Something about her

Another Haiku :P

"Its something about her,
Magical, mysterious, beautiful, elegant and heavenly,
That Every time I see her , I fall for her again."

Postscript- Its the tragedy of our lives being unable to see the woods for the trees. Of feeling lonely in a crowd. But thats us!!

The only way to defeat brute force is to overpower it with a stronger one.

The only way to defeat brute force is to overpower it with a stronger one.

So there was this Debate competition where I had to submit a write up for both ends of the argument. This is my submission. I did not get shortlisted but I still think I submitted a great entry.

A) FOR THE TOPIC

“I do not believe in a supernatural basis for evil. Human beings have the capacity to commit  the most depraved of acts on fellow human beings”. The quote summarizes the evil in the world around us. In our cocoons, we shut ourselves away from the fact that there are evil people around us and mistakenly believe the world is all civil and nice to each other. 

But once in a while, evil  becomes a force united by an army of hundreds that can roll through nations brutally destroying everything they comes across.

The armies of Nazi Germany were such a force, so was the regime of Pol Pot and in the same league were the murderous Japanese forces who brutalized every nation they conquered in World War 2.

So what does one do when confronted by such a great evil. An evil that will listen to no  reason and will show no mercy.

The answer is simple- “Reply back with a greater force!”

History shows us that only defeats in the battle fields turn back conquering armies. When met with a greater force , even evil will ask for mercy and turn back. To wait for the empires of evil to collapse on their own, is to let the world be as it is and let innocents suffer. The regime of Khmer Rouge was finally defeated by an invasion by a neighbouring country. But that was too late for more than one and a half million people who had by then been shot and just left to rot in the killing fields of Cambodia. Those fields still stand today as a testament to the evil of humans. In the time that it took for the Nazi empire to be defeated by the Allied powers, over 5 million people were butchered in gas chambers and concentration camps.

Imagine if these empires had survived or flourished? The world would have been a very ugly place today.

Of course war is never a good act. The replying force is also as brutal as the evil they seek to vanquish. The Allies indiscriminately bombed the German civilian population , bombing entire cities to dust. And once they won the war, the Germans were placed in a blockade where the average nutrition per German citizen was restricted to near starvation levels. Imagine starving the entire population of a country just because the earlier dictator of the country chooses to go to war. The Allies never stopped at that of course- Germany was divided among two countries, entire industries were dismantled and the equipment shipped to America and Germans were told that they would be paying an annual compensation for the war for the next 20 years. 

In the end it is the victor who writes the history but we must believe there is something called a ‘just war’. Barack Obama , the president of the United States of America focused on this in his Noble Peace Prize acceptance speech to justify the contradiction between peace and the war in Afghanistan.

B) AGAINST THE TOPIC

“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.” Voltaire in this quote states what we all know- there is no just war and there are no benevolent liberators. The soldiers of war are just glorified murderers.

There are multiple justifications for war. No nation goes to war as the aggressor rather they paint themselves as the victims forced to act in their self defense. The other nation is always portrayed as evil, dysfunctional or just simply a mortal enemy. Violence is always masked by myths that lend it moral legitimacy, and these myths for the most part kept people from recognizing the violence for what it was.  

However the truth is that there are no just wars. Each war is as brutal as the other. Innocents die even when a population is bombed by predator drones using laser guided bombs or carpet bombed by B-52 fortress bombers. Battle weary soldiers see no difference between civilians and enemies. In all wars the local population has also been massacared.

So what do you do when faced with a brutal force? Do you give in and accept humiliation in the hope of surviving. 

No, I believe every evil force in the world must be resisted. It has to be resisted with  non-violence in the great traditions of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. There can be no violence.  To fight fire with fire is to just create a larger fire which will destroy everything around. Martin Luther King said that the trouble with violence is that it’s a cycle that destroys the creator himself. We can see the example of the same in India itself where Indira Gandhi as the Prime Minister encouraged Bhindrawale’s violent extremism to gain political mileage in Punjab. Later when Bhindrawale  went out of her control and violence ravaged Punjab, the army was sent into the Golden Temple and Bhindrawale was killed. Indira Gandhi herself was killed by her Sikh bodyguards who were enraged by the perceived desecration of the Golden Temple. The cycle of violence was complete. 

India’s freedom struggle is the greatest example of a brutal force defeated by peaceful means. The British empire was no less brutal or no less powerful than any evil that humans have known. Protestors were beaten, imprisoned, exiled and sentenced to death if they could be. An Indian was considered inferior to a white person. It did not matter how many Indians were killed, the British Empire was to reign supreme. Yet it was just one man who was derided once as a naked fakir(beggar) who brought this force to the negotiating table. Mahatma Gandhi won our freedom and our eternal gratitude without the mass bloodshed that has characterized freedom struggles the world over.

Nelson Mandela succeeded in ending apartheid in South Africa only when he agreed to non violence and sat down to negotiate with the evil force. 

And just last week Sudan, peacefully partitioned into two nations just on the basis on negotiations that many said needed a NATO war to stop the genocide in Darfur.

If it could work with a dictator like Bashir, a brutal empire like the British and the philosophy of white supremacism , I believe non violence in various forms can defeat any brutal force in the world.

Haiku

Her long tresses like beautiful thunder clouds,
Frequently tied back yet when free
Cascade around her shimmering like visions of paradise.

PS This is a line I have been trying to pen for three days. Still haven't perfected but Haiku makes you choose what to say. As of now I could write an epic on the dark tresses.

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