Cancer cells that vanish

Team and Family

The chairman of IPL was going to get his boot,  he was yet enjoying his cricket and could find his hands shake a bit during the speech, apart from this he kept his cool.  Now the charges are Lalit Modi favoured his relatives.  My take is that our society is so family oriented to why not?  Relatives do play a very important role in shaping our lives and hence when its pay back time you can expect the relatives not to be favoured.  Then why all this noise.  In politics and business relatives are favored and its all pervasive in our society and personally I feel it is good.

The nail biting moments for Modi has come to an end.  IPL has just got over, Chennai super Kings have taken the cherry.  Dhoni and his boys should be celebrating.  If I were to pick one defining moment its going to be difficult, it was team work.  Sanobar Sultana called me on a radio show, and I said the same thing,  we have a lot to learn on how to manage family pressures without letting down a team.  You dont see Dhoni's relatives anywhere around, we know he is from Jharkhand  what else do we know of him?  almost nothing.  Take Suresh Raina one of the best performers, what do you know about his family.  Almost nothing.

I remember the command given to Abraham (a biblical character) to let go of everything including his family.  I really do not want to believe that its a literal 'let go'  for that is easy, its the letting go with everything around is what is very difficult.  Iam sure that is what was expected of Abraham.

End of the day its a fair team play that wins, when you embrace the ones who really have no connections with you, not when u play family _ for that is a sheer human (animal) nature to be territorial and to protect owns own pack. 

Big Fat exploiters – ICC and the Cricket Boards

Five day cricket was losing its glamour. Drawn matches and yawns, cricket was in the pits. Now you would say that One Day and the T20 formats saved cricket. Yes it did. And we need to note that the so called guardians of the game did sweet nothing for Cricket except for passing rules and laws, making schedules, throwing their weight around and bullying innovators.

1977 Kerry Packer (WSC)_ pulled the biggest coup that rattled the cricket world. He brought in pyjama cricket, the one day format, and made it suitable for Television audience. The pharisees of game (ICC) got their crosses and the nails out. And copied the same format, with all its innovations. Cricket got a lease of life because of Kerry Packer. One day cricket even helped test cricket. Cricket survived.

2007 a maverick businessman from India, Subhash Chandra, started ICL. Packer like strategy. Response from the high priests of the game was the same. Finally they used their muscle power and brought down ICL only start a similar format _ IPL.

Now look for yourself, take a look at the biggies from BCCI and IPL do they look like innovators or those who care for the game? hardly. They are just businessmen, number crunchers who are there to exploit the game. Look at all the mess and irregularities.

Can we for a moment stand and in silence pay respect for those great men like Kerry Packer and Subhash Chandra who have done great things for the game but have lost millions and got crucified in the process?

Well this seems to happen in the simplest things in life. I have friend who took the initiative and sticks her neck out and does a good innovative design only to be stabbed by her own loved ones. Then she pays the price to correct it.

The travails of the innovators are aplenty. You stick your neck out thinking that they will hang that medal of gold around your neck but alas the guillotine awaits.

Its these innovators who keep the world on the move. The others just drink their blood and live off what these innovators do.

The fortune teller

How queer it is when one is just standing by the road and when a man with a light beard with the gift of the gab approaches you and commits to dissect you life.  I was quite taken aback but was in a fairly open mind, and my body language obviously communicated my incline to talk to him while my verbal appeals was a resounding NO.  This saffron dude was smart, he rejected my verbal appeal and processed my non verbal cues.

The next step was a sample.  He say "Jee Dont pay but I will tell.. and we gave a twitter kind of talk"

It worked.  Dont u think the same applies in a more sophisticated level when this equivalents of road side soothsayers scale up style and language and call themselves consultants.  What did I learn?  Learn t never to processes the verbal blast but handle the non verbal cues.

So much to learn from the roads.. what they may not probably teach you at IIM perhaps

Subway? watch ur head wear ur helmet !!!!!

Tucked in a quite but strategic place at Nungambakkam, Chennai is this joint called SUBWAY. My blogging friends used to meet here every week, sometimes thrice a week, to catch up. Believe me its a fine place for conversations and food. Come on, CCD is too tinny really does not have the bite, would not mind CCD for some gossipy stuff. But subway was for planning, scheming and strategizing, for little more serious work.

6 months ago I bought his fancy looking bike, a cruiser.It was – Iam a writer/ blogger I better be a little different you see – kind of purchase decision. Then I said my head gear better be good. So I went about the market and picked up a fantastic white helmet, that looks like what the airforce dudes wear, it costed me a small fortune. It was a pleasure wearing that head gear.

As a writer I travel to many nooks and crannies of the city, to slum joints to sip tea with some real earthy people and I merely leave my helmet on the bike. The Chennaites are very decent was a line got reinforced into me till i lost my fav helmet in a silk stocking like Subway Nungambakkam. And my friend lost his too. So two nuts in one stone by some petty thief.

You cant blame subway for that can you? yet I went a complained to the Head of the unit, I had to cry on somebody’s shoulders dammit, and to my surprise he said he will organize new ones. WOWIEEEE!!!!!!! I was delighted. This is was too much for me to handle. 24 hrs later the story changed, obviously he never got his internal approvals.

So I wrote this letter to Mr Senthil on Jan 2nd

Hi Senthil

A few of us bloggers who are also involved in conducting events like TEDx, Social Media Camp etc used to meet up at Subway Nungambakkam regularly.. No we had no problems with the service .. Three days back 2 of the team members had parked the vehicle in a proper place and seemlingy ‘friendly’ security man advised us to park it inside. We obliged and also tipped him for his kindness.

In a matter of one hour.. 2 of our helmets went missing.. Believe me, as bloggers we park our vehicles in the most crazy places and we never loose it, and in a place like yours at Nungambakkam nobody will take it.
Can you please look into this and give me a suitable feedback. We really want to come there but we are quite disturbed.

Benedict G

No reply. No reply. No reply. No reply. The subway boards somehow over the period of these 4 months lost its attractiveness. Pink papaya does not exist afterall.

And this morning comes this mail from Vipin Sachdev .. hoooray.. now guys I will keep u posted on what is going to happen from now on

Dear Benedict,
I am sorry for the delayed response.
Thank you for letting me know on this unfortunate incident. I am shocked that the thankless building security guards. Ashok Kumar – Head operations will take corrective action to prevent such occurrences in future & will get back to you over phone/email today.
I thank you & look forward to your continued patronage.
Best wishes,
Vipin Sachdev.

The sincere ones are the losers

In a game there is a winner and a loser right?  well that’s what you think.  I come from media business and I know how a newspaper that does have high circulation actually manages to be more profitable that the market leader.  The market leader ends up printing more and more copies because more and more people are reading it.  Incidentally the biggest cost input for a newspaper is the newsprint – the paper cost, so the leader buys more, imports more because newsprint is in short supply, and employs more people (which means more problems) and has to face the displeasure of the advertising community when the advertising rates are increased.

The rat, who is a sluggard, whose paper actually one wants to touch, is losing circulation.  And he is least bothered.  He is in fact sacking those sincere circulation staff who are working over time to push up sales (dumb guys). Why?  the owner does not want to sell more copies.  Because for him selling more means more newsprint, more staff to handle the operations, which in turn is more cost. 

Instead the rat is busy trying to de-sell the paper. And what does he do? Now the cherry, every time the leader increases the advertising rates to match his increased circulation increase the rat also increases but on a diminishing circulation.  End of the day  the rat makes more money.

So don’t be fools to weep for the owners of the IPL teams that are not doing well.  Dont we talk about Priety Zenita, Sharukh Khan, Vijay Mallaya and Ambani in the same breath?  Now look at this picture of Priety Zenita showing a thumbs up to the Ambanis.  Well when will she ever get a chance to do this.

There was this guy, I forgot his name, lets call him Ravi.  Now Ravi was also called Pan Parag Ravi, because he was a dealer for Pan parag.  He had tons of money but his image was in the pits because of his association with Pan parag.  Now Ravi was an ambitious man, and he knew that with his pan parag image he will not be able to move forward.  So he planned to shed his image.  Can he do it?  its not easy unless he does something so decides to be associated with another brand that is more powerful and stylish than Pan parag. Thats exactly what Ravi did.  He invested tons of money on associating with a brand that overnight transformed his image.  Pan parag tag was shed.  And Ravi’s personal equity hit the sky.

Life works very differently.  Shahrukh Khan's Kolkota Knight Riders may be the only team that has not made into the semis so far, but so what?  Sharukh has got a lot of sympathy. Ask Machiavelli, he may stand by me and say a successful king needs the sympathy of people. For a leading actor a sympathetic wave does more good that harm.  So the more KKR languishes more Sharukh will benefit.  In cocktail parties people will be more gentle and kind to him.  Some may even give him money along with sympathy.  What about Priety Zienita, Punjab may not be the best of teams, maybe its kissing ground zero, so what, somebody has to do it right?  A actor like Priety Zenita anyway may not fit into the big screen as an actor anymore, so when she screams for joy or bites her nails during a match, and finally pretends to sulk after loosing, it makes great eye candies, the emotions an actress can bring into the small screen will never go unnoticed, and its valuable indeed. It can move you to tears.

So when Punjab actually sucks on the cricket field, Priety is dancing to the bank with sackful of sympathy money.  Her stock in Bollywood is bound to be up.

Summary.  End of the day the poor suckers who pay to watch the matches on TV or in the stadium are more serious about the teams than the owners themselves.  I have heard of numerous fans being affected by the loss of one team, some have ended their lives too. But you will never hear of any owner of any IPL team going bankrupt or jumping out of his penthouse. 

The biggest winner of the IPL so far is KKR and then comes Punjab.  The others are just about straining themselves and stretching to win and exposing them themselves to injuries.  The game is all about fun. 

Shashi Tharoor – Creates Solvable Crisis

We all think he is a fantastic orator.  When I told my friend that ‘he is just a good orator’  he took offense.  Afterall its easy to like him, speak well, looks good, dresses well and well educated,  fantastically packaged post modern product like  Rahul Gandhi and Sachin Pilot.

I like him too, and I had the opportunity to see him and listen to him in close quarters last month in a Twitter meet up.  I agree that he is a good guy, after all to give time to chat up with some guys is not what many politiciansn normally would deign would do.

But what he said that day was very interesting.  He bragged without bragging.  He handled all tough questions with a brand new Gillette swoosh.

Do you really think a man like him will call Mr. Lalit Modi (commissioner IPL) and enquire about the Kochi Franchisee? These Keralites have this knack of tying themselves into a knot that’s another matter.  They just cant pull a large project through.  They are their worst enemies, you can say.  Leave that aside. Now look at what I think has happened.

Now our Prime Minister is in United States, selling India to Obama, and spending some time with his Pakistani counterpart and poses for some pictures for the dogs in the media to feed upon.  If the nuclear deal was a big sell out, look out there are others coming your way and you wont even know about it. I believe there is a very creative connection between IPL – Tharoor – PM’s US trip.  After all Tharoor is the MOS of State for external affairs,  so his mandate obviously is to keep the controversy happening so when the people and the opposition are busy handling some solvable controversies, the sleaze happens behind.

I like Percy Barnavik former Chairman of ABB, who is best known for advising corporates to create crisis that can be solved.

Mark my words, read my lips or whatever.  The opposition particularly the BJP and the CPM who along with those sensation driven TV channels are also playing ball.  The biggest losers are the ordinary people (cattle class as Tharror puts it) who have been made into the biggest suckers.  Who will talk about trivia, as Tharror says, and allow the politicians to handle the the major policies with no debate at all.

Incidentally I was watching Tharoor yesterday talking to NDTV.  He mentioned about the meeting 17 African delegates, 3 Prime Ministers, 8 foreign trips in 1 month etc etc.  I think its the same thing that he had said in the Twitter meet up in Chennai last month.  No prizes for proving it.  But its worth checking out.

News X showed clips of Tharror with me hanging around, I hear.  Guys I placed myself in strategic position to be seen on camera thats all.  But someday I hope to use my devious mind to help out some Politician to make it Big.  That day I may not have the time to write a blog post and some ghost writer may be doing it. All that is written is mine so loose much by not reading it. He he ha ha

The journey within

60 hrs nearly 30 of us sat down to discuss ‘Passion’.. many spoke with animated tones and some with tears in their eyes.  I somehow felt this had very little to do with passion and had more to do with emotion.  I was probably the only dissenting voice.  I rubbished passion in its emotive form.

I believe that passion is when your whole self gets wired to function in a certain manner.  My  friend Gerda Casier has captured it wonderfully in her poem  ‘The Traveller’.  She speaks about the shadow of the past.

When you engage with a thought or an idea for long its gets into your heart and then to your soul and then to your bones.  Then you function on the karmic level.

Its an amazing poem,  it proves that as individuals we are not hardwired.  With or without our knowledge there are some thought journeying within us and making us function in a certain manner.   If we know who all are undertaking this journey within we have more understanding (would not say control) of the way we function.  If not we may become like zombies.

The Traveller

by Gerda Casier

Softly he came by and settled in my head
climbed those winding stairs and found himself a bed
among motley memories and grey logic.
Living in my thoughts, a green singing spring breeze.

Slowly he dripped in and settled in my heart
between the throbbing of the arteries and
the cracks of long forgotten dreams –safely
wrapped up in the warmth of my soft tenderness.

Softly he came in and went straight for my soul,
stretched out in that corner where my life began
and ended many times, promised he would be
always – the glue that made my life whole again.

Resolutely he dragged himself to my bones
clinging to me every step as I walked on
when the trees where sniffing with cold as summer
fled and hid its flaming face behind the clouds.

Slowly he came by and settled in my life,
shrouding me in a quilt of old sticks and stones
But I dragged him by the hair and kicked him out
And into eternity he tumbled again …

This quivering, shabby shadow of the past.

on orphanages

Last week I had tea with a  gentleman, ripe in age, and who has achieved much through his motivational messages and he has also trained thousands of people who have gone past the portals of 4 colleges that he owns.

What was the purpose of me meeting him?  I wanted this gentleman to fund a project that is in my heart.  That is to provide a learning facility for the 32 kids who live on the mounds of garbage in Kodungayur.  These kids, I believe, have the enormous ability to handle any challenge but they just dont have the skills to handle life.

In my experience in teaching I have dealt with a variety of children.  I have realized that there two things a child must possess to be a good student.  They must have the skills to study and should also have the ability to take on huge challenges.

Well most children, particularly in the middle income groups, from 2nd 3rd generation and above literate homes,  do possess skills on the default level.  In fact they are brilliant.  But they are unable to handle their academics.  It took a long for me to realize that skills by itself are of no consequence if the child is not brought up in a challenging atmosphere  the skills that they possess are neutralized.

After 5 years of working with children I realized that their condition has a lot to do with parenting.  Parents show very little  interest in changing their lifestyle in order to bring a challenging atmosphere at home.  So I made very little headway I must confess.

And so I decided to phase it out and move on,  and that is when I came across this 32 children from the dump yards of Kodungayur. I was amazed at these kids, and their ability to be cheerful in the most challenging situation.  They just had to be given skills.

Shashi Tharoor’s, soft power spiel falls in place.  The huge soft power of our land needs to be harnessed.  The poor can say they are rich and the weak can say they are strong.  The poor need not become rich not the weak need to become strong, thats a very carnal perspective.  The poor will find riches in their poverty and the weak will find strength in their weakness.

The elderly gentleman, ripe in years, boasted about the number of orphanages he had and that his current plan is to shut it down.  Great idea I said.  You never uproot anyone, particularly a kid from his.her own setting, thats not the way to bring in changes.  The Gentleman came with the most practical explanation for orphanages.  He said “with out a physical orphanage you will not get funding”  Apparently the person who is funding the program wants to get his/her returns by seeing some physical structure with kids eating and sleeping in order to get the ROI guarantee.

That brings us to the irony of the point.  A orphanage that is supposed to protect the inhabitants becomes a hell hole by itself.  A faulty vacuum cleaner that blows of dust.  (read about the scandals and abuses in orphanages)

I have thought of a few things on this issue and would like to put it forward:

1. When you want to do something to these children dont go with the intention of trying to help them out.  They dont need your help
2. Go to learn about the strength they possess. Their ability to handle challenges effortlessly.  You intervene to learn from them
3. Your job is to transfer skills on to them.  I will personally  root for reading skills.
4. Dont make a judgment about their ability looking at their physical appearance.  Remember they can handle any challenge.  So give them the best
5. Dont take this “teach a man how to fish and he will fish for life’ too literally.  Dont go about teaching some simple skills give the best skills to them
6. And dont expect  to see changes immediately.
7. As u are transferring skills on to them u learn the ability to take on challenges and make lifestyle changes in your family too.  It will help your children BIG time.

And finally dont use terms like, impoverished people, less fortunate, challenged, slum dog, etc etc.  Remember Beatitudes.. These are the people who through their suffering keep the society going.  The bind civilization yet victimized.  They bring in stability to the system but exploited.  YOU NEED TO HONOR THEM AND LEARN FROM THEM.  YOU ARE NOT DOING THEM A FAVOUR, THE ARE.

Fresh air

Yesterday Thomas Arun Raj, tagged me to his note on Facebook.  I like to read ppl known to me writing stuff, it makes a lot of difference, it pops up to me very differently.   The fact that very few ppl write actually makes me feel bad.  So Thomas was a Fresh Air to me.

What stopped in my tracks was his writing style.  It had such a pep in it, simple with fantastic tamil expressions

‘ dai goyya unaku iruka ore hobby paduthu thoogurathu ne ethavadu urupadiya pandriya  ‘

Absolutely brilliant stuff.  The guy has it in me to do some fantastic writing.

His blog Tommy’s Musings