Ordinary People, Extraordinary Results!

It all started with a seemingly innocent question from the Principal to us, the parent representatives of The Millennium School (TMS). 'Why don't you plan a Parent Day event so that we bring our families closer?' We shook our heads and agreed. Little did we know that we were signing up for the biggest ever initiative undertaken by the Parent Care Group (PCG), the grade-wise representatives, in the 25 year old history of the school!

Discussions started and plans were drafted. Date of the event was fixed as 01 Nov 2025. As we were about to shift things to top gear, there was a proposal from the GEMS group to have an event for the families across all schools as part of the Family First initiative by Mr Sunny Varkey, the chairman of GEMS group. The date proposed was a week before our planned event. The most logical thing followed. We merged these two events and decided to have the first edition of Family First event on 25 October 2025. It just so happened to coincide with the culmination of Silver Jubilee celebration of TMS.

Preparations were soon in full swing. PCG engaged Parent Focus Group (PFG), the class-wise representatives and connected with the entire parent community. Messages were passed about the event. All the while the school team was preparing at their end as well. Everything was set for the day.

After days and endless hours of collaboration, the event finally arrived and what a day it turned out to be! From amazing indoor and outdoor games, to story reading, puppet shows, mehndi art, zumba, yoga, mural painting and what not? The grand finale was a fashion show where families, teachers and to top it all, the senior leadership team themselves entertaining the whole school with a ramp walk that set the stage on fire!

The highlight of the day was a time capsule that was filled with artefacts from the silver jubilee year including heartfelt messages for future generations, placed in a lead box and sealed, to be opened only by the year 2050!

We walked out of the gate of the school with hearts filled with happiness and minds filled with a resolve to do even greater things together for the school.

Am sure, when a child in the year 2050 opens the time capsule and learns about us they will possibly be reminded of what Einstein said about Gandhiji, 'generations to come will scarce believe that such a man as this one, ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth'. They will then add, such were our predecessors in TMS, who not just walked the earth in flesh and blood but also had a heart filled with care and love for the school and the wellbeing of their children.

Here is a toast to the next 25 years... 

Let the dogs bark!

Nothing could have been more exciting for a child in late 80s, when a dad said, ‘let us go and have an ice cream!’. This was all the more true for a small town like Changanacherry in Kerala where entertainment still meant going across to your neighbour’s house and play with your friends in their backyard instead of looking at a digital screen and searching for happiness in the incessant number of reels on the social media that keep us jailed in the Boolean world.

The shop where we got ice cream was a tiny room, roughly a ten-by-ten square. They had only three types of ice creams there, a cup, a ball, and a chocolate stick, all in Vanilla flavour. That itself was like heaven for people in that small town. This was when dad came up with an idea of a full-fledged ice cream parlour in Changanacherry. 

The shop was to sell more than fifteen flavours of ice creams and even more interesting were the sundaes which were a mix of flavours served in fancy glass bowls laced with syrups and other accompaniments like caramelized nuts, Tutti Frutti, cherries and what not?! Brilliant idea for those times. 

We are talking about more than three decades in the past. A business model such as this, obviously needed significant investment. Dad presented his vision to his known circle. Soon, two groups of opinion makers were formed, one that fully supported him and the other vehemently opposed him. The resistance was quite stiff that he had to use his entire charisma to pacify them. Many remained unconvinced and continued to discourage him from proceeding further. 

Dad was one of the most optimistic people I had ever come across in my life. He heard everyone, weighed all pros and cons, and went ahead with the decision to launch the business and called it Adens with a tagline that read, 'A Sweet Den for All'. That was how on 22 December 1991, history was written in the small town of Changanacherry where the people of the town witnessed a brand-new experience of exciting their taste buds with variety of ice creams! 34 years later, the business still stands tall even though dad now oversees the operations from heaven as my brother runs the show. 

Many years after Adens was launched and running as one of the biggest success stories from that part of the world, one day I asked dad how did he overcome the resistance from many people during the planning days. His answer was a simple yet powerful proverb.

Let the dogs bark, but the caravan moves on...

God bless his soul!

 

Punctuality – A Deadly Lesson!

Yesterday evening a sad news came in one of my college WhatsApp groups. It had a picture of a professor who taught us during the graduation days, quarter of a century ago and the message was about his passing. May his soul rest in peace.

A barrage of memories came rushing on how he used to take classes those days when faculties were not burdened with political correctness. They freely spoke their mind and acted as they wished. Getting reminded of maintaining decorum in the class, with a pellet hitting your head in the form of a chalk piece or at times even the eraser itself or notebooks flying through the air and out of the door since homework was not done, were all accepted norms then. They all contributed to the beautiful nostalgia that we cherish today.

Those were the days when faculty and student relation was laced with respect and love, something only next to what we experienced back home with our parents.

On the contrary, I recently heard from some of the professors in colleges now, where they had to think twice before making a remark in the class fearing what students and parents will think and react about the correctness of their remark.

That reminded me of one of our other professors, Mr D who taught us during our MBA days back in the then Christ College, Bangalore. It was the initial days of the classes and our first experience of getting exposed to a professional course that taught Business Management.

He had a unique way of delivering his lecture. The campus at Christ was lush green. On one end of the campus, there was a Birds Park where literally we could see birds visiting in groups due to the thick foliage. The garden had a gazebo with ample chairs that could accommodate a whole class. 

We were given clear instructions by Mr D, for us to be seated at the Birds Park before the beginning of the class. He would join us right on dot when the class time was meant to start. On day one, we all followed this to the T. Day two, one of our classmates was late by a minute.

As soon as the student came up, he gave an excuse on why he was late. We could see a clear change to the professor's demeanour. His face became stern and when he spoke, the voice was deep with a scary tone.

Mr D made a statement, which remained etched in our minds till date and became the Magna Carta for everything to do with punctuality in our life. 

He said, 'You can only have two reasons to arrive late to my class. Either you must be dead, or you are dying!'

This and many more timeless reminders from our dear teachers from yester years, keep us on our toes in our daily life, even decades after leaving college and working in a professional environment in the corporate world.

Salute to good old days!

The Chutney Manager

By virtue of hailing from Kerala, also known as land of coconuts, it is quite natural for us to have coconut in many of our dishes. Chutney or coconut dip is one of the most common dishes that is paired with famous breakfast items such as dosas and idlis. As was destined, last weekend, I decided to take a bold step in preparing a coconut chutney myself in combination with wheat dosa. It was an unusual attempt considering the fact that we have a master chef at home, in the form of my sweetheart.

As the established practice many novice chefs resort to, I searched and found a recipe online and followed the instructions. Since some of the ingredients were either unknown to me or not available, I decided to ignore them and managed with the rest. All went well except for the initial roasting of shallots which got slightly burned, or so I thought. At the end, the final product turned out to be so good that even the master chef was majorly impressed with the culinary skills of the rookie! Who knew, maybe the burnt shallots gave a smoky flavour to the dish, which might have added an accidental twist and tickled the tastebuds.

A few days later when the breakfast menu again had dosa and chutney, the master chef herself prepared it. A huge surprise awaited me, as soon as the dish was ready. The master tasted the dish she made and then bowed down to this humble being stating, she still felt the chutney I made last time was better than hers! I was in seventh heaven. What a glorified way of getting an appreciation. A tribute par excellence!

It didn't stop there. The liberal compliment was followed by the statement of the century. My sweetheart declared to the family that since Appa makes the best chutney in the house, henceforth, all days when chutney is on the menu, it will be Appa who will be the official chutney master.

Suddenly, I heard alarm bells going off. Warning lights flashed in dozens. Before I could even rush to a safe zone I was trapped in an impossible-to-escape dungeon. The name board of the place read, Death by Appreciation!

The only comparable experience in a corporate workspace is when a colleague or a boss showers you with compliments for a job well done, which in the first place was theirs to do. You will then be trapped to do similar or other jobs, the pain of which will be drenched in an avalanche of appreciation.

Allow me to dedicate this piece to all such 'true strategists' of the modern world. From this day, they will be known as The Chutney Managers!

 

Gulf Air & Scissors

If you have read the title of this story, you may be wondering what has a scissors got to do with Gulf Air? For a ten-year-old boy in the early 90’s the airline played a critical role in a barter transaction for something important to him. The interesting fact was that the airline itself had no clue that it was going to be a party to a life changing decision the boy was about to make.

Before I took the story any further, I had to take you back to my tiny state of Kerala in India. While the state of Kerala is one fifth the size of state of Washington, even in early 90s we had a considerable number of expats from the state, especially in the Middle East. One of them was my uncle and family who used to visit us once in a year from Muscat, the capital of Oman.

Uncle and family used to take the most famous airline from Middle East during those times, Gulf Air. Emirates was still in its infancy then. One of the most awaited events for my brother who was four years elder than me and I, after uncle reached my home, was unpacking of the bags. Those were the days when gifts from abroad were attributed very high value. It was the era before liberalisation in India, and we were yet to have foreign merchandise freely available in our country.

Among the gifts uncle came home with that time, was a pair of beautiful stainless-steel scissors with a transparent brown handle. The best part was the cutting action by the scissors which was so perfect that it was altogether a new experience for my brother and me. I was a bit jealous when my uncle extended that scissors as a gift to my brother. While I do not remember what exactly the gift was, I received that year, I definitely remember that I got something priceless that day.

Uncle’s eldest son was just two years younger to me, and we used to share similar vibes on our interests. He clearly knew my love for aviation and I appreciated anything unique that came with a Tflight. In this case, it was the inflight magazine of Gulf Air. Every year when he arrived at our place, he showed me the latest edition of the prized possession from the flight that time. He was quite generous and allowed me to have the only copy he managed to get from the flight. Thirty-five years later, all these sounded silly. But during those days, the magazine meant the world to me. I wonder what the editorial team at Gulf Air would have thought if they knew they had a die-hard fan of their magazine across the Arabian Sea in the tiny coastal land of Kerala!

Days went by and my wish for the beautiful looking pair of scissors only got stronger. I pleaded with my brother to give me the scissors, and I told him I would give him anything in return. I saw a diabolic twinkle in his eyes. He looked at the magazine from Gulf Air I was carrying as if it was the first edition of The Bible itself! He then looked at me and the scissors. No words were exchanged. The message was loud and clear.

I was in a dilemma. An incredibly special piece of equipment on one side. An absolute rare specimen of a magazine on the other side. The choice was quite tough. I had to take a decision quickly, else if my brother changed his mind, I may lose the scissors for ever. I took a deep breath and did some quick calculation. I realized that the barter is not as bad as it looked.

Another year and I was sure I will get the next in-flight magazine, but there was no guarantee that I will get a scissors of that calibre even though India started talking more about liberalization from 1991 onwards. With great difficulty, I agreed with my brother and took the possession of one of the most beautiful and useful tools I ever had in my life.

Happy and proud to say the same pair of scissors is still a part of my life and works like a charm. I must also add that, since this incident I lost count of the number of in-flight magazines that went through my hands. In fact, we all have reached a point in our lives, where I now hardly see anyone yearning for an in-flight magazine anymore. Many other material things took the position of prized possessions.

Good old days!

 

Empowerment – Incredible Leadership Stories

After two gruelling years of MBA from Christ College, one of the prestigious institutions in then Bangalore, I took my baby steps into the corporate world with Mindtree Consulting, the name by which the company was known those days. It was a mid-size IT company compared to the likes of giants in Indian IT diaspora such as TCS, Infosys, Wipro etc. My staff ID was just 4299.

I joined the Staff Operations department of Mindtree which was entrusted with the critical task of finding the right person for a job. Those days, Staff Ops department of Mindtree was designed to have regional teams taking care of staffing requirements of clients in their respective geographical areas with US being the biggest, followed by Europe, Asia Pacific etc. There was a Central Operations team as well to co-ordinate with these different regional teams to ensure that staff utilisation is effective and optimized. My boss and I were part of the latter.

While the structure worked, there were already talks about this model to be redesigned to match the planned growth of the organization. To facilitate this, the management decided to get a seasoned Mindtree Mind, how the staff was addressed in Mindtree, who managed a large client in the US.

The word got out and all of us in Staff Ops team were quite excited, as this man was to be our new boss. What was even more interesting was the rumour that he was going to consolidate Staff Ops function to achieve more synergies. Lot of improvements were expected. Little did we know that along with him a sea of changes were to follow, some of them we did not even anticipate. The man's reputation preceded him.

Dats, that was how our new boss was affectionately known in Mindtree circles. As soon as he took charge, he called for a combined meeting of all Staff Ops teams. We were quite surprised with his demeanour. The man who ran one of the biggest accounts of Mindtree in US, the man who had been tasked to consolidate the entire Staff Operations for the company had a remarkably calm way of going about with his business. We were impressed on day one itself.

The action then started!

His first ask was to get all the leads list down daily activities we carried out as a team. He reviewed the list and identified all those activities that did not strictly belong to Staff Ops. There were a bunch of tasks that our team performed on daily basis which in fact belonged to other functions in the organization such as HR, Quality, Recruitment etc. This was quite typical of young organizations, a learning that was applied over the period of growth. Dats immediately scheduled meetings with his counterparts in those departments and agreed with them to own their respective activities thereby freeing our valuable time to do more meaningful staff allocation specific activities.

We thought we were all set to start with our new life. That was when Dats broke the biggest surprise. It must be either the work culture he picked up from US or his methodical approach to everything that we came to appreciate in the days ahead or both. Dats noticed that some of the team members worked late in the evening in office for multiple reasons. He called the entire team into a meeting room one day and made a statement that still echoes in my head even after almost two decades of the incident. He said, ‘None of us are doctors and no one is going to die if you stop working at the prescribed end time of the day. I do not want to see any one of you staying back in office unless there is an emergency that you will be able to justify to me’!

Those were golden words, teams across the corporate world would love to hear from their bosses! He was incredible in not just saying that but to live a life and showed us how to really have a work-life balance. God bless bosses like you Dats! You are indeed a rare breed! 

The Paris Surprise

Year 2018, was when Ruby and I decided to take our kids for our first ever European trip together. Among the destinations we planned to visit, Paris was the last. As a sheer coincidence, that was the year of FIFA football world cup and as destiny would have it, France were the champions that year. It just so happened that the final match was two days before our planned date of arrival in Paris.

The city had gone crazy on the day France won. There was chaos and fights everywhere. It was as though Parisians were in a trance from the win. We were obviously a bit worried about reaching the city given this background. A friend of mine who worked in Paris in fact asked us to drop our plan if it was not urgent. Nevertheless, since we planned it long time ago and this being our last leg of the trip, we decided to go ahead. Fortunately, by the time we reached Paris, the commotion had settled down.

We had booked ourselves a hotel at a place called Clamart and reached the place on a taxi from the train station on the first day. The hotel booking was done based on our research looking at the accessibility via train. Little did we realize that this was the suburbs of Paris and though a train station was right next to the hotel where we stayed, it was not the metro railway network connecting the city directly. While it was a late realization for us, we were quite OK with it since all these contributed to our travel experiences.

The next day we decided to explore the city and headed to the train station near our hotel. As we reached the station, we looked for the ticket counter. While there was one, unfortunately no staff was present. The alternate option was to buy the tickets from an automated kiosk. We thought we will give it a try.

The kiosk had a catch. It only accepted coins. We had Euros, but as currency. While we were trying to check the tickets from the machine, a queue started building behind us. With the machine not allowing currency we were stuck.

As we were wondering what to do, I heard a tiny voice from behind us in the queue, asking in a French laced English, if we needed help. It was a petite lady who was patiently waiting for us to finish our turn at the machine. We tried to explain the situation to her. Without even thinking twice, she took out her purse and paid for all our tickets.

Soon we were on our way to the city. At the station where we all got down, we paid her in currency and she promptly returned the change. The train moved on and all our concerns about friendliness and wellbeing in Paris also went along with it.

Santhosh George Kulangara, one of the most widely travelled person in the world had once said, ‘most of the people across the world are good, unfortunately we get influenced by negativity expressed by one person’s experience and make the mistake of generalising that for all.’

Let us remember to have an open mind during our trips, all the while being aware of our surroundings.

Happy travelling!