Provoke some...

Are you a Sindhi? Most of you would ask this question to someone whose name ends with an ‘ani’. And if you get a response in the affirmative what exactly comes to your mind? In all likelihood, the oft repeated saying, “If you see a Sindhi and a snake, kill the Sindhi first”, would come to your mind. OK, firstly the objective of this blog post is not to do any chest thumping but to present some hard facts and help dispel some myths, misconceptions and beliefs about Sindhis. Now that I have mentioned it, let’s start with the surname only. Each surname actually identifies the family from where one originated. In all likelihood, my ancestor was called ‘Kaku’ and ‘Kakwani’ is how his family gets identified which would translate into 'belong to the family of Kaku'. Incidentally, my grandfather’s surname was ‘Kaku’ which my father changed to ‘Kakwani’. The family of ‘Lalchand’ would be ‘Lalchandani’ and so on. This means, if I come across another ‘Kakwani’ there is a 100% chance that ...

I am sorry. Did I confuse you? Are these not the same? Have you not mostly used the two words interchangeably? “Am I not healthy if I am fit?” Is that what you are thinking? So, tell me, are you fit or healthy or both? Recent news of Sourav Ganguli getting a cardiac arrest at a relatively young age of 48 has made people sit up and take notice. After all, he was an active sportsperson and endorsing Fortune Rice Bran ‘Health’ Oil 😊 (Do we really expect Ajay Devgan to eat Vimal Pan Masala or Aamir Khan to use Vivo mobile phones or Salman Khan to wear Rupa underwear or whichever brand he endorses?). A school friend, unfortunately, couldn’t survive and passed away a week shy of his 50 th birthday. Let’s get into a bit of details. How do people define fitness? Generally, being ‘fit’ is the ‘external’ look and feel. For men, it would mean having six packs, biceps, chiseled looks or a lean body. For women, it could be having a 36-24-36 figure (or whatever is the going dimension) or bein...

Okay, so this Spanish bugger, Francesc Miralles, son of a dressmaker and an office clerk, with bad high-school records who worked as a waiter found his Ikigai of selling self-help crap to the gullible. The first line of the book says it all - “The book came into being on a rainy night in Tokyo, when its authors sat down together for the first time in one of the city’s tiny bars’. So basically Miralles and Hector Garcia, a Japanese software engineer were sloshed when they came up with this ‘brilliant’ idea of telling a story to the world about how this handful of people on the island of Okinawa live longer than the rest of the world. And boy, how the world has lapped up the utter nonsense by buying millions of copies of, yet another scam called ‘Ikigai’. In a nutshell, Ikigai is the intersection of: 1.         1. What you love 2.        2. What the world needs 3.        3. What you are good at 4. ...

Fear… A word whose mere mention brings in more of it. You would have heard and read so many times that ‘Fear is our greatest enemy’ yet day after day, month after month, year after year, we keep nurturing it such that it starts festering our entire existence. Just so as to comfort you, fear has been mentioned in ALL, yes ALL, religious & spiritual tomes across the world since writing came in existence. So, you are not the first or the only human facing it. In fact, each and every human and every other living creature, fears something or the other. So, you can take a deep breath and relax since you are not all alone is this or you are facing some unique challenge that no one else has faced earlier or now. You must have also heard or read that the universe is ‘time’ & ‘space’. Have you wondered how? Your body occupies ‘space’ while your mind is always in ‘time’. Isn’t it? Your mind is either thinking about the ‘past’ or the ‘future’ which is nothing but time. Also, while t...

You thought you knew it all. Isn’t it? You were sure about what you were doing and why. You knew what was ‘important’ and what wasn’t. You accepted the look and feel of the world. You kept resisting change till like a coil spring, change rebounded so dramatically that you are now living in a world you couldn’t have imagined even a month back. Not just illness, Coronavirus has brought with it STRESS, unanticipated both in terms of quantity and form. Let’s look at 7 things you can do to mitigate this unprecedented stress brought in by Coronavirus and the subsequent lockdown which has restricted you to your homes. 1.        STAY INFORMED To defeat the enemy, you need to know it well. Find out exactly what is Coronavirus and what can you do to keep it bay and eventually defeat. It is important though that you get your information from genuine sources and don’t believe in everything that you read or listen. In fact, your first reaction should be to ...

Think of all the stories from the 80s/90s we tell (or hear) when a car (read Maruti) was considered a luxury or the only way most people saw an airplane was when it roaringly flew overhead. When the summer vacations meant nani ka ghar and eating out was maybe once a month and that too mostly chaat , idli-dosa or chowmein. When we played chhupam chhupai, ikkal dukkal, gitti phod, kanche and flew kites. When we spent most of the time at home with our families or when we physically visited people to meet them. When we bought new clothes only at Diwali / Eid / Christmas and if we were nice then for the birthday as well. When a camera roll could only snap 36 pics which even how hard we tried to carefully click would end up with 5-6 out of focus or over exposed. When the starting salaries, even for IIT / IIM graduates, were just Rs 5,000-10,000 a month. When buying a house to live in was the prime goal. When SENSEX was about 500 while most people invested their savings in FDs which d...

Let's look at the origins of world's Top 10 most popular sports: Football - 1863 Cricket - 1877 Hockey - 1875 Tennis - 1873 Volleyball - 1895 Table Tennis - end of 1800s Basketball - 1891 Baseball - 1845 Rugby - 1823 Golf - 1764 Homosapiens have inhabited this planet since 200,000 years. Wonder what kind of evolution did the Human race go through between 1850 to 1900, a measly 50 years, when the Top 8 most popular games were invented? Even the modern Olympics commenced from 1894 coincidentally during the same 50 years. There are basically Three different types of sports viz team games (football, cricket, hockey, volleyball etc), individual games (tennis, table tennis etc) and field events (racing, swimming, gymnastics etc which predominantly take place during Olympics or similar world/continent events. Let's now look at what exactly happens when we play these games? In the Team games, there are two opposing teams (started off as countries) who fight over...

Has your flight every got cancelled? Yes, maybe and you felt really bad when that happened. When that happened the airlines booked you in another flight. Has it ever happened that the flight you were booked into ALSO got cancelled? Well, that happened to me yesterday on returning from SJR @Roorkee. I took 28 hours to reach Mumbai from Roorkee. I am sure some of the US/UK batchmates would have reached earlier. That should have really pissed me off. But you know what? It didn’t. The spirit (I like the Hindi word “Suroor”) of meeting all friends and visiting the campus was so high that nothing mattered. “Will I recognize anyone?" was the question that repeatedly did rounds in my head, "Has the University changed after so many years?" (I still don’t feel like calling it IIT), "Does the UOR spirit still lingers?" and many such thoughts were put to rest the moment I laid my eyes on the first set of classmates who had flown from around the world for t...

3 Idiots, the iconic film that left an indelible mark on the millennials through a statement that loosely translates into English as “Don’t run after success. Instead learn and be worthy & passionate. Success will have no choice but to come after you.” The timing of the film’s release couldn’t have been better.  This was the time when India’s economy grew at a rapid pace and income levels of Gen X, the parents of the millennials, skyrocketed. This made the millennials being the first generation in India since independence which didn’t have to forcefully acquire education and get a job to survive. But was that the only problem? While the various job options and entrepreneurship opportunities opened up, the typical Indian mindset which was far deep rooted than expected became the biggest roadblock to let the children follow their hearts or passions. While they told their children to live their lives and did whatever they wanted yet the love for traditional schooling, mar...

A study completed recently in India on online education by KPMG & Google reveals heart-warming statistics; total revenue will grow from $0.25Bn in 2016 to $1.96Bn in 2021 @CAGR of 52%, Internet users to grow from 409 Mn to 735 Mn and that Smartphone penetration would increase at breakneck speed. The revenue growth is expected to be across all categories viz Primary & Secondary education (which is expected to get the largest share of the pie), Test preparation, Reskilling and online certification, Higher education and Language & Casual learning. Such a market makes online education a ripe fruit to be plucked by many. But this fruit laden tree lies beyond a thorn adorned path that in itself is arduous and serpentine. The challenges spread across all the blocks which need to come together to give shape to this entity called online education. Let’s look at them one by one. Statutory In India, education falls under the not-for-profit category and is totally regulated by t...

"It is shocking to see the government is classifying watching movies as luxury and subjecting us to the similar tax structure as of five-star hotels and casinos," said Nitin Sood, CFO of PVR yesterday when the government announced the GST rates on various products and services to be applicable from 1 st July this year. This made me wonder. My initial thought resonated that of Mr Sood as to how can anyone classify watching movies as a luxury? But then I took a step back and did a bit of number crunching. So, ladies and gentlemen, tighten your seat belts as what you are going to experience is shock albeit quite opposite to the shock experienced by Mr Sood. In India, any movie which grosses Rs 100 cr (USD 15 Mn) is considered a super hit. This makes sense considering the average revenue per film is an abysmal Rs 5-10 Cr (USD 1-1.5 Mn). Most of this is collected in the first week itself since unlike the days of yore when the success of the movies was defined by their ru...

Acceptance (Antonym of Disclaimer):  In the true spirit of our era in Roorkee (the reason for mentioning 'our era' is solely to save the current batches), I have blatantly topo-ed from one of my earlier blog... :-) ------------------------------------------  "Will I recognize anyone?" was the question that repeatedly did rounds in my head (like the rounds we used to make around Sarojini Bhawan), "Will my batchmates still remember me?", "How has everyone changed in so many years?", "Does the UOR spirit still lingers?" and many such thoughts were put to rest the moment I laid my eyes on the first set of classmates who had flown from around the world for the Bodi cup which was effectively a reunion after 23 years of our batch of University of Roorkee that passed out in 1993. While I might be telling others that I am from IIT, Rookee, somehow I still get the real feel when I loudly mouth UOR or University of Roorkee and I kn...

Corporate Lala... does it sound like an oxymoron? How can a Lala be corporate? The way we differentiate companies in India is on the basis of whether it is a "professional" company or a "Lala" company? The moment we get an answer we immediately "assume" about the way that particular company would be running. Does it mean that Lala companies are NOT professional? Or a professional company CANNOT be a Lala company? What exactly comes to our mind when we think of a "Lala" company or a so-called "Professional" company? What are the myths & realities that reside in our minds when it comes to differentiating the two? Do we see any similarities or do we believe these are two extremities? Will the twain ever meet or will they continue to co-exist to complete the balance in the enterprise universe? Who exactly is a Lala or a Professional? Can a Lala be professional or can a professional have Lala traits?  So many questions... I am...