Seeing the beyond!

We were in Bangalore at the beginning of second decade of the millennium. The city was probably breathing its last few days as one of the coolest and greenest cities in India enjoying the title of IT capital of the country. Those were the days before the length and breadth of Bangalore underwent multiple surgeries to accommodate metro transport service. It was when staying and commuting in Bangalore was not as horrendous as what is experienced today. A haven indeed it was and working there felt like you were on a year-long vacation with an envious weather a few other cities in India could boast of.  

It was around that time, Ruby and I decided to buy our first car. Since we were a single income household with minimal savings, we decided to go for one of the best small cars then, a Hyundai i10, a hatchback. Those were the times when the CEO of my company, was commuting in a Toyota Corolla which was considered a premium segment car. 

As destiny would have its way, even before we could proceed with booking of the car, life took a different turn. After a few rounds of gruelling interviews, I landed in Dubai as a consultant for Emirates, one of the best-known brands in aviation. Shortly we also got the good news that we were to enjoy parenthood. This and many other factors required us to buy a car in Dubai.

I must say we were quite blessed to have a few friends in Dubai who took the pain to show us around some of the car showrooms so that we could take a decision. Dubai as you may know is a paradise for automobiles. Every possible brand ever made in this world finds itself a home in various showrooms in Dubai. We also observed that options for small cars like the one we were thinking in India were quite limited. Instead, sedans and SUVs were having a competition on Dubai roads about who is predominant. It is not an exaggeration if I said SUVs do have an upper hand in this city.

We weighed all our options. The distance between a Hyundai i10 and an SUV was alarming, both financially and emotionally. Truly speaking, we were not mentally ready for a shift from a hatchback to even a sedan, forget about the SUVs, which was a league altogether different. At least this is what we thought then. 

Since the options for hatchback were quite limited and considering the safety implications we finally zeroed in on a sedan, the one that made us equivalent to the CEO of my previous organization, at least in terms of transportation. Yes, we did buy a Toyota Corolla finally!

If you happen to visit Dubai, one of the first things, you will realize is, sedans like Corolla are nowhere near the boundaries of luxury in this city. This is a place where luxury gets redefined almost every day. A Corolla will probably make its cut as a mid-segment car among the sedans. Though this is the fact related to the status of the car we bought in Dubai, the news was probably not how it was perceived by a few folks. For them we made a jump from not having a car in Bangalore to driving a car that is driven by some CEOs of companies in India. A life of luxury indeed!

This story is not really an exception to the norm. In fact, each one of us need to ask the question, are we really the proverbial frog in the well when it comes to perceptions? Can we see the beyond by expanding our understanding of this world? We all tend to compare ourselves to those who seem to be living in perceived luxury. While this indeed is a human nature, we need to remind ourselves that a constant approach such as this will only ignite the inferior personality among us. We’ll end up feeling depressed and worst case is even becoming hostile in our attitude to others.

On the contrary, learn to appreciate the goodness in our life. Live in the present and appreciate what you have been blessed with than looking up to your never ending wants and feel sad about it.

Keep repeating yourself this mantra: Life is finite, enjoy every beautiful moment you have now!

Tunnel Riders

Alex and Nisha were at their parents’ place after a long gap of two years since Covid-19 pandemic ripped the world apart. There were many relatives they had to visit and decided to call on one of their uncles. It was a good feeling to catch up after a long time and all of them were quite happy to see each other after what was probably the worst two years in their entire life till date.

Among the conversation, a topic came up about a friend of Alex who works in Shimla, one of the most beautiful mountain regions towards North East of India. He had invited Alex many times to come over to Shimla and appreciate the magnificent mountains. Alex and Nisha discussed the plans with uncle and aunt to take a flight to Delhi and later a short flight to Shimla from there. That’s when uncle intervened and suggested a better option.

Alex’s uncle had done extensive trips pan India and was quite familiar with the geography across this gorgeous nation. He suggested taking a train from Delhi to Shimla as there were more than a hundred tunnels across the picturesque Himalayas. As soon as they heard this, both Alex and Nisha got quite excited and almost immediately started picturing the awesome trip through the mountains and valleys on a meter gauge train.

While Alex, Nisha and their uncle were soaking themselves in the lovely landscapes in their minds, their aunt who was listening to all the conversation spoke for the first time. She said, ‘What is the big deal in going through so many tunnels. It will be all dark and gloomy’.

The expression on the faces of other three souls present in the room could only be described with one word, ‘priceless’!

The above story is only a cross section of what we see in our daily lives. There are numerous such ‘aunts’ among us, be it in our family or among friends. These poor souls can almost never see the light at the end of the tunnel. Their minds are perennially stuck in the pitch darkness of the tunnels they cross during their lives.

People like these are always lost in the gloominess and in fact miss to appreciate the beauty as the train of life exits the tunnel into the wilderness and the heavenly panorama of lush green mountains and valleys. Instead they only see the train moving from one tunnel to the next and around them they will befriend only darkness and despair.

It indeed is a mindset. We may think that the worst pandemic in the recent history of mankind might have changed people. Even the most negative of people around us who survived the pandemic might have developed an appreciation towards life. Then again, experiences like this promptly corrects us by citing fantastic examples of perpetually negative human beings. These are personalities who could never think of anything positive in life.

Rain or shine, these people live and breathe negative. Imagine you successfully wrap up an extremely strenuous event for which you prepared relentlessly for a month. Everything went well and while you are beaming with joy, one of the above kind will come to you and cite the least of the imperfection and highlight it as the worst thing to have happened in the whole world. They will religiously fail to appreciate you or your efforts. This is a mental makeup in its deepest and darkest of shades.

So what do we do about this? Where possible help these individuals realize that they are treading the valleys of misery and in fact there is a highland of happiness that awaits them if they are ready to change a bit. More importantly when it comes to us, we need to be aware of the fact that human mind could be like a sponge where it could absorb all these negativity. Do not let it happen. But in the likelihood of that happening, ensure that you squeeze them out with an overdose of friendly positivity.

I am quite sure we can work together to bring in the much needed positive vibes and make the world a better place to live!

Economics of Options

It was mid-2009, after living in India for almost three decades, I got my maiden opportunity to travel abroad. As providence decided, my first international exposure was destined to be United States, the land of options! We were a team of six from my company for a project and the trip was to last three months.

A few days after we arrived in Atlanta, a friend took me to an Indian store which was the best option available to buy Indian stuff. I stepped into the store keeping in mind the super market visits I had till date back home. It’ll be an understatement if I say, I was overwhelmed with a brand new shopping experience altogether!

Every aisle had neatly arranged and labelled items which clearly told you what the product and the price was. But what really struck me was when I reached the aisle for coffee. I was an ocean of coffee boxes. Brands and types of coffee were aplenty! What seemed to be a never ending row of options presented itself to me.

I was obviously taken back to the super market shelf in India where I picked up coffee. Those days, packaged coffee for a middle class family meant only one brand, Bru. Though Nescafe was around, it was quite an expensive affair. The next best option was to get locally grounded coffee from Indian Coffee House, but somehow we never opted for it.

With so many options presented to me out-of-the-blue I was obviously confused. Nevertheless I did some comparison with respect to the factors that I was capable of understanding which were just two, price and weight. The beans coming from Brazil or Beijing didn’t matter! Neither did the percentage of decaf mentioned on the label. These absolutely didn’t make any difference to me then! Finally I picked up a bottle that I was convinced was good for me and returned home. Coffee was good.

The whole episode taught me one of fundamentals of Economics. The value of options! When you are in a market where a product enjoys monopoly, you obviously have no choice but to buy that. On the other hand when you are presented with more than one option to choose from, you definitely need to apply certain criteria before choosing the best for you.

I’ve met a few people who totally believe in impulse buying. These folks take quick decisions without weighing the pros and cons. Then there are others who love to evaluate in depth, all possible options presented and then take a decision.

We now live in a world where a lot of markets, both local and international, are open for us to explore. I may be making a bold statement when I say majority of the consumer goods off late do present us with choices in all the developed countries and most of the developing economies. The story may not be the same in the not so fortunate economies.

Nevertheless the question is when you are planning to buy something and if you have more than one choice, do you spend time enough to explore the options and make an informed decision? If your answer is yes, then you love your wallet. Else you either don’t care for your money or you are not prudent enough to realize the mistake you commit.

Hence next time you decide to buy something, ask if you have explored all possible options before zeroing in on the item. The only caution that we need to keep in mind with options is the fact that, not to get drowned in the sea of options. Else your decision may never be made!

Al the best to make an informed and timely decision next time!

How Agile is your Transformation?

 If you are a technology driven organization in existence for a decade or more, it is quite natural that you may have a mix of old and new IT applications. It becomes even more interesting when you have a bunch of in-house developed and vendor applications.

The third dimension to this blend, given the nature of operations is the fact that you have a combination of legacy applications that are running with minimum required support and new ones that are part delivered or the stars in the horizon for which development is in progress.

Frame the above picture in your mind and now think what will be your consideration when you are moving from the Waterfall way of delivery to Agile delivery. Before heading to the answer, we first need to look at some of the Agile considerations assuming we all are familiar with Waterfall.

With the risk of sounding like an Agile Coach, here are a few quick thoughts that come to my mind the moment we speak Agile. Sizeable chunks of work, Fail fast and Iterative development.

Sizeable chunks of work

This is probably one of the first questions that we need to ask the teams. Does the current status of a product allow us to break it down into sizeable chunks so that Agile development can logically apply? This could be possible for products that are already in production and for which a healthy enhancement pipeline exists. On the other hand you could face challenges with those products for which development is half way through with a pre-agreed delivery methodology. The scenario gets complex if we have a vendor in the mix.

Fail Fast

It is true that you could apply this fantastic concept for your products. This equally must apply for your transformation saga as well. You may try to pull off an Agile transformation for your identified products, but if any of them does not meet a criteria, it’ll be better to rethink the strategy. Probably having an Agile KPI is a good idea so that you have a measurable action based on which informed decisions can be made.

Iterative Development

This is a fundamental building block of Agile. Can you create your product in iterations? Can the releases be planned to add value to business incrementally? Can the product be pieced together to finally form a jigsaw? Are the stakeholders all aligned to meet this criteria? If the answer to any of these is ‘No’ you’ll need to revisit your transformation path for that product.

There are definitely many more factors that drive Agile transformation. The above three are probably some of the key ones. What is important is to remember the fact that while transformation could be essential for progress, it isn’t the panacea for an organization where a plethora of technology flavours co-exist.

You need to choose and choose wisely. Else your Agile transformation will end up being nothing but fragile!

Being Positive

 Flying around like a beautiful butterfly

With a riot of colours and happiness galore.

The world was on my fingertips

And dreams were all that I adore.

Sky is the limit, was the mantra

Chanting I did, lying on my dewan.

Out from the blue came a bolt of shock

On it was written, Made in Wuhan!

Holed up in the house, feeling arrested

Fun, outing and everything else busted

Even a rare chance of getting out

Was a lost cause with cops all out!

When all hopes seem to be lost

A ray of light shined like a ghost.

All what my heart did was yearning

And the answer to that was E-learning!

Life bounced back with verve

Colours of hope was shining again.

Yes we still felt arrested, but

Happiness was what we did regain.

Lucky indeed am I, to be alive

Luckier in fact is my guessing

A thing my books could never teach

That survival is nothing but a blessing!

Kitchen Sink Teacher

I’m sure you must have heard the advice, ‘Couples should settle their disagreements before bed time’. This has been one of the age old pieces of wisdom passed on to us from generations and is supposed to be the mantra of a healthy relationship.

There is no denying of the benefit of this fact, provided you could truly achieve this! Keep aside the theory for a moment. Practically how often did you have a situation in your relationship that you just couldn’t solve the issue between you and your partner before bed time? You ended up sleeping on either ends of the bed or worst case, in different rooms. If you are smiling after reading this, I’m sure you understand what I mean.

Not to worry, this is something every couple in a ‘healthy relationship’ experience at least once (smiles widen here) in their life. What is more interesting is to know what happens the next day morning. Are you sulkier than what you were last night or you really feel refreshed? Can you say the same thing about your partner as well? If either of you don’t feel better, then the issue of last night will most likely get worsened.

If both partners are in fact feeling refreshed in the morning the chances are higher for the issue to be resolved in a few minutes after they are up. Now the question is how do some people achieve this? How can someone who literally fought like cats and dogs a few hours back mend ways and live happily ever after? What is that secret ingredient these people add to their sleep?

I really cannot speak for every one of these magicians out there who does their tricks in different ways. But I can definitely vouch for one such magic which was taught to me by a rather unusual teacher, the kitchen sink!

Have you ever tried to wash a heavily stained dish at home especially towards the end of a tiring day? How much ever hard you scrub it, even with the soap, you’ll find it next to impossible for the utensil to be deprived of the stain. Here is when you’ve two choices, especially when the dish you are trying to clean is testing your patience.

Choice one is to leave the dish in the sink and do nothing. Guess what will await your return to the kitchen next morning? A much more hardened stain for which you’ll possibly need a Himalayan effort to clean up.  

Choice two is what smarter people do. You take a deep breath and tell the dish that we’ve seen this and more. Once you get the psychological advantage over the dish, then you add a bit of dish wash liquid and fill the dish with water. Enjoy the beautiful view of bubbles reflecting the true colours of the dish while you head to the bed by leaving the worries at the kitchen door. The next day morning after you return to the kitchen, all what you have to do is swipe the dish with a brush by giving a gentle stroke as you would give to a baby. The dish will be squeaky clean and will reflect your smiling face just like in a mirror!

Bringing you back from kitchen to the rough evening between you and your partner. Just think that the stain on the dish is similar to the fight you had. You’re not able to resolve the issue and you’ve the same choices.

You can decide to leave it dry and make things worse the next day. Alternately both of you tell the fight that we’ve seen this and more. Once this is done, mutually agree that you can solve this issue, but probably need to sleep over it. This is the water and soap which will do the magic just like how it did for the dish. I’m sure you’ll be pleasantly surprised to see the positivity in you the next day morning when you get up. What you don’t realize is the fact that the stain is nothing but your ego and the mutual agreement is the secret ingredient that helped the ego melt away over the sleep.

All what is left to do is to give each other a quick hug and make up for the fight because love is the strongest emotion mankind ever experienced! 

The Christmas Miracle

If you gave me a bunch of wires, half a dozen tiny bulbs, a working motor from an old toy car, some hay and a handful of seeds of rice, it probably meant nothing but junk. You give the same stuff to my brother and he’ll create such wonders from them, the making of which will be a sure shot material for a viral video in world as we know today.

Allow me to take you to our world 30 years back. I was just ten and my brother four years elder. I loved getting drowned in the world of books and was quite happy that my parents setup a library at home. My brother on the other hand had a table that reminded me of an electrician’s shop. I never understood what he did with those wires, soldering iron and millions of other electrical things he seems to have fallen in love with.

One fine morning in a weekend during December, I watched him as he started dismantling one of the old toy cars we had. He took out the tiny motor and later pulled out some wires and bulbs from his drawer. The next step was to ask mom for some seeds of rice. Once he had these, he then headed to our backyard and got hold of a big bowl of red soil which when mixed with water allows you to mould anything. The soil was quite fertile as well. He even asked our neighbour and got some hay also. The curios cat in me jumped out, but he said it is all a surprise and asked me to wait and watch!

The next thing he did was to find a suitable corner in front of our house and he did find a good one indeed. He settled down with his stuff and started preparing the soil by mixing some water into it. He then got into the act of moulding and soon enough I could see the contours of a tiny mountain shaping up. On the slopes of the hill he seemed to have left small rectangular patches which I couldn’t make out why. Through the middle of the mountain he also left a provision for what seemed like a pathway. The real reason for all these designs were to be revealed in time.

He then got a few tiny twigs, straight ones, from a nearby tree and started planting them one after the other from top to bottom of the hill. By the time the mould starting setting in, he attached the tiny bulbs to the wires and then connected the string to the twigs. I was still wondering what will the motor do. The answer remained the same. Wait and watch!

Before long, one side of the bottom of the hill was all prepared to look like a small pond, good enough to hold some water. On the other side he kept some cardboard boxes and laid hay around them. It was the turn for the motor to be picked up. His tool box came out as well and he did some of his usual mystical work with it. Before I even knew it he finished connecting the motor to the wires.

It was time to bring the bowl of rice seeds to the limelight. I had seen him not let the clay dry at those rectangular patches I mentioned earlier. He planted the rice seeds carefully in these patches and returned to the remaining set of work.

Mom called out for lunch and so we took a break. Over the next few days I could see him do some fine tuning of his creation. By the time our calendar announced that Advent season will soon come to an end by culminating with Christmas, the mountain of clay he created was beaming with green patches of healthy paddy fields!

On the Christmas Eve, he invited all of us for his ‘magic show’. In the valley where he had placed the hay, he softly placed Mother Mary, St Joseph, the three kings, shepherds and their sheep and a few other animals from our crib set. It was time for baby Jesus to be placed in the middle. Very carefully he carried baby Jesus and placed in the middle of the barn he created. He then reached behind the hill and we all heard a click that sounded like a switch. That’s when the magic got revealed to all of us!

The whole string of bulbs came to life lighting up the hill from top to the bottom. Soon enough we could hear the gurgling of water and to our surprise we could see water flowing from top of the hill through the pathway he created which ended up in the pond. Mysteriously the water never reached the limit of the walls of the pond and didn’t overflow! The secret was that he used the motor to pump the water back to the top of the hill thereby creating a sustainable fountain!

That definitely was one the greatest Christmas Miracles of my life!