Why is History my favorite subject?

I like history. Not because I got 100% marks for this subject in my 10th standard exams. Also not because, it is easier than most other subjects to get more marks by just bluffing your way out in your exam paper. In fact, I found it utmost difficult remembering anything that I read from my history textbooks. Even if I remember, I find it most difficult to reproduce that in paper. The fundamental reason behind that is I can't multi-task; I can only write or think, one at a time, but doing both together is very difficult and takes enormous amount of time and energy. Even today, I have the same problem, but fortunately nobody cares. But, not the same while you write history exams.

So, what do I like about history? A lot. First of all, history is universal. All of us have our own. Even non-living things have history. Organizations have, countries have and the whole planet has. Even time has its own (ever read 'A brief history of time by Stephen Hawking?)

Recently, I listened to the audio-book 'A short history of nearly everything' by Bill Bryson. Exceptional - the content and the presentation, but I liked the content more. Extensiveness of the content and all the research that has gone into writing this book is simply superb. It talks about history of various subjects including physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, genetics, geology and so many more. I'm sure anyone who listens to the book (or reads it) and has some idea about latest happenings in these areas will appreciate the importance of history. Isn't a natural instinct for all of us to want to know how we came to existence? The book says that the first instinct of any living species including humans is to reproduce themselves. I'm sure our need to know more about ourselves, our past, our heritage ranks at least second.

History is nostalgic. You never need to have experienced the past yourself, but still you can be nostalgic about it. Strange, but true. Here are examples, I've known myself.

When I went to the Nandi hills at Bangalore during the last weekend, we visited Tipu Sultan's fort there. My cousin was explaining to me, how the fort was a strategic centre for Tipu and how several wars had been fought between him and the foreign invaders at the very same fort, sometime during the late 18th century. All of a sudden, he got overwhelmed by the subject and started talking as though, he had lived through those ages. I will find it difficult to reproduce all that he told me, but he showed me the exact locations where the war had been fought, explained about the architecture of the fort and how it was strategic to Tipu, how enemies were attacked with the various weapons, how trespassers to the territory were thrown down the aisles to the valley over 1500 meters deep, with their hands and legs tied with rope. For a moment, it sounded like he got invaded by Tipu's soul itself! He was so talkative.

During another such instance at Calcutta, I visited the Victoria Memorial Hall. My niece had been staying in Calcutta for the past several years and grew really fond of its immensely rich history. The entire 2 hours I spent at the museum there, she was talking. Her words were filled with imaginations. For the next 1 hour, she took me to some parts of the city, with many historical buildings in shambles, almost near to death. She especially had a strange connection to those monumental buildings. She told me the people of Calcutta are really proud of those monuments and derive an immense pride of being part of this city. I don't know for sure about other people, but undoubtedly, she was one of such. Although, initially I felt that she was going a bit too far in her craziness, soon I realized even I am no different when it comes to taking pride about our past heritage.

Now, I have this strange habit of spending time imagining things about the past life - for example, the other day I was watching an old (40 years old!) Malayalam movie on the television, which had a 5 minute car chase followed by another 5 minutes of fight scenes between the hero and the villain. Both cars were old 'Ambassador's. Shooting location was somewhere near the central part of Kerala, my native place, both sides of the roads being rice farms spread across the whole area seemingly up to the horizon and everywhere around filled with greenery. Now, here is what I imagine. Perhaps, there is nothing green left there anymore. Perhaps, all these places are now up with multi-floored apartments with not an inch of vacant space available anywhere in vicinity. Perhaps, the place where the fight scene was shot had been converted into the busiest traffic junction in the city. Perhaps, my parents might've visited the place while it was still green and might be they'd spent some good time there when they were children. There could've been umpteen numbers of changes that possibly happened to this place over the past 40 years to this place. If my parents ever visit this place again, will they ever recognize it? Will they ever be able to meet their childhood friends there?

It is very much possible that none of what I imagined really happened; and my parents might never have seen this place anytime during their lives. But, somehow I've this strange affinity to link all of these incidents up and create a story that sounds nostalgic, albeit nothing of this sort ever happened in your own life or the lives of anybody that you know of. It may sound crazy, but entering into other people's minds and imagining about their nostalgic moments can be very satisfying. I know how it feels like. I bet, there are many others like me, out there...

A great read...

This is one of the mails that I received today morning. It was really a great read, although I am not 100% sure of its genuineness. I thought I would share the same with all of you...

**There was a one hour interview on CNBC with Warren Buffet, the second richest man who has donated $31 billion to charity. Here are some very interesting aspects of his life:

1) He bought his first share at age 11 and he now regrets that he started too late!

2) He bought a small farm at age 14 with savings from delivering newspapers.

3) He still lives in the same small 3 bedroom house in mid-town Omaha that he bought after he got married 50 years ago. He says that he has everything he needs in that house. His house does not have a wall or a
fence.

4) He drives his own car everywhere and does not have a driver or security people around him.

5) He never travels by private jet, although he owns the world's largest private jet company.

6) His company, Berkshire Hathaway, owns 63 companies. He writes only one letter each year to the CEOs of these companies, giving them goals for the year. He never holds meetings or calls them on a regular basis.

7) He has given his CEO's only two rules.
Rule number 1: do not lose any of your share holder's money.
Rule number 2: Do not forget rule number 1.

8) He does not socialize with the high society crowd. His pastime after he gets home is to make himself some pop corn and watch television.

9) Bill Gates, the world's richest man met him for the first time only 5 years ago. Bill Gates did not think he had anything in common with Warren Buffet. So he had scheduled his meeting only for half hour. But when Gates met him, the meeting lasted for ten hours and Bill Gates became a devotee of Warren Buffet.

10) Warren Buffet does not carry a cell phone, nor has a computer on his desk.

11) His advice to young people: Stay away from credit cards and invest in yourself.

Following is what the writer of the mail had to say as in moral of the story...

• Remember money doesn't create man but it is the man who created money
• Live your life as simple as you are. Don't do what others say, just listen to them, but do what you feel good.
• Don't go on brand name, just wear those things in which you feel comfortable
• Don't waste your money on unnecessary things, just spend on them who really are in need.
• After all it's your life, then why should we give a chance to others to rule our life

Interesting, eh?

An apologetic note

Today morning when I came into the office and looked for the document that contained the 3rd part of the series - I perhaps was sleeping when it all happened- I was in for a shock. The document is missing. I don't have it anymore in my laptop. I'd lost it perhaps during the last week, during my trip to Hyderabad and my presentation there. I don't know how it could've possibly happened. And I don't think I've the time now to recreate all that I wrote almost a week back. So, I am forced to discontinue the series. I apologize to all (and to myself!) for that...

In case, at some future time, all of a sudden, some illuminating consciousness strikes me and causes me to remember all that I wrote in this concluding part of the series, I will share that illumination with all of you. But, till then let's talk about something else...

I perhaps was sleeping when it all happened Part II

This post is a continuation from the first part of this article (my previous post). Read on...

We're all in the process of forgetting what is termed 'the values of life'. This is true not only for individuals, but also corporate houses. There was a time in the history of India, when corporate houses (many of them being government organizations; in fact, many of them, still do) used to value what used to be called as 'employee loyalty'. Both employee and employers used to have long term relationship, a special bond, which kept both going along for years together. Even though small time differences almost always used to crop up, it used to get solved with reasonable effectiveness almost every time. One of the reasons for this, obviously, was the non-availability of choices in those days. But, more than this, there used to an unspeakable something - you may even call it a love, affection, pride - to be associated with an organization in those days. The organization used to recognize this, accept and reward those who remained loyal with them for longer periods.

But, today, this term doesn’t exist in our dictionary. Companies don’t care for individuals, as well as the situation used to be. People have become just ‘resources’ (if you’ve ever been through a typical software project scheduling exercise, you know what I mean), and can be replaced by anybody else. Moreover, the industry never faces a dearth of enough manpower in a country that produces more than a half a million engineering graduates passing out of colleges every year. Industry tends to think that any ‘resource’ can be swapped, with some amount of training provided to the new ‘resource’. But, sadly, none of those who think likewise wants/likes to think about the adequacy of such a training program. The more important point is, although the people can be trained on almost any aspect of work (including domain knowledge), there is one significant part of people that can never be trained – the mind. It is impossible to train people on attitude and motivation towards their work. I don’t think companies don’t realize this. They do, but they choose to ignore this…

Given all this, if you talk about loyalty and stick around in the same company for more than 3-4 years, people will laugh at you. People will even start looking at you suspiciously. What perhaps would’ve landed you up in lime-light more than a decade back, will cause you to undergo undue mental stress. If you don’t understand me well, I will give you an example. Let us say, we’ve a guy X working for Y organization for the past 3-4 years, and the appraisal time at his organization is fast approaching. One of these days, X meets with his friend A, who works for B organization. Both of them engage in a casual conversation, which will invariably end up in a talk about each other’s profession. Three things will be discussed almost always - Work, Manager and compensation. Both will vent out each other’s frustration on these aspects and will highlight all ‘bad’ things that is happening with them in their respective companies. However close they are, these friends will never speak about certain things. For example, they will not discuss about 1) good things that happened with them at work 2) anything bad that occurred from their own end that may’ve caused issues at work. Before they part, they must’ve discussed about other opportunities in the industry, about compensations etc. Now, the second guy promises his friend to help him push his resume through the organization he is working for. The first guy is obviously happy at his friend’s helpful mentality, but what he doesn’t know is that his friend - the second guy in our story - has been actively trying to switch jobs already for the past few months!

Do you see similarities with your own professional life? I am not saying that this is what always happens, but to a large extent, unhappiness (or the perception of it) crops up through one’s friends. Once this incident happens with you, you can never remain inactive. It is human tendency to want for more, more money, more fame, more acceptance, and hence even the sternest mind starts to waver. Presently, you are in great mental stress to quit what you’re doing now and move to a greener pasture. This phenomenon is termed peer pressure.

There is another much similar one called societal pressure, that we will discuss in the concluding part of this article...

I perhaps was sleeping when it all happened - Part I

Here, in this 3 part article, I am attempting to analyze the Indian IT scenario today, from a people management perspective. Contrary to what most articles will do, let me tell you straight away my conclusion - it doesn’t look all that rosy. In fact, it is quite grave and scary and my feeling is that we will shortly face another breakdown like during the dotcom bust. It will be too devastating and the entire world will get affected by this. However, good news is that the key to this lies with us – the people of this country. We are the ones, the only ones, who can stop this break-up.

Consider this. The team that I am working on right now consists of around 65 people. During the beginning of the year, we started with around 70. We hired at least 10 people this year. A little arithmetic will tell you that we've lost over 15 people this year. This is 25% attrition within our team alone. Similar attrition is there in most other teams in our company. Dear HR guys, I'm sorry to say, how much ever you try to hide or makeup, I bet the overall attrition is around this number. In fact, you don't need to try to hide this at all. This is an open secret that is known to the entire population in our industry*. If you analyze the reasons for people leaving their companies, it boils down to the following two - 1) his/her manager 2) Compensation

There can be a third (or even fourth) occasional addition to this, but majority people consider these two as their major sufferings. I want to be clear on this, people 'consider' these as their sufferings, though in many (or most cases) the actuality may be different. I can see your lips moving to ask me, how can you say that, you Brutus? If any of my IT friends who've moved at least one company in their lives (I bet they've) are reading this, you can consider yourself as one of the data points in my analysis.

Many have told their stories to me, about how his/her manager is indifferent to them, treating them like dirt. But, know that, I've added a few data points to this, from my own career too. Though either of these are not the exact reasons for my leaving any of my previous companies (as my previous posts will tell you), the sum of parts is greater than the parts themselves - I believe, most of you can understand what I meant here...

Why are we like this? I'm sure that all those of you who've grown up in Indian environment, were taught during our childhood to be more tenable, more adjustable to situations and not to be too demanding? Why do we have such an impatient, short temperament, when we deal with work more than those related to home, your wife, your kids, your parents? Just think. If your parents behaved rashly to you, would you choose to leave them and get another set of parents? Sounds funny? Some of you are already asking me, how can I compare my parents with my manager at work? It sounds like the most ridiculous comparison, right? Maybe I'm taking it a bit too far, but if the two are not worthy of comparison, at least the situations are similar or metaphorically related. However, it may not be too right to say that the new-age people will patiently suffer with their spouses, even for a few days! That is the reason we're seeing too many divorces today. Society promptly blames it on the influence from the west for the ever- increasing divorce cases. So, reading two and two together, don't you think the reason for all this is that we are increasingly getting westernized, materialistic and completely transactional? Let us go a little more in the same direction…

My motivators...

In my last post, I talked about motivation and how I managed with a little of that, which ended me up in creating a website and through that an exciting career move. Ok, let's be practical; creating a website doesn't have much to do with as big as a career move, but in my case it was just incidental. So, don’t get carried away too much by what I just said!

My wife reads all my posts to this blog, and likewise read this one too. It led us to a big discussion, the essence of which was how and from where all of us manage to get our motivation. It made both of us to think aloud for about an hour, and at the end I felt good as if I had discovered myself! I would like to share some of those thoughts with you...

For those who know close enough from my childhood (there aren't many of them) or those who've read my auto-biographical notes (and this one too) in my website would identify me as one of the most confused, scared and diffident child they might've ever met. The most fundamental trait of me is that of being sensitive, actually hyper-sensitive (if there exists a word like that!). There was a time of my life, when I was an absolute introvert. I was easily overwhelmed with grief and guilt, when I wasn’t able to do something that somebody else expected me to, whoever it may be. All this only aggravated my condition and caused me to struggle a lot in life, and hence I deliberately wanted to change sometime down. Hard experiences of life taught me not to be what I had been, but at least try and create a defense mechanism to protect me from all these ‘self-allegations’.

I tried hard, but didn’t get much success out of my efforts. But, during the latter part of my professional career, I started to realize that my personality changed a very lot from every possible angle – and to my surprise, I realized that lot of that had happened even without my knowledge. These shifts in viewpoints and personality traits didn’t happen overnight, but over the years, kick-started probably after my college days, but lot of that still remains etched in my mind somewhere. I basically am all the above even today.

Those are the basic building blocks of my life. If I declare that these very things that I so desperately wanted to change in me were the very reasons for my motivation, aren’t you surprised? I bet you are. It surprised me as well initially, but thinking over it again and again, I found that it is true!

Let’s take striking examples. I strive to be always perfect over whatever I do, be it in personal and in professional life. To a large extent, I owe this habit to my father who is a perfectionist. But, I perfected this art over the years and learnt to be punctual, issueless regarding all aspects of life. I didn’t attain this magically. The simple reason is, I am very afraid of criticism! Sometimes, I even have nightmares of people blaming me for not having done something they wanted me to.

I try my best to be pro-active and follow up all that work that people want get done from me. Sometimes, I succeed and other times I get brick-bats. But, when the latter happens, I don’t get overwhelmed with grief as I used to once. Of course, I do get saddened, but I can’t afford to let that overcome me for long. Why and how did I achieve this? Nothing great have I done. Because of the simple reason that my past experiences tell me that, if I remain overwhelmed with grief over something that happened in the past, I will lose my time on my next assignment. It killed me several times in the past, which in turn led to more sorrowful incidents. I was just afraid of all this. I couldn’t stand people looking at me strangely, when something is not properly done from my side. I can’t help imagining all sorts of things people have in mind about me. I want all people to talk only great things about me! I break-down otherwise.

Peer pressure is something that is invisible, but drives you nuts. A similar one, is that of societal pressure – both of these are not probably that prominent in the western countries, but not so in India. From the day one at school, you are being compared to your friends – comparisons at schools, whether it is with respect to studies, or any extra curricular activities. Competition is so intense in Indian scenario in every walk of life, that it is impossible for any Indian child to left untouched by it. Moreover, the Indian society gives respect to such people who are competitive, and are achievers. People are often judged by designations, rather than the pure ability to achieve. As a simple example, a person designated as a manager is respected more than anybody else, even if he is extremely knowledgeable and skilled to do what he is working on – irrespective of whether the former is too dumb to know anything about what he is doing (and most probably it is!)

Over the years, I learnt many new technologies that is unusual to expect from an average guy that I was. Again, I didn’t achieve this magically. I was afraid of being left out all alone, among my colleagues who may learn all these and get past me someday. When I was a kid, my elder sister was always better than me in every single respect and used to take away all praises from my parents. I used to end up a laughing stock in our family. This tired me no end. This experience from my childhood days still haunt me, and hence can’t imagine being left behind in anything, be at the professional or the personal front. It urges me to learn more and be in the forefront.

In short, I am what I am today, only because of my limitations. Luckily for me, all of that ended up doing me good. Even if I am aware of all this, I don’t want to change – the truth is, I can’t change – because it has done so much good to my life.

So, my conclusion from all this is that one’s limitations (whether physical/psychological) can be the best motivators in his/her life. Don’t try to underplay or outsmart your limitations; if you try to, you will thrown out of the rails of life. Go along the tunnel, even if it’s pitch dark, and someday you will find the gleaming bright light at the end of the it…