reunions

Reunions result in bringing memories of the past. Be it with school friends or colleagues. There has never been a dull moment. Sometimes it makes me wonder about our innocence at others about our foolishness, bravery.

Reunions are bittersweet. The conversation about your crushes, their present life. The sports teacher and being caned bunking morning PTs. Late-night shows, jumping hostel walls after light out or drinking, smoking inside the hostel campus. It all makes me laugh.

This conversation also reminds me of freedom and a careless attitude. I am not judging it now or seeking answers. Life was simple and less about hoarding or buying. An ice cream or evening golgappas were sufficient to bring all the cheers.

Life was not about fitting in but living together and figuring it out. As we all were young and we had no expectations. For me, the study was the last concern. I don’t know what I was seeking then, It must have been like a train ride, and parents bought a ticket for me.

It also makes me feel that life was simple, less goal-oriented, or aspirational. It was more about making the best of now, explore and learn from mistakes, and move on. It was less plastic or imaginary.

utopia

Most of us living in the metro are part of a bubble. We are part of a parallel universe. It is like living in a utopia: capitalism, consumerism, and modernity is the virtue and elements like cars, housing society, mobile fostering the identity.

I see people complaining about electricity failure or water not coming for a day for maintenance. I see folks fighting with delivery agents or negotiating for a few rupees with vendors.

I also see a class of people speaking at conferences, presenting slides, graphs, data, and echoing India’s development. I also see people doing thought leadership and predictions on various subjects, platforms.

Either we happily neglect the other India, or we don’t want to see it. An India where every year millions go homeless because of the flood, people still kill siblings over land disputes, kids go to eat not study at school. An India where untouchability is deep-rooted, life lost over entering a temple or fetching water from a pond. Cities of India where one bus connects the entire village from the rest, electricity comes occasionally, and pure drinking water is a dream. An India where dowry or honor killing exists. An India where entire families meal depends on the sale of vegetables in the village mandi. An India where eating out once in a month or eating meat, sweets is no less than a celebration. An India where new dresses are bought once or twice a year.

I am not trying to be a cynic. I am part of it. There is another India that forms 95% of our population. An India which serves labor forces to build your apartment, deliver our food, or clean our house, or take you home from the airport. They are like us humans with emotions, cravings for love, respect, and belonging. Do not treat them live robots, slaves, or trash.

This 95% is not the TRP or ad-material for media. Their stories are not worth chasing. Our government has made them invisible long back.

show

Why can’t we be honest with our loved ones? It is alright to acknowledge mistakes, failures. It does not make us less of a human.

We visit a doctor for a treatment, we tell them all the symptoms, hide nothing. He provides us the medicine, and we get cured.

Why can’t we do the same in everyday life, acknowledge our mistakes, show the urge to improve and talk honestly with our parents, mentors, peers?

What is the point of this fake show? Broken from inside, continuously struggling with self but not asking for help, cure?

Wrong

Every opportunity comes with success and failures. Society tells us about look for positives and ignore negatives. Over the last few years, I have read Charlie Munger many times, and thinking in inversion has been a great mental model for me.

I have been trying my best to add it as part of my decision making. It is not easy, our mind is a monkey mind, and it continuously chatters, makes its imaginary castles.

The same applies when it comes to onboarding a customer or product
development. I have stopped seeing everything as a success, achievement instead: “What could fuck up with this?” It has helped me in being honest with customers telling what we cannot build and certain instances not onboarding them, leaving money on the table.

hoopla

What is this hoopla we have created around us? Why do we have to be on top of everything? Do we need to consume, comment, and converse on everything?

Our brain can take limited things to process, and an app-driven economy wants all your attention. You fall victim to E-commerce offer or quantify, fight and take sides on some social media platform. How is it helping in making ourselves better? How can you be an expert with limited knowledge?

The billions worth book has been sold telling you can do anything and many other recycled ones telling you how to meditate, live a stress-free life. None of these will teach you tricks for self-introspection, knowing who you are. It has to come within yourselves. The urge to finding who you are, your nature requires nothing less than meditation. How can you help someone, claim yourself a thought leader on various topics without knowing yourself?

Your social media likes, comments and followers will give you short-lived dopamine, finding who you are will make this journey less painful. Get over this hoopla and self introspect.

Isolation

We humans are not meant to live in isolation. We like being in a herd. Covid19 has changed our way of living. We are socializing, working, shopping, sharing miseries, and happiness online. The mystics, saints, and yogis are the only exceptions.

It feels like a house arrest to me like many of us. I was out running outside earlier. Last week I was told it is airborne, and I have locked myself. I am in touch with the outside world, team , parents, siblings.

I still feel I am missing out on many things. But the imagination of dying without the supply of ventilators or oxygen alone or letting my corpse rotting for a few days keeps me thinking otherwise.

I know it is a tough time for everyone, and none of us had imagined it. The only precaution is isolation. I was reading the Reddit post last day and was feeling so helpless.

FedEx principles

Every company has a set of guiding principles on which it’s journey is cemented. These guiding principles come from the founders. 

The author of the customer chapter has written the principles of FedEx in the book. I am adding a condensed except below: 

  1. Our People: Our people are free to express themselves- their likes and dislikes towards each other and towards the company as a whole. 
  2.  Our Service: Our on-time delivery is consistently at 95% or better regardless of the obstacles. We treat every customer contact as we want to be treated. 
  3. Our profit: The ideal station doesn’t treat profit as an end, but rather as a means to an end- a way to grow, a way to attain a higher standard of living, a way to provide more jobs- jobs that are not make-work because we want to cover every potential challenge, but rather jobs that have the challenge of life- jobs that require ideas, decisions, and actions- jobs that provide expression to each individual in each of these areas with the result being the positive feelings of a job well done. 
  4. Our workplace: The ideal station recognizes the need for cleanliness and organization to provide each individual the ability to live up to his or her potential. 
  5. Our Interface: The ideal station team members realize that their station is not an island. It is part of a system- a greater team of individuals who need certain things to do their part-on-time departures, accurate and timely reporting, attention-to-details in every step. 

customer culture system

The playbook of Frank Chamberlain as narrated by Michel Basche in his book customer culture.

Frank defined the playbook as keeping customers in the core and making organizations, employees, and stakeholders successful via these.

  1. Vision: The overriding objective(and vision) is to become profitable. We will do everything possible to become profitable. And all are responsible.
  2. Values: Integrity, honesty, openness, delegation, decentralization. 
  3. Goals: Living the values(employee), financial performance(owner), and customer satisfaction(customer).
  4. Relevance: Frank makes achieving the goals relevant to his people in the usual ways with one twist. He makes sure they are listened to and given a sense of control over their destiny.
  5. Feedback: Feedback is everywhere. Once you have established honesty and openness, everything is out there. 
  6. Accountability: People are given trust and responsibility, but they must perform. There are no excuses, and each person is held accountable. 
  7. Actions: It is clear that delegations go as far down the organization as people are ready to accept it. 

pain

No one has time to listen to your pain, hence the world you are in focus on a smile, making others feel successful. Your pain has to be cured by your self-introspection. Who knows, if the pain is our mental manifest?

As a leader, you are the therapists, parents, guide mentor. You are leading the ship, your mood, move reflects directly on your team. Hence put on a brave face and lead. There is no room for mistakes or showing your vulnerability.

In this world, we cheer for positivity, and pain gets no mention. Go to social media portals and post happy things: people will comment and like. Some whom you have never met personally and gives rats ass in reality. Social media harvests on it via clicks, likes, and pageviews.

You have to share your pain with a few, the ones who are closer to you. The ones if lived longer than you will be at your funeral. For the rest, you have to put on a big smile and keep moving. Nobody likes to be around with people who are in pain.

lyrics

Some songs have got such meaning that it shows your life’s philosophy.

YouTube algorithm played this song for me. The song is in the loop for the past few days. The song has wisdom shared by Bulleh Shah, a famous Sufi saint. One positive side of moving to Delhi and living for a decade was picking Punjabi.

वेख फरीदा मिटटी खुल्ली ( कब्र )
मिटटी उठाये मिट्टी ढुल्ली ( लाश )
मिटटी हांसे मिटटी रोवे ( इंसान )
अंत मिटटी दा मिटटी होव ( जिस्म )

वेख फरीदा
वेख फरीदा

ना कर बंदिया मेरी मेरी

ना ये तेरी ना ये मेरी

चार दिना दा दुनिया मेला

फेर मिटटी दी बन गयी ढेरी

ना कर एथा हेरा फेरी

मिटटी नाल ना धोखा कर तू

तू भी मिटटी में भी मिटटी

जात पात दी गल ना कर तू

जात भी मिटटी पात भी मिटटी

जात सिर्फ खुदा दी ऊँची

बाकी सब मिटटी मिटटी

वेख फरीदा
वेख फरीदा

वे जुगनी केह्न्दी आ
ओ मन विच अन्दर वसदा ए
वे जुगनी केह्न्दी आ
ओ हर वेले मेनू दिसदा ए
वे जुगनी केह्न्दी आ
ओ कण कण दे विच बस्दा ए
वे जुगनी केह्न्दी आ
ओ अक्खा दे विच मेरे वसदा ए
वे जुगनी केह्न्दी आ
ओ जगमग जगमग करदा ए
वे जुगनी केह्न्दी आ
ओ रात नु क्यों फिरदा ए
वे जुगनी केह्न्दी आ
ओ गल्ला कुछ कुछ करदा ए
वे जुगनी केह्न्दी आ
ओ ना अली दा लेनदा ए
वे जुगनी केह्न्दी आ
वे जुगनी केह्न्दी आ
चढ्दे सूरज ढलते देखे
बुझदे दिवे बलदे देखे
हीरे दा कोई मोल ना जाने
खोटे सिक्के चलदे देखे
चढ्दे सूरज ढलते देखे
बुझदे दिवे बलदे देखे
हीरे दा कोई मोल ना जाने
खोटे सिक्के चलदे देखे
जीना दा ना जग ते कोई
ओ भी पूतर पलदे देखे
उसदी रहमत दे नाल बन्दे
पानी उत्थे चलदे देखे

Translation credit: Manoj Sahay