Whose dream?

A lovely story on a Saturday morning,

Here is a story which has travelled all around in Europe and the Middle East, and perhaps all over the world by now. However, maybe you haven't heard it. I am going to give it to you in the way it is told by the Hasidic Jews of Eastern Europe.

Have you heard of Cracow, a famous city in Poland? Once upon a time there lived in Cracow a certain Isaac, the son of Yekel. Isaac was devoted to God and followed all the religious customs of the Jewish people there, but he was very poor and had many debts; the rent was overdue, his grocery bill unpaid; his daughters were of an age to be married, and poor Isaac would have to pay for their weddings! So he moaned and groaned. He worried day and night. In the synagogue and out of the synagogue he told God all about it and offered prayers to the Lord begging him to relieve his poverty.

It was no use. God did not seem to listen. Isaac went on with his requests just the same; neither did he become less poor nor did he become less devoted to the Lord.

Then one night he had a strange dream. He was carried away to another country and to a bridge in a great city. A voice told him, "This is Prague [Capital of what is now the Czech Republic]. Now look well, for under the bridge, at the spot where you are standing, there is a treasure, buried; it is waiting for you, it is yours."

When he awoke in the morning, Isaac laughed and shrugged off his dream. Mere wish-fulfilment. But the same dream came that night! Prague, the bridge, the treasure! This time the voice asked him, "Well, do you want to be rich, or would you rather keep all your worries?" Still Isaac thought, What nonsense! Prague was so far away and he had no money for the trip. Moreover, he didn't know anyone there. "It is better to pray than to dream, " he said, and began more prayers to God.

Of course you know by now that these things always happen three times: that magic number three. Sure enough, the third night he saw the same spot under the bridge, and the voice said:

"What! You haven't left yet?"

Isaac was annoyed and just a bit curious. At last he set out on foot for Prague and walked all the way. He found the river, recognized the bridge, saw the familiar-looking spot. But how could he dare to dig? Soldiers were above, guarding the bridge. What if they should notice? He would surely be arrested. Isaac walked around trying to decide what to do.

Alas! The captain of the guard came and took him in, accusing him of spying. Simple and truthful as he was, Isaac could only stammer out his story. He was sure he would be called a liar and put in prison. But what do you know -- the captain began to laugh, and he laughed hard.

"Did you really come all the way from Cracow believing in a dream? You're crazy, man! Who believes in dreams? Why, do you know that if I were as silly as you are, I'd be in Cracow myself right now? I dreamed, night after night, that a voice was telling me, 'There's a treasure waiting for you at the house of a Cracow Jew named Isaac, son of Yekel. Yes, under the stove.' Now, half the Jews in Cracow are named Isaac and the other half Yekel. And they all have stoves! Can you see me going from house to house tearing down the stoves and digging for treasure?"

Isaac hurried home and found the treasure buried under the stove in his house. He paid his debts, got his daughters married, and had enough left to build a synagogue in honor of the Lord he had never deserted and who had not deserted him.

Very often we discover that what we seek most is right under our nose.

-------------------- Souls Afire, by Elie Wiesel

3 Things Organizations SHOULD NOT DO during a Recession

We are in the midst of a global recession (well depression really). The prognosis doesnt look great for the immediate future. What this will mean is lower industrial growth, stagnation in services, increasing unemployment, need for Corporates to tighten their belt to protect their bottomlines.

There is a myth that Organizations have to maximize profit all the time. This is a creation of the modern capitalist world. This is not true. Organizations have been too happy to rake in extra ordinary profit when the times were good. On the corollary they should be able to sacrifice profit for organizational health during the lean periods. The objective should be to retain the position and build the company for the future. When the going is good, most organizations do not have time to introspect and plan for the future. But recessionary times are ideal to take a deep breath and make directional changes.

I have seen Organizations fall into a trap during lean times by doing the following,

1. Cutting down on Manpower and/or reducing Employee compensation

2. Considerable reduction in Marketing expenses

3. Cut back on new Product Development activities.

All the three have disastrous consequences. Loyal, good employees are as concerned about the recession as the Organization. This is the time to call them and say, "Look, we are going through a bad phase. This is temporary. We want to assure you that we value your contribution over the years and look forward to what you can achieve in the future. We will prepare this company for the future. No Salary/Benefit cuts will be implemented. In fact, we will give you additional benefits to uplift you during this touch period". Imagine the impact of such a statement on employees morale.

Ditto for point number two. Customer loyalty is created over a period of time. Reducing marketing expenses, especially advertising, can be counter-productive. Customers need to be reassured that their favourite Company and Products are in great shape. So keep on communicating with them.

New products cannot be built in a jiffy. It is a long drawn process. Slashing new product development budget is akin to slashing your throat. This is time to prepare the company for the growth phase post recession. More money has to be spent on Product Development and Market Research.

If all these means substantial reduction in profit, so be it. Why should shareholders alone not feel the pinch of the hard times?

Irritating Phrases

Researchers at Oxford University has come up with the Top 10 Irritating Phrases in English after a scientific study (don't ask my why people waste time and money on such an endeavor).

The top ten most irritating phrases are ;

1 - At the end of the day
2 - Fairly unique
3 - I personally
4 - At this moment in time
5 - With all due respect
6 - Absolutely
7 - It's a nightmare
8 - Shouldn't of
9 - 24/7
10 - It's not rocket science

I know of at least a couple of them that are not that common in India, like 'Fairly unique', 'Shouldn't of' and maybe even 'It's a nightmare'.

But I can tell you couple of words that irritate me a lot,

'What man' - used by the Convent educated girls from Kashmir to Kanyakumari

'Only' - There is a tendency to add the word 'Only' at the end of every sentence. "I had lunch yesterday only na", " You could have called me. I was simply sitting only"

In malayalam, I just can't stand the word 'Adipoli'. This word has crept into the vocabulary of late, and I hear even highly educated people using it once every 10 sentences.

Pitfalls of Copy, Pasting

I have been fighting a losing battle (well, not quite) against students doing Cut, Copy and Paste to complete their assignments. This disease obviously has extended to the Corporate World, where every second document is Cut, copied and pasted. Hardly anyone seem to do any original work these days.

But danger lurks around the corner. I have come across some hilarious instances while valuing assingments and at workplace.

One that takes the cake was by a lady student doing her First Year MBA in Kuwait. As part of an assignment, she wrote "When I was in Siberia, doing a Consultancy, I met the CEO Mr........... and his response was...................................................". Knowing fully well that this particular student has never been to any countries other than Kuwait and India, I made a cryptic query on the Assignment " Can I please have a look at your Passport's visa pages?"

Another case was when I was working in the Investment Company. I go a document to review that was prepared by a Jordanian colleague of mine. The document was the Private Placement Memorandum of 50 pages for our new Investment Bank in Bahrain. The document repeatedly said "This bank in Palestine". On investigating, it came to the notice that the guy, who was a middle level executive, had cut, copied and pasted from another Bank's PPM document released earlier in the year and promptly forgot to take care of the Palestine issue.

Then there was this apocryphical incident,

A popular motivational speaker was entertaining his audience. Said he… 'The best years of my life were spent in the arms of a woman who wasn't my wife!'The audience was in silence and shock.

The speaker added… 'And that woman was my mother!'Laughter and applause…

A week later, a top manager trained by the motivational speaker tried to crack this very effective joke at home. He was a bit foggy after a drink.He said loudly… 'The greatest years of my life were spent in the arms of a woman who was not my wife!'The wife went mad with shock and rage.

Standing there for 20 seconds trying to recall the second half of the joke, the manager finally blurted out '….and I can't remember who she was!'

Moral of the story: Don' copy, but in case you have to, don't copy if you can't paste!

The lantern

There are said to be 500,000 villages in India.

In olden days, the Indian village hired a night-watchman to keep down crime and accidents. He would go around the streets and lanes with a square metal lantern, open only at the front.

The watchman could see, wherever the lantern cast its light. No rays of light fell on him, who carried the lantern. If you wanted to see who the watchman was, you had to ask him to turn the lamp back on his own face.

We are like that! Our eyes (ears, tongue, etc.) are all facing outward, looking at and feeling the things of the world.

God says, "if you want to see me, turn the lamp around; look within and find the Source of all the light." - As told by Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa

When will our teachers be ready?

I have always held the belief that the root cause for the current state of education is the quality (or rather the lack of it) of the school teachers at the Primary and Secondary level. They lack in both the understanding of the childrens psychology and on how to transfer the knowledge to the kids. This also stems from the fundamental deficiency in understanding the nature of their job. Merely getting a post graduate degree and B.Ed is no substitute for wisdom, as illustrated by this story,

"In ancient India there lived a certain wise king. One day a pandit (scholar and teacher) who had studied many scriptures and holy books came to the palace and asked to see the king.

"Your Majesty," said he, "I should like it very much if you would permit me to teach you the Bhagavatam, the holy scripture on the life of Sri Krishna. I will not require an unreasonable fee."

Now the king, a good judge of human nature, knew enough of that great book to realize that the pandit, scholar that he was, still had not understood what it says. Otherwise, why would he be coming to a king's palace in search of wealth instead of seeking for the Lord in the depths of his own heart. He said to the pandit: "I perceive that you have not fully mastered the Bhagavatam as yet. I will make you my tutor only when you have learned it well."

As he went on his way the scholar thought to himself, "Why, I've been studying the book over and over all these years. How foolish the king is to say that I have not mastered it!" Yet a seed of doubt had been sown in his mind. He carefully read the book again and again he applied to the king.

This time the king repeated the same thing.Mightily puzzled, the pandit reached home and shut himself in his room. He pored over the holy book day and night, and gradually the truth began to dawn on him. Then he began to see his own vanity and greed for the riches and courts of kings, and also for his own fame. Now he applied himself entirely to the worship of God and never thought once of returning to the king.

After a few years the king became curious and paid a visit to the pandit's house. There he found a changed man, radiant with divine light and love.

The king fell on his knees. "I see," he said, "that you have now realized the true meaning of the Bhagavatam. I am ready to be your disciple if you will teach me."

When will our teachers be ready?

Master of Manodharma

Carnatic music places an equal emphasis on Structured music (Kalpitam) and Creative/extempore music (Manodharmam). Many rasikas think that the music reaches its pinnacle mainly through manodharmam. It is not that easy to be creative and explore in a technically tight music like Carnatic music. Also, both the normal education system and the musical education paramparya focusses more on the structured, tried and tested than on the creative, unstructured and unexplored. Madurai T N Seshagopalan is one of my favourites for the simple reason that he is extremely creative and has tremendous manodharma. There are many moments in his cutcheri when momentarily you transcend to a different mood. That is the ultimate accolade for a musician. You, as a rasika, feel liberated.

Besides one need to have an inborn creativity to have manodharmam. This is true of not only music, but management and life too. And also cricket.

The contrast between the structured and the creative is seen when Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman bat. VVS has so much creativity that he can virtually do anything with the bat when he is in mood. Ditto for Mohd. Azaruddin. Normally the occidentals do not possess this manodharma. They come out of the structured school of thought. But you do rarely get a Mark Waugh or a David Gower. They, like VVS, are sublime.

For a person who had the damocle's sword over his head for most of his career, VVS completing 100 Test Matches is a tremendous achievement. We all owe him an apology for not taking him seriously. He is held in high regard by the opponents and his team mates. And only when he stops playing that we will realize what we will be missing.

We take certain people and certain things for granted. The magical creative batting of VVS is one such thing. Pure manodharma! Like T N Seshagopalan, VVS takes you to a different plane and holds you spell bound.

This world will be poorer without people like them.