Politically incorrect and popular

My mother was hospitalised for three months. It was a testing time not only for her but for all of us. During this period apart from her treatment, it was essential for all of us to keep a positive attitude. Biggest challenge was for her as she was the one who was in the hospital! During this period she became very popular with the hospital staff. The reason was very simple - lying on the bed she used to prescribe medicines to the staff left right and centre. This was also accompanied with counselling services of all types. "Aaji" (word for grand mother in Marathi) had become very popular while we were little worried about her enthusiasm in practicing medicine lying on the hospital bed.....

One day as her sodium levels dipped, the doctors decided to shift her to the ICU from the recovery centre. While the preparations were on , one of the maid servants came in - unaware of Aaji's medical condition. "Aaji what is the remedy you had told me for the cracks on my feet" - My mother stopped the process of her transfer on stretcher and explained the remedy. The young lady doctor finally chased away the maid servant and patiently explained my mother that she can continue her practice after she returns from ICU! Not very happy with the interruption my mother scolded the young doctor who seemed to strangely enjoy the scolding....... Honestly little embarrassing me!

On the other occasion I had taken her for some sonography tests. The lady doctor there seemed to be in the 9th month of her pregnancy. Intuitively I was nervous as counselling pregnant ladies happens to be my mother's super-specialisation. "why are you working near these machines?" I lacked the courage to continue in the room and disappeared leaving her to be looked after by the attendant and my helpless elder sister! Later on my sister told me that the lady doctor seem to actually listen to some of the counselling tips carefully!!

...... My mother seems to have an uncanny knack of asking anything to anyone. Anybody below sixty years age is considered young enough for her. We have tried talking her out of it a few times explainig the modern day concepts of personal space and privacy. So far we have failed spectacularly in all our attempts. Strangely enough people seem to enjoy the liberties she takes with them!

....I have never understood this phenomenon quite clearly but I feel that people perhaps respond to the purity of her intent. She has gone through a very hard life like many from her generation but those hardships have not created any cynicism in her. During her active life she was a teacher and I remember that she never differentiated between us and her students. She was an extremely tough teacher. Her specialisation was to take under her wings - students who would fail in at least a couple of subjects and ensure that they pass their exams with flying colours. May be this is the reason why even today many of her students touch her feet whenever they meet her. There was no parent counselling in her teaching style as she would herself double up as parent to her students rather than 'escalating' anything to the parents.

...... Over the years I have marvelled at her ability to be consistently politically incorrect but still very popular

Grooming a Professional

During one of my overseas trips, I was reviewing a project at the customer location in South Africa. We had just sent one of our techies – Satheesh, to work there. “So how is Satheesh settling down?” I asked – Mahesh – the program manager, burst into laughter. “What happened?” I asked. Mahesh was one of our veterans and someone with great temperament with people. “Well, nothing serious but I stopped Satheesh from eating other people’s breakfast since yesterday. I guess he was feasting on someone’s personal breakfast”. “WHAT?” I almost screamed. “Well, actually it was little misunderstanding. This is the first time Satheesh has travelled onsite. Since his arrival he was generally impressed with the office and pantry in particular. He did not realize that while tea, coffee and cookies are there for general consumption, items kept in the refrigerator by people are for their specific consumption. After spending 3 days in this office, yesterday he came and asked me about why have they stopped keeping muffins for the breakfast. I was initially confused but then realized that our friend was happily eating someone’s breakfast kept in the refrigerator! Poor fellow was extremely embarrassed when he realized his mistake!” “My god, what do we do now?” “Nothing really. Satheesh is a great guy technically and as I see it, he will settle down personally as well.” I trusted Mahesh and moved on ….. though little worried….
……. Days passed by and I visited South Africa six months down later. While visiting the same customer site mentioned above, I had a review with Program Manager from customer’s side and Mahesh. The customer singled out Satheesh in his praise and requested us not to move him away from the project for any reason. Instinctively I glanced at Mahesh who winked at me!

This incident took me back to my joining time in the industry. Back then the international exposure for IT professionals was still new. I had attended a personal grooming program. It was really an elaborate program with all details including table manners and personal grooming in terms of wardrobe etc. I still remember the distinct feeling that we all had at the end of the program – if we decided to implement our newly acquired knowledge, we would worry more about our cutlery and perhaps throw away half our wardrobe! While we laughed at it, it did leave some feeling of inadequacy with us. All of us had come from simple middle-class background and our careers were built more on our knowledge and the ability to slog than any blue-blooded pedigree! As we went along, we learnt through our exposures and some great mentors who focused on our basic strengths than our lack of grooming!

When I look at the Indian IT industry, Satheesh perhaps represents the common Indian IT techie travelling abroad for the first time and is a subject of humor – some true, some imaginary. Thankfully it is also made up of many souls like Mahesh who focus on basic skills of the people like Satheesh than grooming them on some standards! A big thank you to unsung heroes like Mahesh who quietly groomed the Indian IT Industry into a force to reckon with!

Capturing Wisdom

Once I was visiting data center of one of the oldest electricity providers and the bill-printing mechanism was more like a huge press printing some newspaper. I bumped in to a maintenance engineer whose job was to monitor the bulk printing of electricity bills. He was quietly sitting in a corner reading some paperback, when I met him. “So, what exactly are you supposed to do here?” I asked the question once he warmed up over a cup of tea. “I have to just ensure that this printing machine is working all the time”. “Oh, so do you have to stand next to the printer most of the time?” I asked it more as a doubt about his diligence than a query. He was sharp enough to get my drift and quipped, “No, I sit there and generally read something”. “Then how do you know that it is working fine?” He smiled, “Its very simple. I have figured it out over last year, that as long as I hear a peculiar sound from the printer every third minute, all is well”. Out of curiosity, I checked his record with the data center manager and I was told that this fellow was one of the most efficient engineers and his response time to the problem is great!

This reminded me of an incident narrated by a newlywed girl who was doing an apprenticeship under her mother-in-law. The old lady was narrating the recipe of one of her signature items. One of the steps puzzled our young lady. When the young lady asked, “How much time do you heat the contents at this stage?” the old lady simply said, “Well I put the vessel on the stove and go for my bath. I take it down as soon as I come back” This method of time-measurement stumped the young lady!!

If you look around the workplace, you will find quite a few cases where you get stumped by the experts. Over the years, they have devised their own mechanism of achieving results. It is not the stuff strictly written in any manuals but figured out over a period of time. Even if the experts are not secretive about the process they follow, it is extremely difficult to understand the correlation between the process and the results. When a new person tries to take over the process he finds it extremely difficult to follow some of these processes without feeling stupid. Just add the insecurity of the expert to the whole situation and the plot thickens! I have worked in the Outsourcing industry for about two decades now. When I think of all those brilliant professionals, who have made the Indian outsourcing industry work, I wonder - how do they capture the knowledge transition in terms of sound to hear on a cranky old printer or how much time one should take for a bath! My heart goes out for all those gallant IT professionals who not only transition the processes from the experts but also take them to offshore! My dear fellows - take a bow!

Wake up (from) Sid!

Siddharth – or Sid as he is liked to be called now-a-days is the first baby of our family (I know he will hate this description but can’t help!) – He is my elder sister’s elder son who is about to complete his engineering degree. Last month I traveled to Bangalore for some work. Coincidently, Sid was doing his internship with one of the leading multinational IT companies based in Bangalore. As I had some time on hand, I decided to catch up with him for lunch. I must admit that I always have to remind myself that Sid is now a grown up young man and I have to treat him that way….

“So how is your project going on Sid?” “Cool!” – this is one word, I guess, I will never fully comprehend. Sensing my confusion he was kind enough to offer a few more words “Well, they can actually give me a pre-placement offer based on my work which could be anyway between 6 – 9 lacs”. “Wow! That’s nice” I really felt proud “But at least I know that I do not want to do a career in IT Services Company”. That was interesting …. Having grown in the IT industry for almost my entire professional life, I was curious. Well, though I am distinctly aware that it is no longer the ONLY sought of industry, as it used to be some years back, I still wanted to know his thought process.

“You know, I would like to work on some product where I get some feedback from end-users. It really does not matter what products I work on. For example, right now I have developed an Application with my developer license and I have about 800 downloads in first few days. Some of them have criticized it – but I am kind of enjoying it. I see lot of people around me in the company who wait for week-end for their enjoyment and talk about work-life balance. I want to work in a way where I enjoy my work and not wait for week-end to live my life” …. I was listening almost in awe and almost felt jealous of the clarity he had at the age of 20. “So, what are the plans Sid?” “Well, I need to figure out the right course for post-graduation that will give me some chance for research. Till I get that I will perhaps work in industry for a year or so rather than sitting idle. I don’t mind working in a small boutique firm which employs people to develop some Apps”

Generally, with my HR profession I break into career counseling mode very easily but I could see that he needed no such help. There was not a hint of any anxiety about the campus placement or the “multinational brand” to work with. His ideas were clear and more importantly he was rational in his thinking than being just dreaming about it.

Lot is talked about the changes that will affect the future of the work. If one has to go by the young man in front of me, I guess the younger lot will be more and more aware about their needs rather than anxious to prove their worth to the world ….. With the world getting connected with technology, individuals with ideas will be comfortable working as collaborative force rather than cog in the wheel of some bureaucratic system …. The way we engage with each other at work place could change dramatically …. The focus will no longer be on the lowest layer of Maslow’s Hierarchy – the physical needs defined by ‘assignment abroad’, ‘campus salary’ ….. May be the younger lot will be more interested in living life on their own terms …. If we don’t align our management structures or practices to accommodate these changes, we will be irrelevant!

It was a sort of wake-up call from Sid! I almost resisted asking him “What do you think I should be doing?” ………

Management lessons from Vasudeo – Part 4

Vasudeo is my father’s name. In a normal middle class Indian family of 70’s and 80’s me and my siblings grew up enjoying the freedom of calling him by first name within the four walls of our house. While we enjoy his friendship - his status for us is nothing less than that of a god…. This in fact is a first lesson… you need not follow any rituals to get your natural respect….. He being a man of few words, I learnt innumerable lessons through his simple actions…though the meaning of many I was to understand much later…..these are the few moments that have always stayed with me …..management lessons learnt from Vasudeo

My brother and me had got the news that my father would be given a car by his office. This was late 80s / early 90s and cars had still to become commodities. We already had a car and with the struggle that we had seen both our parents go through, second car in the house was a luxury. The reason for our excitement was different though – both of us were in college and if father has his own car – we would have one car to share between us – we already had marked the days of the week for the ownership of a car.


During these times, once I walked into my father’s office as I was loafing around that area. He used to head Legal & Personnel (there was no HR there). It was after office hours and he was writing some notes (yes there were offices without a computer on the table!). “So, when is our new car coming?” – my father looked at me and handed me over the note that he had just written for his next meetings with the directors – “Whats this?” “Read on” I read the note and his recommendation on the car policy and was shocked – “Are you alright?? You are recommending no car policy is necessary. Is this some kind of your idea of being a hero?” I was extremely upset as it meant for me and my brother to continue our fights on the time-share for our two-wheeler! “Just cool down – I don’t need to do these gimmicks to be a hero. Read the second page”. I read the second page which had some crap about the facts and figures and some analysis which supported his recommendation. “By the way I had written the second page first” – I had a suspicion that he was actually enjoying the conversation! I was in no mood to be logical. “You keep saying that you want to do an MBA in HR – please remember that job means that you are a trustee to the organization and some of the policies that you sign will also impact you adversely. If you are not ready for that – don’t bother” He got up to leave – I knew the meeting was over!


I will be dishonest if I say that I was enlightened and impressed with his thought process. On the contrary I was very upset and did not bother to speak much to him on the way back home. He was calm as usual and perhaps little relieved that I was not in my natural belligerent mood!


Over the years as I started working in the same profession I realized time and again the value of his words. There are many a times when there is conflict of interest when it comes to some policies – you may not be exactly at an advantage yourself due to some policies that you are custodian for. Well, that’s the interesting piece of my profession and as the years passed by, I understood what my father told me that evening little better!

Our own little corruption

One of the best phases of life is when you have girlfriend, pocket-money, a two-wheeler and no responsibilities. Roaming around the streets on a two-wheeler with your girlfriend sitting behind, you tend to think that you can do no wrong. Thankfully I had this phase for about four years in my life where the main agenda of the day for Pallavi and me used to be to roam around the streets of Mumbai on Kinetic Honda. We used to have roughly around a pool of 30-40 rupees between us (early nineties with petrol costing just 6 rupees it used to be a tidy sum).

One such day on a Sunday morning - traffic was easy and we were going past Dadar (can be called a center of the city). A traffic cop caught me jumping the signal. First thought in my mind was economic situation. Sunday used to be a day when both of us used to go to South Mumbai for a movie (an ultimate class act given our general economic condition!). If the traffic cop had charged me the regular penalty for jumping the signal, Sunday was gone! At the age of 22, this is equivalent to losing a million dollars!........... I parked my kinetic honda, asked Pallavi to be there and went on to negotiate with the cop ….. Finally we settled for Rs 10 (If I remember right the fine was Rs 20 then). The traffic cop pocketed the money and went away …… Sunday was saved ….. On the way back home I proudly told Pallavi about how I saved the Sunday …. As she got down at her place she told me, “Your value system is saleable for 10 rupees, so next time I don’t want you to tom-tom about your value system and integrity” I was furious and we argued about the how she lacks maturity and does not understand the value of money (after all I was three years older than her!) “Anyway, right now you are capable of only 10 rupees corruption …. Who knows what you would do when you are capable of more?” and she walked away ….. Her sense of timing in terms of walking away from arguments in style has remained intact all these years! I was so furious that I reached from Worli to Vile Parle in less than 20 minutes (usually a distance of 30 minutes those days) ………… I couldn’t think of anything else the whole night ……

next day when we met, both of us had calmed down
“Perhaps I was little harsh yesterday but I get bugged with any form of corruption but I guess I stretched a little too far” ….

“No you were right. I agree with your last statement about my ability limited to only 10 rupees now. If just for having a Sunday my way, I could do this, god knows what I would do in future”…

“Don’t be a fool, I really did not mean it that bad!”….

“No you were right and be that way so that I can reserve my rights to tom-tom about my integrity and values in front of you whether I achieve anything in life or not!” and we both had a hearty laugh…..


This happened about 18/19 years back ….. till date, I have not bribed anyone in any form though life has seen some tough moments …. If a cop catches me I apologize, plead guilty and pay the fine if he demands so!

A bowl of rice

I was reading a story to my son and realized that I was reading this story after years. It is an interesting story which I am sure you would have read and when I read it after gap of decades, it struck me hard.

The story is about Kubera – the lord of wealth and family of gods – Shiva, Parvati and their son Ganesha. One fine day Kubera decided to show off his wealth to Shiva and Parvati. So, he invited them for lunch. The almighty Shiva exactly knew why he was invited and refused politely – “Why don’t you take little Ganesha instead – he really relishes good food!”. Little disappointed Kubera agreed. Riding on his golden chariot along with Ganesha, Kubera thought ‘Hmmmm…. Actually it is good that little Ganesha is coming over. Being a child, he will get impressed even more!’……… As they reached home, Kubera offered the best seat in the dining hall to Ganesha and beckoned his servants to bring over the food. Little Ganesha started devouring the food as it was brought and his appetite surprised Kubera – ‘Hmmm – lord Shiva was right, little Ganesha really likes the food’………. As Ganesha went on for over an hour, there was a panic in the kitchen. The Head cook whispered in the ears of Kubera “Master not only the cooked food, but even the supplies are over”. As they chatted Ganesha yelled “where is the food, I am hungry”. When he realized that the food was over, he got really annoyed “That’s not fair, I’ll now start eating everything that I see” and he took a bite of the golden plate! Kubera was extremely scared and ran to Shiva and Parvati to narrate the whole story. As they heard him patiently Parvati brought over a small bowl of rice “Take this and give it to Ganesha. He will be alright” Little worried with the small size of the rice bowl, Kubera reached his palace. Ganesha was extremely angry by then and he was living up to his promise! Little scared by the scene, Kubera politely offered the little bowl of rice cooked by Parvati. Ganesha took the bowl and started eating. By the time he finished the bowl he felt very heavy and full – so much so that he just could manage to eat the last morsel in the bowl.

I had read this story as a lesson taught to pompous Kubera. But as I read it after the years, it had a whole new dimension. We all have a Kubera in us – it’s the ambition. Of course ambition is good and drives us to achieve great heights – gets us our place of honor…… But there comes a point where ambition also drives us over that thin line that separates honor from pride……. As the pride takes over the joy of belittling someone overtakes the contentment of achievements…….. Pride knows no boundaries and often invites self-destruction as Kubera found out……. It took only a small bowl of rice cooked by Parvati to calm down the storm invited by Kubera’s pride ……. It was those few morsels of rice cooked with pure love that could calm down the un-satiated hunger ……. As our ambition drives us hard, we all need to find our little bowls of rice …….. it could be that little daily chat with the family…… banter with old friends …… solace of a book or a melody …… Our little bowl of rice always reminds us the importance of peace, contentment in midst of a raging competition fought by our ambition……