An Indian guy working abroad was looking for a would be bride in US and was lamenting their headyweightedness so much so that he posted his grief to a public messageboard.

I found an interesting response to his rant and raves.
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I was reading views posted in the coffeehouse. I am sorry, I can not say anything related to this topic. Because I have never been out of India. I come from a very small desi town. And I used to admire you smart guys and gals, who took up the challenges and left the comfort of your shores and ventured out into a completely foreign territory to carve a niche for yourselves. Hats off to all of you!

Accidentally, I hit this button “Coffeehouse”. I am pleasantly surprised to learn that you guys are keeping the traditions of India alive there too. No matter how educated, accomplished, academic you guys and gals are. You are born “Indian”. You cannot leave the tradition of browsing “gals” and “guys” for marriage “reason” just like we pick up cassettes in Planet M.

You might not be as crass as we real Indians are, flexing your financial muscles, and settling for a good financial deal. But still you are the guardian of the true Indian spirit, even in the foreign land. See, the way deals are finalized in corporate world. Someone contacting someone to float the tender, then concerned parties meet (here you can argue, unlike India we leave the guys and gal alone. In US the whole family is not hovering in the background. Well, well thanks for the improvement). Discussions are held. Parties are sized up. If everything goes well, and the packages are attractive, then deal is struck. Anyway the corporate deals are a bit sophisticated.

I was under the impression, that you guys have the real “open” environment to meet the girls of any nationality, and at least one of them really touches your heart’s cord and you really find someone to whom you can talk to hours relate to as a person. But thanks for letting me know that you guys carry a “very small DESI town of India” there too, in your academically brilliant heads.

Relax and enjoy:

I was reading about Nalanda university and its ancient glory. How this university had introduced astronomy as a separate branch from mathematics. It was the world’s first residential international university. It functioned uninterrupted for 700 years. The Chinese pilgrim Hieun Tsang was awe struck with the size of its library. The university attracted scholars and students from all over the world. But these damn news channels make sure to destroy any romanticism, even if it exists in my imagination and distant past. But I will not give up. I will continue being an optimist.

The ancient glory of Nalanda might be restored:

These days the TV news is infested with elections and various bright candidates who will decide our destiny.
I was listening to the profile of a future candidate.
The broadcast media was flashing the story of successful man, somehow named as RANJIT DON. He is a highly successful person by page 3 standard. I have written this line after checking the entire yardstick from that revered page. He was about to buy a helicopter, has huge mansions in many cities, a fleet of expensive cars, in short he was (will) living life king-size. He is a hard core social worker. One of his grand acts was letting the CAT out of the bag. According to various media (controlled by his rivals) reports, he “leaked questions of medical, engineering, banking and other key exams, helping affluent clients to respectable jobs without having to burn the midnight oil.”

Finally all of my doubts were laid to rest when he declared the intention of contesting elections from Nalanda, his hometown. Earlier this place produced one of the greatest scholars Nagarjuna and NOW Ranjit. WOW!

Whenever I hear the name of Nalanda, I associated it with the Grand University. If Ranjitji would be elected by the Janata Janardan, I know he WILL make it his mission to restore the ancient glory of Nalanda University.

I was reading Amar’s blog today. He has given pretty interesting insights into experimenting. His blog sets me thinking too, though on entirely different lines. I narrowed down my thinking on those who experiment with hearts! Not with their own hearts but with others.

When I am in the mood, I keep on experimenting with different hearts at the same time. In this, I use my God given gift of convincing every heart that his is special from others! Therefore please don’t mind the presence of other simultaneous hearts in my life. His will always remain unique! When I turn back, I see my path littered with broken, unbroken, sullen, shining, leaping and beeping hearts. I try to remember to whom they belong, but my excellent memory often fails me. Now it has become a hobby for me to experiment with hearts of all shapes and size.

But these experiments put me in the social worker’s category. I help guys do self analysis. Most of them will keep wondering for the rest of their lives what hit them. Those fools will never pause and think that I am beyond repair just like Veerappan. But I will never be considered in his category unless people realize the extent of damage caused by emotional violence. I will keep having the time of my life till then.

Where this experimenting leaves me as a human being? Ha! Ha! Ha! Who cares! I HAVE GOT ONLY ONE LIFE. Let me have my fun!

It means,
He respects your principles as his,
And never plays with them.
It means,
He honors your faith,
Without tempering with it.
It means,
He gives his soul to you,
To guard it.
It means,
Not losing your self respect,
But giving your self respect to him,
And He will never abuse it.
It means,
Handling his secrets,
Knowing you will never whisper them again,
Even to yourself.
Love,
It means,
You are not tradable,
With anything.

I have specially set aside the “The Asian Age” of 17th & 20th January 2004 for writing this post. “The Asian Age” recently collaborated with “The New York Times”. I have read one statement made by the wife of the presidential candidate Howard Dean.

January 20th 20004, carried this screaming headline:-
“Dean’s wife joins him for strategic day of rallying”
What’s the big deal? I thought secretly. But actually it was.

She had to explain:-
“We have a son in high school, a daughter in college, and I have a medical practice in Vermont with patients that depend on me daily.”

Why was she explaining this to the educated, modern, permissive, believers in gender equality crowd? I don’t know the reaction of actual public, but how she was perceived by the above mentioned media? Same, as a person belonging to a remote village in our country, who has not even remotely touched by the modern time’s ideologies. “Pati ka saath dena hi Bhartiya naari ka Dharma hai.” Have a flourishing career of your own, but make sure to be beside your husband. I never expected to read it in “The New York Times” penned by a head to toe modern looking disguised Behenji.

It’s amazing how we expect the same role from the woman, no matter in which part of the globe she resides.

As far as I as a common person goes, I can have the history of 1, 2, 3, or 4, or (fill in the blanks yourself) …………failed relationships. But our representatives? O! They have to marry their high school sweet heart(s)! I might not be able to lead the life I want but I would not tolerate my representative’s unhappy/unusual married life. Theirs should be picture perfect.

If you are running for the presidency of United States and allow your wife to pursue her profession seriously, then it is termed as unusual relationship and both of you need tips on togetherness and building a healthy political wedding! (Figure out yourself what kind of wedding is this!)

Your man really gives you space to do what you want to do but media will term the wife as a ghost wife. What I deciphered from the columnist – OK play Doctor Doctor. But abandon your patients, give a damn if their survival depends on you, and be at your husbands side, with all the coiffures and adornments. For what? O! Just to hold his hand on inane occasions. Hug him; kiss him, spare interesting glances at right junctures, smile at him at appropriate moments. In fact you have to put on display – your tuning with your husband to the whole world at the slightest opportunity.

Reporter’s another concern was Deans have not subscribed to Cable T.V.! Therefore she can not watch her husband virtually also. If the columnist only has an iota of inkling of the demanding career of a medical practitioner and mother of grown up kids, she would have came out with an intelligent piece of work.

One political reporter’s greatest worry was;
“What will she tell their Grandkids?”
I think her answer could be anything but this,
“I ignored my duty, abandoned my patients, left your mom/ dad to their own devices, and cheered your Grandpa who was once a front-runner for President.”

Last year I was coming back home after work
It’s a normal routine for any working female (at least that is what I think). But for a few its god send opportunity for an alternative employment or maybe side business for entrepreneurial bend of mind. Two guys riding a scooter first tried to come near me. In basketball they teach you how to stick out your elbows. I was preparing my elbows for the impending action. But alas there was no need. They simply tried to snatch my handbag. O no! What about my ATM? The keys of my sister’s flat? The money? The keys of my own apartment? I kept a tight hold on the strings of my purse.

Wow! In Kanpur they still make the best and authentic leather purses! The strings did not snap! My countless thanks to the creator of the purse The tussle went on between the guy in the back seat ( the other one was driving. Good example of team work. I wonder which management school he went to!). My countless laps of free style and butterfly swimming must have done something to my arms or was it the punishment doled out by our Taek-wan-Do coach to keep doing push-up on merely two or three fingers (O! the revered coach. While writing all this I am bowing to him. Ok at least mentally. But that time he looked like the incarnation of emotionless devil ).

Suddenly I remember my brother whispering to me, when something untoward happens, scream with all your might. That was what I did. Yes, the scooter was in the mound of a sand and the two chum bum were totally panicking by now. Taking the cue my rickshawallah too started shouting. Though he abandoned his Rickshaw along with me sitting on the same. Well I never thought too intensely why Gandhiji never liked the idea of being in Rickshaw). In a flash of a second, I found both knees in the sand mound but my hands still holding the strings of my purse.

By now, both the fellows had bowed down to external factors present in their little entrepreneurship, and left their project. I just remember I was clutching someone’s hand in the crowd for support and asking him,
“Please call the Ricksawallh, I still have not paid him.”
Poor fellow! He never intended to be a party to this little endeavor. I paid him whatever came out from my……. (No! No! This was my sister’s purse. But things inside it were MINE. Very generously she lends out her things to me. But what is the big deal. God precisely made sisters for this purpose.)

I don’t remember how I reached home. For the first time in my life I understood the meaning of why people say the best place in the world — MY ROOM. But then the panic and fear struck with its full force. I could not restrain myself. I was crying like anything and my hands were shivering so much they were simply incapable of holding a glass!!!!!

Today when I remember this incident I am filled with two regrets, first not registering the case in the nearest police station and second I failed my emotionless devils known as our Taek-wan-Do coaches. I could not use a simple side kick. I console myself that my ankle was swollen and I was barely able to walk at that time and I hurt the same ankle again along with my knees (the reason for me landing up in a rickshaw). But you always know when you cook up excuses.

Few days ago I have posted extracts from a book called “Maverick” by Ricardo Semler. I was impressed with the author (he had gone to Harvard Business School not to learn their management skills but to teach them his management skills. I like these kinds of people for whom life is beyond Harvard, MIT, IAS, IIMs, IITs) and his way of managing his companies in somewhat different manner. The whole book was so absorbing and interesting that I had developed murderous tendencies towards those who tried to disturb me while I was engrossed in the book. My good friend Lokesh had suggested visiting this link.

After reading the page suggested by Lokesh, I just wanted to say my intension was not to project Semco ( the corporate) as an uncensored unit.I was not talking about an egalitarian system or welfare system. Ricardo Semler too did not talk about it. He always maintained that his corporate is not like a happy family unit. This book just struck me as different from others that is why I posted the extracts from it. I was not talking about totally egalitarian, self-organized, self-managed and founded on principles of members’ happiness and well-being, not growth and shareholders’ profit organizations.

In his book the author himself claimed that standards are pretty high at Semco and those who do not perform are kicked out by the workers themselves. The difference is here. The same is the case with salary. If someone is setting extraordinarily high salary for himself/herself, they find themselves frozen out by the workers themselves. This way workers and employees know how an enterprise function, they identify with the company and in certain instances at Semco they protested against a high bonus for themselves because they know in the long run how they ( workers & employees) will bear the burnt of it. So it is all about learning about the intricacies of running a business by workers and not like organizations you and me work where nobody knows what is happening in the company, how owner and their efficient CAs are cooking the books
( Remember Arthur & Anderson, Enron? The list is endless) and the shareholders who have invested their life’s savings will be out in the open? I find it heartening that at Semco workers don’t have a schoolmaster warped in sophisticated word called “supervisor”. To whom they ask “Sir/Mam can I go to toilet?

Actually it’s a bit difficult to truly understand the principles of participative management, delegation of power and of Ricardo Semler’s open channels of communication. Because right from the beginning we are conditioned to thing, act, behave in certain manner. And companies try to mould our minds further, just as our parents do since childhood. Most of us are working in companies where we get information from grapevines, where we are treated like schoolboys/girls, our bosses told us what to wear and what not to (but not as bluntly as I am putting it, it is fed to us as “organizational Culture”) where workers are stereotyped as thieves and a body search is carried out when they leave the office premises. At Semco management stopped body search of workers. From where the loudest noise came? From the workers themselves! Their main concern was they would be held responsible if “something” happened. They didn’t want self respect. How as human being we let companies capture our minds and ultimately our dignity.