...shoOOonya...

I have been reading quite a bit of non-fiction in past 1.5 months. All this non-fiction that I am reading is trapped in MS Word Docs and Powerpoint presentations – in short, it is all purely work related.   This reading oscillates between boring and exciting as I find some parts interesting/exciting while the others are not exactly boring but they just bounce off my head (rather than seeping in and getting absorbed. This all reminds me of my study days (School / College / Engineering / MBA).   I don't have an HR background. I did my Engineering and then worked for an IT company, got laid off during the post-Y2K 'IT industry' tumble of 2001, ran my training start-up for some time before doing my MBA from NITIE (which is not known for HR specialization, btw). Then I joined Satyam and did Org. Change Mgmt Consulting for 5 years before joining Fujitsu Consulting India (doing the same). Now that I am in KPMG, I am supposed to become an all-rounder HR Consultant /...

  Chetan Bhagat is a popular Indian Author. No two views about that. Chetan Bhagat is a good Indian Author. That depends. Chetan Bhagat is a fantastic Author. Well …. ... .. . No   There was too much of hype around him and his books (and hype scares me). There was always some superficial hype and comments about his work. Generic terms would be used and I never quite met someone or read anywhere, anyone analyzing his works and talking good about different aspects of his writing. Maybe I didn't search well. Maybve my bias towards him colored my thinking about him. Maybe. To read or not to read has been a question for me as far as Chetan Bhagat goes. Too much of hype around his writings made me wary of them. I had thought about reading his works and including it in my reading list for 2012 but something more appealing would come up and I would push this aside. Finally decided to quit procrastination on this one and picked one of his works to read. The story see...

  In a democracy, the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme in a democracy. ~ Aristotle   And hence , there can never be true democracy.    The rich will never allow democracy to prevail and the politicians see politics as a means of getting rich (and not as a means to serve the nation, serve the people, protect democracy etc   Democracy has become a pradox in itself and it needs several thousand Mahatma's and Anna's to survive ... which doesnt seem possible.   Democracy is an illusion ... it hardly exists in reality.  

  Some of you would remember the 'paradigm shift' story about a man in the train being troubled by the kids of another man who is doing nothing to discipline them. The man (being disturbed) is irritated and thinking ill about the father (irresponsible, unconcerned, no civic sense, no common sense, bad father and so on ). When this man comes to know that the 'father and kids' have just lost their mother and they are probably returning from the last rites; his outlook suddenly changes. His feelings and thoughts about this person take a u-turn and he is filled with compassion and not anger/irritation. We might have experienced something similar in our lives. Think about it. Another thing is our perspective that stems out of our way of life or often by our career and job profile. A housewife, a software engineer and a saree shop owner … all watching a typical daily soap on TV … each of them will see the same thing BUT notice a different thing … the housewife will ...

    Reading has been phenomenal in the past 6 months with a total reading score of 113. There have been some changes to the reading plans with an increasing trend towards short stories. I had a rough cut reading plan for 2012 which I blogged in January. I am comparing the plan to the actual in this post here.   Planned and Read - (1) Robert Ludlum (2) Devdutt Pattnaik (3) Chris Kuzneski Planned but Unread – (1) Clive Cussler (2) Rick Riordan (3) Chetan Bhagat Planned and Read and continues - Sherlock, 3I and Famous Five Unplanned but read Plenty of new authors (Indian, American, Japanese, and so on …) Satyajit Ray Short Stories, Chicken Soup stories collection,   I discovered several new authors … reading new authors every month. Also discovered and read and enjoyed several series and independent short stories. The 3 authors planned but which remain unread (Clive Cussler, Rick Riordan, Chetan Bhagat) in the first half of the year will sur...

  In a story, the author writes in thirds person and becomes the GOD. He can see through all the characters and know their most intimate thoughts and feelings. He can write about all of them and you can read about all of them getting a balanced picture in mind. What happens when a story is told in first person account? A perspective is added. The person narrating the story adds his own thoughts and feelings to the story and 'cannot' focus too much on the thoughts and feelings of the other characters in the story. He can narrate only what is visible to him/her and the story is biased now. You can feel what the narrator feels and empathize with him/her.    What happens when a story is told in first person by another person? Another perspective is added. Now you see the same set of circumstances from the different set of eyes and different set of feelings and thoughts; hence a different bias. You can now empathize with this character and also pick up a few places ...

    I am sure you would have come across the famous paradox of whether the glass is half full or half empty and would surely have read its numerous interpretations … here are some to tickle your humor vein (received in an email forward on the 'Trainers Forum' yahoo group).   The optimist says the glass is half full. The pessimist says the glass is half empty.   The project manager says the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.   The realist says the glass contains half the required amount of liquid for it to overflow.   The fanatic thinks the glass is completely full, even though it isn't.   The entrepreneur sees the glass as undervalued by half its potential.   The worrier frets that the remaining half will evaporate by next morning.   The consultant says let's examine the question, prepare a strategy for an answer, and all for a daily rate of...   The school teacher says it's not about whether the glass is half empty ...

  Continued from previous post …   18. The Clock Work Man by William Jablonski Yet another book from Blog Adda to review and this one was a very interesting read right from page 1 primarily because it was written in first person as a biographical narration of a 'clockwork man'. Detailed review posted in second half of last month on this blog.   The way the clockwork man describes the things around him … his creator, his kids, his relationship with them, the way people behave and react around him (in his city and even in distant lands), the way he perceives the human world and their emotions… it's all very interesting and offer a different perspective of life. The story takes a break when our clockwork man attempts suicide. He is brought back to life more than 100 years later where he grapples with several mysteries including the wonders of the modern world and his place in it. It was a pretty enjoyable read although the climax/ending was a disappointment. ...

  Continued from previous post …   9. Sherlock Exploits: The Adventure of the Wax Gamblers by Adrian Doyle & John Carr Sherlock Holmes is bound to his bed/chair with a crutch after a fateful slip-n-fall from some stairs. While there is a storm outside, a worried old man and his grand-daughter arrive at 2 am with a curious case of gambling wax statues. Well, the old man hasn't seen them gambling but he is pretty sure there is some change of cards in their hands. Sherlock asks Watson to do the legwork; while he solves the case resting in his room. Funny part of the story was when someone refers to Sherlock as a Scotland Yarder and he thinks of that as an insult. As a strange coincidence … I read 2 stories back-to-back where the 'detective' solves the crime from the comfort of his home without stepping out of the house even once.   10. Paycheck by Philip K Dick   Saw the movie 6 years ago and jumped at the short story when I came acros...

  After an astounding April and May, I was expecting June to be a slower month since I did not have much of travel and I even had a career transit happening. I moved from Fujitsu Consulting India to KPMG India … a change of job, a change of work location, a change of work profile … and the biggest of all … a potential career shift. The transit from Fujitsu to KPMG may well prove to be a career defining moment J   I began June reading with the Traveler Magazine followed by a Jeffrey Archer novel. I also read a new concept Digi-Novel by 'CSI' Creator and BlogAdda gave me another book to review – The Clockwork Man. Between them, I continued reading several of the stories from Sherlock Holmes Exploits and Misadventures stories along with a couple of Satyajit Ray stories and 2 of the Three Investigators. New author this month: Plenty. William Jablonski with his 'Clockwork Man' and Anthony Zuiker (with Duane Swierczynski) with their Digi-novel 'Dark Pro...

    It is an old joke that the difference in the first class and second class of the Mumbai local trains is that people in first class use deodorants and hence you are exempted from the smelly underarms while travelling. The mute point being; both class of travel experience a passenger overload during the peak hours and you are almost equally squeezed and pushed around in both. Of course, the seats in First Class are cushioned (unlike the hard seats of second class) but then that would make a difference only if you get to sit (which would be a likely probability only if you get into the train from the station it originates). My father holds a first class pass from Churchgate to Andheri (since past 7 years, ever since we moved to Andheri). He often travels by Second class in the evening. Strange, isn't it? This is why he does it … In the First class, there is an unwritten rule that on the seat, only the designated number of people (which is 3) will sit. No sq...

  When will projectors and presentation screen catch up with the screen sizes of laptops, desktops, TVs ?? Every time I design a presentation in Microsoft Powerpoint; I am faced with the situation where the aspect ratio of the powerpoint slide is 4:3 while the screens on which I work (mostly laptop / occasionally desktop) have long gone into the wide-screen mode (16:9 or wider). Increasingly I find organizations sporting large size TV's in their conference rooms which get connected to the laptop you are carrying and the wide-screen TV becomes the 'screen/monitor' for your equally wide-screen laptop screen. No problems there most of the times. Problem is when you got to connect to the typical projector which is most often than not ceiling mounted or lies on the conference table. The projection screen is also 4:3 ratio and so is the projection from the projector. This often requires your laptop 'signal' or screen resolution to be changed to 4:3 format ...