Taking Selfie to be Declared as a National Sport

In  what can be seen as a bid to woo young voters, a leading pro-Nationalist, pro Secularist, pro Mo..err  party added Selfie to be the National Sport in their manifesto. Anvit Shah, the campaign president, spoke to yours truly while on his way to meet the alliance partners to float this idea. 

" We need to look forward. Building parks and grounds are now ideas of yesteryear. The current government included Sachin Tendulkar to boost sports in India. Kuch hua? India loses all away tours, and to divert the attention, BCCI includes IPL in the agenda with a promise that an Indian Team will take the Cup. I know it has come true in the past 6 years, but India deserves change!"

" But Sir, how will construct Selfie as a National Sport? On what basis winners will be judged?" 

" See, here we will take help of Social Media like Twitter. The one with maximum number of retweets will be one of the dimension to consider. Selfies of ladies who don't pout will get a place in Dilli's National Museum as they are now to be considered an endangered specie." 

"Thank You so much Sir for taking some time off to talk to see. I don't know whether this will be enough to woo 40,000+ young  and first time voters (no, it does not RaGa or Shah Rukh Kahn). May be if you can add the removal of Last Seen at feature from poor man's BBM- Whatsapp to the manifesto, it will catch some eyeballs." 

American Icon

“You love reading book, how come you have never read this?  I advise you to read it soon. I will a copy to you if you want it!” – words or rather strong advise from my manager when he found that I haven’t gone through his gospel! 

Though I was intrigued to know how the company weathered the financial crisis which had swallowed behemoths ,  the author’s disclaimer that he was given full access to what transpired in the 12^th floor of the Glass House got my alarm bells ringing.  Chances were high that Ford would have vetted the final draft, exclude the bad part and paint Allan Mulally and his team as the saviours of American Icon. This was not the case to be. The book has a no-hold barred approach towards a compelling narrative of how Bill Ford plucked Alan Mulally to save the company of his forefathers.  Each rumour, substantiated or unsubstantiated, was recounted in the book.  I was surprised to read the overtures that Bill Ford made to the  “rockstar”  Charles Ghosn; or the whipping that Congress gave to CEO’s of Big 3, which was recounted in an unabashedly manner.  

The narrative starts with a discourse on the history of Ford and its journey of being a smooth operation company to an unmanageable behemoth. The author keeps the narrative succinct in this part and dives right in to the plague that Ford suffered in the early part of the previous decade.   The dogged approach of Bill Ford  and Joe Laymon to get Mulally to join the team is a compelling part of the book.  The misgiving of the management to see a “new” guy at the helm and how Mulally’s style of functioning compelled them to tailor their activities to the CEO’s needs; and eventually synergize to the CEO’s vision. The author and the company, to their credit, did mention the shortfalls of some of the senior guys in the company but  in that process painted Mulally as a superhero who could do no wrong.  That was a bit hard to digest.

The book tells all the chess moves that Mulally makes to not only weather the crisis but also to change the culture of the company. The gazelle like approach to have more liquidity at hand even before the bubble burst was one of the key ingredient of the foresight that make a good manager to a remarkable one. The book though loses steam at the second part of the story and falls flat when the crisis is weathered.

Mulally efforts remind me that of Steve Jobs’ who also turned around the company with his own signature management style. Though Steve was more of an insider at Apple as compared to Mullay at Ford; historwill salute Alan Mulally to save not only Ford Motor Company, but in many ways the whole of Auto Industry.

Sycamore Row

In a trademark Grisham style,the book directly jumps into the story without beating too much around the bush. Seth Hubbard, a multi-millionaire decides to commit suicide and leaves a "handwritten" will which bestows 90% of the booty to his housekeeper. The protagonist, Jake Brigance, is chosen by Seth to execute his wishes. Of course,the family of Seth contests the will. 

The book, not a sequel of "A Time to Kill" as the book claims, reprises some familiar  characters in Sheriff Ozzie, attorneys Harry Rex and Lucien, Jake's family et al. A Time to Kill was definitely one of the better books by Grisham and if you think you are sitting down with Sycamore Row with a similar anticipation,i have two words for you - mindless drivel. 





Grisham, in his latest installment, has definitely lost the plot and sorry to say but also the art of storytelling. Every nook and corner of The Black vs The White story line has been used to the point of abuse as a story line and this book is a testimony of that. Loud characters like Booker Siriruk and Harry Rex offers a glimmer of hope, but it quickly fades away.   

The climax is very flimsy and very unrealistic. Grisham true power lies in letting the story go through natural course; this time it seemed he forcefully changed its course. 

As an ardent fan, i am not in pain in saying - Mr Grisham, you disappoint. However it does give me pain in saying - Mr Grisham, you disappoint, again.  

The Cuckoo's Calling

It does take some special skill to write something anew – for an author to reinvent herself and bring something different off her shelf. JK Rowling tried it unsuccessfully with “The Causal Vacancy” but comes roaring back with the latest from her pot – The Cuckoo’s Calling. 

For me, the book is a reminiscent of Harry Potter series, not because there is any trace of the wizard, but because she again transports the reader to the streets of London and makes you believe that the reader is the protagonist.When it comes to reviewing a criminal fiction, I tend to be cautious for letting in too much information which might result in Spoiler Alert! Therefore I just skim the surface for this post. 

 The characters are well defined, and thankfully few – something that was amiss in her second book. The story meanders in the middle but it all fits in the climax – something that manages to hit you in the face. Welcome back to the arena Mrs Rowling – this time in the form of the disfigured war veteran Cormoron Strike. 

National Items :)

National Wildlife - Mosquitoes

National Food - Maggi

National Employer - TCS

National Dress - Lungi

National Footwear - Crocs

National Couple - Chaai and Sutta

National Endangered Specie - Corrupt Free Official

Area Level Contest - My Blue Chip Yield

Mid Oct'13 - I am dying little by little with each of the ludicrous joke being pelted around - I texted to my mentor seated a few seats away. It was the Division Level Contest for the humorous speech christened as "Splash". I was getting worked up speech after speech. 

"This! They are laughing at this! No one laughed at my Red Bull joke - the best in my repertoire, and they find top ten facial expression when a human encounters a "poop call" funny!!!". Disgusted, I turned to face the rest of the wolf pack from my TM club. The dragon lady seated next to me showed a post from the Facebook TL " I wish some people turn into a zombie, so that it is not illegal to shoot these idiots". Satisfied that everyone of us were in the same plank,I happily went back to my brooding...

Mid Sep'13 - The euphoric feeling of winning the Club level was evaporated long since. Eyes were set on the District Level. Anything less would be shame. I had the script. I had delivery. That's when everything began to fall apart. 

Mistake no 1:  A script requires a theme, strong open and impactful conclusion. I missed on the conclusion. True, the script was very good in terms of humor content but the lack of conclusion - something for the audience to take away was missing. 

Mistake no 2 - I was so used to practicing in a big stage. Walking around gave me the comfort. The stage at Shell restricted my movements and in a way the delivery was affected.

Mistake no 3: Always know your audience - I did not! The script did wonders at Club level as it was a young crowd and would have clicked at the Division Level. It so did not at the Area, where people were scarce and the laughs scarcer! The need to keep on tailoring your speech with every stage is a necessity.  I conveniently ignored that! 

A bit of soul searching made me realize that I became a bit too cocky; a bit too complacent. As I walked off the room after the Area results were announced; someone tapped on my shoulder and it was one of a veteran TM " Vamsi, you are a revelation". The head which was bowed down lifted a bit there. I had grown leaps and bounds as a speaker and the Area Level experience made me fell forward.  

Famous and Otherwise :)

1.The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.” 
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

2."Spherical bastards!" - Zwicky when commenting on astronomers at Mt. Wilson. Why? "

Because they were bastards, when looked at from any side"

3.Sticks and stones may break your bones but words can break hearts.” 
― Tim Minchin

4. "After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true." - Spock

5. There's nothing new under the sun. All the roads lead to Rome. And people cannot provide it for you. I can't wake you up. You can wake you up. I can't cure you. You can cure you.” - John Lennon

6.“The key question to keep asking is, Are you spending your time on the right things? Because time is all you have. ” 
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture 

7.Delivering a Humorous Speech is like delivering a baby. Fun to conceive but painful to deliver - Rajesh Natarajan

8.Life is like a game of puzzles. The winner is not the one who gets it right first, but the one who discovers what his pieces are - Me

9.I want to put a ding to the universe - Steve Jobs

10.I don't have dreams, I have goals - Harvey Spectar of "Suits" 

11."My darling wife, I do adore you. I love my wife. My wife is dead. P.S. Please excuse my not mailing this - but I don't know your new address." - Feynman's last letter to Arline

12."If a girl looks swell when she meets you, who gives a damn if she's late? Nobody." - Holden, Catcher in the Rye

13.The great architect of Universe didn’t make the staircase to go nowhere – Grove Patterson

14. Goddess Saraswathi has Veena in her front hand and books at the back; signifies passion first and studies as a fall back option :)  

14.In this galaxy there’s a mathematical probability of three million Earth-type planets. And in the universe, three million million galaxies like this. And in all that, and perhaps more...only one of each of us.

-Dr. McCoy, Star Trek, “Balance of Terror”

Master Of Ceremony :)

"Vamsi, we forgot to tell you. There will be a countdown from 10 and then you guys enter. Best Of Luck!"
The biggest stage yet, for me to fall forward.

Preparation: I gathered all the stage time I could before the big Annual meet - speaking,rather pitching,  to a bunch of newcomers for Toastmasters ; doing a book reading session for the book club of Ford et al. The script had to be reworked over the weekend as one of the fellow MC had to drop out. In a way it made life a bit easier. Kavitha, mentor and fellow MC, and I kept fiddling with the script till the day before the Annual Meet.

"You take the humorous part. Let me do the "official talk" - said Kavitha
I agreed. Participating at the couple of levels for the Humorous contest made me adept to the voice modulation to bring out the laughter.  

The biggest challenge for both of us was the dialogue part. As a Toastmaster, pausing during a speech comes in natural after a time. But waiting for the other person to finish and have a dialogue within the speech; making sure that the pause when the dialogue shifts from one person to the another looks like a conversation.

The other one was the wordings in the script. Unless it is yours, you can never get the delivery right!  As the lines i wrote found space in her speech and hers into mine, both of us kept getting stuck in the same place time and again in our practices. But somewhere we knew that when the mike is under our chins, all these creases will be eased out!

Aftermath: " You guys were simply unbelievable " - HR folks remarked after the initial round. Everything went like a breeze. The hand movements, stage presence and dialogue transition were smooth. Making the audience respond to the excitement or respond to the jokes with laughter was always the challenge and thankfully no grace marks were needed to pass the test!

True, as any performance goes, it could have been a bit bitter. The delivery could have been more authentic; facial expressions could have been better. Toastmasters sitting in the 2500+ strong crowd could easily pull out the errors but the overall feedback was very positive.

Before the start of the event, both of us were unusually calm. No butterflies and I was more concerned about my get-up ; something I shun most of the time. I figured out the reason
later - we were not doing the MC stuff for our personal recognition. We wanted to set the stage for Toastmasters to conduct events of such magnitude!

And we were fairly successful :)

The Best Talk till now - Dhananjaya J Hettiarachchi

" Dude, even if you are not a contestant, you need to go and hear this guy out" - one of my TM friend remarked. I was still sulking over the defeat at the Area Level Contest - I had the script, i had the delivery Sigh.. Sadly it didn't work out. 

I do, however, make it a point of attending contests as it is a true indicator of the level of the speakers you are competing with. More often, people make the mistake of attending their own club's session. It gives you such a parochial view on what the actual level is. Attending the Division Level was a wise decision. 

The highlight of the event was the one i had come for. A  talk by Dhananjaya J Hettiarachchi. It would be a shame to not verbatim his words here: 

1. Stop wishing and start wanting to become a great speaker. Everyone wish to become a great speaker, but when you align your action to your thought, you’ll start wanting to and will surely transform yourself.

2. Don’t have just a dream. Have a purpose. Because when you just work on a dream, you’ll easily get burnout when you fail at it. When you have a purpose, you’ll not stop at your goals and continue to set new benchmarks regardless of the outcomes.

3. “Who is your daddy?” – I refer to here the mentors(both genders). As you know, Dad’s are always the first person who support us regardless our success or failure. They push us and make us to come out of our comfort zones.  Hence surround yourself with daddy’s (both genders), rather than Venture Capitalists (who give-up on you, when you fail and only prefer to be with you when you are successful). Are you surrounded with daddy’s or VC’s?.

4. Don’t see your fellow competitors as your competitors, see them as your contemporaries. 

5. Be a better person, before you become a better speaker. If your life has never experienced tragic moments, you have no material. Take calculated risks and keep transforming yourself as better person every day.

6.  Never Give-up! Practice, Perseverance is the key to becoming a great personality. Magic is given to people who have never given UP! Never give upon your dreams and keep working on it passionately.

Tuesdays With Morrie

Before reading this book if any would have asked me “ How would you like to die” – my answer would be anything that wasn't slow and painful. A quick unconscious or an immediate death would have been a welcome for me. The thought of a prolonged physical deterioration or the rotting of your cells can be such a mental torture to the person who is dying and  his loved ones.  My view changed after reading this book.

Morrie Schwartz, the protagonist of this book was a college professor. He was hit by this terminal neuromuscular disease called ALS or it is better known as Lou Gedrig’s disease .ALS, as the book descirbes, is like a lit candle. Your nerves starts melting and it generally works it way up from your legs

The book revolves around a single class taken my Morrie on Tuesdays and there was only one student – the author Mitch Albom.  The curriculum revolved around one subject – the meaning of life. There were no grades. But you were expected to perform physical activities like lifting Morrie’s head or placing his glasses on the bridge of his. No books were used in the class and a funeral was to be held in lieu of a graduation.  There were no final exam but you were expected to bring out one final paper, a thesis of sorts. This book is that thesis.  “An old man, a young man, and life’s greatest lessons.

There is this wonderful quote in this book the says “ When you learn to die, that is when you learn to live” . We are all going to die some day or the other and in such a grand scheme of things, some of the activities that we do and most importantly some of the activities that we don’t do is what the book teaches me.

Morrie had asked the author to list down things that he wanted to talk about and those topics were converted into talks that happened on Tuesdays at Morrie’s place.  A wide of emotions and events were covered and the beauty of the book is that it gives a different perspective every time you read it.

William Shakespeare said: 

“Cowards are the ones who die many times

Valiant  are the ones who never taste death

Of all the wonders I yet have heard

It seems strange that men fear death

Seeing that death is a necessary end

Will come when it will come”

 Morrie Schwartz was a valiant one and the his last class’s  graduation was held on a Tuesday. 

The "Thing"

There is a  time when one come across a word, a phrase, an idiom or a stanza from a song or a line from a movie  and it strikes you. It inspires you. You want look at it again and again, even more so in times when things are not going your way; your wont to get reassured keeps happening. After moments, the train of thoughts takes you somewhere, you feel like eons has passed as you stare or listen to those words and you are taken in that it is not a word or a sentence anymore. It is a symbol.

I came across such a thing. "Thing" makes it sound so pedestrian. Bur it looked like a random "thing", innocuously printed out in a paper and stuck on a colleague's work desk. I started at it, I get lost, I realised it was a most beautiful poem. Ever. I don't read poetry nor deft in writing them. I do have any moral right to make such a judgement. But then I realise that I do because it is not a poem anymore- it has become an extension of myself. 

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever Gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
looms but the horror of the shade
and yet the menace of the years
finds and shall find me unafraid

It matters not how strait the gate,
how charged with punishments the scroll
I am the master of my fate
I am the captain of my soul.

The poem "Invictus" was written by William Ernest Henely, as a demonstration of his resilience following the amputation of his foot due to tubercular infection,and it is now pinned innocuously in my work desk hoping that it will become an emblem of some one else's life.