My First Corporate Lesson

Two days ago, LinkedIn woke up along with me announcing a dear friend celebrating 16 years with Mindtree, my previous organization. It was quite a moment and obviously I sent him a congratulations note. A few minutes later it dawned on me that it was the same guy with whom I joined Mindtree 16 years back!

Fresh out of college, I had stepped into the lovely Global Village campus of Mindtree in the then Bangalore, with dreams as high as Everest and a resolve as deep rooted as the Pacific. Equipped with a Masters in Management, I couldn’t have asked for a better start than to analyse the Staff Operations of a budding company. Mindtree had spread its wings globally and was getting ready for an even major expansion.

Soon enough I learned that Staff Operations in Mindtree was working in a manner where you had multiple teams managing various geographies. All these teams where co-ordinated by a Central Operations team which at that time was a team of two, my boss and me. Among the plethora of activities, a major task was to get an update on staff engagement from each of the geographies every Monday and consolidate them to present a utilization report on Tuesdays.

This was a time when automation of operations was still on the cards and hence this consolidation was quite a time consuming process. I was tasked to follow-up with all the geography heads and ensure that all the required inputs were available by end of day Monday. By noon Tuesday all the analysis were to be completed and report was to be released.

It was a heavy number crunching exercise on an extremely complex Excel worksheet laden with macros and formulas. Having said that, the direction from my boss was quite clear. Rain or shine, the report must hit the mailbox of all recipients by Tuesday twelve o’ clock. Late by a minute, I’ll be dead!

It wasn’t an exaggeration, as I realized with horror on the first week itself that the mail was addressed to the Chairman of the company himself and copied to all senior managers. As soon as I figured this out, I had a weird sensation of equally feeling elevated in my stature while at the same time being pulled down with fear. What if something goes wrong? I didn’t even want to think of a day when the mail was received late by the leaders of the organization due to a delay from my end directly affecting critical decisions taken in the company.

Initially though the mail was sent by my boss, as days passed, he let me sent it from my mailbox itself. It further brought a huge load of confidence in me. I remember having a glow on face especially on Tuesdays with the sheer thought that the Chairman of the company along with the who’s who of the organization were awaiting the most important mail of the week from me!

The feeling of empowerment was reaching its pinnacle when one day it happened. One of the geo heads, who was a recipient of these mails came over to meet my boss on a Tuesday afternoon soon after the report was released. I was sitting next to him and heard them talk about Utilization Report. I was beaming with pride and was expecting him to praise our small team on how much value do we bring to the organization. Instead he said, ‘It is absolutely rubbish a report and it directly goes into my trash!’

Speechless would be an understatement and what made it worse was when I got to know that his view was subscribed by a few other managers as well. My motivation levels took a major hit. My boss noticed the change, but said nothing. The week went by without any other incident. Next Tuesday came and the Utilization Report went out as usual. A couple of hours later my boss showed me a mail. It was a mail asking for a few additional information on what was reported and the response went back promptly. It was from none other than the Chairman himself!

That’s when my boss spoke for the first time about the incident the other day. He said, ‘Quality, not quantity matters’.

No Vs Know

We recently went on a vacation to a beach destination. The place we stayed was a lovely house situated right on top of a steep hill overlooking the lovely blue-green waters of Indian Ocean. After getting refreshed, we got out to explore the nearby places. Mia, our little one, was all excited that the steep slope down the hill was something she didn’t pay much attention to. She rushed to the slope and before we could even stop her, had a painful fall. It took a while for us to pacify her. But the fighter spirit in her didn’t let the fall drench the spirit of adventure and the trip went on to become a huge hit!

A few days later, we were back home from vacation and were walking to the parking lot to take the car out. There was a slope that led to the parking lot and Mia was running towards the car. Quite naturally I stopped her by saying, “Don’t you remember what happened during the trip? You’ll fall again”. She looked into my eyes and made a statement that literally left me with a profound thought. She said, “But Appa, I now know how to walk carefully on a slope.”

These are the times when your so-called wise brain gets a shock treatment from a tiny brain as little as a four year old one. It really sends an electrifying pulse to your brain that you have no choice but to sit and think about it. How many times have we stopped a dear one from doing something for the fear of them getting hurt? How many times have these resulted in them losing an opportunity to learn and overcome a fear factor? In fact our action of stopping someone from doing something due to our fear is in fact instilling fear in them as well. If they yield to our request, it is highly likely that they’ll never do that ever in their life, especially if this happens in their childhood.

I’m not generalising. I know quite a few people who have dared their loved ones to go beyond the comfort zones and get themselves experience what’s beyond usual. But if you are someone who set a limit to our dear ones, knowingly but at times unknowingly, we need to be aware that this results in them not getting moulded to overcome the challenges in life.

I remember a cousin brother of mine who was crazy about Navy that he got himself enrolled in a defence academy. One of the initial drills they had was being taken to the open sea on a naval ship. As soon as the ship reached the outer sea, they were asked to jump into the wild waters. Those who showed reluctance were mercilessly thrown into the sea and were left to experience how life will be for a Navy personnel.

While we do not necessarily have to be ruthless as the Navy, the question from my little one was a jolt for me to think differently. I realized the need to unlearn a few things I’ve been following. I really need to give my loved ones the space to learn and succeed than to stop them from doing something and be a perennial failure from not attempting the task.

The attitude becomes so positive when we let people ‘know’ something than saying ‘no’ to them which by nature is quite negative. Having said that, we need to make sure that we don’t cloud our common sense and let our loved ones go into dangers that are evident. The point is to realize the fact that we have a responsibility to make our dear ones experience certain aspects of life and not to deny them an opportunity to make their personalities better.

We all are what we are today, due to someone taking such decisions way back in the past. It could be our parents, teachers, siblings or friends who influenced us one way or other to either stop doing something or jump into and get the experience yourself.

Hence on this Valentines month, here is a warm wish to each one of us to extend our love to dear ones to let them experience what they rightfully should all the while keeping an eye on the boundary of risk by applying our common sense. 

The Fragrance

This was a few years before India started to hear words such as globalization and liberalisation. For a school going kid, a visit from an NRI uncle and family in Gulf had the excitement similar or even more than the annual feast at the local church.

Starting from preparations to receive the family to getting up at odd hours and waiting impatiently to get into a Tempo Traveller to head to the airport, obtaining the pass to the visitor’s gallery at the airport, rushing to find a suitable spot in the gallery, the anticipation of arriving aircraft, opening of the doors, counting the passengers getting down one by one and finally sighting the familiar faces of uncle and family, all contributed to the greatest experience of the year!

The icing on the cake was seeing the number of large bags uncle brought with him since everything about those bags was new to the pre-globalization eyes of a school going kid. As soon as we reached home, the baggage were promptly taken to the room that awaited their visit. Soon enough the whole room will have a very unique fragrance, the likes of which only comes with an NRI Gulf family of those times!

The days ahead will be filled with surprises after surprises. The joy of receiving a gift, the happiness of seeing things beyond your imagination and the overall experience of being with someone who crossed the proverbial seven seas were all adding to the experience.

A month will fly by and soon it will be time for uncle and family to return to their NRI status. I hated the trips to airport to see off someone, nevertheless I did go many times. Through tearful eyes we bid goodbye. It was a heart breaking moment to stand on the same viewer’s gallery and watch the aircraft take off.

You return home and try to relive the happy moments in the now empty room. All that remains is the fragrance from the bags that were in the room.

James Mukkadan, my uncle, who gifted me all those priceless moments is no longer with us as he joined the Creator earlier today (27 Nov 2019), for a well-deserved eternal life. He leaves behind a great legacy.

I now realize something more important. Uncle, what you left behind in that empty room was not just the fragrance from your bags. It is a whole lot of memories that you created with your genuine love and care. You will be deeply missed and remembered forever! 

Keep the Change!

Article for Bethlehem Matrimonial - Sep 2016

It will be quite an interesting exercise to ask a question on changes in life to a married couple, especially a few months into their marriage. I’m pretty sure many of them will have stories to share about how life has changed for them or how their partner has tried to influence to bring in a bunch of changes in their life. Never mind, this is one of the most natural things to have happened to a married couple.

Having said that, after a few years into our marriage, during one of those looking-back-to-your-past days, I had a major realization! There were a few things which both my wife and I tried to get changed in each other after we got married. Needless to say we both were ‘successful’ to a great extent. That did leave us with a handful of changes that neither of us could influence the other to change and they remained as is.

The realization I mentioned earlier came to me a few days back. To my own surprise I figured out that I now love some of those things which I wanted to be changed in my sweetheart! I was not sure if I was prepared to face such a realization. Nevertheless it indeed was a moment of truth.

Probably this isn’t true for every couple. Then again no two couples are the same. Just that it works for some and does not for others. Nevertheless the thought is worth sharing. I now wonder how many such other things I may have made her change which would’ve been worth retaining in its original form that one day in future I would’ve started loving them!  

If you are a new couple or one about to be, it could be worth a try to keep this thought in mind. Realize that it isn’t a necessity to insist your partner to change every routine of theirs if you don’t approve it. Be informed that you might as well be changing something which you would’ve liked, given some time.

Be aware that the aspect of not resorting to changes is no excuse for changing the habits that negatively influence people such as addictions, illegal activities etc. Those that need to go must go. There are no two ways about it. The reference here is about those habits or nature you see in your partner which you wish aligned to your interests and hence you insist that they change them.

Needless to say, this act of not insisting a change requires a lot of courage from both the parties involved. While one is from the perspective of resisting the change, the other more importantly is to keep an open mind and embrace the nature of their partner as-is. This isn’t a simple task so to speak, a task that can probably take ages to reach an acceptance from the more affected party.

It is a wonderful nature of the human psyche that a seemingly least interested entity, be it a person, a thing or an activity, can generate a lot of interest over a period of time. Without you knowing it, you’ll be forced to start developing a liking to the same entity you disliked in the past. This probably is one of the biggest ironies of life! Hence you may just end up putting in a lot of efforts to get a habit changed in your partner resulting in losing a wonderful experience you may have in future.

Change is a constant as all of us are aware. But ask yourself this question. Is the change that you are insisting on your better half really worth it? Is this in fact something which you may possibly love in future and see a benefit in doing that? If so there is only one thing you have got to do. Keep the need to change to yourself. Give it sometime. For all that matter, you might uncover a diamond which looks like a piece of carbon today.

May the good God help you have a vision for future and bless you with such decisions that will have life-saving moments! 

When God answers…

Raphael was seated at the chair kept for him at the dining table next to God Himself. It was breakfast time though that was not what he was there for. He had a small notepad with him in which he is expected to quickly note down what gets dictated from the Almighty.

The first set of requests taken was from Alice. God started granting one by one. In between He asked Mother Mary to pass on the bottle of jam. While applying the jam on to a slice of bread, He continued to grant a few other wishes as well for Alice. But a couple of them fell through when He was reaching out for the jam bottle. Alice had asked for these during her usual prayer time, but she took a quick break in between to check if there was enough jam left for the next day morning breakfast.

Paul's requests turned out to be next. This was a big one with requests for promotions, job change and what not. God was almost half way through His breakfast by then. He started granting Paul's wishes one after the other. It came to the promotion bit and that's when Gabriel walked in with a message that needed His attention. By the time He was done with the interrupting message, Paul's request for promotion was lost somewhere. Interestingly Paul while asking God for these had got a call in between which he answered before continuing with rest of the prayers.

Donna, Peter, Sylvia and Robert; each one of them had their own set of requests that got delivered to the Almighty. Most of them got answered. A few got misplaced in between. Those were the exact ones that were requested to God while each one of them was busy doing something else in between the prayers.

Focus, when you talk to Him. He listens, always.  

Blessing of Haves

Article for Bethlehem Matrimonial - Jul 2015
 
Alex had promised his wife Nisha that he'll take her to the Mall in the evening as she really didn't want to miss the annual sale at the famous European store. It was a really hectic day for him and by the time he got out of office, he was almost dead tired. All what he wanted to do was to hit the bed so that he can wake up early in the morning tomorrow to finish the pile of work at office. Nevertheless he reached home and was reminded of his promise. Though not quite happy, he took her to the Mall where she was greeted with a shopping heaven as expected. The options available were endless and the best part was the price tags! She thanked God and the person who invented the concept of 'Sale'. 

The store was well lit and the dresses on display were quite tempting. She felt like taking the entire store back home. Of course since that was not practically feasible, the next biggest challenge was to decide what to choose. Naturally it took quite a long time and Alex ran out of his patience. He made some remarks which led to a few arguments and by the time they reached home, they were not speaking to each other anymore. Alex didn't even bother to say the prayers or wish his wife a good night. Instead he went straight to the bed and soon was fast asleep. 

Next morning, he didn't tell her a bye and in the blink of an eye he was out of the house heading to office. She didn't speak a word either and just closed the door after him though she was expecting with half her heart that he'll turn back before he took the elevator down. That never happened. Both of them felt miserable, but they had their egos to be pampered and that's exactly what they did as well. 

Alex soon got busy at work and before it was mid-day he got a call on his phone. Nisha's picture showed up on his phone screen and for a moment he had a grin on his face; the grin of a winning ego. He answered the phone expecting her subdued tone with his ego reaching its pinnacle. Instead he heard a man's voice, introducing him as a police officer. The words that followed melted all the mountains of ego he had built within himself, on top of which he was sitting with his false pride. His wife met with a terrible accident on her way to work and was taken to the City Hospital!

Alex drove like a mad man and reached the hospital in no time. Two things happened in parallel. Alex stepped into the reception of the hospital and frantically checked about Nisha. It was almost the same time when a nurse was covering Nisha's face with a sheet of white linen. The heart monitor showed a flat line. Alex was taken to her by someone there at the hospital. He removed the linen and looked at her face. It was still beautiful though now marked with some cuts and bruises. Those eyes which saw lots of dreams together with him were closed forever. Time seemed to have frozen around him. No one was moving and so was his sweetheart who was now lying in front of him. 

All the scenes from the previous evening suddenlycame back to him. He remembered not giving her a goodnight kiss. He denied the usual warm bye hug in the morning too. He didn't even turn back and wave at her before taking the elevator down and letting his ego go up! All that is over now. She is no more and he didn't even tell her a proper goodbye. All of a sudden, memories with her from the past came rushing and started suffocating him. He sat down on the floor and tears that were locked deep down somewhere started flowing. That was the moment of realization. He knew the blessing of what he had which he won't have any more. 

He was soon crying uncontrollably. No one could pacify him. All of a sudden he felt someone holding him by his shoulders and shaking him quite vigorously. He opened his eyes and though the tears blurred his vision, he saw a figure that he very well knew. Nisha was standing right next to him holding a cup of water which she earlier sprinkled on his face asking him to wake up before it gets too late for office!

It took a full minute for him to realize the nightmare he had. He looked at her and rubbed his eyes once more and without giving her much of a warning he gave her the tightest ever hug in their life. He was holding her as if he didn't want anyone to take her away from him even for a fraction of a moment. She was totally confused. He was crying and with a smile of great relief, looked at her eyes and said "I love you". 

Know the blessings that you have today. Do not wait to realize till the time they are taken away from you. 

God bless you all!

Mug the Challenge!

Lush green paddy fields, gentle ripples of backwaters and wells with water as pure as a mountain spring; all these and many more painted the picture around the small town in which I was born and brought up. Scarcity of water is something that was unheard of during my childhood. In addition, the water we needed at home was always drawn from the well and we never received a paper with the title ‘Water Bill’.

The picture got slightly blurred when I first moved out of my town to my neighbouring state for higher studies. I was first introduced to the concept of ‘hard water’. It was quite difficult initially to get used to this different genre of water. It was there I first saw this strange sight of people buying mineral water in bulk. It was strange since there was a drinking water dispenser at the college hostel from where many of us took water from. When asked I was told that they use mineral water for head bath since hard water will spoil the hair. Imagine the kind of money people spent for this!

Life moved on and soon I was in the metropolitan city of Bangalore. For the first time in my life I had to buy drinking water for my daily consumption since there was no supply of drinking water at the place where I stayed. On top of this an additional amount started appearing on my monthly expense statements. I started paying water bills though the amount was quite minimal compared to the electricity bills.

A few years later I got married and as destiny had its way, we ended up in the desert kingdom of Dubai. One fine day after our first month in Dubai we received a bill from Dubai Electricity and Water Authority. How would you feel if you get struck with a heavy-duty sledgehammer? That’s the status we were in, seeing the amount for the water we consumed. It was a shocker to realize that we really need to pay more for water than power!

Thinking about this transition itself is quite dreadful! From a literally free supply of water to rationed supply of hard water to nominal payment for consumed water and finally to a state where we end up paying more for water than electricity itself! It was high time we realized the path we are heading to. We had to do something really drastic to reduce the consumption of this limited natural resource.

One of the solutions appeared in the form of a simple item present in our bathroom. An innocent little mug! When we started looking at our water usage, we realized that the washbasin tap is a big culprit who contributes to the scary numbers on our water bill. It never dawned on us till then the quantity of water that gets lost while using the tap. Most of us don’t realize that when a tap is opened we end up losing more water than what we really need. Do you have the habit of holding water in your open palm to wash your face or to brush your teeth or for any other morning routine? Next time you do this; notice the amount of water that flows out of your hand as well as from the tap against the actual amount of water you really use. The delta will be huge!

Our approach was quite simple. We started using the mug to hold water from the tap and use exactly the quantity that we needed. This helped us to reduce our water consumption quite significantly! The water bills in this part of the world, where lives are built on top of a desert, continue to be high. Nevertheless each drop thus saved directly added to our piggy bank.

You are not just doing yourself a favour, but in fact you are saving this depleting natural resource for your kids and the generations to come! A simple change with a huge impact!

So, do you have it in you to take up this challenge?! 

Life cycle of dreams

We all have dreams and we try to achieve them. We struggle a lot in pursuing these dreams before we finally achieve it. The most logical thing to do is to live your dream once you achieve them.

 

Just like every other life, there needs to have an end date for living your dream. The moment you try to hang on to your dream it will start weighing you down mentally and later physically. We’re all designed to dream perpetually.

 

So when you feel disappointed with something, ask yourself the question. Am I nearing the expiry date of my dream? Is it worth hanging on? Else remind yourself to dream again.

 

Dream-Pursue-Achieve-Live-Kill-Dream again!

After all it is their life

Getting married is one experience in your life during which you feel all possible emotions overflowing unlike anything before. You prepare yourself for the mental, emotional and physical presence of a new person in your life. The games played by your mind during this period is nothing but diabolic! At times you feel elated, at times totally question your decision and yet other times you are driven nuts by a variety of thoughts and concerns that run through your mind like in a sprint.

Invariably you turn to your friends and relatives for solace and many will offer a lot. Some will have the traditional wisdom and some the craziest and most bizarre of all ideas you would ever get in this world! This is a boon and a curse at the same time. You'll get so much of information about almost every other aspect of life, some you may not even utilize ever! Yet, you look forward to listen to them and see if it helps in any possible way.

Invitations will duly be sent to all these relatives and friends who had always told you that they are dying to attend your wedding. You prepare yourself to tie the knot in the presence of all these people who will be dressed up for the occasion and you happily await their wishes. These will be the same people to whom you would've cribbed over the last few years of not able to find the right girl. These will be the same people who would've advised you that everything has its own time and when that comes we'll be right beside you to see you tie the knot. These will be the same people who had promised to be part of the biggest day of your life!

As the countdown progresses, you start to see a strange phenomenon. You call up people to remind them about the date and confirm their presence. All advises and promises suddenly seem to take a back seat. All the intense emotions of dying-to-attend-your-wedding seem to be passé. Life seems to take its own course of action and priorities get redefined for many. Reasons that were insignificant till the day before suddenly take the front row of life and the rest all gets pushed to the oblivion.

The most important thought that runs in the mind will be, after all he is sensible and he will understand!

Understand I will, about the changing preferences, but not before inflicting a pain deeper in the heart that has been seasoned enough to have been conditioned to expect. What these very same people who mean the world to you don't realize is a simple fact. The presence and presence alone of these dearest ones, is what makes the biggest ever day in my life complete!

I believe I've the right to feel the pain, else my heart which is the store house of all the emotions will feel dejected with the feeling of injustice. The only saving grace perhaps is the thought that my mind keeps telling me, ' After all it is their life'…