poetry

As you stare right through me.

Love is an illusion, a myth,

Its all compromises I shouted,

I have had my chances with love,

This heart ain't falling for anyone again,

Love is an illusion, a myth.

Its easy to break hearts,

Hearts of stone or hearts of broken glass,

The poet nurses all his wounds in silence,

But poetry flows out unabated,

The emotions need a release after all

I shout in the silence of the times,

The emptiness of dark nights,

Railing against the travesty of life,

That yet again I fall for someone,

A someone who stares right through me

I immortalize you through poetry,

Yet broken verses reveal no names,

And as you smile at the world,

I just keep gazing at you,

As I can't see anyone prettier around.

If you could be mine, 

I would walk along till the end of time,

Make you the heroine of epic tales,

Partner in stories of legendary fun,

Lazy days, busy days, rainy days ,sunny days

But you are also the heart breaker,

Pretending not to see the obvious, 

When I hang onto every word you say,

 For the most painful thing is seeing you,

Oblivious as you stare right through me,
Like I am a ghost who isn't even there..

Employees first, customers second

Employees First, Customers Second: Turning Conventional Management Upside Down
It is assumed I might think about the above lines during my MBA. The funny thing is I have been
thinking of the above for much of the last three years. I worked in the IT sector all this time in a
company where customer is king. Of course I entered the IT sector at a time when my company was
rapidly maturing. The growth that was possible earlier was gone earlier such as moving to onsite
within 18 months was gone.


And in the midst of the recession employees were vulnerable. The recession at one time in my
company turned what would earlier be an earlier apology letter incident into a firing reason incident.
At one moment when large number of employees were on bench project managers started patrolling
the bench area cubicles to ensure no one was surfing the internet, playing games or watching videos.
Employees stopped sending forwards to each other.


This was perhaps the biggest disillusionment with the company I worked with. There is a quote I love
to say that reminds me of the same “Company kisi ki nahin hoti(A company never gets attached to
anyone)”. Employees who get too attached to their companies, too proud of where they are ultimately
very likely to be left broken hearted.


In the IT sector especially an employee is just a resource and in case of a 100,000 plus employees
company all employees in a band are equal. I had great learnings in my former company but we ended
up in a divorce because of mutually irreconcilable differences. I wanted positions of leadership
opportunities and personal growth in a short time and the company wanted me to work for 10 years or
so before I would reach a position of satisfaction for me.


All this long I have had great discussion with managers and coworkers on such issues which rankle
everyone. The only conclusion I have come to is that a job is only satisfying when there is both the
companies and the employees growth and satisfaction. When either fails, the employee must look for
options or else not grumble about the situation.


So , I view HCL’s employee first credo with great interest. After all how can it be about the employee?
Is not it about sales growth, profit margins and customer satisfaction? Having spoken to multiple
people both connected and not connected to HCL about the same. Pardon me for the cynicism but I
believe unless it can be independently validated HCLs tagline is a great public relations exercise and
nothing more. I just don’t see the results. HCL is not showing lower attrition or greater employee
satisfaction in the social networking sphere.


Of course , employee satisfaction is a very difficult task. Especially the IT sector as we all think we are
God’s blessing to heaven as there are so many recruiters. You just say Java with no resume on
Naukri.com and 4 companies are setting up interviews. I still get spammed but recruiting consulatants.
What is needed is a balance between money, quality of work and the work environment. Lack of any
can cause issues. To end I quote a Harvard Business School article, “Improved recognition cannot
replace better pay, money cannot substitute for taking pride in a job well done, and pride alone will not
pay the mortgage”.


References http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/5289.html

Jung Test Results

So I analyzed my jung test results



Jung Test Results
Extroverted (E) 62.16% Introverted (I) 37.84%
Intuitive (N) 67.57% Sensing (S) 32.43%
Thinking (T) 54.55% Feeling (F) 45.45%
Perceiving (P) 68.57% Judging (J) 31.43%


Your type is: ENTP


ENTP - "Inventor". Enthusiastic interest in everything and always sensitive to possibilities. Nonconformist
and innovative. 3.2% of the total population.


SELF ANALYSIS
To analyze the results, I will pull up two of the most analytical paragraphs I wrote about myself about 4 months back.
The first paragraph is,“A poet at heart yet a writer of prose by choice; an introvert who broke his shackles and now loves debates, discussions, etc.; a technology enthusiast who wanted to do an M.Tech. but realized the tug of an MBA was stronger. Yes, these and many other contradictions summarize me as an individual.”
You see I am all these seemingly contradictory things and and much more. I say seemingly contradictory for a reason. Someone may look at these things and say this guy is totally random and
these are disconnected things. But I am a whole individual with all these differences smoothened over.


I love to be involved in things. I have been involved with the Magazine board in my school and college. By the end of engineering , I was a strong communicator but once I started working I have been involved with and am a member of Toastmasters International which is a public speaking and leadership club. I believe if I am good at anything I should be better at it. I initially wrote poems in English but I have learnt only when we stretch ourselves do we realize where our strength lies. So I
have written Ghazals in Urdu, dabbled with Haiku and basically tried my hand at whatever I wanted to do. I learnt to cook, failed at learning classical music when my teacher after six months pronounced me untrainable and look forward to trying to draw- a skill I have never been good at.


The second paragraph is , “My career goals are linked to my passions and interests as I want to be passionate about whatever I do. For the next 5-10 years,I would like to work in the corporate world handling challenging tasks, preferably in the risk management and strategic planning domain.


Alongside I want to never stop writing and also work towards becoming a professional motivational speaker. I also want to contribute positively to the society by working with children from
disadvantaged backgrounds.”


I like to be passionate about what I do and all my life I want to be passionate about things around me whether it be work or pleasure. My project manager in a feedback said that I have a childlike
enthusiasm for things which I must guard.


In fact the lines that scare me is a couplet from Urdu poetry,
‘Gham ho ya khushi dono, pal do pal ke saathi hain,
Phir rasta hee rasta hai, na hasna hai na rona hai’
Translated as ‘Grief and joy both are just companion for a short moment in life,
After that there is only the never ending travel with no emotions anywhere’
I don’t want to wake up and realize I am doing a job just to pay off the mortgage or pay for the kids education. I want to have shades of all the hues in the world around me.

Two events that have shaped me

P.S.- This is part of a self evaluation exercise that I had to attempt. I blog my attempt here as I think I wrote some great prose here.


Two things majorly make me who I am


1) Bibliomaniac:- I started reading seriously as a child of eight or so. First I loved comics and then after I had read and reread all the Archies, Tintin, Asterix in the local library, I moved to Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Famous Five and similar stuff. By class 7 even these had been read so I moved to more serious authors and I was now an official bibliophile. I read during school time, after school, during the vacation and despite a rather severe reprimand on being caught even during exams.


The reading hobby has lasted forever and even now I read pretty much anything I get my hands onto.


However more than a strong vocabulary or a good command of English, reading has moulded me also in another way. Reading has made me much more sensitive to the world around me telling me there is seldom black and white in any argument or incidence but rather multiple shades of grey abound everywhere. And reading made me step into poetry and it was this fascination for the written word that I aspired to write and was a member of the magazine board in my school in class 11th.

2) The AIT story:- The story of my life starts in college. Everything else before that time is inconsequential like a misty morning vanquished by the rising afternoon sun. When I headed to AIT, I
was the bookworm who wanted to pursue his M.S. and PhD. in engineering and was both stage shy and an introvert. I also carried a disappointment from being forced to reject NIT Warrangal but that’s another story


AIT changed it all. Everyone was pushed onto stage. I was a member of English debates, Hindi debates ,Musical dramas and was also the only first year student to write the script for the street play.
After all the rule was if you were in the first year and were not on stage ,you had to be in the audience cheering. And it made more sense to be involved and be cheered rather than being a dumb
cheerleader(pun intended).


At AIT I was also for 3 years a part of a wonderful group called the Mag Board which did all sorts of stuff such as treasure hunts, betting rings, V day dress codes, fun notice boards , etc. Oh, there was also a magazine somewhere. When I attended the first meeting I was flabbergasted. I thought I was in the wrong place for I was surrounded by these awesomely glib talkers. And I was shy. But it was a challenge that I took up and I survived. The highest moment came in my third year of engineering when I became the Mag Board Secretary of my batch. It was a culmination of hard-work and
creativity.


And after my engineering I have worked for three years where I have been recognized as a great employee. But my confidence and creativity still spills from the time when I was young and unafraid.

Mental block

So I havent blogged for a long time right no.

The reason is that I have been in a great tumult trying to decide what to write and how.

And then just plain laziness . However I am back now.

Its a new academic year, the MBA has finally started

Sweet memories

To the Indians Who Died in Africa

by T. S. Eliot

A man's destination is his own village,
His own fire, and his wife's cooking;
To sit in front of his own door at sunset
And see his grandson, and his neighbour's grandson
Playing in the dust together.


Scarred but secure, he has many memories
Which return at the hour of conversation,
(The warm or the cool hour, according to the climate)
Of foreign men, who fought in foreign places,
Foreign to each other.



A man's destination is not his destiny,
Every country is home to one man
And exile to another. Where a man dies bravely
At one with his destiny, that soil is his.
Let his village remember.



This was not your land, or ours: but a village in the Midlands,
And one in the Five Rivers, may have the same graveyard.
Let those who go home tell the same story of you:
Of action with a common purpose, action
None the less fruitful if neither you nor we
Know, until the judgement after death,
What is the fruit of action.

Eliot, T. S. "To the Indians Who Died in Africa." Collected Poems 1909-1962.

Psst:- This is a poem that I recited during the annual elocution contest in my school days.

Every second year a new English teacher used to think that because I had excellent spoken , I would naturally excel on stage and thus would nominate me for the elocution. And I would do it in style-forget my lines, mumble on staged, be booed off stage, be clapped off early and so on and so forth. And this happened year after year at contest after contest.

Of course it helped and my stage fright actually vanished when I entered college. Leaving behind many embarrassing memories littered on the shores of my mind.

Thats the reason when my batch mates sometimes compliment for my good communication skills( If I may say so), I cant help but smile over the past.

Anyway this is a poem I recited in class 8th or 7th and blew up spectacularly. However some disjointed verse remained fixed in my mind and since I had forgotten the title I could do little to find the whole poem. Was delighted when I managed to google it some time back and I now share it.

Enjoy the lines.


I find the third para very moving and deep.

Updates

So the wait is over but the harder part remains.

In the MBA season of 2010-11 , I got what I desired. It started when I got a call from FMS where of the 65000 people only 500 general category students are finally given an interview chance. FMS was in my list of to 6 MBA colleges.

Then came CAT 2010 and I got an overall percentile score of 99.80. This ensured that I got calls from some of the IIMs that I so desire. The surprise factor was that I got rejected from a few IIMs because of m engineering acads but thats life.

And then the season ended with the results of XAT. To even my surprise, I score 99.98 percentile in an exam which was seen as the toughest of the season. And I have a call from XLRI BM program which I applied for.

I havent blogged in a long long time. The reasons have been many

• I have been busy. Lame excuse
• Procrastination-better.
• The actual reason is I have been thinking a lot what I want to blog upon. I want to restart the book that I have been working on so there has been some musings there. Then more importantly, I want to discuss politics and more controversial topics. The trouble is politics, sex and religion are not supposed to discussed for exactly one reason. People get agitated. And this blog is too personal. So , I have brought some domain space and shall also be blogging there.

The IIM interviews lie ahead. Please wish me luck.

Love-IS IT WORTH IT ALL!!

I have in my writings and poems long debated about the existence of love; at times doubted it, some other times accepted it, at moments slandered its power but have most of the time been simply awed and dazed by an emotion so strong;humbled by the strength it endows a person.

Indeed perhaps one of the best kept secrets in modern day H.R. texts is that there is no stronger motivation than love or its antithesis -hate. Love has the strength to drive us further than we believed possible. In the name of love generations before us and generations after us will continue to make unbelievably altruistic sacrifices. So the company that can create love within its employees for itself, has gained a band of loyal followers that will stick behind it like a rock. But to create that love is supremely difficult and that is why strategies such as this are not thought for employees. Maximum HRs could hope for a sense of belonging and loyalty.

The anti thesis hate is a dark emotion that can equally stir up deep feelings. Indeed if love is an emotion that can make us do good, hate can make us do the biggest wrong. But enough. This post is about love and hate shall be added to the list of potential future topics.

Anyway the paradox is this most cultures value love but in many cultures love can often be forbidden and a sin in some forms. As a person who broke his heart and from the broken pieces found poetry flowing, love is a central theme. Also as an Indian where love is celebrated and cheered by the societies in the movies but when a guy goes around with a girl in real life, it is frowned upon. Indeed India is a land where arranged marriages are seen by parents as a duty to their wards and love marriages are a immoral, corrupting force destroying society.

But we are humans and our emotions are not in control. As a poet put it
" Aag ka kya hai pal do pal mein lagti hai,
Bujhte bujhte ek zamaana lagta hain."
(love is like a fire which can flare up in a moments but to die out or extinguish it takes a hole era)

Anyway my question is this does magical love exists. In fact have a look at "Walk The Line", a biopic movie about the singers Johnny Cash and June Cash. They were married to others when they met, johnny won her over after a lot of efforts and they were happily married for 35 years raising kids, playing music and died withing three months of each other. Is not that love that can be envied.

So does love matter and does true love exists