No Individual Rights - be it cricket/ Workplace

I did not want to write much on the Indian cricket drama…so sad it has been but yeah i am forced to for more reasons than one…because mostly when i hear it it seems less cricket and more Management stuff in general relating to workplace politics.

Like i saw walk the talk by Kumble and he spoke how just because a set of players go out for lunch or other places together does not mean they have a rift with the rest.

Well this is what i fail to convince managers of….why do we read up the management books of the west and apply them to ourselves miserably.
I m told one must interact with all the team members of a 40 member team well great ….cool but i do interact and help…but how in the world do you expect that 15 as in the Indian cricket team or 40 in say my team previously would hang out together and have fun.

Why do we have team building activities thrust upons us….playing ball and games will not make anyone like a person who talks shit or is a egotist or bores you with self falttery.
Yeah we work together comminicate and as long as i do that why am i supposed to be oh so chummy with them.

In fact in some cases may be i do appreciate the difference in the opposite person and admire it too but that still does not make me be chums with him/her because i may not fit in there.

Ever been a single sitting at team lunch among married people discussing kids and inlaws.It gets to you.
Ditto the opposite …ever been a busy married one sitting among a bunch of singles planning the next fun weekend.You hate it.
This is a way too simple example but there are many other reason why you have groups and will always be there.

Important thing is there should never be any disharmony about work and communication in general should be encouraged but that hardly means mass meetings at lunch or some games devised by a foreigner(read it as Self help books…Seven habits/ DeBono amd what not) with no knowledge of Indian sensibilities.

One or two day training or activities do not build a team…esp if the constituents are the real quiet people who are not very outgoing.
In fact i guess a better way was as in school they rotated the desks and so rotate the cubicles. At least with some time you know a person in general than as a game or a lecture tells you.

Things take time…oh yeah they do.But we like it all instant….well food can be …and so can be other things but with people instant stuff never works.

Next was the damned BCCI contract thing…..i heard about.

Isn’t it the same when the CEO of a business goes about acquisitions mergers and what not for business and money …well quite good…but the moment a employee resigns for money its not really seen in the same light.

How does an employer get a right to your personal time and space…..
Sack the players for bad performance …surefire…
but how can you take away their personal right to choose what they do with their personal time.
Next i guess there would be a clause in the contract….should not go out with any Bollywood actresses 1 month before a major series.
Its more like mothers telling children …sit at home and watch TV and rest the sun and dust is not good for you….and implementing it strictly.

Managers ask you why you need a leave where you will be….and no most projects we do insoftware are not some mission critical stuff where your lack of presence will drown millions or lives will be lost.

Managers want to be the first to know when you get married…is the guy from town…coz you may have to leave otherwise.

This whole Management lanaguage upsets you ……its apt they’ve started calling the new post a manager. Oh yeah professionals the great power point wielders.

Wonder if all Aussies stuff is to be followed by players why not go the whole hog and do what they did to Pawar.

Shove such politics and political people off and say Get moving!!!!

Some quite uncharitable and not quite right thoughts

These are some of my most uncharitable thoughts about the world's nicest things in general.They are my views as i see then standing where i am....they are nasty but yet i've never been able to think otherwise from what i've seen and observed. But lets start as the whole thought started ......its like some links strung by a strange thread and once the chain is formed one sees how strong the thread is that holds them together.

Across the web read some reviews of Nishabd (nah did not watch the moview)and some comments on them that made you wonder like real hard. They say a man of Amitabh's stature should not have done it...Why pray....Well its not right on his part to be like that...they say...hmm well point taken...but then i say ...its not right for him to have done Baghban...

I think a lot of what was defended by Amitabh in there was wrong. It was very well presented as if he was the grievously injured party but well..... Actually the scene was pointed out by my very own quick eye ...my sister coz...i usually dont notice much....She says hey what is the guy trying to feel bad about when people tired after working like slaves in offices want to have a good nights sleep the guy hammers on his typewriter and one is supposed to feel bad that he's asked to be quiet. he could have done that in the daytime .

But then that was a tailor made role for the ever right Amitabh...Actors and all uncles and aunt gush over how right and perfect his end of the movie speech was Welllll.
I wonder why the parents track of the suffering parents are ever missing in movies. Why is it not shown how wonderfully they managed to do time management between children office and parents.
Most movies show parents doting on children and they children grow up to be monsters who throw them out.....but while they were doting what about their own parents...is never shown.In fact the finest i liked in the genre was 'Kal aaj kal' wherein Raj Kapoor goes crazy by his father and son's demanding ways.And such is the position of most of todays' generation caught between two very radical generations.
This hardly means i feel one should not be considerate towards old people and be inconsiderate and throw then out....hardly but then dont the older generation also need to understand the changing realms of the world....that work ten years ago is not the same today.

When Dad came home those days work was like left at office ....can the same be said of work today...email cellphones and stress ...yeah people need to manage them true...but that needs support of the very people who complain of not enough care and attention.

Ok many things in there were over the board in the movie , esp hema malini's ever green concern which they add a track to justify .....but its fine as it was done with a good intention...is it???...maybe RGV says the same about Nishabd. Strange but could be true.(Some other time abt RGV's movies.)
The main point is what Amitabh or any great xyz does is his business and we are better off either enjoying it or shunning it...why claim rights over their choices.Why is he the custodian of our culture and morality. Sometimes i write why is Society so against individuality...but then i realise isnt Individual the opposite of Society.I guess thats about it.

Right and wrongs are based on the side you are standing, the view you have and the hidden and unhidden forces at play that create that view.
From where i stand and what i see i hate most charities.

General Charity...like those missionaries...So many of them get money and feed those half starving and about to die people food and clothing...and thats about it. They give them a life. How noble.But is living enough? Does happiness ...hope for a future beyond 2 square meals not count.
Ever seen outside melas , temples banks.....so many able bodies beggars....and people do their bit of charity by dropping a coin ...some even fifty to hundred ruppess and thats it. He still stands there for years after your regular deeds of charity .
Isnt't is more noble to give them the potential to earn food....no donations from businessmen dont help here ...jobs created by businessmen and getting some of these lazy people to work is noble. But thats not charity isn't it. Thats business...and we dont consider it much noble.
Animal Protection groups: Save them sure do i too like it...but when dogs become more important than humans you have to question?
I wonder if Maneka would say the same for dinosaurs too if they came to eat her. Ask her to come home at 10 in night in a dog infested locality and lets see how much she stands by her views.
Evironmental Issues: This ones my greatest dilemma....When i was a child used to watch some program on Sunday and yeah wished to be an environmentalist esp with my love of chemistry then. I love trees...i love forests...i despise those who fell trees but then i ask myself....
I live in a city with amenities and most of them cause pollution...then how can i prevent someone say from a village expecting the same and thus causing more pollution.Its like some one said US polluted all it could to become a dveloped superpower and now how can it prevent developing countries from doing the same. What exactly are the ethics of this argument. Very doubtful.

Save the girl Child...Ok done...Saved and she lives on...is that enough i ask again.
As i wrote previously tooWhy save someone to live a life of neglect , hurt and most importantly unwantedness.
Why grow a unfeeling biological specimen called foetus to a feeling humane being and then crush its spirit by reminding it at every point of that saved life - its deficiencies and its unwantedness.
Will the government or the womens groups make them feel wanted.....loved cherished.
NO...It is only when the one who bring her into this world want her can she belong truly to this world and live to be the wonderful being she was to be, does it make any sense to bring her into this world till then let em bury them.

Some SRT Nostalgia as Unfashionable as it is

This is something so precious a feeling i mostly wont put on my blog much....but came across a few posts and it brought back that overwhelming nostalgia and just for a memory of that feeling i write this post.This post is purely that nostalgic feeling .

Its been disturbing the way this whole campaign of drop Tendulkar drop Tendulkar is being conducted all round in the media....as much as you try to ignore it.Some use the reverse make him captain...ah more suitable to publicly humiliate...no please.

Oh well i do wish they drop him...at least for the Bangladesh tour please.So much unnecessary humiliation....lets have our young blood and lets see ....how fortunate this generation will be.
Its so sad how we love to put up a statue and then throw stones at it.

Our times were really fortunate...for all said and done we've had a wonderful time watching Sachin Rahul and Saurav until the media and finally Mr Chappell may seem to have succeeded in spoiling the whole thing.Divide and Rule someone said...Well!!!!

Watching Cricket has never been the same for me in the past 4 yrs since i started working but oh those days when i watched it....such joy was bestowed by this cricketer.

I came across the article by Rahul through Jaiarjun and can say i too share the same irrational feeling. Another link from the above blog to this lovely piece by Nirmal Shekhar.

Oh yeah drop him by all means but please don't negate or question the sheer happiness he brought to a few like us who unlike many remember.Yeah except this world cup the last 3 world cups it was he who shone and i remember it well enough.

Its true as pointed out by both “I could never be as EMOTIONAL about India as I have been about Tendulkar.”

I enjoyed it when Sehwag was hitting or Dhoni was slamming but it never
felt the same....i've never been emotional about it. It was good fun.But then they were the new heroes of the new set hooked onto contests and Mandira Bedi and what not..... not those who loved to hear Boycott and Harsha or even remembered those Henry Bloefeld Sharjah days of earrings.

Somehow rather than those multitude of Sehwag's or Dhoni's sixes the six i remeber best is the one by the most unnatural hitter of sixes...Mr Dravid to Allan Donald in South Africa.

Yeah this is all nostalgia. No ones asking this to be taken into account for our great team's selection and such high brow things but i do wish this demeaning and humiliation stops .

Don't worry he will retire he sure will later if not sooner and what a vaccum it would be ...nah not for cricket...it will find its own...but for the people and media who like to make gods and then malign them.

He is human ...... and thats why its so much more joyous.He is not the world's greatest cricketer anymore and may not be ( as hard as i find to say it) but he is someone who once brought more joy to more people than the world's greatest do even now.

some more blogs i read long ago and yet look back - and love
Like this

"We are really blessed to have been part of a time when we could witness someone like Sachin at full flow, and we are fully justified in flattering ourselves into believing that as long as he chooses to be around on the cricket field, there is a miracle round the corner, waiting to happen."

Ok many will quip ...yeah it did not happen the miracle.
Oh yeah...we don't believe in miracles as they say we actually rely on them -
so when they don't happen things go awry.

or this -

"Today, even though most believe he may not score many more 100s, should one doubt his intent? Questioning his intent is a slap at our belief and everything we once believed in. ........ And any good cricketer will tell you, the timings just not right. You either believe or you have never watched Sachin Tendulkar bat. Get a life. "

Oh yeah we sure had a good lifetime.

Oh well let me end this....rather than going on in my nostalgic drawl ...... thats why i stopped watching too much of the game ...last world cup in 2003 i got hooked again when i watched Sachin and was scared it would be repeated again in 2007 ..well if it were not for his probable last world cup i'd even bat an eyelid.....coz if without miracles pure cricket is to be considered India simply were never the best not even when they won it.
Its the miracles of certain days and some people that make this world so special.

A Nice Reply

There are times when you are so very lost in the wonder of something and someone or something so simply bring you back to reality .
There’s a quiet charm to it.

Read some lovely lines from somewhere and hence wanted to talk of it to a friend
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Me: These lines are lovely isnt it
“Every novel is an equal collaboration between the writer and the reader and it is the only place in the world where two strangers can meet on terms of absolute intimacy.

I have spent my life in conversations with people I have never seen, with people I will never know and I hope to continue until the day I stop breathing.

It’s the only job I’ve ever wanted.“

You know what thats also the job that i want..you see i don’t even love writing in general(forget about code) as much as i love reading.But who would pay me for it hmmmm

Answer: True very true….and u know something…. lot of times… things that interest oneself are the ones which we have to pay for.

————————————————————

Ah i felt isn’t that what life and jobs all about…

Quite Nice an answer and i was out of my wonder of the lines as lovely as they were .

Weekend at Namastey London

As a movie it does not even give you a headache its simply unaffecting except of course in one or two parts where i was impressed…by the dialogues or the discussion.
Best was the argument between Rishi Kappor and his wife wherein he keeps blaming the wife for the daughter becoming as she has and the repartees by the wife are excellent about Indians in general and men in particular.

Parts where there is the statement how they want to live in a cleaner
London but want to keep up their own traditions.
The movie though at points is wonderfully honest…like when Akshay tells his father in law …that now that they are in London…he can’t do a thing …his own daughters complaint might land him in jail…pretty much implying that in India such complications are never an issue.

But other than that mostly its the same nationalistic triumphs and harping on India’s glorious past….and how foreigners can be never loyal and counted upon..and that love at first sight thing of Akshay in the movie sucks…and then that committed waiting….as if all Indian men would really wait for a runaway bride.

Somehow the movie reminded me of the book by Meera Syal…”Life isnt all haa ha hee hee”. rather than such movies about London or the expatriates i liked the realistic and ironic and comic potrayal of the trials , dilemmas and troubles faced by such. I guess there’s a BBC drama too on it.

The books showcases more deeply why a relationship with a foreigner or even someone from a different state or strata sometimes may really leave you regretting.
One beautiful example in the book is wherein Tania living in with a foreigner who’s quite nice and loyal but she observes how her friends husband calls her ‘Jaan’ and she misses it. For all that she has she misses the connection that word brings.

The different associations and falsities they live through.Best though i liked the way the character Tania in the book who pretty much never tries to look or be Indian in the traditional sense says……among people and places where they all try to find out about the exotic stuff and all associated with India…she says something to the effect “i don’t need to put in on or act it or learn it and prove it ….because i am the original…i am Indian”.

That is why the scope of books ever exceeds a movie but more than that these days whenever i see a movie i feel our new directors start off with a brilliant idea but don’t have the courage to follow it up and give in to the same tested formulas….hype jingoism and comedy for the sucking masses.I felt the same when i watched Honeymoon Travels. I
t was a nice story which could have been oh so much more and quite a few such movies these days which have some brilliant or honest part in them and then they get lost in the requisite ingredients of Bollywood.

Not that i dislike Bollywood formulas for a weekend fun if directed properly but one does wish that something more when you see a good idea.Takes time i guess…