Choices, Matter!

I have never been an influencer of anything. Thus, I have generally assumed that the purchasing choices that I make don’t make much of a difference to anyone but me. 

For instance, the grocer would not make any changes to their supply stock if I changed my grocery list. Same goes for clothes, shoes, accessories, travel or any of my purchases. Simply because I do not generate enough volume for them to care. Or influence enough people for them to notice. 

All this being said, I’ve started to realize maybe these choices do matter outside of yourself. You just need a different way of looking at it. Maybe the fair trade cocoa chocolate that I brought helped a farmer get fair living wage for his work (So at least I hope). Maybe the organic produce that we buy will help some farmer take care of their land better and for long. Maybe if I pick a slow fashion label rather than fast fashion label, some factory worker somewhere will lead a better life.  

I am not trying to imply that I lead an ideal life. As I write this, I realize that my carbon footprint is far higher than the average, my single use plastic is much higher than what it ideally should be. But the point I am trying to make is, I am trying to make better choices. 

And these choices Matter....

Just like a vote in a Million other votes, even though it is easy to assume your vote is insignificant. Also, I completely understand that we are bound by resource constraints like time and money amongst others while making these choices. But nevertheless our choices are not insignificant in any way.

The reason being many of the companies out there are listening. Listening to changed consumer pattens. If enough people start making changes, the D2Cs will smell an opportunity. I don’t want to take brand names for this to sound like an advertisement, but some of the changes I’ve seen on the brand packaging have been encouraging. 

For example, a cereal brand advertised they help farmers transition their farms from non-organic to organic, a process which is costly and time consuming for farmers with no added revenue in the transition period. An eye-glasses company which donates a pair for every pair you buy. A company which uses ocean plastic to makes some of their sporting shoes. Coffee companies offering College Benefits to it’s employees. And many many more. I will try to pick quality over quantity.

The world is listening, what will you choose? 

The subtle art

I have not read a book in a long time. Well, programming and job related books aside. Last time I remember reading a full book was back in college almost 10 years ago. I wanted to get back to reading. Convinced myself to buy a kindle. I was looking through a good list of books to read and came across this very interesting title. “The subtle art of not giving a ____”. It had decent reviews and I said to myself, let’s try this.

I was fully expecting it to be an entertaining read with a tacky title and the usual drama. But I was completely surprised in a very positive way. It is a very realistic book, it forces you to rewire your thinking without being preachy. I am not giving anything away in the blogpost as I feel the book deserves to be read by more people.

I did not know anything about the author Mark Manson before reading the book, after reading the first couple of chapters, I felt like this guy must have a ton of experience. Must be in his 50s or 60s or beyond. As I kept reading I realized this is completely a book written by a millennial for millennials. It is a good read, I am sure for all ages but I think millennials can connect more to it. It guides you through weeding out whats unimportant and what’s important without being a self help book. I usually cannot stand self help books. I find them to be my way or the highway many a times. But this one is very different.

It is more practical, It challenges to question your beliefs. It shows us the common traps most people fall into. So many times while reading I felt I could completely connect with many of the things in there. In general, I like discussions which encourage me to analyze and evaluate my actions and thoughts. This book, I feel is a heart to heart discussion. It is not a small talk or a surface discussion it goes deep. Just the right amount of deep to not be boring and at the same time not be superficial. It tells you to choose for yourself and let go of the other things.

Reminded me of many of the meaningful conversations I’ve had over the years with my parents, school and college friends, my wife and so many other people. I want to continue reading such meaningful books and having meaningful talks.

Here’s to reading!

Is travel worth it?

I caught the travel bug majorly because of my dad and his love of travel. He introduced me to the thrill of seeing a new place, something different than the regular. I am sure many others started the same way. But somewhere, slowly I am starting to notice that the world he introduced me to is not the same anymore. 

The word 'Over-tourism' was unheard of. The Icelands and the Fijis of the world were trying to attract people to come visit by aggressive tourism marketing. Tourism fueled businesses and provided good source of employments to people. Flying was still an exciting thing (and a luxury too!). Destination Guide books were a thing and Internet was slowly looking to spread the wealth, one bit at a time. 

Fast forward to now, technology did a great job in bringing the world closer together. Traveling is now much easier to plan and execute. Our social media and other influencers inspired us to go explore what's out there. The places, the food, the culture, experiences, photos and much more. Somewhere down the line, tourism became a victim of it's own success. There can only be one Machu Picchu, one Eiffel Tower, one Big Ben, one Sagrada Familia and each passing day, more and more people wanting to visit. This presents an interesting challenge, how do we keep these places accessible to the public, keep the visitor experience awesome and preserve it for generations to come. There is no easy solution. 

Maybe encouraging people to visit other ruins, perhaps not as old as Machu Picchu but pristine nevertheless. More shoulder season/off season travel perhaps, putting a cap on number of visitors to a place daily can be some alternatives. Citizens of Barcelona, Venice, Amsterdam alike are raising alarms of over-tourism citing tourists are making it difficult for locals to afford living in their cities. Housing is looked at as an investment for the wealthy, the hotels, the airbnbs alike who make way for making more accommodations available to the tourists while taking away the space from residents. 

Leaving that aside for a moment, are costs to travel really worth it? Monetary costs, time costs, planning and execution effort and many other such hidden costs. Maybe sometimes, but not always. Driving long hours on a busy weekend just to get to someplace for a short while and return. Waiting in the long lines of cars trying to enter a popular national park. Spending long times waiting at the airport security line to board a flight which has no better user experience than a crappy bus. Waiting in long lines at Temple entrances to see a 10 second glimpse of statue of God. I am sounding very negative, but when you start looking past these experiences, you start to see the positive side of travel. 

When you start to look at travel as a package things start to look different. Don't gauge the worth of travel based on the quality of your sunset photo. Don't let a rainy day affect your idea of perfect vacation. Things don't always go as planned and you will take some wonderful detours in the process. Enjoy every bit, just like everyday life. Sometimes we keep our expectations so high because of the money that is spent on trips. Remember, every trip is a chapter in a storybook. Some more interesting that the others. It takes us away from our everyday lives to give us a glimpse of other people's lives, an entry point to nature that is not present in our backyard. Just like our everyday life has it's ups and downs, so does travel life. Every once in a while, I am sure you will encounter moments that make travel worth it. Here's to one such moment. Northern Lights!!!

My consumption

One of the best things Internet has handed down to us is Awareness. Awareness about environment issues, about shrinking rainforests, water resources becoming more and more scarce. Plastics clogging our oceans while the oceans themselves running out of sealife, wildlife species getting extinct, climate change, ozone layer depletion. Soil, land and water pollution, increased carbon footprint, littering and landfill problems. Sounds a bit negative, but I assume at some point more people have to start talking about it, to try to make things a bit better.

"Am I stuck in traffic or am I the traffic?"

A question that I very often end up asking myself.

I am very much responsible just like the others around. For my own laziness, for my own convenience, I feel the need to make some lifestyle changes. Small things can make a huge difference. Only buying the things that I really need. Carrying a grocery bag to the supermarket instead of getting many plastic from them. Not using straws to drink beverages. Trying to recycle as many things as I can. Buying new clothes only when absolutely necessary. 

Trying to support organizations who do things more environment friendly than the others in similar categories. Trying to carpool whenever I can. Maybe buy a car that is electric or hybrid or fuel efficient. Using bicycle, public transport whenever possible. buying energy and water efficient appliances. Buying as little furniture as possible and using it over a long period of time. 

Make smart choices while buying. Use products that are environment friendly. buying unwashed jeans which consume much less water while making rather than the washed ones. Opt for eco-friendly packaged items. Staying in the outside aisles of the supermarket rather than the packaged middle aisles. Combine multiple errands in one trip. Print documents as little as possible. Try to opt-in for electronic mail options rather than paper mail. Trying to use reusable glass containers at home rather than the plastic ones that have to replaced often. 

Maybe some planning can help. Not using the plastic cup/spoon/ knife or disposable cutlery at work and trying to bring/keep reusable mugs and cutlery at work. There is always this feeling, do the actions of a single person matter? But then just as every vote counts in the final tally, maybe my actions will count. Maybe If more people start raising these concerns collectively, companies will start taking action. Like Levi's have started to make the water > less label Jeans, Nike using more recycled material in shoes , Ikea moving towards 100% renewable energy and many such examples. 

Maybe, If I pay attention to my consumption, things will change. 

< Just realized this is my 100th post. This is one of those posts I've been meaning to write for a long time, but was waiting for a lazy Sunday afternoon to pen it down>

Of region and religion

I usually shy away from writing or saying about religion, but I just could not resist this one!

Trips to India are very enlightening! With every trip, you learn new things. When you put an analytic hat, you end up discovering a lot of things. In my recent trips, I was thinking about the driving factors of our economy. Apart from agriculture, what drives our economic activities? Is it manufacturing, IT Industry, Outsourcing in general, new disruptive startup scene or something else. As I was thinking about this while riding in an auto, I saw a big Temple and a line of people standing outside. I said to myself that moment, this is it! Religion and God are the biggest drivers in our economy. It directly or indirectly impacts so many people. 

I started thinking of the people working in this eco-system. This is going to be a long list. Firstly the obvious one, lets start with the Temple, Church, Mosque or any other place of worship. The priests who perform prayers, the people who make idols, people who make/distribute the Prasad, the ones who deliver flowers and make flower malas. The vendors who sit outside the temple selling various things like prasad, idols, small toys, place to leave the footwear. The temple trustees and organization members, the people who work in managing orderliness and queue in some of the larger temples. 

There are the priests who come home and perform a variety of rituals and Poojas of Variety of Gods( Satyanarayan, Ganesh pooja, Lakshmi pooja, Housewarming pooja, Navagraha pooja and the list goes on...). Then there are the big religious gatherings where we invite guests and perform pooja and give a feast to hundreds of people which include Mundan (Munja) and Marriage and many others depending on caste and religion. 

Then there are religious festivals which generate a spend of several millions in the economy including Ganesh festival mandals, the Garba dandiya raas, Dahi handi, holi, diwali crackers and so on. The retail sector also takes full advantage of such festivals putting up big sales to attract customers. Religious days generate more sales of Silver, Gold and other precious things. Aaj Sona le lo, bahut shubh din hai (Buy Gold today, it is a very auspicious day).

Then there is God and Religion merchandise, the books, the texts, the saffron sticks, the haldi kumkum, the flowers and other things. Every god has their special day which generates more visits, Monday for Shiva, Tuesday for Ganpati, Thursday for Sai Baba, Friday for devi, Saturday for Hanuman and so on. Then the religious demi-gods who have millions of followers listening to their speeches. Then there is media which feeds on the stories and controversies that religious leaders generate. Everyday you read a newspaper, you will see atleast one religious article, I guarentee.

Plus we created these unwritten rules the religion which impact everything from real estate to our food habits. An east-west facing house is priced 5 lakhs more than the house exactly next to it facing south. You cannot sell or rent your house to people of other religions. Don't buy expensive things such as cars on Saturday, that is not an auspicious day. Aaj non-veg mat khana, navratri chal rahi hai (Do not eat meat, today is some festival). Don't get married in this month, this is not a festive month. Everything dwells on the fact that 'Log kya kahenge?' (What will others say?)

I always hear these stories of disruptions in Industry, like Uber replacing Taxis, Airbnb replacing Hotels, small startup companies challenging Technology giants. I seriously hope someday this industry gets its Uber and millennials embrace it. 

On missing out..

I have thing feeling that we have started to over-classify some things. Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) is one of those things. It's been talked about a lot recently, and whether we like it or not, it's very much real.

We can say any addiction is bad, why should we categorize addiction to social media, to electronic devices, to content driven media differently. I think there are a couple of differences in being addicted to things like cigarettes or alcohol or drugs than being addicted to electronic media. In the first case, it's very easy to identify yourself as an addict. In the second case, it's not.
You keep on saying to yourself, everyone's doing it, so am I. There's nothing going on. Another difference is, there are no noticeable side effects, like Alcohol for instance.

Often you would not even realize that you went from being on Facebook a few minutes a day to more than a hour. You wake up in the middle of the night to see if the photo you just posted has more likes. You keep checking the email app every 10 minutes or so, seeing if some important mail you were waiting on has arrived. Even if you are standing in front of one of the seven wonders of the world, your mind is constantly looking around for that perfect spot to take a cool snap to share with your friends. Or maybe yelling at someone for grabbing a bite from the dish that just arrived before you get a chance to photograph it and post it on Instagram. Watching live sport and something controversial happens, you instantly stop looking at the TV and start looking at twitter feed to see other's reactions to what happened.

I think we are in constant search for approval. From our friends, our society from peers from everyone. We want to go to places whenever we see pictures of our friends going and having fun. We want to see every good movie in the first week, or the first weekend itself. We don't want to be left out. We feel saddened if on a long weekend, we see posts of friends going places all over our Facebook feed and we are sitting at home catching up on an old Netfix serial.

Problem is we want to be a part of every glamorous that we see through the periscope of the lives of people we know. But, to be fair, social media is just the 'glamour' part of people's life. It's not the complete picture. Nobody puts out the ugly part of their life on the internet. You will see posts of people making it to the 'Top places to work' on linkedIn, but you don't really see their struggle of getting rejected by 10 others.

I think it's okay to miss out on certain occasions. I think there should be no fear of missing out really!! Anytime you are missing out on something, you can utilize that time to do things that you actually care for. I remember when i went to Bali a couple of years ago, I used internet only once a day just to check if everything is okay with friends and family and that nothing crazy has happened in this world. I did not feel like I missed out on anything. Ever since, I try to stay off my mobile every-time I go on a trip.

Response to an email can wait. Messaging to your friends on whatsapp/imessage/sms can wait. I am sure your genuine friends would understand if you wish them happy birthday a day after and have a meaningful conversation rather than staying up till midnight just to spend a minute wishing happy birthday. It's okay if you stay in a local AirBnB instead of a fancy beachside resort your friends stayed on and raved about. It is okay that the restaurant you ate at is not zagat rated or tripadvisor top 50. It doesn't matter. Until you start caring what the world cares.

Random musing

Right from childhood, it is ingrained in our thoughts that failure is a terrible thing. Failing a year in school is thought as wasting a year of life. Students on the borderline of academic pass/fail line have to deal with the constant stress of staying on the right side of this line. 

Most of them do! They come out of the system without facing failure. But the race isn't quite complete yet. It keeps getting tougher and tougher. There comes college, now the odds of survival are slightly tougher. The ones who passed out of school with flying colors are suddenly scrambling to pull things together to avoid another failure. Some of them succeed here too. 

But then here's the problem for people who come through this system without failure. Life is much more than standardized tests where where you are judged on memory/knowledge/aptitude et al. It has much more to it! Guess what, having never faced failure before is going to make it ever more difficult to face it when the time comes. 

It can come through variety of forms. Rejection from the girl you adored so much, failing the job interview of the company of your dreams, not getting the promotion you really worked hard for. As a child we learn to deal with so many things, anger, jealousy, frustration, peer pressure and many more. But we never had to deal with failure. This makes us react in mysterious ways. 

We start looking for faults within ourselves, faults within the system, start looking at inspirational quotes, motivational you tube videos(bring on Rocky speech!) and so on. We start believing in luck(good/bad), in superstition, in other things that take our mind away from failure. Gulp down a drink or two. 

But, we seldom think, is failure really that bad? It's just a phase! It happens to most of us. It gives us good advise for our future endeavors. It makes us aware of our capabilities. It gives us a chance to try again. It makes us humble. 

Maybe it's not such a bad thing! Maybe somebody should have told me this earlier!

Organic - the new premium

Organic!! The word that has been buzzing around us for past few years. It's all around us, so much that a lot more people are talking about it. It is like a premium grocery product. It begs the question, is it really worth paying the price difference? Can the regular stuff(non-organic) be that bad that you feel like moving to the organic section.

And why is it that we are hearing about it now more than ever? I did not know of organic grocery while growing up. It was all just grocery. What changed?

I think until some point, we were doing the right thing, in terms of produce, poultry and other groceries, but slowly we moved away from the best practices. We modified our crops to survive harsher climates, low rainfall. We stopped grazing cows on pastures and started feeding them in factories producing milk. We genetically modified stuff. Chicken that lay eggs for us were no longer cage free, farm fed. Slaughter houses were not kept up to standards. We started fish farming rather than wild caught fish. We kept producing only those varieties which had a bigger shelf life and could stay longer in the supermarket without going bad.

We made so many changes that hardly anything is seasonal anymore. Everything is available all the time. A mango in November was unthinkable in my childhood for me, but I can easily buy mangoes throughout the year at roughly the same price. same goes out for watermelons, strawberries and apples.

We did so many things to keep the produce prices low, deviated from so many good practices and all those changes were so gradual that people accepted them. The world population just keeps growing, our consumption keeps growing and yet we roughly use the same amount of land that we had before for farming.

While these changes were taking place, two kinds of people really stood up for a food revolution. Firstly, the farmers who did not want to get away from doing the right things stood their ground and refused to make these adjustments to maintain their product quality. Secondly, some of the consumers who had this awareness of benefits of these practices kept buying these things at the now changed prices.

This is the beginning of the the new 'organic' I think. Those were the people who did not ask the question, why is this stuff so expensive. They asked the question, why is that other stuff priced low. Where could they have cut corners. It is a shift in thinking that makes a difference. What we buy really indirectly sends the message. with more people starting to buy the right stuff, the big supermarkets will have no choice but to stock the right stuff more and more.

Supermarkets are a reflection of society's buying habits. We see so much canned food and frozen foods around us occupying more than half the shelves and the produce reduced to a single aisle in the supermarket with a division between a small organic section and the other regular stuff. It is a crazy world where a can of apple juice costs less than if you were to buy apples and make juice out of them.

I am not suggesting we all buy apples instead of apple juice or buy the fresh stuff instead of canned or buy organic instead of regular. The pace of modern life has changed our lifestyle which we have to live with. I understand that for some of the lower and middle incomes, grocery costs can constitute for up to 10 percent of their after tax income and for them to move to a costlier product is not always feasible. And the world's resources would be put to a lot of strain if every animal or animal product that we consume were to come from pasture raised, non gmo, no growth hormones, no stress environment.

I think this debate is endless. We can never have a definitive agreement on either side, but we can make an informed choice rather than our grocery store influencing us by putting a fancy label. If we don't we might end up with a 3 tier structure. Regular, premium and extra-premium. I hope that never happens with food.   

Luck by chance

I've been downplaying the role of words like 'luck','fate', 'chance', 'fortune' all my life. I always thought of them as something I would not associate with my successes or failures. Recently I saw a youtube clip of Harsha Bhogle about it in which he mentioned people start believing in these things more and more as they grow older. He couldn't have been more right. 

Most of the times, bad luck or misfortune can be wiped away by getting around it. A small inconvenience and pinch of hardwork will brush it aside. But I've learn't that's not always the case. Although the decisions we make are the biggest contributors to our destiny, we have to understand that there still are awful amount of things are beyond our control. 

We can buy a property at one of the most lucrative places and yet there is no guarantee that there is a price surge in the next couple of years. Agreed we have a lot of choices to make in most of our decisions and we could make our lives a whole lot better by making good choices. The same way bad choices can take us downhill. But not every bad choice will. If we ask ourselves, I am sure everybody will have gotten away with making bad choices every once in a while. 

Although, I have started to come to terms with luck, it still is unpredictable. You cannot base your decisions based on it being in your side. Heisenberg's uncertainty  principle also applies to real life. The difference being that uncertainty  is not a constant here, it's a variable. It affects some more than others. You cannot estimate it and try to tame it. Buying a car on a Tuesday or getting your name changed to certain numeric addition is not going to change it. Even if it does, you would never know what would have happened if you did not. 

I would like to end this post by a Donald Rumsfeld quote. 

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.

Random Musings

Haven't scribbled here since last May. Missed out on so many opportunities to Blog about. More than that, I've come to a realization that I've really missed writing. Haven't been able to convert the drafts folder to a concrete blogpost. No this isn't a writer's block, this is more of laziness creeping in. Just trying to kick it out. 

I have a post about my Brazil world cup experience lying around in my drafts folder, but that's for some other day to complete. Had an eventful last year, with five international trips and ended up getting married as well. Life has changed a lot since marriage. Mostly for the better. Many other things have changed. A photo of my apartment last February would have very little resemblance to the current picture. But that would be true in case of most marriages I guess. It's not my way or the highway anymore, it's more of my way or wife's way. 

Jokes apart. Bali, Indonesia honeymoon trip was a great trip. Over-commercialization has plagued the pristine Bali Island, but in patches, you will see that the heart of the Island is still buzzing with the calmness and the hospitality you need for a relaxing vacation. Did some experimentation with my new DSLR camera, Bali is certainly a nice place for doing that. After a few clicks, I managed to come out of the auto mode, I will consider this as progress. A big thank you to my friends who gifted me the camera. 

I've started strumming the guitar again, after more than 2 years. This time around to teach my wife. I do not know how far I can go in that department, but the rusted strings have been replaced and time will tell the rest. I am cooking less often than before, which is a good thing as I've never really enjoyed cooking. I've done it more out of necessity than liking. 

This might be one of my most random post with no sense of direction. But posting this one will mean that I have to cover it up with a substantial blogpost soon. Hoping to get back. Here is one of the photos from Tanah Lot Bali. 

Now Loading.... World cup fever

Less than half a month left for the Fifa World Cup. The stage is set to support your team at this mega event. No matter, how slim the chances of winning are, every qualified team will have an army of supporters cheering for it. Unfortunately for me, it will be a while before India qualifies for the world cup qualifiers, forget about the main event. So, that means I have to pick a side or be a neutral spectator. 

The real question is can you really be a neutral spectator? Or as some others like to put it "I am a fan of good football, regardless of who is playing". Can you really be a neutral fan without having a tilt or affinity one way or the other. 

Affinity can come from anywhere. It could come from a particular player you admire. Like when Ronaldinho was on the ball, millions of people would just forget who they supported for a minute to admire him play. Same can be said when you see Ronaldo taking that free-kick from 30 yards. It's true with any sport. Millions of people like me stopped watching F1 when Schumacher retired; or Sachin for that matter, who while batting made people look at TV showrooms across India while on their way to office. 

You could like a team due to it's style of play, like impressive short passes or solid defensive capabilities, attractive array of striking options and so on. Some people would like to see the underdog beat the giants and would watch out for something widely known as a "Cupset". Like David beating Goliath (Unless he is David Moyes - As a Chelsea fan, I had to crack that one!!!). Some others would play safe and be behind the strongest team. Like they say, dude I tell you, Spain is going to win this one. Like i do not know you saw the football rankings yesterday and made up your mind!!! 

Then there are people who would be England, Spain or Germany fan because they have been following their football leagues for a long time and developed the affinity. I know lot of people would not like to admit they like England(due to the weakened squad they have) but if England were to make it past the group stages, these people will start rooting up for England.

Then there are people who will only start watching after the group stages and maybe after the round-of-16 and then say things like, "Dude I said, Germany all the way". I feel like saying - Do you know what All-the-way even means? You started following from the quarters, how could you be supporting Germany all the way?

Those things aside, I feel it's difficult to be a neutral and still enjoy the game as much. Unless you are a commentator and your job warrants you to be neutral. Even if your team ends up losing, you pick up another side to back it. Or you have a soft corner towards a particular team. Whichever way you want to put it. The world is going to watch!!  

Come what may, this tournament will present us plenty of unforgettable moments. Who will be the Suarez to play the hand of god? Which big team will not win a single game like France? Which underdog will be the surprise package like Ghana? A lot remains to wait and watch. Come on Brazil 2014. 

5 Second Rule

It's been long since my last blogpost. My last two attempts found their way to the recycle bin. 

Just like we proof-read our emails before posting and then decide to toss it away for some reason. I want this blog to be about opinions and analysis. Criticism, somehow does not make the cut in any of those categories. Not without a pinch of negativism. 

Criticism gives you an easy way to vent out the frustration, but it's not the best way. Couple of days back, I went to a restaurant and got a very lousy service there. I felt like ranting it out on Yelp or some similar review site. I was typing in the review and stopped midway. 

One part of me was saying, post it. There's no harm in letting people know what to expect when they go to that restaurant. Why should my voice be unheard? But then, to be fair, i thought to myself, did I ever write a review for all the good restaurants I've been to? Why did I not think of writing a review then? Maybe the waiter had a really bad day today and I was unfortunate to have the chain effect of that. Why should I carry forward this chain to other people. 

It takes a long time to establish a good foundation. A good school, good restaurant, good beauty salon, a good apartment complex and all it takes to destroy the goodwill is a few bad comments on social media. Sad, but true. 

Criticism, at times, is essential; but through the right channel. If you do not like something about a friend, talk to him on the face. That will help him more than writing a blogpost about it. 

For me, the 5 second rule works perfectly. Before posting something on social media, or before sending out any email, just for 5 seconds, take a pause. Think if it is the right thing to do and then hit the submit button.

Random Chaos

(This Post is not about me. It's just a phone conversation with one of my friend. I have written it in first person)

Sunday morning. 

Looking around me, everything was a mess of sorts. A cup of tea getting cold as a go through making another PowerPoint. Around me was a pile of crap. It included a stub of movie ticket which I had to leave mid-way to adjust for an unscheduled meeting. A jacket with some Starbucks stains on it. Last pizza piece lying from yesterday's Papa John's order which I could not finish myself. A half-read book, a few visiting cards of people I met this week. 

I wanted to go home. It has been long moving from one city to another every weekend. What started as fun is no longer fun anymore. All the craze about getting more airline miles has subdued. My phone beeps to give a reminder about my flight to Atlanta in a three hours. Next three hours were the most cliched part of my life. Drop the rental car, pick shuttle to airport, stay in the security line, have some coffee and wait in line to board the plane.

Home is a mere concept. I did not know why was I even renting an apartment which I got to visit once in 3 months. All I needed to rent was a mailbox, or even better way was - forward my mail to a friend's place. I made a lot of acquaintances during these trips, but did not make many friends. Maybe I am not the person who can make friends in a couple of meetings. Falling in love was out of question. 

Last month, i visited my undergrad friends on one of my trips, re-lived my college days. Listened to all the stories all over again. They never lose their charm. No matter how much time passes by. How happy I was on that trip. Why am I not happy like that always? Why do I not take life as it comes?

In college, I ran after the highest paid job. I knew it was going to be hectic, i knew it was going to involve a lot of travelling, i knew what i was getting into. A year down the line, the metrics have changed, so have priorities, preferences, likes, dislikes, everything. 

As I make my way towards the plane, I make a pit-stop towards a souvenir shop selling those magnets which has the picture of Charlotte downtown on it. This is magnet number 40 for me. A year has 52 weeks and i have managed and impressive 40 magnets! Some cities i have counted twice, but lets not take away that little piece of joy from me. 

Maybe I need to find a fridge to stick these on and start living a real life. Or Maybe, I need to wait and make it a round figure of 50 before I jump on to something else. Maybe I stack up enough miles to make a free Australia trip. Confused! 

Rupee Slide

At around this time 3 years back, i remember paying 42 rupees per dollar for my tution fees. I look at the dollar rate today, 67 rupees per dollar. A 50% increase. Something has surely gone wrong. That something doesn't make me happy. Even though I end up getting more for every dollar i earn. 

I do not want to talk about the reasons for this slide, lots of sources on the Internet do a good job of explaining them. I want to talk about this slide purely in terms of an Indian currently working overseas and what it means to him or her. 

1. Send money to India 

 The first thing when dollar goes up is your friends start telling you India paise bhej de. Rate accha chal raha hai. Many people do that, and these things sometimes help bring the Rupee up. You can understand the rush for sending money to Ina when dollar increases from 45 to 50. But this does not hold true for a further slide in Rupee value. Here's when point 2 kicks in.

2. Credibility of the Rupee

This time around, the Rupee value drops so much that you begin to doubt it's credibility. You begin to question whether it will rise back again. You read stories about the Zimbabwe dollar slide and what happened there and wonder if that's a possibility in India. 

3. Investment Dilemma

 When dollar strengthens, it is easier to buy property in India, easier to invest money in NRI accounts/ Gold/ Infrastructure and lot of other things. A 70-80 lakh property is lot easy to buy at 55 rs/ Dollars instead of 50 rs/ dollar. But then you think, if wait a little longer, you might be able to buy it at 65rs/dollar and you would be better of waiting. Plus, now you reach a stage that despite property price rise, if the rupee keeps on weakening you are not going to make much if you sell it off.

4. Second thoughts about going back home

People tend to think twice before going back to India for good. The rising inflation, sliding rupee, rampant corruption, escalated working hours. When you see people in India trying to jump on every opportunity to get a chance to work overseas, you begin to wonder if going the other way makes sense. 

5. Why send money

Point number 4 makes us think about point number 1. Why should we send money to India when we do not foresee our future in India. Well, I am not talking about the money we send to our parents/ our relatives to buy them gifts and stuff. I am talking about the money we decide to put in our future. We decide to hold on to it in dollars until we reach a point that we are absolute certain about returning back to India. Indian investment is no longer lucrative. 

6. It makes us think

Rupee slide makes us think. Makes us think that India has so much potential to set things right. Why is our Imports bill so high? Why cannot we make stuff for ourselves? Why is manufacturing sector taking a hit? Why are we not learning from China? Why do the temples in India with so much gold reserve not sell a part of their gold to government to reduce gold imports? Why is India not a lucrative option for FDI. Why did walmart have to put its expansion in India on hold? What happened to Ikea? 

The more you think, the more frustrating it is. I have faith that this will stop someday. Somebody has to step up and do the right things. BELIEVE!

UGT

Engineering second semester, in the classroom

Time: Around 6 pm

I still clearly remember every moment of that discussion about 7 years back. Fond memories of after college talks with people who were in no rush to reach home; had many such days, this one a little more special.

First semester had just ended. Engineering had bestowed many brutal realities upon us. Clearly, we had to find a path beyond the regular to make it a bit more interesting for us. 9 to 5 was not the time to get the best out of the system. By getting the best, I do not mean transforming our scores from the lower 60's to the 70's. In the long run, that did not have much utility.

So that day, a select few in that room were brainstorming about what can we do to make our journey more enjoyable. I walked up to the blackboard and drew a square with 4 quadrants. I still don’t know why I did that. I did not even know what I was going to write in that. Some of the best marketing ideas have come out of such 4 quadrant analysis. I was not sure that this was going to live up to that, but knew that we had a starting point.

Someone in front of me said, let’s write down the 4 most important things that we want from engineering. Brilliant idea! Let’s do it!

First quadrant, we all agreed that we would want to stay afloat in our courses, and sail through it, if not cruise through, to land up a decent job, admission to a good higher education school. Aiming to be in the top 5 of the class and other such thrills which you typically feel when you begin your engineering had slowly started to fade.

Second quadrant was geared up towards personal development. We wanted to continue honing our skills to do something beyond regular classes. Be it drawing pictures, photography, making a wired/ wireless robot (lots of engineers have craze I this) and calling him 'Shantaram', writing blogs, playing cricket, football. These were the things you would remember out of college; the 26 runs in one over was more important than calculating the gain of a CE amplifier (FYI: I do not know what that is, just remembered that we were troubled by a 20 marks problem in some semester on it).

Third quadrant was being amongst the most active people in class. Being involved in every major activity, having good after college discussions, good group activities, some in the social front. We thought of giving these discussions a fancy name. Let’s call it ‘Beer Barricade’ one of us said. I don’t know why we agreed on that, perhaps we couldn't think of something better that day. Besides, that name could have meant two things, we drink so much beer that we form a barricade from the empty bottles. Or it could mean forming a barricade between the beer and us, that we do all the things, but never drink beer. I frankly don’t know what the founder of this group intended, he may someday tell me. Later a much sophisticated version of this rolled out, called the ‘chai club’. I think it is still a part of SP college, maybe not by the same name, but something different, same intentions, have a healthy discussion about topics important to us. We lived up to our expectation in this quadrant far more than the others.

The fourth quadrant, we gave a lot of thought into what will go into it. It was going to be the missing part of the puzzle. After deep thought, we all agreed that fourth part is going to find a girl and get hooked up at the end of 4 years. Need not be from our college, from our city; it was a step that would complete the journey! We called this 4 point / 4 quadrant theory as Últimate Goal Theory’ or (UGT).

If I look back down the years, maybe it was not the best of theories. But it laid the foundation of many such great theories down the path.

For all those interested, none of the people involved in the conversation that day got hooked up in the four year timeframe. Some came very close to it, some kept knocking the wrong door but nobody completed the last part of the puzzle. We all can claim credit for the other three quadrants though!

The Brazil Problem

So here we have a football loving nation hosting a major sporting event (that too football) after a very long wait. The Confederations cup! Next in line is world cup followed by Olympics couple of years down the line. In this season of joy, what could have possibly went wrong to bring more than a million people on the streets of Brazil protesting. 

Is this football world cup bringing more trouble to Brazil than joy or do we have to look beyond the football world cup what the real reason is? Sao Paulo public transport increases the fare from R$3.00 to R$3.20, many other cities did the same. I wonder if this alone is a strong reason for so many people to start the protests. Surely the common man takes a pinch when the price of public transport rises. But this is happening across the globe. Clearly, price rise is not the only problem. 

Well, then what is it. Maybe the infrastructure improvement doesn't reflect in the increased price. Work on the Sao Paulo metro has still not been completed yet. Maybe the fact that Brazilians on an average pay a 40.5% tax which is one of the highest in the world. The rising inflation isn't doing any good. 

Will football help? Will it bring some prosperity to this struggling nation. Well, the answer to this question will answer part of the problem which brought millions of people on the streets of Brazil. Brazilians have put a lot of hope that this world cup and the revenue which it brings will improve Brazil. 

Here's where the Brazilians were duped. They were told that 90% of the investment needed to build the infrastructure for the world cup (Stadiums et al) will be built using private sector funding. But exactly the opposite has happened. There has been 90% public investment in building up this infrastructure. The Taxpayer's money! The revenue generated from the World cup, much of it will go to the private sector. The Mariotts and the Hyatts of Brazil will be minting money during the cup due to the increased demand. Plus, lets say that the Brazil government does make profit out of the world cup by sales of tickets and stuff and recover the amount they invested, the rampant corruption will not help this money help benefit the people who really need it. Plus, for the match tickets themselves, Brazilians have to hope they are not overpriced to drill a hole in their pocket. 

Looking at alternative solutions to the problem, backing out from the world cup is not a solution given that already so much money has been spent on it. The deeper problem of corruption must be addressed, private sector should help build the remaining work left on the stadiums. Look at India for instance. A cricket crazy nation, we got the chance to host the all famous world cup. But how much did an average middle class Indian get out of it? Apart from the pleasure of watching the game. How much improvement did the commonwealth games bring to the life of an Indian, not the pocket of Suresh Kalmadi. 

Well, the football fans going to Brazil can do help in to some extend. Buy stuff from local streets of Brazil, help the common people by staying in homestays. Help grow the local tourism. If you have brought a ticket and cannot make it for the last moment, do not auction it on ebay, give it to someone who can give that ticket to some poor football fan in Brazil.

  Enjoy the game. Good luck Brazil!!!

Skool of Theory

This is my attempt to give direction to an abstract chain of thought. Very different from the ones I usually write. I do not think many people would like it, but the topic is very close to my heart.

Sometimes we tend to ridicule some of the things that we see around. Eg. One of my friend resigned from a job at a big IT firm and within a month of that, she cancelled her resignation and joined the same firm. This whole saga looked to be a ridiculous decision to me. Sometimes, your mind is just not set to accept certain things. Another example would be a person who drinks only bottled mineral water wherever he goes. Although it might be a perfectly normal thing for him, for some reason the whole idea is very hard to digest. 

Now that I have set up the base for discussion, lets drill in a bit deeper. We have theories about everything. Thousands and thousands of them, most of which we aren't ourselves aware of. Theories about things we know, theories about things we do not know. Theories about what's good, what's bad and what's ugly. Theories about how the air-conditioner works, about how to make the world a better place to live. Theories about abstract things. 

Having theories is good. Even if we have to make assumptions about certain things in the process. If at some point, you think your theories are wrong, you can always correct them. That's what eventually happened to the theory of sun revolving around the earth''. It eventually got universally replaced with a complete 360 degree twist. 

But as our theories get more and more concrete over a period of time, these raw theories turn into beliefs. Beliefs are more concrete and rigid versions of our theories. They are hard to shake. More often, it is easier to question our theories than to question our beliefs. For example, if you believe that god exists, it is really difficult to change that belief. Yes, it's not impossible, but its difficult. More difficult than changing your theories about how your bike works. 

Back to the beginnings. When certain actions of people around you start falling in the bucket of absolute ridiculousness according to your beliefs, you start judging. He must be absolutely a nutcase to reject a Microsoft job offer to work in a small company with half the pay is what you end up thinking. 

How does this problem solve? Does this even have a solution you wonder. Yes it does! 

Every now and then you should look at your beliefs and examine them as raw theories. It encourages you to think. It sometimes ends up changing your beliefs that were build in the first place with a bag of theories made with the help of wrong assumptions. Or maybe end up adding your theory to another person's theory to make a whole new set of beliefs. That way, you would be more open to accepting the actions of people around you which you would not normally accept. 

After writing this whole blog, i still somehow cannot in my mind approve of the mineral water drinking dude. But still, I know i tried!

Coffee and Conversations

"Up for a cup of coffee?" 

A colleague of mine asks at around 4 in the afternoon. I almost always never decline such invitations unless I am deeply dug in work. In these 10 minutes, my colleagues drop off their engineering hat and are completely different than what they are otherwise.

I’ve always been a great admirer of good discussions. For me, having good discussion with friends is as important as having good friends. In the last few months, I’ve travelled to a lot of places with different groups for every trip. Most of the places that I visited in these trips were the ones which I had already seen. But again, it’s like Goa. You don’t go there to ‘see the place’, you go there to have memories with friends.

I can go on and on about having a good conversation. I had watched Before Sunset with a friend of mine. That movie is just about two people talking to each other, about nothing in particular, the conversation did not have any flow, any direction, was a bit slow to be honest. But, I ended up liking it, it reminded me that I needed someone in my life to just sit with me and have a discussion. No matter what the topic is. A similar movie in Marathi called ‘Mumbai, Pune , Mumbai’ is just about two people talking. I can watch that movie any number of times.

Last few years I’ve had some of the craziest discussions. A few topics include Can a case of monopoly be good for people, Is Pervez Musharraf the right person to lead Pakistan,  What is the next cool thing going to be after Smartphones and Tablets that will change the world, difference between love, lust and fantasy. I know most of these questions are open-ended. Most other factual or concrete questions you need answer too, you good friend Google will help out with it.

But again, do you want Google to be your best friend? Yes, it is great with what it does, I agree, but somewhere it’s hampering human interaction. The joke that you just read and feel like sharing with your friends during lunchtime has already reached all your friends through a Facebook post. Your super-cool techie friend with all the information about latest gadgets would roam around the school corridor saying ‘Hey, did you hear about this cool new technology coming’ or ‘Nokia is has come out with this new feature in their new gadget’ and ten people would surround him eager to hear about it.

Now, there is no need for that geek. There is no point in boasting about the latest phone Apple or Samsung are bringing because everybody has either seen the keynote or read about it on some Facebook post.

Somewhere we need to think that all we get from this social media is news and updates in some form. Views, analysis and opinions are still up for grabs. I am waiting for my next cup of tea with friends. That will unleash the discussion forum. 

p.s.: Realizing that I started with coffee and ended with tea. Back to basics!

The Q and A

It was 4 in the afternoon, time to play cricket. I asked dad some money to buy a Tennis ball (for cricket of course). He asked me why do you want a tennis Ball, why not a rubber ball. I was about 8 years of age and the only answer to this question he just popped me was rubber ball 7 Rs, Tennis Ball 15 Rs, tennis ball ought to be good. I knew that answer could convince me, but not my father. At the end of conversation, I ended up saying “Ok, Give me money for rubber ball, it's fine”. He would give me that. After playing cricket when I came home that day, I saw a box of Tennis balls lying in my cupboard.

Why this incident still persists in some part of my memory is not because of some stupid reasoning I gave. I will remember this for the important message I got from my father, that was asking the right questions before making a decision. Sometimes, you may not be able to give a satisfactory answer to justify the decision you are making, but atleast you have thought it through and would have less of a reason to regret the choices you make.

I once went to an auction where they were selling vintage coins. There was a high school kid sitting next to me. He was bidding for an ancient Egyptian coin. He had to raise his bid 4-5 times and every time he did that, someone else would put in a higher bid. It so happened that the bidding stopped with the kid next to me winning it. I can never forget the look on his face. You think he would be jumping with joy, but he was a bit pale. He said to me after he got his coin , 'I should have not bid so much money on it, but everything was happening so fast, I did not get a chance to think it through'.

A few months ago when the new Nexus 7 rolled out, I was just a final click away from buying it. Had filled in my address details, credit card information and everything, last thing was to click the confirm button. I don't know at that moment I thought to myself, what am I going to use it for? Good question, probably should have come in a lot earlier. I did not hit the confirm button that day.

Last year at around this time of the year, I had planned my vacation to San Francisco with a friend of mine. I got a very important interview call just before the trip. My tickets were fully refundable tickets and I could have very well dropped the trip plan and studied for the interview. Then I asked to myself, what am I going to do in the next five days that is going to summarize what I did in the last few years.

Did I taken the right decision back then? I don't know. It could have very well worked against me. But again, I had a question at hand and I had made up my mind. No answers are perfect, you have to live with them.

My current job is a result of that interview. 

The Morning Email

The morning coffee had no effect on Megha. Still feeling sleepy in her cubicle. In a corner, there stood a trophy which said 'Employee of the Year - Megha'. A couple of days ago, that one got added to her long list of achievements. Just two years in the race, she had set new performance benchmarks in the office. 2 promotions in two years!!

Today was different. She did not bring her car to office. Took the metro instead. She was so deep in her thoughts that she missed the announcement for her stop, went one station ahead and came back. Never had she been so lost. Ten days ago, she celebrated the second anniversary of her job. Her first job after graduate school. She remembered how scared she was while taking the interview and how relieved she was after getting a job offer.

Her chain of thoughts were interrupted by Aditi who came to her to ask some questions. Megha was now the 'To-Go' person in the office. Her quick success did not go well with her colleagues, but the junior folks in the company admired her short term accomplishments. Megha was not used to being in limelight. She did not have a good schooling record and her college performance did not paint a pretty picture to be noticed. This was new to her.

Megha was good at 'making sense out of numbers'. Infact, that was her job. She was paid to take unstructured and complex data and to derive meaningful conclusions from it. Last couple of months, she was getting the feeling that the only numbers which made her more happy where the numbers on her paycheck.

Two months back, she was thinking of moving to a more technical job. She wanted a new challenge. But this new challenge meant a lot of things. It meant giving up something you are really good at to go into an unknown territory. Giving up safety, the comfort zone. Giving up the success stint she had achieved in couple of years. Being in the race, she had the chance to create history. One more quick promotion and she would be the youngest manager of her company.

The longer she stayed here, more difficult it would have been for her to try something different. The last time she spoke to her friends about having thoughts of shifting to a new job, they had a good laugh. Some of them were struggling to be efficient at their current job and feared that someday they would be thrown out. Megha throwing away a secure job to go through the insecurity of finding a new job in a different field was beyond their imagination.

She looked at the 'Star performer award', opened her mailbox, replied to the unread email items which needed a response. Opened up another email window and wrote 'Thank you very much for everything, it's been a great journey, looking forward to a new one, consider this my two weeks notice'.

Sometimes, logic defies sense! Giving up the job two days after being declared the performer of the year.

Some decisions are best made by the heart and not the brain.