, I don't blame you! But I've tried to lay down the meat of what I read here.

Scott Berkun is the author of this book "Making things Happen: Mastering Project Management". He was a successful, high profile manager at Microsoft for 9 years and this book is regarded as sort of a Bible for managers in technical settings. 

The preface and first chapter start out with general knowledge about project management, using historic examples such as pyramids, Boeing and the Parthenon. He shows how today's software projects could learn a few things from these stellar examples of engineering management. The main lessons here are to reuse past successes and to break down difficult problems into simple, but not necessarily easy, parts.

After focusing on projects, Scott moves toward their management. He lauds Microsoft a little bit here for being the first to 'create' the true PM who is more than just a business or technical role guy. In leading a team, the PM has to perform a balancing act between egos, ambiguity, complexity, and patience, all the time handling deadline pressure and distractions. Only the best managers can truly balance all these, but it IS possible. The best managers walk around, get involved in interacting with the team, suggest how to get things done and yet know to have a beginner's mind when a programmer explains something technical. They are the only ones who have a unique perspective on the project and can see things clearly from above to 'make good things happen.'

Scott makes a fascinating point for anyone who thinks their desk job is difficult. He asks them to walk into the kitchen of their favorite busy restaurant or the ER of a hospital. These are also projects with people working together toward a common goal, but with a much crazier timeline and with lives on the line (well you could die of hunger). 

In the preface and the first chapter, Scott comes off as a very intelligent, precise and to-the-point author. He claimed that anyone can gain from the book, whether business students, programmers or project managers (PMs). But after reading the first chapter, it's clear the book will benefit real PM's in big companies, as they can immediately apply the techniques they read here.

What is Love?

What is Love?

Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no more.

I had never paid much attention to these simple lyrics of Haddaway's extremely popular song. But, that was until I actually experienced true love myself. And just as the lyrics say, I found out that there is no love without hurtin'! Hurt coming from wanting to meet someone, but they being too far away. Pain coming from saying goodbyes while trying to hold back the tears in our eyes. Yes, pain and love definitely go hand in hand, which is why Haddaway's seemingly nonsensical lyrics ring so true.

I must admit though, that before it all happened, I was a robotic, unemotional, detached me (running on software v23.0?). I couldn't be bothered about anything. But ever since I got 'struck', time flew so fast. I found myself unleashed right in the middle of a whirlpool of emotions. All I know is that the feelings are very palpable and caring for someone is the sweetest emotion of all.

I don't want to sugarcoat however, by saying that I have had the smoothest relationship. There have been numerous opportunities for improvement but never any regrets. She has been there to see me through it all without ever expecting, and with a steely resolve that knows no boundaries. The end result?

As someone very wise said to me 'Kuchh rishtey banane padte hain aur kuchh rishtey aise hote hain jo kuchh bhi expect nahin karte, par hamesha rehte hain jab bhi unki zaroorat ho.' (Some relationships need to be created/worked upon but some are always there whenever you need them most) Summing up our relationship in a completely unbiased statement: Our bond is a covalent one - where the love and pain between us constitutes the shared electrons. Without sharing these with each other, we are incomplete, lost and meaningless. But sharing, we are as strong and together as a diamond.