MNS bids Farewell to Peace in Mumbai

To unify people and country and take them to the road of construction calls on the likes of Leaders or Statesmen such as Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr, Patel, Mandela etc. The much easier route is to gather hooligans in the name of 'karyakartas' and vent out their angst on helpless people.

When society is divided into layers and subliminially pitted against each other, when urbanization challenges go out of control and when youngsters having wasted their years in doing anything but preparing themselves for a professional life, democracy throws an opportunity at a person who is hungrily looking for the seat of power no matter how it comes. Such conditionalities give birth to netas such as Raj Thackery.

Emerson stated that Power is as good as the person who wields it. In this case if we use converse reasoning- the use of power can somewhere hint at the character of the person who is actually weilding it today in the designation of Head of MNS.When the divisive tendencies in the country are giving way to violence by another similar brigade (Bajrang Dal) against Christians, by terrorists againts masses, communal riots etc, the need of the hour is to come out with political leaders with the metal and vision to unify the nation. Here we see a neta emerging who wants to create further lines. I really lament at the fact that people who take birth in families from where they command a natural source of power (irrespective of their own credentials) most of the times end up in being very mediocre or opportunist power hungry netas. Rarely have we experienced people from a certain family giving way to bring Statesmen.

The State continues to allow Raj his way as somewhere they understand that if this person is muzzled, it is likely that the ruling party's vote bank would also get a hit. There is a seperate political angle to it which can be best understood from this piece by Kumar Ketkar

If he wants to create a strong cadre of local youths who can really contribute towards a true 'Navnirman', the focus should be in helping them develop skills by which they can compete with any individual on the basis of merit. Only a naive can have an imagination that by making thousands of these people roam on the streets, breaking glasses, assaulting people would make them more employable or useful for the society? If the problem is that locals are not getting opportunities on account of people from outside coming in, then there are better measures to come to a robust solution.

Statues of Ganesha and Shivaji can be erected anywhere (Mayawati who is possessed by self love is her near cousin in this mission) but the real Divine Spirit which exists in all of us and is weakly represented by these external manifestations is getting silenced by these acts of a political group. The more he continues these acts, the more the society would be drawn towards jungle RAJ. All pomp and show of celebration of one's culture sound hollow if the fundamentals of love for the mankind is absent.

Our toothless and highly politicised judiciary will not be able to do much against him till they really introspect where all this can lead to. But I guess the damage has already been done. Not in terms of terrorizing others but removing the feeling of brotherliness from the heart of tens and thousands of people who are on the roads and probably lakhs of people who are silently providing their support. Enforceable laws have their own limitations. They can't change the thought process of lakhs of people. Can unenforceable laws of love be institutionalized in such situations? The worst sin that a man can do is to make a poor and vulnerable person feel that he is actually poor and that he is really vulnerable and helpless. And he has done exactly that.

When I was in my school, I remember witnessing skits with four kids dressed as Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian giving messages of unity of religion. But now, thanks to netas such as these there would be several roles that our children would have to enact in their schools to give out further such messages. It would not involve just 4 but maybe 20-30 or more depending upon say region,caste, creed etc etc.

But will it change anything? Though that appears to be our only hope.............

Views on 'Cinema'

I along with my wife have been visiting the Asian Film Festival since past few days and we treated ourselves with some amazingly sensitive movies.

The medium of cinema always fascinates me.

To talk about cinema, let me take a dig at the psychology of it as it seems to me. I feel that movies allow us to experience characters in reel life which we either may want to live, may not want to lead (like villains), would want to connect emotionally, physically relate to etc etc. When someone imitates an actor's dress, hairstyle, conversation style etc in effect they want to connect to him/her physically. The reason a movie like Rock On! catches onto youngsters is because somewhere they sense a hope in chasing their dreams. In this case, the personalities in the movie and also their mission is what the audience connects with.

Similarly we have a lot of people enjoying the character of the emerging revolutionary in Motorcycle Diaries or the role of Forrest Gump. We love these characters probably because they are special and we somewhere want to be like them deep within our subconscious level but rarely do we gather the courage to become like them. At times there are certain elements in certain characters that appeal to us and not the total self (which is very often the case i must say) and also we have to understand that in our limited lifetime, we can't lead multiple lives. But still to what extent we can stretch ourselves, is completely our personal call. I feel a lot of movies like Rang De Basanti, A Wednesday appeal to us simply because we somewhere try to identify our inner vaccums with what the character tries to portray over here. The loving character of Rajesh Khanna in the movie Anand where he constantly smiles despite knowing that his life is going to come to an end. I have not met a single person who was not touched by the character.

At other times it might just be a brilliant performance, script and direction that mesmerizes us.

This ability to connect to the audience in a way such that the audience finds himself/herself emotionally connected to a character can be one of the tests or challenge which the director might like to take up.

I guess this power of cinema to allow people to lead multiple lives (albeit in an imaginary mode) provides the logic of why it is such a popular genre of entertainment.

Share and Grow

Wonderful example of how knowledge sharing between nations can help in solving key social issues.

Operation Flood being replicated in Africa

As the social sector grapples to solve the intricate challenges at the grassroot level, it would be worthwhile to understand how agencies can really crash the journey along the learning curve by sharing their knowhow and avoiding the pitfalls.

Where is the gap then?

Against compartmentalized Living

I find it strange as to why we all get into a tendency of narrowing our scope of learning or interest to just a few things. I have felt that people from a certain field tend to prevent themselves from understanding or knowing about other fields and feel comfortable i existing in pigeon holes of knowledge. Somewhere we forget to understand that all aspects of knowledge have been derived or must say have actually been extracted from facts, experiences and theories of what we see around us and the more we know about varied things, the better would be our relationship with the world at large.

For that matter why should some MBA working with a corporate agency be oblivious about political philosophy like tenets of democracy even though he is supposed to have the calibre of understanding it and even while he is not required to work towards it, he needs to know it if he is living in a democracy.

Or for that matter someone who is an artist can also try to dabble in the field of social entrepreneurship or science for that matter.

I am understanding this gradually that there is just no limit to our mind with respect to what all it can grasp and also how it can apply. Its our intellect through which we decide to lead narrow and constrained lives and that too completely at our loss and we don't even realize it.

From 'Divide and Rule' to..........

We read in history that under the British rule, the policy of governance was 'Divide and Rule'. When I contemplate over the progress of the way society in India is governed today, I don't find much of a difference.

Today, with whatever differences we see in the society, politicians in general try to understand that and make best use of it to their advantage. So the political mantra now is 'Understand the divides, leverage them and rule'.

When someone would say curb SIMI movements, the other party would accuse it of being communal. Then another one from some quarter would shout about reservation for the deprived class and then another great artist would be seen relishing the Iftaar party.

When and how will all this change?

Syria: State regulation on dissent

Despite the mess that we see out here in our politics there are still certain things which are really precious and which we all should feel happy to enjoy with respect to non-interference of the State

Age isn't a virtue....all by itself

Answering to a question on impact of John McCain's age on election results, Jack Welch answers that there are three essential aspects which would decide his success just as for anyone else. The attributes he emphasizes are

Curiousity about the age
Willingness to change and
Wisdom that comes with age

I think these points make a lot of sense . Read on>>

Are you biased? I surely am..

Would it be wrong to say that we all are biased? Or let me put it in a positive light. Is it possible for anyone not to be biased.

I guess understanding our biases can help us understand ourselves better. Please have a look at these different categories of biases in case you are interested in knowing yourself better. It would surely help you in your tough arguments.;) I never knew there were so many psychological traps lying within our minds. :)

Whats the colour of your lens???

Our thoughts, actions, reactions to situations around us are always coloured and influenced to a large extent by our past experiences, our values, principles, culture, education, aspirations etc.

Unless we become cognizant of this 'lens', it is likely that we may not be able to understand or interpret the situation at areas where it actually deserves to be noticed. Or rather I should say that it may prevent us from having a holistic view to situation at hand.

To substantiate my point, recently I floated the idea about coming up with a model orphanage as part of our initiative in Anupam Kher Foundation, and I sought opinion from two experienced persons to begin with. One of them who is a counsellor told me about the things to be kept in mind in an orphanage, challenges of adoloscent kids, the caretakers and their qualification, possibility of volunteers etc. She didn't think too much on the location of the orphanage or the process of building an orphanage in that area and the constraints that it would give birth to.

The other gentleman is VP projects from a major multinational company and he only suggested me on the duration of completion of construction, the cost of inputs, how the existing scarcity of labour and high price of steel and cement would lead to a certain cost etc. He didn't give even a single idea on what should be our approach towards children of different backgrounds, age groups, their education etc.

What I want to say over here is that even after all our experience and qualification we always tend to be driven by what we have experienced in life. Which implies that since our experience would always be restricted and narrow, our analysis more often than not is going to be far from complete. Its scary since it might even be faulty many a times. You can take any decision in the society. On the contrary the reality is always futuristic and it needs to be understood in entirety to do justice to solving the problem at hand.

In the above case both the persons gave very useful insights, but still coloured and limited.

The lesson for me over here is that we should always be aware or conscious of how our thoughts are getting driven at any point in time without actually attaching ourselves to those thoughts completely. Which implies that we should always be open to new thoughts, ideas, directions, people etc. That might help us in thinking systemically and possibly the final answer would be better.

What do you think?

Rising food prices

Very insightful paper on what and why of spiralling food prices across the world.

Food Failures and Futures - Council on Foreign Relations

Potential Vs Limits

Really liked this answer by Mr Mark Parker, the CEO of Nike in the company's annual report for the year 2006-07.

What is the core of NIKE’s philosophy?

We believe in potential, not limits. The 4-minute mile was safe, until Roger Bannister. Lou Gehrig’s 2,130 straight games was safe, until Cal Ripken. No one would ever clear 29 feet in the long jump, until Bob Beamon. Nobody would ever beat Bob Beamon, until Michael Powell. That’s how it is with NIKE. We believe.

The concept of believing in potential and not limits is a very deep one. If you look at the way the human civilization has progressed since ages, all of it can be attributed only to one factor-the human potential. The indomitable spirit about which Victor Frankl speaks in his book 'Man's Search for Meaning'.

If organizations and goverments recognize the untapped potential of their employees and citizens, imagine the direction they can give as they try to lead them. Its worth giving a serious thought.

Recruitment ad by Sir Earnest Shackleton

Came across this interesting piece of advertisement that was posted by Sir Earnest Shackleton in the year 1915, when he was preparing for his famous expedition to Antarctica in his ship named 'Endurance'.

He wanted to deter people from applying since there were more than 5000 applicants for the 30 member crew that he was looking for. The greatness of his leadership is evident from the fact that such a huge number of people were wanting to go with him for that challenging an assignment.Mark that the beginning till the end of this add has a pessimistic connotation and thats not because the Leader was pessimistic but more because he wanted to give a clear picture about the nature of assignment. The last line just says it all- honour and recognition in case of success. I guess any major attainment in the national or international area would fit this bill. No?

To know more about Shackleton and his leadership traits check out Endurance

Hats off!