I just finished a very interesting and fulfilling discussion with a colleague of mine. It may specially engross my friends who have been diligently making their way through the every evolving 'corporate' culture in our great nation. Though, I continue to remain and work as an eternal optimist but I thought it would be worth sharing my observations about this "Yes Sir" obsession of ours.
To begin with, one may ask - who does it? I say, everyone. From the lowest levels at the operational level to the top most position at strategic levels, we are all but used to affirming without thinking to whatever is told to us...and those who don't are more often than not kept at a distance - that too i presume by choice!
The next step is - when do we do it? All the time I say!!! After all, bad habits die hard, specially things that have been become such an ingrained part of our blood streams. Enough said on this because we will be re-addressing this part in our next section again.
My favorite question has always been 'Why' because it always lets you explore the situation in depth and lets your imagination run wild. There are several reasons that you can attribute to this characteristic of ours. Some of the ones that i felt were more relevant were our culture, our upbringing and definitely the environment around us. I admit that all these are not necessarily mutually exclusive and are as difficult to un-intertwine as the chicken and egg riddle.
Our culture has always taught us to respect our elders (and I am sure that all cultures preach the same), but I think that we happen to a little overboard with it. Does respect come at the cost of freedom of speech and thought? Should it?
Our upbringing from day one has been quite disciplined, be that at home or at school. However, this discipline has strangely extended to the extent that we lost our inquisitiveness. What I mean to say is that the characteristic of questioning has been systematically drawn out of us. Do you recall the time during your school days when you were shunned out by the teacher for questioning what was being taught? How he/she never realized what seeds were being sown? Unfortunately but expectantly, that ability or rather inability has percolated so deep down that we continue to practice it even today. It is no surprise that everyone would remain mum when someone senior tells you a certain menial task, everyone knows that it would not going benefit anyone, but silence would continue to pervade.
If one adopts a more microscopic look, they are sure to discover that the root cause for the above is the fact that none of us are used to give feedback and/or receive it. Both are equally important and bear an enduring relationship with one another. One does not give feedback fearing that the same may be un-welcomed thereby suppressing the reality and facts to surface. And if someone does muster the courage to get your views across, the other person may not necessarily take it in right spirit. As I read somewhere, the reaction to follow is SARA* (first shock, then anger, rationalization to justify the same and if you are lucky, acceptance). I know everyone has the indispensable feeling of self and ego, but not at the cost of hindrance to openness. It is here that I, on occasions, subscribe to the American culture of frankness - say what you have in mind without fearing for the consequences. To take things forward in our Indian corporate culture, we need leaders and people who not only preach such openness but do practice the same in reality. I am sure that the time is round the corner for this evolution.
Feedback is welcomed!
* I don't recall the source for this but my thanks and acknowledgment to the author of the same
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
The Quintessential 'Delhite'
All of us tend to associate ourselves with a certain clan of people around us. It is nothing but natural, specially for a person being brought up in a country as diverse as India. This uncanny knack of segmentation, although may be attributed to the rich diversity to a justifiable extent, but a more sophisticated social will not differ when I say that it has been passed onto us from our forefathers and to them by theirs and so on. Now that we do accept this reality (and I am sure that you do too), it is not queer if I remark that all of us have been met with the question "where are you from". A simple question for many yet a complicated one for few, including me.
I'll not try to portray myself as an iconoclast but traditions and values are something that are being treated as lip service in the present times. I, for one believe that there is no inane culture that a child is born with. Rather, it is her surroundings and the dynamics around her that define what thought process she develops and what culture she wishes to prescribes to.
Incoherent as it may sound like but the above two thoughts have forsaken me to explore the culture of Delhi.
Though I wasn't born in Delhi, I have spent a very significant part of my life growing, exposing myself to its vagaries and witnessing the ever evolving face of this cynosure. Being the national capital of a nation home to a billion, one would expect that the most opportune times and conditions would exist in this city. Perhaps, this is the pivotal reason for why there are hundreds and hundreds of new faces flocking the city every day. And here lies the root of my dilemma!
What constitutes the culture of Delhi? Who is this elusive but quintessential Delhite? Where would I find this pristine soul?
To answer my first question, for a city which witnesses its borders expanding faster than the speed of light and enlightening hopes in millions that have to come to call it home , the city is aptly called the Mini India. From the Punjabi Baghs to the CR Parks, from the Shahdaras to the RK Purams and from the Chandni Chowks to the CPs, the city has witnessed all there is to see in the entire country - you name it and you got it! Starting from the A for Architecture to P for People, Delhi will give you a varying face of India for every alphabet that the English language has to offer.
As I move on to my second question, I have a series of thousand faces that is running in my head and yet I cannot affix anyone of them to as the 'Delhite'. My rendition of a Delhite ranges from that young child who is resistingly getting on his school bus, the teenager who is practicing hard at National Stadium to get in a cricket team, a college going boy and girl who meet everyday in the DTC (and hopefully now the Metro), the office going folks snailing their way restlessly for hours in the gruelling Delhi Traffic and the unforgettable Dada's and Dadi's taking their evening walks. Yet this Delhite remains elusive.
Last but not the least, as I yearn to conclude this post, I am left with the most difficult question of all to answer - where to find this soul? Its been 18 years in search of this answer. By the looks of things, may be another lifetime will not suffice. May be because that this person is everywhere, in each one of us yet it happens to be light years away from being conspicuous.
Perhaps, it is that person in the mirror or may be the one reading this...I don't know.
Finders keepers.
and yes you, the Delhite, yes you there, I know it is Dilli and not Delhi!!! After all, I am a Delhite too...
I'll not try to portray myself as an iconoclast but traditions and values are something that are being treated as lip service in the present times. I, for one believe that there is no inane culture that a child is born with. Rather, it is her surroundings and the dynamics around her that define what thought process she develops and what culture she wishes to prescribes to.
Incoherent as it may sound like but the above two thoughts have forsaken me to explore the culture of Delhi.
Though I wasn't born in Delhi, I have spent a very significant part of my life growing, exposing myself to its vagaries and witnessing the ever evolving face of this cynosure. Being the national capital of a nation home to a billion, one would expect that the most opportune times and conditions would exist in this city. Perhaps, this is the pivotal reason for why there are hundreds and hundreds of new faces flocking the city every day. And here lies the root of my dilemma!
What constitutes the culture of Delhi? Who is this elusive but quintessential Delhite? Where would I find this pristine soul?
To answer my first question, for a city which witnesses its borders expanding faster than the speed of light and enlightening hopes in millions that have to come to call it home , the city is aptly called the Mini India. From the Punjabi Baghs to the CR Parks, from the Shahdaras to the RK Purams and from the Chandni Chowks to the CPs, the city has witnessed all there is to see in the entire country - you name it and you got it! Starting from the A for Architecture to P for People, Delhi will give you a varying face of India for every alphabet that the English language has to offer.
As I move on to my second question, I have a series of thousand faces that is running in my head and yet I cannot affix anyone of them to as the 'Delhite'. My rendition of a Delhite ranges from that young child who is resistingly getting on his school bus, the teenager who is practicing hard at National Stadium to get in a cricket team, a college going boy and girl who meet everyday in the DTC (and hopefully now the Metro), the office going folks snailing their way restlessly for hours in the gruelling Delhi Traffic and the unforgettable Dada's and Dadi's taking their evening walks. Yet this Delhite remains elusive.
Last but not the least, as I yearn to conclude this post, I am left with the most difficult question of all to answer - where to find this soul? Its been 18 years in search of this answer. By the looks of things, may be another lifetime will not suffice. May be because that this person is everywhere, in each one of us yet it happens to be light years away from being conspicuous.
Perhaps, it is that person in the mirror or may be the one reading this...I don't know.
Finders keepers.
and yes you, the Delhite, yes you there, I know it is Dilli and not Delhi!!! After all, I am a Delhite too...
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Life...or something like it
Science calls it a Probability, the Believers call it a Miracle and The Verve calls it a Bittersweet Symphony. I am sure that you have your outlandish reasons for calling Life by whatever name you have chosen - all interesting ones at that too. But going by what I have come to experience of it so far, I can't conjure a better term to describe this fascinating journey of a few decades - CONTRADICTION.
It may not always hit you straight in the head but believe me, sooner or later, when it dawns upon you, the part of your brain controlling your emotions goes into overdrive only to be followed by a trail of thought best construed by that person in the mirror. One prime example of why I chose to describe life as a contradiction happens to be the radically opposite stages when we possess things that we wished for and the otherwise. Think of when you were a college going sophomore wishing to do away with the irrelevant education that you would be exposing yourself to. Rather you wanted to have access to all the worldly possessions and thought that working as adults do was a far more saner option. But hold your horses! Now that you have spent the last few years enslaving your thoughts and efforts to someone elses pocket, you wished that you were always a free bird that you once were...
To take things further along (and no I don't intend to rub it in), some years hence, you are a head honcho or the successful person you always wanted to be. You have what you always wanted as that young sophomore years back. But life being the contradiction it is, comes around a full circle. Those material obsessions now don't even give you the merest of quantum of enjoyment that they could have years ago. To make matters worse, where are all those people who could have made all this worthwhile. Yes you are what you wished for. But then why doesn't it give you that cherubic joy that you thought that it would.
Life is a contradiction!!!
What say???
It may not always hit you straight in the head but believe me, sooner or later, when it dawns upon you, the part of your brain controlling your emotions goes into overdrive only to be followed by a trail of thought best construed by that person in the mirror. One prime example of why I chose to describe life as a contradiction happens to be the radically opposite stages when we possess things that we wished for and the otherwise. Think of when you were a college going sophomore wishing to do away with the irrelevant education that you would be exposing yourself to. Rather you wanted to have access to all the worldly possessions and thought that working as adults do was a far more saner option. But hold your horses! Now that you have spent the last few years enslaving your thoughts and efforts to someone elses pocket, you wished that you were always a free bird that you once were...
To take things further along (and no I don't intend to rub it in), some years hence, you are a head honcho or the successful person you always wanted to be. You have what you always wanted as that young sophomore years back. But life being the contradiction it is, comes around a full circle. Those material obsessions now don't even give you the merest of quantum of enjoyment that they could have years ago. To make matters worse, where are all those people who could have made all this worthwhile. Yes you are what you wished for. But then why doesn't it give you that cherubic joy that you thought that it would.
Life is a contradiction!!!
What say???
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