Monday musing 230 - The tyranny of labels - 2

Monday musing 230 - The tyranny of labels - 2

A few responses on the previous blogs from readers who responded veered towards the dimension of labels as understood primarily in terms of the vice like grip of 'brands' in our increasingly possession-centric lives. It would be facetious on my part if not puerile if i said that i am untouched by its venomous fangs. There are strong voices on the uselessness and corrupting influences of the culture of brands by authors like Naomi Klien in the book 'No Logo' and subsequently by Jonathan Baskin in 'Branding works only on cattle'. However it is also clear that no body is listening because the epidemic of brands is pervading our lives in more hideous ways than imaginable. 

The last blog however was not written with brands in mind as much as it was written keeping the issue of identity in focus. Let me attempt a rejoinder.

Labels are used by us to give ourselves the comfort of identity. Like nationality, religion, caste, designation. They give us anchors to hold on to in a tumult called life however ephemeral and facile they may be. The trouble and my contention is that they start to define us sooner than we think. Most labels are man made and are made to fulfill the sociological need to 'belong' or 'feel important'. Communities of all kinds are sociological labels. Without the comfort of 'belonging' man is most likely to float.

Labels in the corporate world takes the form of designations and everything that comes along with it. As I see it and one can always disagree with this stance is that, designations which perhaps were imagined to provide a surrogate of grades of expertise have become an end in itself. It has started to become an extension of identity so much so that there is amoeba like proliferation of them. Imagine for an example the case of 'Assistant' Manager being different from a 'Deputy' manager while the incumbent does exactly the same job!! Organisations create such structures because it appears to fulfill some subconscious human need of getting a 'bigger label'. 

I was told by a colleague last week that the way Korean culture works is that they reduce the size of the cabin of a leader if he is considered to be underperforming. The implied humiliation is punitive enough! Yet one more case of label. A few years ago i know of a friend who lampooned his promotion in terms of these labels by lamenting 'does it mean that i can have the privilege of single occupancy room during conventions'. Just imagine the way human mind works.

The point i make is how labels pin us down, how labels make us think and respond, how labels binds us complex web of mental subterfuge - instead of liberating us. The more labels we need to feel important and respected the more precarious is our self esteem. It makes us fragile and susceptible to hurt. It is anything but liberating. 

Kabeer says

Jaat na poocho saadhu ki, pooch lijiyo gyaan

mol karo talwaar ka, padi rehan do myaan

(dont ask the caste of the sage, ask for his wisdom

the dagger is more important than the scabbard) 

Guru

229 Monday Musings - The tyranny of labels

Monday Musings - The tyranny of labels

Weekends for the cubicle wallahs is a time when he rediscovers the magic of hibernation, a phenomena that is reserved for lower animals like frogs and toads. So lying in front of the television and watching a movie with the barest part of human brain engaged can be construed as a human equivalent of hibernation. It is a case of partial mental shutdown. Some also believe that complete shutdown happens during the weekdays. Partial mental shutdown can have disastrous consequences while engaging with the spouse. Try watching a movie while she is talking to you (or is it try talking to her while watching a movie?) and you will know what I mean.

It is during such a case of partial shutdown that I watched the Tom Hanks starrer “Terminal’ again. It’s the story of a person without a nationality stuck at the terminal of an airport. It talks about the travails of a person robbed of the label of ‘nationality’.Now usually we take our nationality for granted because  - it is bequeathed because of accident of birth, or ‘economics (viz migrants, job seekers) or threat (refugees, asylum seekers). The only one I know of who made a ‘philosophical choice’ around the subject of nationality was Nirad c Choudhry who I gather made a choice of dumping his Indian nationality and chose the British way of life. This however is not about nationality – its about labels. 

Imagine not having the label of nationality or religion or caste or language for that matter. (not the drawing room version of it where you know that you can underplay it but still enjoy its priviledges but that scenario where you actually do not have it at all). Closer home imagine not having a label of designation, functions, roles and perks that come along with it. (again not the drawing room version of it where you keep enjoying its spoils while criticizing it but a scenario when you do not have the perks of such labels including a cubicle, cabin, reserved parking et al)

It will not be sacrilege to say that we thrive on labels. We understand the world through labels but more importantly we derive the sense of worth through labels – at least most of us do. The lure of brands, the joy of owning a type of gadgets, the perils of driving the most happening car, the thrill of going out for the in-thing-dining experience, the off the shelf holidaying package that everyone else is going are all part of that thing called labels. To begin with the labels determine our sense of self worth but soon it ends up determining our sense of self – that amorphous thing called identity. Rob the person from those labels and you have robbed him of his self image and soon his identity. The academic point becomes poignant when we look around evidences of misery that many go through when a few of those labels are taken away from him. Some of that ends up in catastrophe. Labels are no longer benign. They have turned malignant.

So here are the three questions I have for my reflection –

    What t are the labels that have become so important for me that I cannot imagine to live without them?

2.    What will happen/How will I deal if they are no longer available to me?

3.    Do I wish to liberate myself from them – NOW

What are your labels?

Guru

228 Monday Musings - Kindness in Khakhi

228 Monday Musings - Kindness in Khakhi

The only thing worse than a 15 hour day at office is a flat tyre welcome by your car at the end of those 15 hours. Flat tyres need not mean only a deflated day - it can very well mean an inflated and unexpected experience. 

The other day as i finish an excruciating long day at office, which might be quite different from a fruitful day at work - and difference is often not noticed, I was welcome by my beast with a flat Tyre. Thank God during the appraisal season it did not ask for a raise, all that it asked for was to be raised and be given some fresh air. I drove the Safari much against its wishes for a small distance in search of a mechanic despite one of her limbs seriously incapacitated and was mortified by the imagination of what it would have said to me had she been an employee! (I am digressing)

I search for a mechanic at that hour of the night but find all shops shut and am pleased by the fact they have working hours that end. (I am digressing again) . 

After a futile search I decide to do something meaningful for the day (I was about to digress but have decided I won't) and take out the Jack and the spanner to put to use all the DIY lessons on changing a flat tyre. Just then a policeman on the beat duty for the night in that area stops by. Something in me would have told him that there is more than just a flat tyre that I am shouldering a load off ( see I had the potential for digression but I didn't succumb). 

He offers to help me to change the tyre! 

I am sure you can identify with me when i say that we are used to many things - riots, earthquakes, floods, bad roads, bad ratings, poor raise and we also know how to deal with it. But how in Gods name do I deal with a policeman who is offering me to help me change a tyre!. I am tongue tied and all the communication skills training program lessons did not come to my rescue. I mumble something like "thank you" but I don't think he heard me because he stayed right there. Meanwhile a paan shop owner who was equally coming to terms with what he was seeing right in front of him saved the day (or night) for both of us when he said that we should check out with a bicycle shop nearby for some SOS. 

So we walk to the bicycle repair shop and make an audacious and stupid suggestion if he could fix the flat tyre of a Safari. If I would have been alone I am sure i would received an ear full but with my benefactor in Khakhi around all he said to wait for another 20 minutes. No prizes foe guessing he was not happy to meet me and i also did not try a warm " pleased to meet you either. 

My rescuer in the uniform then invites me to his vehicle stationed a few meters away and offers "cold water" - something clearly he felt was the best hospitality he could offer me in the sultry conditions. He then pulls out a chilled bottle of water amidst the crackling sound of police control room conversations trickling out of instruments at the back of his car and asks me to drink to my hearts content. He then regales me with the stories of his profession which by the way are quite heart wrenching. He talks about the horrible working conditions, cruel working hours, poor pay, force shortages, and high stress. He also laments that the fact that all crime becoming white collared and committed on phone and computer has had such an devastating effect on the spoils in his profession. "Things are not the same anymore" - i think i have heard that before! He remembers the good old days of road side betting, bootlegging and other assorted pursuits that offered a more ready opportunity to earn a honest days living. The clincher was however this - "You got to be seriously senior in the police to make money". I almost felt like hugging him. 

When the mechanic finally changed the tyre and my friend bid me goodbye, i actually hugged him because there was something seriously honest, humble and nice about him. He stopped by to ask another human being in distress and ask "Can I help you?". I don't think I do that often. 

Guru

Monday Musings 227 - If your are not overworked...then you are underworked

Monday Musings 227 - If your are not overworked...then you are underworked

Sometimes too many things happen around a given subject in quick succession and it leaves us wondering if this was nature's way of pushing us to solve the conundrum - if not in practice then at least intellectually. 

Most cubicle-wallahs who are endowed with diligence and an honest bone feel overworked and hard pressed for time. Since it will be unkind and a tad offensive to my self esteem to put myself in a category otherwise, at least in my own assessment, it is safe to conclude that i also feel overworked and hard pressed for time. The tragedy of being overworked is that at its best its a very personal thing - like haemorroids. One cannot talk much about it, there isnt much sypathy available as balm (pun intended), although one does feel its presence most of the times. Both disrupt the quality of life in a strange way. So just as i was on the point of becoming the complaining sorts, i read this cartoon in the ET which said - "....Never complain about overwork...if you are not overworked then you are definitely underworked"...It will not require a genius to know what are the perils of being underworked. Imagine a bovine (i am not sure if i can use this word - i guess there is a ban on using such words these days!) in the queue in the slaughterhouse. So where is the next task...keep loading!

I am also not liking these philosophers kinds who seem to have only me as a reader if i go by the frequency of serendipity of they finding me. I hate Aristotle when he says "All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind". I think Nasser Taleb is being personal when he says says something to the effect that one should not trust a man who depends on a monthly salary for his living. The on i personally and deeply hate is Upton Sinclair who says "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it". What are these philosophers upto - discouraging an entire generation of honest men and women who want to keep the fires in the kitchen burning? I heard they use to poison such men in the earlier times, who had the audacity to make the regulars miserable by flirting with truth. 

Finally this issue of being overworked is also about what are you overworked with - i guess that will make the difference to the camels back. The good thing about being a camel or may be its back is that it is physiologically and intellectually incapable of discerning the quality of the load. I think the soul is far more endowed with intelligence and perspicuity. 

Guru

Monday Musings 226 - The charm of the unsaid

Monday Musings 226 - The charm of the unsaid

"You need to keep reminding yourself of the obvious; charm lies in the unsaid, the unwritten, and the undisplayed. It takes mastery to control silence"

Youth is usually verbose and expressive, fueled by the exuberance that usually comes with naivety, idealism or foolhardiness. Middle ages is the wearing out of some of them if one is lucky and all of them if one is ordinary. Most lives are a struggle to overcome the threat of that ordinariness. In that sense, at the risk of generalization, most lives are a struggle not with their circumstance but with themselves. What can be more scary and hideous than ordinariness staring back from the mirror on a monday morning! It takes quite a lot to come to terms with the fact that having reached forties one is at best still a work-in-progress.

There is great joy in having opinions on everything - a borderline case of being opinionated.  It thrives on the sense of self serving importance that comes from knowing. One must speak on anything and quite liberally, for in our ability to speak with abandon lies our sense of liberation. Its like the adolescent who has the freedom to go anywhere and who because now he has it, shall exercise it without restraint. The fun is not in the freedom per se but in the realization that the freedom can be exercised at will. It is only with time that one realizes that the 'charm lies in the unsaid, the unwritten and the undisplayed'.

What is already expressed and articulated, in speech or words, is like cards that are already revealed. They do not hold much power or promise. The spoken and articulated do not hold potential for modification and correction. Finally they also do not hold any more charm - for charm lies in restraint and an implicit offer of something still left unexplored.  What is already explored is largely boring. Unknown holds the power of imagination and excitement.

What is it that makes speaking irresistible? What is it that having the last word in a conversation such an aphrodisiac - and in the corporate world, i might add with experience and trepidation a need that is the most pronounced?
Is it because what Naser Taleb, from whom i have liberally borrowed the quote above has also said - "writers are remembered for their best work, politicians for their worst mistakes and businessmen are almost never remembered" ? 

I guess there is grace in the quiet. I guess there is mystery in silence. There is anticipation in holding back. There is power in the unsaid. So the next time as i rejoice the magic of the said, i shall spare some time in exploring the power of the unsaid.

Guru   

Monday musings 225 - The Missing tile

Monday musings 225 - The Missing tile

I received a small clip by one Denis Prager on the Whatsapp, that digital mega-store where the answers to all human questions gets answered these days, sometimes after solicitation and mostly without it. Dennis talks about the "missing tile syndrome" that human beings usually suffer from - focusing on that one tile that is not present or perfect rather than all the ones that are. Many years back Javed Akhtar, the noted lyricist and poet wrote in his anthology 'Tarqash' - 

Khushi se sabka faasla bas ek kadam hai, 

Har ghar me bas ek kamra kam hai"

(Happiness, for everyone is only a step away; for every house is only a room short). 

Cognitively we all know that it is a futile expectation from life but we still suffer from it - like the hugely stereotypical sardar joke in which the naive sardar on seeing the banaa peel exclaims - "Oh aaj phir girna padega" (gosh - will have to fall again). Wish it was funny! I also wonder why what is cognitively so profoundly understood is emotionally so poignantly ignored. What makes us so helplessly focus only on the missing tile? The missing tile is like the rouge tooth, which amongst the otherwise healthy teeth has this uncanny and frustrating ability to incessantly remind ourselves of its presence. 

A leader i had worked with a few years ago had said after a few drinks, a time when he usually was at his pranking and profound best; "We gotta be at peace with ourselves". I have not known many at his level be actually be at peace with himself. What is it that prevents us from being at peace with ourselves? Why the agony of the missing tile always? I look around and i see most fuming and fretting on the missing tile of their ceiling, me included. It is an epidemic. 

A doha which is attributed to both Kabeer and Rahim in various places, 

Chah gayi Chinta gai, manwa beparwah, 

jinko kachoo na chahiye wohi shehanshah

(with no desire or worry and a carefree mind; those at peace with themselves are like kings) 

This is at odds with the zeitgeist of the times which unabashedly announces "Ye dil maange more". Ambition is the fuel for progress and also the seed for the missing tile. How do we retain the spirit of progress and yet resist the agony of the missing tile syndrome. Dilemma is the first step for the neurotic. I am in dilemma and in that case the portends are not good!

The ancient Indian wanted liberation from the curse 84 - the cycle of birth and death. The medieval Indian wanted liberation from want. The modern cubiclist wants liberation from the rat race, even though he enjoys the perks of it. The ancient and the medieval failed. What makes the modern so confident? I guess he has an MBA. They usually have all the answers. 

Guru

Monday Musings 224 - Reporting from Cawnpore

Monday Musings 224 Reporting from Cawnpore

The world outside the metro is an education.  Every time I travel to the smaller towns of India I tend to notice the many India that jostle for space, on the face of it competing and soon settling down at peace with each other. We know for sure instances where the many India’s are not at peace with each other and are at violent loggerheads for space – like the khaps and their convoluted logic of honour amidst rural prosperity, not more than a 100 kms from the borders of the nations capital. However there are also examples where an understanding of sorts has been achieved. I witnessed two such examples during my recent trip to Kanpur. I like the sound of its erstwhile name Cawnpore, which incidentally is still what is written on its British era Kotwali, a majestic imperial architecture. Why don't they build stuff like that anymore?

I was attending a meeting where the prosperous and progressive Small and Medium Enterpirse owners of the town had come together for an industry conference, to discuss key issues of their business. Quite obviously most of these belonged to old, established and illustrious families of the city. Most were old and middle aged and commanded respected from the fellow participants, flowing not only from the net worth they represented but perhaps because of conduct that may have lasted for more than a generation. 

A man in the fifties who was a dignitary on the dias came out and touched the feet of an elderly member in the audience seeking blessings. Before I could get over it another young man in his thirties at the most came over and touched everyones feet. I was only consuming the sight and trying to come to terms with it is when another man in his fifties brought his rather young son in his early twenties to meet the seniors. What an amazing sight – the boy went about touching everyones feet in the circle – almost a rite of passage of sorts. He was getting lesson i guess. Mind you this was happening in the middle of a trade conference just outside the auditorium. I could not help but wonder if my management education ever taught me anything even remotely to deal with this milieu. I am sure each one in the room knew his pennies and paisa’s as well as anyone else in any other city of India. The big question I also wondered if we the city slickers were in any way prepared to deal with them?

Earlier in the day someone in his thirties and working as a professional for many years now was describing the rituals at his home, relationship with his father and his children. He was young, modern, educated, sophisticated in every sense of the word.  He described how even today he is woken up by his father at 5am, a relaxation of an hour from the earlier deadline of 4 am in the morning. He talked about how even today he so enjoys pressing his father’s feet and legs, and he considers that his doing it actually the best ‘role modeling’ he could do for his children. He was at least a decade younger to me but at least a decade wiser than me. I was so blown away by his childlike enthusiasm, simplicity and rootedness. He believed in what he said and even if some of it sounded so anachronistic in this time and age for the city slicker in me, I wanted to ape him. A case of reverse role modeling.

On the highway from Lucknow to Kanpur there was a stretch where old village women were selling fresh guavas. Great joy in munching into the succulent flesh of the countryside guava.Big joy in small munches. 

I met three retailers – two known from the past and one in whose shop I just walked into, who showed me how the winds of trade were changing. The first one owned a 60 year old family shop which sold more than 20,000 SKUs in kitchen items, accessories and electronic items. He told me that e-tailing was gradually eating into the business and confirmed it even when I expressed dismay that it was not possible in Kanpur. The second one was the owner of a chain of beauty Salon’s – a first generation self made business person. She taught me the magic of customer insight. She said that the third week of March is every year a lean season for her because during this week most housewives, which incidentally made up much of her clientele were busy in their children's exams and would not venture out. This was also not a season where Christians, Hindus or Muslims usually have weddings. Finally she told me that she keeps track of the Shubh Muhurts probably more than anyone else – because it means ache din for her. I walked into a leather shop whose owner gave me a tutorial on leather, its type and speciality – he definitely knew his sheep from his calves and goats!!

Class over. 

Guru