The Blues of The Blue Men!

My interpretations for the well-deserved thrashing the "boys" received after the hard "practice sessions" (read monumental endorsements from Cola and Company)..welcome home guys. You deserve some rest before the next round of start-camera-aktion!





(Done with my new cool tool - the i-ball notebook; seems there is some major problem with (1) either my handwriting as interpreted by the recognition software and/or (2) with the software. I hope the latter is to blame. :-)
Am going thru. some major change - more on that, later post.

The Death-Penalty: The Death of Propriety???

Each time a death sentence is announced, I contemplate on the propriety of the "CP" (capital punishment). As the wise-man said, "an eye for an eye, leaves the whole world blind". The whole flaw in the CP is the inability of a civilian state to pass off snuffing out a life as logical to natural justice schemes. Think about this objectively: How is the state different from the Taliban rejime if it deems appropriate to play exterminator. This thought, may i reiterate, in no way, is to ascribe higher values to the perpetrator of the crime; on the other hand, the intention is only to emphasise the barbarian angle to the act.
Try this experiment: Find a friend who would assured not deviate from a promise; get him to promise to hit you hard tomorrow morning at exactly 10 am. Now, try being peaceful for the remaining part of the day. Goes with saying that, the surety of the occurence of this act, would be inversely proportional to your mindframe till the event. I am sure you get the analogy.
Any person condemned to CP by the highest court of the land would, with more probability than the high-availability chance of a real-time telecommunications system, have his fate sealed. Such an individual would undergo pure madness till this sure event. It is this scheme that, I believe, is most detrimental and inhuman as regards the inappropriatness of this whole scheme.
It also does not help that there is a severe externality element as well - the kith, kin and friends of the CP "victim" would forever consider themselves to be wronged by the establishment. They may even endorse any attempts to derail the state; thus, relating considerably with the JEMs and LETs...
Well, what are the alternatives to the CP - for one, imprisonment for life is definitely worthy of consideration. The latter ensures that the one who commits a "rarest of the rare" breed of crime pays for it with his life; a life without an scope for freedom, is as numbing as the CP; at the same time, the lifer does not come with the incivility and barbarianism - and of course the irreversibility (which man can claim 100% surety of his beliefs - even SC judges are human) - of the CP. That got to make it a more efficient proposition (same "returns", lower "risks") isn't it?

Random Ruminations...

1. Is familiarity with an individual inversely proportional to the courtesy we extend him/her?
2. Why is it that the more we progress, the lesser we evolve in terms of values that really count?
3. What is more important - merit or the perception of merit?
4. What is harder - a stone or love lost?
5. The worst crime in recruitment is to fudge one's resume - are corporates any better with regard to their job descriptions?
6. Why is it that some companies have been thriving for considerable periods of time to substantial extents with single business models and insufficient risk diversifications?
7. Are returns always positively correlated with risks?
8. What is more important - collective honor or individual loss? If the latter be, then doesn't terrorism have a desirable effect and aren't terrorists selfless people within their narrowly defined imperatives, albeit fully justified from their viewpoints...?

Whatever...

The Boppiah School of Attitude.

This post is courtesy Jishith.G, a poster on the coolavenues forums and he in turn has given courtesies to The Hindu. One really good piece on attitudes...


Boppiah Vs Columbus

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"When he set out

He didn’t know where he was going

When he got there

He didn’t know where he was

When he returned

He didn’t know where he had been

He did it all

With borrowed capital."

This is the portrait of Christopher Columbus. In spite of all his senselessness, Columbus did find himself a place in history. (You are free to raise your objections). In Management too, there is something called "Christopher Columbus School". Many among us are graduates of this school and this may be the reason why the scene around is so miserable. I have a feeling that we ought to erect a new school where we acquire a different kind of attitude. One can name this – "The Boppaiah School of Management" ! Please don’t rake up your brains to locate its founder, you are not likely to succeed. Well, Boppaiah was an operator at the Sreeharikkotta Space Centre, worked under Dr.A.P.J.Abdul Kalam and retired only last year. The time was during the fag-end of seventies and everybody at the unit was trying his/her level-best for the SLV launch. Once, it so happened that during count down, a snag was detected by the computer and the high spirits suddenly nose dived. There is a mechanical device called "umbilical chord" fitted to the launching tower which gets automatically detached once the thrust is built up. Sadly enough, it failed to disengage at a height of 30 m. and one could imagine the frenzy. Dr.Kalam, as usual, offered to climb up the tower. Nobody allowed it (as usual) and there was this youthful Andhraite, Boppaiah, turned up much to the relief of the officers around and volunteered to help. He scaled all the thirty metres, studied the situation and gave "a nice kick" to the contraption thereby releasing it in a moment. Needless to say, the mission was accomplished. It is still remembered as "The Boppaiah Launch". (The source of this incident is the Hindu and not any of Dr.Kalam’s books).

The attitude matters a lot, especially in moments of crisis. The expert misses the obvious more often. I have a feeling that plain, logical thinking is the key. What do you say?
__________________
JISHITH.G


My cents: Attitude is the fountain-well of all Success. Without it, nothing matters. With Attitude backed by Aptitude and Opportunity, everything follows.
The catch here is all of these elements are of critical essence to realise personal ambition...more on this later.

News Broadcasting: Modern-day Scavenging?

One over-abiding, lingering feeling that rubs off whenever there occurs a tragedy - the latest one, the Mumbai blasts - is the extent of analysis paralysis that pervades news channels; more so, some than others. News Analysis should not be confused with News per se; the distinction is analogous to that between Data and Information - the chasm intended to be plugged by my current avocation - at least conceptually - of Analytics.
Thus, cold statistics about how many died or were injured yesterday, the number of people who travelled on the train at a said hour before/after the tragedy are all but examples of plain data. Professional analysis would be on the lines of what causes such tragedies, how going forward pro-active measures could be adopted to avert such undesirables etc.
Analysis of the useful sort can only occupy so much of air-space per effort-unit; a correlation analysis between the duration of a Class participation ("CP") in B-school versus the Quality of the CP would illustrate the point. The best CPs in class used to be those that made the point crisp and cogent and put considerable thought before stating the point. DCPs (Desperate CPs) and ACPs (After-class CPs - "Professor, I did an anlaysis for banks at McSnobby's, you know, before coming to your class here at ISB {and blessing you and the rest of the class in the process}"), both varying extents of desperation, are typically laden with the malaise of overwinding constructs and underutilized thought processes...
Certain news channels have been grossly exploiting the current uncertainty and sensation value through useless telecasts of "tragic searches" - over and over again, complete with interviews with affected parties - affirmations to India's resilience from so-called celebrities and indirect parades of the popularity of the channel's .com counterpart. (what better way to exhibit visitor counts than extolling people on the channel to light e-candles and broadcasting like some ticker tape the count of such lightings at the website on the channel).
Wish news was more professional and relevant. Else, news casters only parade their propensities for being mere scavengers who stand to profit the most from disasters.

But for a HeadButt...

Action is a function of innate proclivities and immediate provocations. That alone explains Zidane's headbutt. The man in normal times is grace personified - the focused eye, the upright posture, the undulating display of selflessness all attest to the core qualities. What would then provoke such a towering icon to fall to the plane of the uncivilized?
No doubt, the stakes were staked up - the final was his last game and France was held 1-1 demanding his expert penalty skills. The fact that he still had to do what he did was then definitely because of gross violations of absolute axiom held to heart; this could have been a remark that directly targeted his less-than-ideal social roots or maybe a particularly acidic comment on near and dear ones.
The moot point however remains what should have had the upper hand - professionalism or personal motivations...? These are the issues that test severely one's value systems...and as such have no easy answers....

Of Me, Pancharu, Motu and Dolie...

I read the blogs of most of my batchmates at the ISB every once in a while...the latest in-thin' seems to be Tagging..saw the B-man of Blogging do it..followed by Mr. W and Ms.B...:-) Though I rarely go by the crowd, this looks like a good framework and experiment in introspection. A public proclamation of private trivia in an acceptable sort of way...maybe, a slight transgression from the theme of this blog. (I have until now tried to keep the worldly view in perspective and rarely said anything about the author...)

I am a mystery wrapped in an enigma shrouded in a riddle...well, to all people except maybe Mom.
I love anything with the 26 alphabets, the 7 elements of music or the 10 symbols of Arabic-Indian intelligence.
I want to add value to all who helped me selflessly, taught me the principles of Right and Wrong and be passionate about what really one needs passion with.
I hate all things phony and that includes some people...and all things that come with attitudes...and again that includes some people...
I miss **dearly** all the wonderful stuff in God's own country...but do not see me redressing this issue anytime in the near future.
I firmly believe in Cogito Ergo Sum and the triumph of the Free Will.
I will in the long-term measure my success in terms of my betterment to life as I saw it, performance minus expectations of those who matter to me and not in terms of the Present Value of my past cash flows...
The best experience of my life so far was the Year 2006 at the ISB, Hyderabad.
I am addicted to the Best of the Written Word, the Orchestrated Sound and Streaming Media...
I named one after the Mal for sugar ("Pancharu" is feline, has a tail, loves anything with sugar and thinks I am her elder brother!), one "Motu" (he thinks I am part of his pack and he is the leader!) and yet another after a doll (exquisitely-crafted "non-male" with a Brain to Boot, an affinity for the (OH) group (!!!)); this last naming was an exercise in allusion to the Third Law...and the rest was history...)

I tag:
http://itheabsolute.blogspot.com ("The Wise One")
http://aloksrivastava.blogspot.com("The 200 IQ Genius")

Two fabulous experiences: This also happens in India.!

I had two exceptional experiences today.

One, an auto-driver, who showed exceptional honesty:
I wanted to go a pretty long distance and approached an autowallah for help. He said taking an auto for so long a distance was a bad idea; instead he would drop me off at the right bus point from where I would get buses by the half-minute to my destination. He ended up taking a fare of just a fraction of what he could have earned if he had gone even straight by the rule book. Should have given him a cash award probably...

Two, Volvo a/c buses plying at nominal rates within Bangalore:
At the bus-stop I saw strange red-colored buses that looked as if straight from the Speed movie or something...boarded one, and felt for a moment, I was in New York or somewhere similar...the bus was enroute from Indiranagar to Whitefield and come complete with superb music broadcast, centralised A/c, comfortable bucket seats and very courteous staff. WoW!
India is definitely progressing...

Also, got a good indication of the premium of the ISB brand while talking with the Head HR of one of the largest industrial groups in the country...good discussion...realised why old-economy brands are still some of the best places if personal development is of some consequence...more on this later....