Charlie Bit Me ....

It is popular Video in You Tube. Whenever you are dull, watch this. Innocent aggression, Innocent cry and , Innocent compromise,and  Innocent laughter; everything is rolled into one....

Nothing But … (written years ago as a student)

Life is nothing but a pure accident 

Music is nothing but a synchronized noise pollution
Truth is nothing but a collective opinion
Love is nothing but an extension of selfishness
Hope is nothing but a refusal to live in the present
Trust is nothing but an inability to verify the facts
Duty is nothing but a denial of self-expression - and
Faith is nothing but an outcome of ignorance

Interesting Observation (In USA) - e-mail forwarded

1. The sport of choice for the urban poor is BASKETBALL

2 The sport of choice for maintenance level employees is BOWLING

3 The sport of choice for front-line workers is FOOTBALL.

4 The sport of choice for supervisors is BASEBALL.

5 The sport of choice for middle management is TENNIS.

and........


6 The sport of choice for corporate executives and officers is GOLF.

                               THE AMAZING CONCLUSION:

  

The higher you go in the corporate structure, the smaller your balls become.

Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara

Life style of upper middle class youth of our country is pasteurized well in this film. Three friends– Kabir, Arjun and Imran – and their interactions with Laila and Natasha form the backbone of the film.

Kabir stands for the Epimethean spirit of temperament – duty, loyalty and belonging - willing to sacrifice personal choice for the sake of others.

Imran portraits the Dionysian temperament – fun, humor, joy- live dangerously but have fun at all time. Every humorous person is covering up some personal tragedy. They are seen as fun loving persons without any serious outlook in life, but the truth is they are the most serious people; they have masked their serious issues with jokes and humor. Humor is the only way through which they can relate and tolerate the tragic nature of life. Funny guys are actually crying through laughter.

Arjun is Promethean in every sense of the word – feels the world has wronged against him, he is out there to prove a point, it is money you value, let me have it more than you can dream of. He is the over achiever, willing to let go relationships for the sake of success in his career.

Their friendship is not like the veer and jay of sholay – who are willing to kill or to die for the sake of friendship- it is a modern day friendship – it is OK to fall in love with the friend’s girl friend. They care for one another in a practical manner, idealism is kept far away, their relationship is fragile yet strong, betrayal is present yet loyalty overrides the equation.

The film is a journey of these three friends with different temperament discovering the need of opposite side of their temperament, in order to reach the required balance in their life. The film agrees with the dictum of Buddha, “Virtue lies in the middle.”

The statement, “Live in the present” is promoted in the film. But one has to take it with care and concern. Living only in the present, can be dangerous. It is also the core of criminals’ and drug addicts’ personality structure. One need to sincerely plan for the future, but should not be obsessed with it. Not at all worrying about future and past will eventually land you up in a prison or in some kind of asylum.

Orientation

100^th Monkey (Refer the previous post) experiment was conducted number of times, changing few variables. At one time they found out, monkeys learn new behaviors from learned monkey than learned human being.

The researcher himself started being with monkeys (another gang), made friends with them then exhibited the behavior; washing sweet potatoes and eating. Monkeys refused to follow his example. They might have thought that this joker is wearing funny dress and unlike us this guy does not even have the guts to show his own naked body, then why should we have to imitate him? But when they send a monkey who had already learned to wash and eat; he could influence other monkeys easily.

The lesson is that monkeys like to learn from fellow monkeys since they could identify with them. This is the reason when I was asked to give orientation for the first year students; I refused to undertake that adventure.

The unconscious enmity between student and teacher is well established one. No one likes to be taught, it is due to social pressure, students are joining the schools and colleges.  “May you teach other people’s children” was the worst curse spelled during the medieval period. Of course the reason was the primary duty of a parent was educating his children, and not paying the tuition fee to other human being for teaching their wards.

In my opinion the orientation given by teachers to students is a waste of time (not entirely, but to a great extent). Students are mentally blocked when a guy who evaluates them gives them the instruction. They trust fellow students more and follow their instruction faithfully. It is the senior students who play critical role in brainwashing the new comers. From the electives taken to the extracurricular activities chosen are guided and influenced by seniors. Just like how monkeys trusted fellow monkeys more, students trust fellow students more. Give it official sanction, I am sure they will do a better job.

100th Monkey

A group of anthropologists wanted to learn about how the social learning takes place in a society. Like to learn about human behavior, observe monkeys, they are our forefathers. So they selected a gang of monkeys living in the Japanese island.

The researchers wanted to observe the process by which monkeys learn to wash the sweet potatoes. They dropped sacks full of sweet potatoes which were muddied. Some fell on the river and most on the land. Monkeys might have thought that gods have given them manna from the heaven, and started eating without wasting time. Why to waste time in cleaning up the free gifts, it will be an insult to the donor, accept things as they are and make merry of it. But few baby monkeys were attracted towards the potatoes on the water. They played with them for some time, when got tired, they ate them. Somehow those few baby monkeys realized that after playing with potatoes in the water, they tasted better.

Now, even if they had found potatoes on the landside, they picked them, and put them in the river, played for some time, then only ate them. Watching those few baby monkeys having fun with their new found game, other baby monkeys joined in the process of washing and eating.

The number of monkeys learning this habit of washing and eating potatoes increased gradually. Always one or two of them joined the washing club. Adult and old monkeys initially might have thought that these baby monkeys are crazy and idiots for playing with food stuff in the water. If not out of curiosity, due to the sheer boredom of existence slowly one or two joined the new endeavor (usually the older ones (human beings or monkeys) join new activities towards the end, after making fun of them and criticizing them for creating new pattern.

What fascinated the researchers was the fact that up to the critical number, the increase in number of monkeys learning the new habit was few in number, but once the critical number of monkeys learned to wash, then a kind of revolution took place, all the monkeys of the gang started washing potatoes before eating. Let’s assume that the critical number is 100, then up to 100, the number of monkeys learning to wash potatoes was increasing by two or three, but once the 100^th monkey learned the new behavior, then it becomes part of the collective consciousness of that group of monkeys. The new behavior started spreading to other groups too.

The important lesson learned from the experiment is that one should not give up good habits, even when others are doing the opposite. Who knows you may be the 100^th monkey who is going to bring the revolution in the positive direction.

Even if you are not the 100^th monkey, you would be the person who is pushing the number towards the critical number. Your contribution towards positive behavior (ethical) will certainly bear the fruit, if not immediately certainly in the course of time (may in the next century; better late than never).

Batch 2011-13

I have been teaching for quite some years but the current first years took me by surprise. Their involvement in the class, their questions and curiosity surprised me. I am writing this after completing all my classes except presentations by the students.

Students usually pay attention and focus attentively on the subjects like Finance and Operation Management. The current students seem to focus on all subjects including OB, my only hope is that their interest in academics must continue till the end of their second year. It was a joy interacting with them and also trying to teach them something.

I was just wondering what may be the reason for this significant change in their approach to academics. May be the credit should go to the second year students for orienting them seriously, literally directing them to concentrate more on academics. The one more reason can be that 103 out of 180 in the current first years are introverts in personality type. Usually, so far, among the management students of our institute, extroverts outnumbered introverts in every batch. Only this year the ratio has remarkably changed. Most of the top corporate leaders in India – Ratan Tata, Mukesh Ambani, Narayana Murthi, Aditya Birla, Azim …- appear to be introverts. So finally we can hope to get top CEOs from this batch.

But it is too early to make any statistical conclusion. We need to wait till they complete the course and need to wait to see how they perform in the corporate. May be someone should do the longitudinal study on students.

But one warning for the current students:

The desire to take risk is a sign of courage and the spirit of adventure. But suicidal attempts can’t be equated with the risk taking tendency. What they must pay attention is that breaking rules certainly gives kick, and makes them look cool among friends, but one out of fifty if not twenty will get trapped eventually. Believe me; you may have neither guts nor desire to pay the price, because you will end up paying for all the mistakes committed by all people.

This academic year, we also have one new species called HRM Students. Their energy level is the highest. They are sharply focused, looks like they as a collective body determined to prove a point. Their enthusiasm sometimes frightens me. If they keep alive their current interest, we will end up producing hardcore HR professionals.

I am yet to take classes for RM students, I will comment on them when the opportunity arises.

Business Ethics

One of my professor said in one of his class, “Business Ethics is contradiction in terms; ethics cannot be a business, business cannot be ethical”. Though I do not even remember the course he was teaching, this phrase of his I remember rather clearly.

The professor who taught us business ethics, taught with such a passion, for a long time we used get nightmare when the word ethics was uttered. One of my friend, that time itself, prophesized, “George, I see your future right now.” It is on that day I decided that I may teach anything but never business ethics. “Why to become the source of pain and suffering for students?” was the overarching intention.

I resisted teaching business ethics for long time, the more I resisted more people were convinced that I should concentrate on teaching business ethics. As destiny would have it, during a party, I ended up agreeing to teach the subject. I know that in my right mind I would have never agreed, but when the spirit is high, no longer one control one’s thinking, and end up agreeing to do anything. Thus I became the ethics teacher.

It is so obvious that this is the subject no student bothers even to read (forget about studying), so the important task is proving to students that business ethics is also a subject. I pointed out that most of the CEO talks are on ethics and morals. Students were not impressed rather they were convinced that ethics is only for CEOs, and they will study it once they become CEO.

The only good thing about teaching ethics is that my thinking has become more logical and I am exposed to the nuances of the philosophical mind of great thinkers. And also I am mastering the art of teaching to chairs and benches.

Leader

One spiritual Guru said that leadership is like mating with porcupine; one against hundreds (I am not making it up, truly it was said by a Guru). That is, a leader must be ready to deal with three ‘Cs’: criticism, complain and consensus.

In the beginning of your leadership journey if you are lucky many will criticize you and till the end some will criticize you. If you are unlucky, in the beginning only few will criticize and eventually almost all will be after your blood. If no one criticizes, that means either you are a non-performer, or no one give damn about you or you are the latest avatar of some omnipotent God.

And no matter what you do, subordinates will have complain. If you expect praise for your contribution then you are in a wrong business. You should not expect complain free environment. It is subordinates’ birth right to complain. Even if you create heaven on earth; the novelty will wear away eventually and people will start complaining, it is just a question of time. What you must concentrate and console yourself is regarding the quality of complain. What are they complaining about? If they complain  for clean drinking water, then you are an insensitive leader, if they complain that in the parties, Johnny Walker is not given, then you are a good leader.

The third C is important, do not expect consensus to be there for every decision you make. People are different, preferences and expectations are different, you must trust in your wisdom and gut feeling. If you are obsessed with creating consensus, you will be a non-performer, a tap-dancer whose aim is entertaining rather than leading. You have a birth right to make some mistakes, few blunders and outright stupid statements. Do not try to be politically correct always, it will make you a plastic figure, you will be drained of all energy and you will be part of the land of Zombies.

If you are uncomfortable with all these three Cs, then you should content being a follower. Life of a follower is a luxury; you can be faceless, and one among the thousands. It has its own beauty and necessity. The word anonymous itself sounds exotic and enchanting. Think about a party only with leaders and no followers (it sounds more like the congress party of Tamilnadu), you will have vision, mission and every other paraphernalia, but for what? 

ARIJIT GHOSH

Only on the last night I came to know about the mysterious death of our alumnus Arjit Ghosh. It was a shocking news. He was working in Assam, and found dead on 6^th of July, 2011. In the life of anyone, the worst possible sorrow is seeing the dead body of one’s son or daughter. The parents of Arjit are just going through this darkest moment. What make the loss unbearable are not knowing the cause conclusively and the helplessness of finding out the cause and bringing justice.

It is the time we need to stand by Arjit’s parents and do whatever one can to support them. If any one of you have any connection with Assam government or police department who will help, kindly let me know.

Mobile No: 09438304808   e-mail: jgeorge@ximb.ac.in

May God grand him the eternal peace, May God give the strength and consolation to family members of Arjit.

Delhi Belly

Erotic comedy is a well known genre in Hollywood movies, but toilet comedy is a very rare phenomena. People were not sure whether toilet comedies will be appreciated or it will create repulsive reaction. Seeing the response this movie is receiving, it is clear that public has truly moved far away from Victorian morality code – toilet is too personal for the public display or discussion. That is the words like bullshit could not be used in the academic circle, to protect the sanctity of the place, even though it is used freely in day to day language, anyway now we are coming of age as human beings.

Sigmund Freud had long back analyzed the importance of toilet training in his personality development theory. According to him, this stage plays important role in defining a person either to become orderly or chaotic, generous or stingy.

Delhi Belly breaks the myth that a film must have strong story line. It just takes one event and narrates its implications in the life of 3 youngsters. Toilet plays a major role in the film, and it is the mover and shaker of the story. Basically it is a David Dhawan type of film - feel good film- but told in a background of modern life with post modern approach to film making. The best thing about the movie is that audiences somehow connect with the film fully.

Even though toilet is a main aspect of human life, for long we shied away from discussing about it in the living room, now Amir has done it in a style.

I am OK - You are OK

In the mid 70s, Erich Berne wrote the book ‘Games people play’ that captured the imagination of people. In which he developed a theoretical model ‘Transactional Analysis’ to understand and explain interpersonal relationship. Though he could help others to have better relationships, as far as his personal life is concerned, he was monumental failure in his relationships.

Using Transactional Analysis as model, Thomas Harris came up with another book ‘I am OK- You are OK’. It was written for layman in a layman’s style. This too became a best seller.

I have no issues with best sellers, except with the idea that I am OK – You are OK, invariably it gets into my nerves. Last week while returning from Delhi, on the flight one mother with at most seriousness said to her child, “Baby do not cry, others are getting disturbed”. And the child might have been just one month old. Now, how can anyone feel that the mother is OK? If you observe the people around you, you get the feeling that you are in a mental asylum. And if you observe your own behavior, you will be convinced that you are in a mental asylum. Then, why to bluff ourselves proclaiming ‘I am OK – You are OK’? I am planning to write a book “I am an ass – You are an ass”

Before going to bed say in a loud voice, “I am an ass” for five times every night. You will get a peaceful sleep; whatever happened that day will least bother you. Similarly, as soon as you get up repeat the same phrase, no matter what happens that day, you will be cool as cucumber.

In fact this mantra has the potentiality to liberate your whole being. Imagine that the director criticizes me for being a bad teacher, I won’t be offended, what more an ass can do. Once I am awakened to this world of asses, I will stop impressing others, thus all relationship problems will be solved without the help of counselors. 

Rishikesh

Last time when I visited Rishikesh, Gangothri and Goumukh was in the year 2000. Mighty Himalaya leaves one breathless with its power. Its beauty is beyond description, so let me not waste words in attempting to describe it. On our way back from Gangothri, we spend a day at Rishikesh. After visiting all spiritual places, we thought some spirit will do some good for our mind and body. And we searched all over for a bar; it took nearly one hour for us to realize that the city is clear of all kinds of alcoholic contamination. The city has banned all substance containing OH element. One of my friends became philosophical and said, “In Rome, be like a Roman. In Rishikesh, be like a Rishikesian.”

After nearly 11 long years, I had my second opportunity to visit Rishikesh, not for spiritual awakening but to take few sessions for the managers of THTC. The lesson learned from my previous visit was still fresh in mind, so along with necessary articles, I packed one bottle of unnecessary item.

After reaching my room at Rishikesh, I unpacked all things, went to bed early, then got up in the morning and went for the class. When I returned to the room tired in the evening, I looked for that prohibited bottle, mysteriously it was missing. Searched for it everywhere, including the bathroom, thinking anything is possible in this world. No money and no other items were missing, except that one stupid item which can’t be purchased at Rishikesh.

It was obvious that the room cleaner had taken it for his personal use. But my predicament was sensitive; even though I know that the person cleaned has by mistake taken it, I can’t complain about it. How to complain, when in the first place it is not supposed to be there?

At that time I remembered the wise words of my friend, “In Rome, be like a Roman. In Rishikesh, be like a Rishikesian”.

Paradoxical Intent

Paradoxical Intent is a well established principle to change a compulsive behavior.

A young man once came to Milton Erickson, the well known hypnotist and a therapist, and complained that he has just one problem otherwise his life is perfectly peaceful. His only problem was that he could not drive past the city limit. As soon as he reached the city limit, he feels nauseated and vomits then faints.

Milton looked at him and enquired whether truly he wanted to overcome this problem. Because some youngsters get kick in saying that they have problems. Milton knows that most of the time they do not have problems but they are the problem.

The young man emphatically gave the affirmative answer. OK, said Milton, “In that case you must follow my instruction faithfully and blindly. Tomorrow morning get up at 3.00 am and put on the best suit you have. Take the car and drive towards the city limit. Just few feet before the city limit, put the sudden break, kick the door violently and open it, just jump out of it, roll on the ground few times and lie down on the road for 15 minutes. Then get up and start driving back for 10 minutes stop the car and roll down on the ground and lie down. Then move towards the city limit, stop the car and do what I said before. Repeat the process for 15 times – forward and backward.” The young man, looked puzzled, but decided to do what was asked of him.

The next day, as he was told, he got up at 3.00 am and putting on his best suit started driving, as soon as he reached the city limit, stopped the car and rolled on the ground few times and lay down for fifteen minutes. Then reversed the car drove it for 10 minutes and did what was asked of him. Again he drove towards the city limit to perform the said rituals. After 5 times, it looked so funny, he just drove past the city limit and he did not have any panic attack. That day onwards, he had no problem in driving past the city limit. His compulsive behavior disappeared into the thin air.

When you want to overcome any compulsive behavior, consciously over do the same behavior. Somehow the mind gets sick of it and refuses to entertain that behavior. The best way to destroy an enemy is embrace him. By resisting you empower him.

But do not apply this principle blindly. Suppose you hate chillies, by over eating chillies you will not solve the problem, you will only get ulcer.

In face book, you can see the photo of our student, practically in all her photo; she will be eating ice cream. It can be out of choice or compulsion. If it is out of compulsion and if she wants to overcome, then the easiest way is getting a job at an ice cream parlor, may be as a sales manager, and eat ice cream all the time – finish off 100 Kg of ice cream in a day, and do it for a weak religiously (that company may go bankrupt, do not worry about it, for that we can do consultancy later) – at the end of the weak she will certainly overcome the compulsive behavior. If it is out of choice she is consuming ice cream, then also she should take up the job at an ice cream parlor and eat the ice cream whenever she likes. Placement committee must take note of this, and bring in an ice cream company for recruitment; salvation of a soul is at your hand.

Emotional Labor

It is a term invented along with or after the popular term emotional intelligence. Unlike EQ, it measures the psychological burn out experienced as a result of being nice to strangers. People working in the hospitality sector are likely to be the victim of this syndrome. If being extra nice – smiling even when you are angry or upset, obliging even when you want to smash his head- is the essential aspect of your job, then you find it emotionally draining and depression becomes your constant companion at home.

Yesterday when the flight landed at Delhi, first time I observed that one air hostess stands at the entrance, and keeps on wishing each of the passenger “Thanks for  traveling, bye bye”. At least 400 passengers were in the flight, and in a day, she has to do 3 trips, if she repeats the mantra of thanks 1200 times, for 5 days in a weak, imagine what an effect it will have on her brain. Though the brain is coded to do repetitive work, there is a limit to it.

One research study points out that occupational hazard of smiling and being nice, in a way takes away all smile from their life, in their normal relationship they are unable to smile and be nice. It looks like that everyone can smile only certain number times in his or her life time, once the quota is over, mind shuts down the capacity to smile. Good thing is that it is not that all air hosts and receptionist suffer from this psychological defect, only some become the victim others are affected to only some degree.

And the Kingfisher is overdoing their sense of hospitality. They call a passenger as a guest. The management consultant who advised them to make this change must be a mentally retarded person. You charge me at market rate then you call me a guest, it will insult any one’s sensibility. First make it a trip free, then you are justified in calling anyone a guest. In case Deepika Padukone is traveling by Kingfisher, calling her as a guest certainly makes lots of sense.

The other thing that endlessly intrigues me about kingfisher airline is the uniform worn by women employees. Can you imagine it is red color uniform. Vijay Mallya must have been a communist in his younger days or must have been a hard core Govinda’s fan. Otherwise nothing seems to explain the complete red color, from top to bottom. All girls in that uniform look like Che Guvera’s girl friends.

Taxi drivers are far better off in Delhi, most of them give a damn about passengers. The driver tried all kinds of tricks to take extra money from me, since his tricks were very old; decoding his intension was very easy. Yet when he reached me to the destination, I gave him some extra money voluntarily. I did not want him to feel bad that he is not good at cheating.

Teaching Experience

Teaching at primary section is the most demanding and challenging task. At the post graduate level, it is a question of having sound knowledge on the subject and delivering it well. Whereas for facing KG students, no amount of preparation is good enough, you will fail and get frustrated eventually, unless you get a lucky break.

That is the reason I have more respect for primary teachers than my colleagues at the present institution.

At Lupungutu, I had to face the wrath of KG and first standard students every day. When I entered KG class on the first day, all kids got up and made some deafening noise. Later I came to know that they wished me good morning. Slowly I realized that teaching them is a kind of shouting competition. Whoever shouts more controls the class. Today I do not use mike while teaching, I developed my shouting skills back at that school.

The good thing about teaching for KG students is that you can take any subjects – English, Hindi or Maths. In any case it does not matter what is the subject. I started with English alphabets, initially they repeated after me, after five minutes they lost interest and started talking among themselves, pulling and pushing other kids. To have control, I shouted at them, it had impact in the beginning, after sometimes they waited for me to stop shouting then immediately continued their business.

I thought that mathematics might excite them, when I wrote on the board that one plus one is equal to two, they remained totally unimpressed. They gave me the look of what is wrong with you, what is so big deal if it is two or three.

The thought of facing them day after day  literally became a nightmare. But eventually I had my lucky break. One day, I told them that I am going teach songs. Then I started singing, it had the desired effect on them. Many were terrified; some even closed their ears with hands. There was a total silence. Thereafter, maintaining order and silence was very easy for me, all I had to do was singing.

Had I known about belly dancing then (now I am an expert, primary condition to become a belly dancer is that one needs to have a belly which must be as big as possible and I do have), I could have given those kids nightmare. They just got escaped. If post graduate students give me trouble in the class, I know how to bring perfect order, thanks to belly dance.

East Vs. West

Prof.Gopal. N forwarded this link. It is a power packed performance by Prof.D.Patnaik, clear and lucid explanation on eastern and western philosophical approaches to mythology.

One thing we need to keep in mind is that the west also produced thinkers like Master Ekart, Theresa of Avila and John of the Cross who explained reality in a mystical language which is similar to Easter thinkers, and the East also had produced scientists and rational thinkers like Aryabhatta, Charvakas and Udayana who approached the reality in a logical and scientific manner. It means that the West contains the East and the East contains the West.

This lecture is titled as ‘West Vs. East’, the professor could also have titled it as ‘Classical Physics Vs. Quantum Physics’ and the contents will perfectly suit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7QwxbImhZI