Chakravyuh and the World

Chakravyuh refers to an interesting battle formation where its very easy for a person to enter but once in, the person realises that he's surrounded by the enemy on all sides. So, it becomes next to impossible to get out unless you are far superior to the enemy ranks. This was exactly the manner in which Arjuna's son Abhimanyu was killed in the Mahabharata war.

Life and the world in general , if you ask me is also a Chakravyuh. It attracts lof of people. Now its a known fact that there are untold struggles, challenges and mysteries facing everyone in life. If you were to alert a person to the pitfalls, he/she becomes somewhat cautious and apprehensive which is not in the long term interests of the world's progress. The world wants as many people as possible to run the mindless rat race. The world expects you to be naive and innocent enough to not ask embarassing questions and embrace life in the true spirit of optimism and perseverance. After all, they say that nothing is perfect. Hence its in the world's interest to make you work hard and keep you motivated through your struggles.

So, the moral of the story according to the world is " Dont think very hard and deep into the future, nobody knows all the answers and hence the world manages to convince most of the nay-sayers into joining the party".Often some nay-sayers are apprehensive of being heavily outnumbered by the opposition and remain mute spectators or still better join the opposite group. This is what I term as " getting sucked into the world ". In Science, they call this phenomenon as " Gravity "...


There is no such thing as Gravity in this world.. Its just that the World Sucks......"Chakravyuh"

As long as this phenomenon happens, the concept of God will be relevant and one can be sure that God will continue to rule the roost as long as we take to straighten the dog's tail.

RATs and CATs

India is synonymous with the Sea of Humanity. In fact, I sometimes feel that the Indian population is so much that anyone attempting for a free fall from space over India can be rest assured that he will not fall on the ground. He's sure to bump into someone who's so busy with his everyday life that he's too busy to look up in the sky to notice someone falling through.
The Rat race is characterised by a day-to-day struggle for existence which ensures the survival of the fittest and elimination of the meek. Its a rather ruthless system which many-a-times values the means more important than the end.
How does one win the Rat-Race ? The answer although very ironic is : No one can win the rat race by taking part in it. The only way to win the rat race is by not being a part of it provided one is confident of his capabilities and not cowed down by pressures from peers and society in general. After all, its a fact that most societies dont glorify and forgive failures and in the process do not learn from them. We should remember that to Err is Human and to forgive is Divine.For every success that gets talked about, we can dig deep to find out 99 other failures from which we can learn 99 ways of not doing things.
Yet another mundane way to beat the rat-race is to become a CAT and start eating other rats so that you reduce/eliminate the competition and there-by create some breathing-space in the process. Towards this, every year on the Third Sunday of November, Lakhs of students take a shot at belling the Common Admissions Test (CAT), so that they can grab the most coveted corner office in companies.
Now, are these potential managers, really beating the RAT race ?
To answer that question in part, we need to look at the real statistics and numbers that prompt these people to aspire to become managers.
One thing which everyone realises is the fact that there is an acute shortage of time in this world and there is a ever increasing need for money and hence the demand for high-paying jobs which give you more money for the same time that others put in office. Now what makes these " Green-behind-the-ears" Wannabe-Managers pick up astronomical salaries in the job-stakes. Its simple economics in action which ensures that a total mismatch between demand and supply ensures that whoever comes out just get sucked into the big bad dirty world of Business. Its much less to do with the calibre or competence of the Institute or the student.
I read sometime back that we need to stop glorifying the entrance exams to IIT's/IIM's and tout them as one of the most difficult exams on the planet misquoting statistics to back our claim. Just because it is difficult to enter an institution does not make it great or necessarily talk about its excellence. We should always remember the fact that Mumbai trains and other public transportation in our country is even more difficult to enter and travel. There is nothing great to boast about that except that its a sorry tale about our infrastructure woes.
Want to question the real motives of all our Brilliant Manager Wannabes " Scale our institutions, recruit more faculty, develop the infrastructure so that 10 times more managers pass out every year so that entry level Manager salaries come down crashing. Then see who still wants to do MBA. We need to put an end to this GOMBA(Grossly Overpaid MBA) madness...
Coming back to the original discussion of whether the CAT solves the RAT race : I am afraid, that is not true.. It does definitely create a new race amongst managers which is the CAT race.
I will reserve my personal take on beating the RAT race for another post. In fact, it will be appropriate to say that my mission in life is to " Beat the RAT race ".
It does require a different plane of thinking, a bit of luck, a bit of talent and a bit of Hard-work..

Nike and Bhagavad Gita

How do we go about doing some task ? What should be the intensity, energy,passion, focus that we need to devote ? Some say that it depends on the task at hand. So, if it happens to be a routine chore, you need not give so much attention while for other non-routine more challenging tasks, we need to devote our mind and energy while for certain other things which are close to our heart, there is an extra element of added passion. What does the Bhagavad Gita have to say on this topic. To put it in short, its exactly what Nike, the Foot Apparel MNC says " Just Do it "..

Never try to overdo things, do not have excessive passion when doing something. Give some margin or allowance for things to go awry or out of control. In other words, our effort is only one of the inputs to the system and hence cannot entirely influence the output, the way we would want it to be.

Never under-do things just because, we do not get the expected results. So, we should not get depressed or dejected when results dont turn out as expected.

Be dispassionate, do things not because you like/dislike things, do things because its your duty.

So, if we dont overdo things or under-do things, , what's the IDEAL approach.. " Just do it.."..

Occurance of an Event

The tendency of an event to occur varies inversely with one's preparation for it.
- David Searles

This quote aptly summarizes that the more we prepare, the more dull/listless/sober the final event will turn out to be. This is specially relevant and pertinent to any performance.

Take a student, if he/she prepares well for an exam, the exam turns out to be very ordinary and easy. A musician or athelete if they practice well can easily give out their best naturally. In other words, the final performance should be a replica or repitition of something done before and there should not be any significant variation from a past rehearsal performance in order to sound both consistent and confident.

However a word of caution here. There are some folks who do not want any ambiguity or uncertainty for the " D-Day " event and want to pre-plan everything. In many cases this will not be possible and its always nice to have some unknown parameters to give us that adrenaline rush and subtle variations to give some variety.

IT Services Vs IT Consulting Companies

This analogy is meant to illustrate the difference between What IT Services Companies do and what IT Consulting companies do.

Consider the scenario where an American drops into an Indian restaurant and he's hungry. Now comes the difference in approach between that of Service and Consulting Companies.

IT Service companies show the Hotel Menu card to the American and expect him to select an item from the exhaustive list, little recognising the fact that all the items listed on the menu sound " Greek and Latin " to him. The American can hardly make out the difference between Pongal/Chappathi/Idli/Dosa. But you still cannot take away the fact that he/she's is very hungry and looking for food.

What do IT Consulting companies do ? They go and understand the preferences of the customer and his whims and fancies such as Whether he/she is a foodie, he/she is alergic to Oily food, whether they have a preference for healthy foods.

They then come up with recommendations such as " If you are ok with Oily Foods, then go ahead and try our Puri's. If you are health conscious, try out Idli's and juices, if you want a filling lunch which is heavy, then check out the Rice section, if you want a filling lunch which is at the same time light on the stomach, try out our Chappti's. If you want something hot. light and exotic, try our Pongal.

Now coming to the actual scenario with industries, Indian IT Service companies should recognise that Information Technology is a means to achieve business objectives. There is nothing glorious about talking technical arcana to Business users. They should do some soul-searching and find out their true capabilities, strengths and weaknesses and also educate business users about the various possiblities, strengths and weaknesses of one product over another.

The culture of providing various options for solving a problem without giving finer details and leaving it to the imagination of Business's is a sure-shot recipe for disasters and that explains how and why nearly 50-60 % of the IT projects are either over-budget or over-time and hence not very successful in achieving the stated objectives.

HoneyMoon : Purpose and Significance

Its a season of marriages and a lot of my friends are tying the knot, getting hitched and starting a new phase of life. What thought goes into deciding whether a person is ready to get committed is a puzzle that has no clear answers. What immediately follows a marriage is a rather interesting phase or an event called "Honeymoon" whose purpose is to enable the new life-partners to know and understand each other better.

Now coming to the allied topic of choosing a destination to facilitate this rather important event. What seems to be the current considerations in this world. ?? This event seems to be a typical show of flamboyance and opulence by the boy and hence he plans the honeymoon package to the best of economic capabilities so that he can put his best foot forward. Apparently, this event is turning out to be an industry on its own with packages covering anything and everything to ensure that the event is a grand success. Also the added significance that this is a "once in a lifetime" event is the icing on the cake adding the much needed hype, anticipation and excitement.

Can anyone come up with novel ways to have a sweet, memorable and laudable honeymoon? Here are some which come to my mind right now.

IDEA 1: Celebrate it in an orphanage with inmates and partake in their day-to-day activities and share and shower love and affection on the kids.

IDEA 2 : Identify a person who needs financial help for a life-threatening medical operation and then give all your honeymoon budget for this effort, pray for the succesful operation and celebrate the success of the operation with the patient.

The bottomline in all these is that, while the money is well spent on one-hand, it spreads love and hope amongst humanity and ensures that the world is a slightly better place to live in.

Think of the more than 3 Bilion Plus humanity who find it difficult to have one square meal a day and how your Honeymoon opulence can be channelized more constructively. Does this make sense or I am missing something here ?

Shame on You Mankind... Hang yourself..

To put it in short... Nature gives... Man takes...

Now which is better is for YOU to decide. Natural resources including trees, coal,oil,precious metals, air and water are available in this world and takes it its own sweet time to replenish . Rain is always unidirectional and falls from the sky. Think of a world when Nature wants to remind human-beings of their vulnerability and water starts evaporating at a rapid pace upwards. In other words, it will be Rain in the reverse direction. What will be the state of the world in a matter of a few hours.

Why does man take so much pride in looting natural resources(to put it very mildly). What is development at the cost of ?? Does he not feel small ? .There is a talk that all the oil in this world might get over in the next century or even earlier considering the present rate of consumption. Does anyone give a thought to this mindless plundering of natural resources. Not only that, while our race is growing in numbers, the number of other species in this world is steadily dwindling finding it difficult to keep pace with moron human-beings.

If not for anything, we need other species since they add to the bio-diversity of this world and its our top priority and responsiblity to preserve and perpetuate them.

What's the scene within our own human tribe.. Very deplorable and pathetic to describe in words. Nearly 4 Billion people are not having a dignfied human life and rue their destiny.

The writing is on the wall.. We need to reduce or arrest this human growth and start finding ways to increase other species. We need to be more judicious when it comes to the use of natural resources. Its simple common sense that sustainability is in our own interest & survival and I hope and pray that we get wise before its too late.. We should not be responsible for digging our own grave. This does not sound like a scorecard of an intelligent species worth showcasing to aliens visiting us.

I indeed rue being part of this species and would like to transform into another species if possible. Given a chance, I would like God to embed intelligence and power within some other species to overpower man so that his progress will be kept in check.

Bhagavad Gita :
paritranaya sadhunam vinasaya ca duskrtam
dharma-samsthapanarthaya sambhavami yuge yuge

Translation

In order to deliver the pious and to annihilate the miscreants, as well as to reestablish the principles of religion, I advent Myself millennium after millennium

God, we need you NOW More than EVER...

Proof of God's Existence

Here are a couple of indirect inferences in support of God's existence.

UNIQUENESS : Every species born in this world is unique and different from other members of the same tribe. This uniqueness points to some supernatural force in action and our inability to engineer our own traits, choosing our parents, color, sex, height, weight makes us to forcibly submit to some force above us and "give-in".

Its not a sign of a defeat but a glorious admission of a superior rival.

FUTURE : This is another area which is gray and leads to lot of speculation regarding the possibilities. While, we have a vague idea of the various possible outcomes, no one is certain of what it takes to influence one outcome over another.


Will add on to the list... Keep watching...