YAWN (Yet Another WeekeNd!)

Had a pretty relaxing weekend this. Some of our close relations from the US had come down, and it was nice meeting them after a long time. Unlike friends, sometimes you take your relatives for granted and may not make an effort to keep in touch with them, knowing fully well that there is always a function / event / ceremony round the corner for all of you to meet up. But then, you find it equally difficult to connect with them during those times, just because there is hardly any common ground. Beyond the initial pleasantries, all you end up talking about is current affairs, weather, traffic. The rest of the conversation that happens between older folks involves talking about people that you may never have heard about, nor you are particularly interested in knowing about! Plus with your cousins (and again it depends upon how close you are to them…but still), its rare that you would open up to them in the same way as you do with your close buddies.   

 

Started re-reading this book that I have called ‘The Long Tail’ by Chris Anderson. I first read this book sometime a couple of years back and it gave a whole lot of crazy ideas to that entreprenuerial bug in me. I ended up interacting with a couple of my alumni (some well known names) and sharing my ideas with them. But then, beyond the ideation stage, i really didnt take it anywhere. Reason being that I myself was not fully confident about my ideas. As soon as I was shown possible ‘loopholes’, my interest started dwindling. I spoke about this to people and got mixed feedback. Some said you shouldnt give up too early, while others said that its good that you are not emotionally attached to your ideas and are open to different perspectives on it.  Sometime back I had blogged about entrerprenuership and concluded that its really about passion rather than just an idea, whr the chances of success for an entreprenuer are high.

 

Anyway, coming back to the book – The theme is that basically we are moving away from a culture of ‘hits’ or ‘blockbusters’  to a time where ‘non-hits’ or ‘niches’ are also equally, if not more, important. This is what the author refers to as the Long Tail – and applicable in multiple places, especially stuff that can be digitized & distributed easily. Highly recommended reading to anyone – buy a copy today, its one of those collectibles you should have on your shelf.  

 

Also saw the movie Dostana. I was so glad that I didnt insist that my friends should see it. Though i found the movie to be good tp, i knew that they would have cursed me no end, had i forced them along. Of the three blokes (Abhishek, John, Bobby) – Abhishek is the pick of the lot as far as acting skills go & Priyanka looks a million bucks alright. The Priyanka – Bobby getting together is not very convincing at all, KJo certainly needed a better star or actor to do that bit – and it needed to be a well etched character for the audience to think she ends up with the right guy, instead they ended up portraying him as the daddy of a 5 yr old whose wife left him, and with hardly any physical or intellectual appeal! I loved the part where Abhishek gifts her a book with their pics, and as they browse through it together, he ends up saying that the best moment is not in there …because the best moment is now, and ends up taking a polaroid of them and giving it to Priyanka. That’s a potentially reusable scene sometime in life!

 

Finally ended up watching our 11 men in blue beat England once again! MSD is on a roll, and there is this rare combination of style & substance in that man that makes him the effective leader that he is perceived to be. The match today brought back memories of 20-20, and with the Champions league 20-20 around the corner – it was a good appetizer for sure! 

Tuesdays with Morrie

I was reading a book called Tuesdays with Morrie. The book is narrated by Mitch, a very succesful sports writer who one fine day discovers through a TV program that his professor, a guy called Morrie, is dying. He remembers the time he had spent several years ago with his prof, when he was in college, and a promise to always be in touch which hadnt kept. He decides to pay a visit to his prof, and the rest of the book is about the many ‘Tuesdays’ that he spends with Morrie prior to his death. Each Tuesday is a lesson on one aspect of life, be it regrets, marraige, emotions, death and so on…

 

I was thinking…there are so many things in life that one can learn through experience only. Even if one is given ‘wisdom’ by wise & experienced people, one can never truly understand the meaning/significance of it unless one has gone through it.

Sometimes one is fortunate enough to get the experience ‘right’ the first time. But mostly, when you find yourself on the wrong side of stuff, it also helps. As a friend of mine was telling the other day, sometimes bad things that happen to you are not necessarily bad, for they help you truly understand the importance & appreciate the good things when they happen.

Dasvidaniyan Review

This weekend was all about choices. There was the choice of 2 interesting movies and a very interesting play. I was keen on watching Dasvidaniyan at the beginning of this week, but the good Dostana reviews and the fact that I did not want to see anything ‘heavy’ this weekend meant that i was open to other options as well!

 

After about 5 conference calls, umpteen changes in venue and time & despite my best efforts to market Karan Johar to Manny (just his creative ability of course!), we finally finalized on Dasvidaniyan. We were going to this place for the first time – PVR at the Oberoi mall in Goregaon(W)…it was a pretty big mall with the usual fast food chains and apparel brands jostling for space and eyeballs

 

Now about Dasvidaniyan…

It was a  very senti kind of subject, handled in a very non-senti relatable way!

The protagonist is 37 yr old Amar Kaul (played by Vinay Pathak) who leads a very boring life. The guy is a bachelor, a teetotaler and someone who always gets bullied around by people around him. He has a ‘to-do’ notepad, each sheet of which can contain 10 ‘action items’. Every morning, the bloke gets up and religiously fills up a to-do sheet with stuff like repair the geyser, change the battery and buy vegetables! This sums up his existence

And then, one day his doctor tells him that he is suffering from cancer and has only 3 months to live. First, he obviously gets totally shattered, but then he comes to terms with it and decides to write to convert his to-do list into a wishlist of 10 things to be done before he dies. This includes stuff like getting back at his boss, getting in touch with his near & dear ones, learning the guitar, finding love, a new car and a foreign trip! The rest of the story is how he completes his final to-do list, and in the process lives his life to the fullest.

Vinay Pathak essayed his character very well, and the rest of the actors also chipped in with good performances. Neha Dhupia was a surprise package, doing her bit role well. Some of the scenes stood out, especially the one where Amar tells Neha that he has always loved her (this is inspired from a brilliant scene from the English movie ‘Love Actually’, but full marks to the director for doing full justice to this one!)

Finally, the film has an important message – that life is unpredictable (Kal Ho Na Ho), so live it to the fullest and dont postpone doing your wish list for another day. It also reminded me of a line from Bunty & Babli which was something like this that there are two kinds of people in this world – one who spend their entire lifetime doing the same thing, and one who does all possible things in a single lifetime! Yes, there are circumstances & realities which may force people to follow path 1, but always remember that LIFE is just a ‘perspective’ away J

(Image Source: http://www.dasvidaniyan.in)

Roger that…Federer says…’brb’

 

As much as this country is crazy about cricket and its 11 men, i would like to inconsequentially add that there is nothing more delightful than watching two men almost gladiatorially going head to head in that non-contact sport of tennis. To triumph in that game, you have to be the ultimate athlete – a lethal combination of power, agility, stamina & of course dollops of precision talent.

 

And to most fans of tennis, Roger Federer is God! He is the kind of champion everyone wants to be. His utter dominance of the game made tennis paradoxically beautiful & boring at the same time. The beauty was in the tennis, the bore was the result – ever so predictably in favour of the champion. Not that his fans (me included!) would settle for anything else! I have seen that kind of paradox & dominance before – in the driving of a man called Michael Schumacher. But unlike Schumi who has a very polarized ‘following’ (you either love him or hate him), its just next to impossible to hate Federer! Because what stands out for him is his dignified presence, both on and off the court. Comparisons are drawn with Bjorn Borg – the Swedish iceman champ whose reign on grass has since been emulated by only two other men, Sampras and Federer himself. But while the Swede was anything but emotional, Roger is an emotional man – his tears of joy after almost every grand slam win being a testament to his softer side. And this makes his dignified & respectful demeanor during court play stand out even more. His counterpart Safin is a live case study of what injustice emotions could do to talent!

 

But the recent past has left many a Federer fan concerned. The year gone by has been his worst – he won only the US open, and he ended up being beaten by someone called Simon (yaah..Simon who?!). But only Federer would know what it must have felt like to lose to Nadal at Wimbledon. The more practical fan base would reason through it – saying that its natural that what goes up has to come down, & nothing is perpetual – be it man or machine. That it wasn’t Federer’s fittest year and he was plagued by ill-health is also a known fact.

 

But every dark cloud has a silver lining. And no champion story is complete without a dream comeback from the pits, be it Amitabh Bachchan or Michael Jordan. So as Federer hangs up his boots temporarily at the end of this season and looks out at the snow capped peaks of the Alps from his condo in Basel, one wishes him a speedy recovery to the top of a summit that was never his bastion – the biggest mountain of clay beyond the Jura ranges, in Paris……Roger Federer, Champion, French Open Roland Garros 2009…Amen!

(Image Source: http://www.topnews.in)

Multitasking!

I was talking to this friend of mine. And the topic of discussion was multi-tasking. She was saying that multi-tasking is something that comes naturally to her (and by extension to all girls). When I first thought about it, i was like…yaah…i am pretty bad at multi-tasking in any environment (home or office)….i usually like to stick to the task….its a different matter that I never even manage to complete even that one task, and move on to the next! J

 

But on further thought, I decided to give it a shot. I mean – we guys are not going to be left behind are we?? With this noble intention of furthering the exploits of ‘man’kind in mind, I sat down to write all the stuff that I could possibly multi-task with. I set certain ground rules for the multi-tasking drama (tech geeks would also know this as parallel processing)….the funda being that i need to return/pay attention to every task on the list once at least every 30 sec…

 

With these ground rules laid, I sat down to jot down the potential list of stuff that I could multi-task with..

1. Writing a blog post

2. Chatting

3. Surfing

4. Talking on the phone

5. Watching TV

6. Listening to a song

7. Eating food

8. Reading a book

 

This is what happened in the next 5 min….

 

Charlie Check 123, Charlie Check 123

Comp started – check

Broadband connected – check

TV put on – check

Mobile charged – check

Maggi noodles garma garam – check

 

Let the MT (Multi Tasking) begin…….

 

Typed the url” “www.wordpress.com” and logged in

 

Started the latest SRK-Sukhwinder song : “Haule Haule..” (Reader tip: Everytime you see the song mentioned here below, sing with the tune ‘Haule Haule’)

 

Channel selected: Star sports…and mute button on

 

Saw A(a friend who is a boy) online and pinged : “u there”

 

P(a friend who is a girl) pings: “hi”

 

Took my cell and dialled N’s number to fix up a plan for tomorrow; hear his caller tune “Main Aisa Kyon hoon!..’

 

Typed the url “www.rediff.com” and clicked on Dostana review!

 

 

 

Song Playing: “Haule Haule..”

 

 

 

I take a forkful of Hot noodles…

 

N picks up the phone, says in his deep baritone “Hullo”

 

Me tries to respond “Hey!”, but with garam noodles & Haule Haule for company, N hears it as “Gay!?”

 

N (sounding somewhat amused) “Gay???….I know Dostana is getting released…but WTF was that?”

 

P who pinged me 40 seconds back, is getting a bit anxious – “what are u doing?”

 

 

 

Song Playiing: “Haule Haule..”

 

 

 

Federer makes an amazing down the line return…I instinctively exclaim the F word

 

Unfortunately N hears it properly (hell whr were the noodles this time!!) and says (sounding in a little foul mood now): “Are you all right?”

 

I finish typing another sentence on my blog post & do the Alt tab to go to the Dostana review

 

Meanwhile, I realize N is waiting for my response & my mistake earlier, take another forkful of noodles and quickly respond “Just a sec yaar”

 

N (who hands I can feel coming out of the phone and reaching for my throat) :”Gay? F? S*x?….are u out of your mind?”

 

 

Song Playing: “Haule Haule..”

 

 

I realize i havent responded to P, generally quickly type – “Those earrings looked good on you” (always give a girl a compliment to buy some time!)..and press enter

 

I realize again…that by mistake I have sent the message to A!

 

Meanwhile its N (who is like 6 feet by 6 feet) on the phone again “#$#$% meet me tomorrow”, while I see through the corner of my eyes, three other developments

1. A, who has been silent all this while, is now typing ‘ferociously’ (gtalk can come up with something like this)

2. P is saying ‘Why arent you replying?”

3. Federer getting beaten up

 

I quickly respond to P “Just a sec” (that cant be misinterpreted here!), continue typing my blog post & munching my noodles (which are no longer garam)

 

 

Song just about Finishing: “Haule Haule..”

 

 

P types “ek second ho gaya! J“

 

A types “#$%^&&##$%^&$$##@$%^&&” 

 

C (N’s girlfriend) SMSes me “#$%^^$@#$%^^##%”

 

Federer loses yet again…

 

The noodles are now too cold to be consumed…

 

And that moment I look at this book in front of me called “101 Ways to 102 Tasks – The Art of Multi-tasking”which I havent even opened…

 

 

Song Finishes: “Haaaule Haaaaule..”

 

 

So Ladies & Gentlemen……I have learnt my lesson!…i dunno about guys vs. girls…but I know my limitations!…so now only one task at a time…and that too “Haule Haule” J

Anybody Home?

Havent posted anything for a couple of days…but i checked stat counter and there was not even a SINGLE VISITOR to my blog today the whole day! Probably the first time that its happened…How disappointing!

Maybe its a sign that I should stop blogging…

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Good in a Room

I have caught the reading bug once again. There was a time when I used to be a voracious reader, but then things changed and I became more of a comp / TV junkie with shorter attention spans!

 

Anyway, so i am reading this book called ‘Good in a Room’. Its written by a former Hollywood studio executive who also runs a company by that name – and its about how to pitch ideas really well. The more novel the idea, the harder is the pitch – simply because decision makers also have the couch potato syndrome. What they lack in physical movement is substituted by treating the remote control like a grand piano. If your pitch doesnt catch their attention, they will simply change the channel (read:show you the door!)

 

The author starts off by saying something interesting – that when someone with a great idea doesnt pitch it effectively, it not only hurts the ‘pitcher’, but all of us as well – reason being that then mediocre ideas will then get bought and implemented and superior ideas will lie somewhr undusted!

 

Just as in personality types (my previous post), the author here talks about the 4 kinds of pitchers that are around. But the classification here is more professional than behavioral

1. Corporate: (sales folks, managers, executives)

2. Entreprenuer: (business owners, inventors)

3. Experts (professionals like lawyers, consultants)

4. Creative people: (writers, artists)

 

To be an effective pitcher in any of these 4 areas, you need to develop the following traits / habits

 

1. Likeability: The author equates likeability here to two factors – empathy and interest. Empathy means that you care and interest means that you want to know the person (in this case the buyer of your idea) better. Once the person on the other side starts liking you, he or she wants to see you succeed! The author says that for someone to develop likeability for you, you have to have genuine personal warmth and connect. You just cannot fake it, the bluff gets called more often than not!

 

2. Knowledge: Knowing a little about the buyer’s environment goes a long way in making conversation that the buyer can connect with, and a much needed common ground of talk

 

3. Be Different: Positioning yourself in a different light goes a long way, especially if you the underdog. Just know who your competition is, and then dont do anything like how your competition does it – do it your way. Sometimes being the underdog can be advantageous

 

4. Make it Easy for the Buyer: These are things like scheduling meetings based on the buyer’s convenience, arriving early, having your materials and presentation ready, being receptive to his/her suggestions and finally even leaving early if possible so that the buyer has time to act on your request!

 

5. Quiet Confidence: Confucius says “If you are willing to die, its easier to live”. Basically the message is that if you are detached from the outcome of the meeting, chances are that you will achieve more in that meeting.

 

I think I am pretty ok on points 1 and 4.

2 and 3 need to improve significantly.

And 5…well I really dont know…depends on the day i guess!

 

 

Are you a PC, PM, PS or PP?

I am reading a book on Personality Types currently!

 

There are 4 types of personalities

1. Popular Sanguine (PS)

2. Powerful Choleric (PC)

3. Perfect Melancholy (PM)

4. Peaceful Phlegmatic (PP)

 

Initially, you have to give a test and answer some 40 odd questions to understand your personality type. When I gave this test, my overwhelmingly dominant personality type came out to be Peaceful Phlegmatic (PP)!

 

So I opened the chapters on PP’s and decided to have a look at what it said! And it was interesting to see what it said!

 

So what are PP’s?

They r chilled out, easy going, calm, cool, patient, happy, easy to get along with, good listeners and have plenty of friends!

 

I am a lot of what the book said about PP’s, so I agree about the assessment. The book is interesting giving anecdotes about friends, siblings, parent-child & husband-wife relationships and how different personality types reacted in different types of situations!

 

I think the PP personality is pretty cool and i am happy being one! To say the least, it was a very ‘feel good’ experience reading it!

 

I thought about the few interesting people in my life so far, and where I would slot them – i thought it would give me some insight about myself! . I came out with a ’shortlist’ of 12 (that’s my lucky number). Slotting some was real easy (it was too obvious!) while slotting others was tough. One of the overall observations was that they all got equally split into the 4 categories! (three in each category).

 

Hmm…interesting!

Kiss me Baby!!

Today was undoubtedly the biggest day of my corporate career! In a time when corporate spending is coming down due to recessionary fears, impact on orders is being felt and people defering their decisions, I cracked one really big deal. And for a change, I am going to use ‘I’ instead of ‘We’. I am a team player with genuine regard for people, and whenever you hear me speak or write something in a team context (as is often the case in most professional endeavours), I will use the word ‘we’, especially when it comes to getting credit! But not today…call it arrogance, call it whatever…but this was my BABY! I learnt what follow-up meant, i learnt what co-ordination meant, I learnt(once again!) how being honest & transparent goes a long way(not that I would have it any other way!)..and I learnt (again once again!) that sometimes I am just too damn good

 

Kiss me Baaaeebbbyyyyy…..