Monday Musing 199: The dying art of self deprecation

Monday Musing 199: The dying art of self deprecation

I spent the better part of the weekend watching the celebrated TV serial 'Mirza Ghalib' written and directed by the acclaimed Gulzar, co written by yet another giant Kaifi Azmi. The serial was telecast in 1988 in the times of black and white TV and the hegemony of Doordarshan. I was still in school and yet to develop the intellectual capacity to distinguish between Krishi Darshan and Ghalib - the only role both played was that they allowed me some time in front of the TV. Then somewhere in the year 1994 during one of those long distance train travels, I bought 'Deewan-e-Ghalib' from The Wheeler & Co, one of those ubiquitous book stalls that spawn in the railway stations across the length and breadth of the country. Ever since then the yellowing pages of that book, now filled with underlines, notes and asterisk marks have reminded me of the giant that was Ghalib and his amazing story and the realisation how little I still understand him. 

Watching the dozens of episodes of the serial is like a crash course on his poetry and a peek into his persona. Apart from the literary genius that he was, this time what intrigued me about him was his amazing ability of self deprecation. Despite his genius, despite his own realization about his genius, he remained amazingly self deprecating about himself. He took his art seriously but never himself. He was childlike, full of humor and never hesitated in pulling a fast one on himself given his penchant for alcohol, gambling and continuously being in debt- obviously in a literary way. Sample these. 

Ho goya koi aisa bhi, jo ghalib ko na jaane 

Shayar to wo achha hai par badnaam bahut hai

(Is there anyone who does not know of Ghalib - he is a good poet but has a bad name)

Ye masail-e-tasaffuf aur ye tera bayan ghalib

ham tujhe wali samajhte, jo na baadakhwaar hota

(O Ghalib - with the quality of your observations on the matters of the world, one would consider you a wise one, if not for your love for alcohol)

I am sure there would be much more evidence of his self deprecating streak. The point of this musing is to contrast this to the current times in general and the cubiclist in particular. 

Look around and one would find just too many people taking themselves too seriously. No one has time, actually the ability to see the humor in tight spots. Self deprecation is a dying art and a dying ability. Too many serious blokes are making living a dangerous vocation. This is no where visible more starkly at work place. The pursuit of success, ladder climbing, survival of the fittest has robbed us of the ability to laugh at ourselves and take a dig at our own imperfections. If a man of Ghalibs genius could do it then maybe we give ourselves a little more credit than we deserve, or may be Ghalibs genius was actually in his ability for self deprecation despite his brilliance.  

In yet another place he writes, 

na tha kuch to khuda tha, na kuch hota to khuda hota

duboya mujh ko hone ne, na hota mai to kya hota

(When there was nothing, there was the supreme power, who would have been there even if nothing would have been there - my downfall is in my taking my 'being' too seriously - what would have happened even if I was not there)

Folks, in the long run - we are dead, so cheer up. Watch Ghalib for inspiration. 

....and before I forget, tomorrow is Monday. Let’s get to work. 

Guru

198 Monday Musings: The Catch

198 Monday Musings: The Catch

It is difficult to remain untouched by the feverish pitch of the coming parliamentary elections. This time like no time before, the method in the madness reveals itself from behind the cacophony of voices. The electoral madness and its actual outcome notwithstanding, the run up to the elections have become increasingly corporatized. The stamp of the 'marketing think-tank' behind the campaign is unmistakable - which brings me the point of today’s musing that all vision selling is less an intellectual act of creation but more the mundane act of selling. 

I see three distinct strands of electoral positioning so far - and each one of them will have equivalents in the corporate world to take note of and lessons from. 

First the 'Old wine in the old bottle' - the Congress's attempt to create a promise where none exists. It fails to trigger imagination because of the corpses of the unmet expectation lie everywhere. The die has been cast now and their promises of the future shall be judged by the images of their past performance. They had their chances and they must realize that they cannot manufacture the reputation of performance through imagery and propaganda. As Alyque Padmse said 'The fastest way of killing a bad product is good advertising'

The second is the BJP campaign of 'You gave them a chance - now give us'. This is more a TINA - There is no alternative pitch, the case of pitching for 'we are relatively lesser evil'. There is no imagination, no original proposition, no vision per se that might fire the aspirations that paints the picture of a new ideal, but an appeal for an anti-establishment wave ridden by an ‘angry young man’ tactics. This is the nature of the permanent protester whose only method is to talk of the disenchantment with the establishment, but not offering a coherent and powerful vision of the future. It is nothing but a 'better' version of the past.

The third, unfortunately the only one who offers this is the AAP (why is this unfortunate is something that deserves another musing) - a bold new vision of the future, something fundamentally and radically different from the past, that has a better chance of dealing with the challenges of the future. It may not be clear and definitive, but has the promise to shake things around. Even in partial success it is a better bet than trying to fix the old. 

Corporate leaders and I do not mean the CEOs here, but the middle management fall in precisely these three categories. Middle management is where the things rot more often than not. This is where vision meets execution, or rather where it does not meet!

The first kind are those who have played their cards, often miserably so, but who at the beginning of a new year want the teams below and around them to give yet another chance to their moribund plans. They want their teams to respond with passion, energy and commitment even though the corpses of poorly thought plans, half baked initiatives and horrendous follow through lie everywhere. 

The second kinds are those who are waiting in the ranks to usurp the throne, plotting and planning in the shadows, cynical and sarcastic with the current scheme of things, but who do not anything new or substantial to offer. They can at best offer how to 'tinker with the carburetor' to make it marginally better, but have no clue about the 'new engine' needed to drive into the future. Obviously most of them are blissfully unaware of this, but wishful thinking is still not a crime, is it?

The third kinds are needed but are rarely found. Middle management is also not the best of places to be in, for it is sandwiched between the thinkers and the doers. They do not have the power of the top or the insurance of the bottom. They are also most susceptible to existential angst and disillusionment that is rampant in the corridors of the corporate world. However this does not takes away the crying demand for them to not only have a vision, as different from the organizational vision that shall infuse a new lease of life in their functions. They are either caught in the web of only talking about the big picture, leaving the dirty job of execution to the lesser mortal, or they get too involved in the small tasks abdicating the need for a big picture thinking. The precarious balance between plumbing and philosophizing remains elusive.

The plumber must find time to have a philosophy or else he might die a plumber. The philosopher must find opportunities to plumb or else he might become unfit to even plumb. What a colossal waste both shall be!!

Guru

Monday Musings 197 - The cities we live in and the cities that live in us

Monday Musings 197 - The cities we live in and the cities that live in us

On my second trip to the ancient city of Benaras, as is my wont, I was wondering around in its traditional parts - trying to soak in its sights, sounds and smells. (I had blogged about my first visit to the city a few years back). This time I had two of my local colleagues who had both returned back to the city, helplessly - after having migrated away for greener pastures, but had returned like the cat who keeps coming back to your house even when you try to leave her way away, hopelessly enamored by its love for the household.

While moving around the old city and enjoying its own version of night life - from the thandai, tea, hot fragrant milk and wrapping it up with the delicious paan, I was given a short tutorial on why it is difficult to take a person out of Banaras but quite impossible to take Banaras out of the person. Only to prove the point I was given a wonderful book called "Kashi ka Assi" written by Dr Kashi Nath Singh who apart from other distinctions taught Hindi literature in the Banaras Hindu University. 'Assi' in the title refers to the 'assi-ghat' area of the southern tip of the city, right on the banks of river Ganges and is the oldest part of the city - one may easily call it the 'true - original - Banaras'. This book, without going into details is a wonderful account of the soul of Banaras, with its eccentricities, lingo, and people, peppered with colorful expletive ridden language of this part of the town. As the opening paragraph warns - ".....this book is not for children, nor for the aged - it is for adults only.....”. This warning is treated with warm welcome by the original Banarasis for whom such colorful language is a way of life - a restraint in the language to make it more civilized is akin to sacrilege, an attempt to play with the identity of the city. 

We know by now that cities have their own character and many have fallen hopelessly in love them. In the corporate world one of the big reason people do not move bases is the love for their city. Many have sacrificed the lure of opportunities at the altar of love for their hometown. Many of batch mates from college were resolute in their decision not to move out of the place of their birth. I would usually respond this with polite sarcasm but I guess I understand the phenomena a little better now. 

Many books and movies have managed to capture the spirit of the city in its truest form. The city is the character as much as the people who form the narrative. In recent times, Calcutta was a character in the movie 'Kahaani', Delhi was a character in 'Delhi-6', as much was Mumbai in the movie 'Dhobi ghat' and amongst books, 'Maximum city' by Suketu Mehta described Bombay. I am not sure if we have gone beyond Mumbai and Delhi - even using Delhi  as a backdrop is only a recent phenomena. However there are at least a dozen or more Indian cities who have a distinct flavor of its own and which are stories ripe enough to be told. I am sure there would be books which exist but I wish they were either written more or popularized more. I would never have enjoyed Banaras as much as I have after having read 'Kashi ka Assi'. 

How titillating it would be for the soul if someone wrote a full blown book about the eccentricities of Lucknow or the finesse of Allahabad or the humor of Hyderabad, the preoccupation of intellect of Chennai or the love for argument of Kolkata/Kerala or the love for analysis of Ahmadabad (or Surat or Rajkot) or the finesse of Bangalore or the love for nothingness of Cuttack or the love for political and social discourse of Bihar - so on and so forth. It will make a great reading and for those who cannot or have not travelled, it will be a good window into a people who are so near and yet so far. 

Zauq, a great poet and a man in love with his dilli (Delhi), shunned the courts of Deccan where there was a greater appreciation of poetry and perhaps more profitable to be in, by saying -  

In dinon garche dakkan me hai badi qadr-e-sukhan
Kaun jaye 'zauk' par dilli ki galiyan chhod kar 

(There is great appreciation for the art of expression in Deccan these days but who shall leave the streets of Delhi!)

We must continue to live in our cities - but at least the cities must continue to live in us. 

Guru

Monday Musings 196 - The Types

Monday Musings 196 - The Types

"When you don’t know which shore you are going - no wind is good wind"

I asked a team of trainers, comrades in my profession the other day, "Why did you become trainers" and most answers were evasive at best and ambiguous at worst. I am sure it is not a crime to not know the 'why' of everything, at least not yet - but I guess the 'why' does serves as an antidote to much of what passes off as occupational hazards. I am sure this question applies to others too. 

There are all kind with respect to their position on this question (" Why do we want to become 'so and so '?). Let me try to profile them, a tad tongue in cheek though. 

The aware: These are those who have asked this question and have got the answer to their satisfaction. They know why they are doing what they are doing. They have found access to the deepest recesses of their mind and will often wax eloquent of their awareness and the resultant halo around their head, often visible only to them. The halo keeps their ego warm but burns others on contact. They are often pompous, presumptuous, and full of themselves and have great propensity for being pain in certain parts of human anatomy, a reference to which qualifies as unparliamentarily. 

The wannabees: These are those who ask themselves such questions but have not got the answer. They keep on asking these questions because it keeps the pretence of their intellectualism alive. Since the thinkers have asked the question and acquired the halo, how could they possibly be left behind? The best recourse to those who have not made the cut in the corporate world is to renounce their bid, publically, and pronounce that such a pursuit was infra dig. English language has an elementary phrase for such situation - 'Grapes are sour'. 

The Doubtful - This one is peculiar in his construct. He knows what is this question but finds asking it an utter waste of time. He is the 'practical' one, who takes to task anyone who even dares to engage him with something as esoteric and hence as wasteful as asking 'why'. He prefers asking questions like 'How' and ideally "for how much" - ideally the other way around. 

The Blissful - By far they have numerical majority, for they don’t know what is this hoopla about a darn question that should never have been asked in the first place. What they don’t know does not hurt them. Why ask a question that has the potential for disturbance, whose very nature is destructive and the very intent diabolic. Happiness is a matter of choice and if a little bit of ignorance helps, and then surely it is worth the effort.  

Go ahead and check which corner you stand!

Guru

195 Monday Musings - Yet another slice of life

195 Monday Musings - Yet another slice of life

"Kamna Prasad Tripathy from Azamgarh sir" he replied, in accented English as I asked his name while entering the tariffed taxi service outside the Mumbai airport the other night. Apart from the usage of the queen’s language it was his confidence that announced that he was not an ordinary cab driver. In saying his name and the manner in which he said it and adding the trivia about his roots he was claiming his space inside the cab as an identity distinct and perhaps superior to what his vocation lent him. I knew I had to talk to him.

I asked him how long he was in Mumbai. He announced dramatically - and I capture this verbatim - “1969 was ending and 1970 was beginning - and in the space in between, I landed in Mumbai"

I asked him how has been his experience of working in Mumbai. He said “Mumbai offers a secular opportunity to everyone to earn a livelihood with dignity. As long as you are committed to your work, money will keep flowing. I fulfilled all my responsibilities as a brother, as a son and as a father doing odd work here"

Immediately he corrected himself and it was the correction that yet again announced that he was not an ordinary taxi driver. He said “Actually I became an instrument to fulfill my responsibilities". 

Over the next 30 minutes he sang Kabeer, Tulsidas and perhaps to connect with me better, Nanak, along with description and elucidation of meaning of what he was singing. 

Suddenly a call comes on his phone and he asks in the broken English that speaks, to the person on the other end " Sir if you can wait for 15 minutes...I can pick you...you will reach your destination...and I will also earn some money...but of course no pressure from my side"...Just awesome example of influencing skills!! He cuts the phone and explains to me the merits of transparency in dealing with customers. 

A little ahead on the road, he tells how at 62, his family does not like him driving and working. But he is adamant - "While money is no longer as strong a driver anymore, but I do not like the prospect of not earning any money too....One must earn"

Then comes the power punch when he talks about the four aims of human life, Arth, Kama, Dharm and Moksh - "Why is Moksh number four and not number one - Only Gaad (God) knows!!...In any case these four pursuits are for the men-battalion....women battalion is exempt...they already do quite a lot you see...." 

Finally as I step out at my destination I say "It was nice talking to you" to which he serves an ace...”Your company made me talk nice...credit goes to you". 

Mr. Kamna Prasad tripathy from Azamgarh - we need more like you, if not on the streets, then certainly in the parliament. 

Guru

Monday Musings 194: Revolutions from above or within

Monday Musings 194: Revolutions from above or within

The notion of a revolution is quite a romantic one. The Arab spring, the south East Asian uprisings and closer home the AAP juggernaut appears to be cut from the same cloth - the revolution that was murmuring a while ago but simmered soon, only to erupt one fine day. Across histories the notion of revolution comes along with the narrative of popular discontent reaching a stage where it is difficult for the powers to be to hold on to the status quo any further. 

Dipankar Gupta in his book 'Revolution from above' argues that that "at every historical juncture when democracy made significant advances, it was the citizen elite or the elite of calling who led the charge often going against the grain of popular demands and sentiments". I was just past the preface when it struck me that how does this sociological theory pans out in modern organizations. The notion that the elite, often the beneficiaries of the status quo in a system bring forth reforms that furthers the cause of progress and emancipation in a democratic society is borne out time and again - I am sure I will read about it as I progress in the book. How does it play in organizations?

Does an elite in modern organizations, who hold the seat of power and influence go about furthering their own self interest, reinforce their power structures or do they systematically go about bringing down structures that have outlived their utility, are harmful to the future readiness of an organization, even if it means this will weaken their own turf. Do organizations have such reformist idealism? Do organizations offer space for such reformist zeal? Most critically, do organizations tolerate such reformist initiative?

In the Industrial relations space, puritanically speaking at least, the trade union movement still allowed negotiations to better the system. However in the white collared world, it is the secular forces of systems and processes which are supposed to make the system self correcting. However these systems, non-human as they are, are subject to the usual machinations at the hands of the person who controls it. It that elite wants, it shall reform - however if that elite does not want, then god bless the system. 

Organizations are usually political spaces where competing worldviews, views and interests vie for legitimacy, validation and survival. They are fuelled by intelligence and analysis but are always subject to human failings. Ultimately pure rationality is a myth. There is a lot of premium that is put on judgment of leaders - and who is to say in the extreme short run if a decision is governed by pure objectivity or colored by the person involved. Would reforms be pushed by the elite in modern organizations if at the end the system is strengthened but leaves him without power or the strapping’s of it? Quite unlikely - would be the common responses. 

If this is true, does it mean that sociologically speaking, organizations are far less evolved than society at large in its instinct to better itself - an orangutan amidst Homo sapiens!!

Guru

Monday Musing 193: Of an equation, a book launch, and a marathon

Monday Musing 193: Of an equation, a book launch, and a marathon

The New Year had a languid start for the occasional writing that I do - the intent of which is primarily catharsis and a distant second is the need to have a voice and make it heard. We cublclists tend to have a bloated image of the cubicle's galactic significance. I guess the writing serves as a gentle reminder of the many parallel universes apart and beyond the cubicle that exist with no less significance, if only we chose to notice.  

The New Year started by a mail from an oracle that many like me adore and are in awe, which ended with an equation which said - 

“Bad experience + poor response = shaky foundation

  Bad experience + good response = Learning and growth."

I quickly went over all the bad responses I had dished out to the bad experiences that I have had - from health to work, from unrequited love to office intrigue, from hobbies which never became a profession and professions which never became a hobby - and I winced. The things that were responded better to, did not come to my rescue. Hopefully I will have a better strike rate in the future. I was also thinking of how we respond to good experience and I arrived at a cheeky version of the equation - 

"Good experience + poor response = wasted opportunity

Good experience + good response = Epiphany"

Pankaj Dubey and his book theme "What a loser/Loser kahin ka" has featured so many times on my blog that a friend suspected I was paid for it - and my response was, "how I wish!” On the 15th of Jan finally the book got launched in both the languages amidst an ensemble of film personalities - from actors Sarika and Divya Dutta, movie director Rajkumar Gupta (Amir, No One Killed Jessica and Ghanchakkar), Story writers Himanshu Sharma (Rhanjhana, Tanu weds Manu), Sanjay Chowhan (Sahib Biwi and Gangster and Paan SIngh Tomar) and Actress Swara Bhaskar - and he offered that I should moderate the panel discussion on the occasion, an offer that was too good to let go.

I have always featured Pankaj Dubey as a case study, an alternative to the mainstream model of success - where you chase your imagination rather than pursuing the predictable and hackneyed. The guy who was at the top of his class was moderating a discussion on the book written by the guy who was at the bottom - very cinematic!! I pray that the tribe of Mr. Dubey grow and rub off some courage to the traditionalists - and please do read the book. 

The marathon season kicked off for me at the Mumbai marathon today - where I did my best in the circuit but not my best ever. Importantly, I did not feel like I was dying nor had any kind of stress or stretch during the run and at the finishing line I had enough in me to go on for some more time. I think the full marathon- a scorching 42kms has entered the realm of possibility in  my imagination. Could 2014 be the year where I will muster enough courage to 'graduate' to the proverbial next level? 

Let’s see - 2014 is still young!

Guru