The Blackout

Well, it’s quite some time that I have come up with anything. I think of an idea, ponder over it and finally decide to pen my thoughts. I open my laptop, launch MS Office and …… ummm....what was it exactly?

Alas! I am unable to recollect anything.

The blackout has arrived. It’s here. Whenever I attempt to provide shapes to my imagination on paper, it seems that all my thoughts evaporate. No, it’s not unusual with me; in fact, such blackouts have become an integral part of my so-called writing journey. Time and again, these blackouts have been responsible for aborting my ideas and leaving me frustrated.

So, till the time my mind catches hold of the original story, let me spend some words to elaborate this great phenomenon.

Definition – This blackout is a situation when I sit & try to write on any area of interest which I had been thinking about, but my mind becomes blank and avoids recollecting any relevant thoughts. This condition is often preceded by an overwhelming surge of thoughts & ideas in that particular interest area, with even a glimpse of the big picture. But the moment I switch-on my laptop, my mind develops a peculiar kind of vacuum, as if some lighting has struck. In analogical terms, the situation is close to loss of transmission signal on a television set at a time, when my favorite show is about to come. I try my best to make recalls and finally, give up and move on to take up some other things.

Result – Results may be anything ranging from slight frustration to tremendous amount of self-curse. The agony aggravates if the same thoughts return to hover the mind once I am in the middle of other things, or do not have access to pen, paper or laptop.

Cause – Honestly, I don’t know. I attempt my level best to figure out the exact reason - is it lack of concentration, irrelevant timings, conflicting situations, overlapping thoughts or shallow thinking? May be all, or may be none, or may be some other reason that I am completely unaware of.

Well, I hate losing all the time, and since I have already gathered some phrases, let me make this blackout as my blog topic today.

I must admit this blackout has let me down many a times. It has stopped tonnes of my thoughts from seeing the light of the day. The only positive thing that I have learnt from a blackout is its perfect timing. It strikes when the iron is red hot.

……………….No no no no, not again please. I’ve again started feeling at loss of words. True to its timing, the blackout has arrived this time as well, and I can’t think of anything I can write about.

At last, I give up. It seems as if my mind, my surroundings and every object around me have become static. The only active entity that I see is the blinking cursor.

Ironically, this time, the blackout has destroyed itself.

Bed time story (circa 2025)

“Dad, it’s been a long time since I’ve heard a story from you. Please, please, no excuses this time”, shouted my 10 year old daughter. “Ok ok Kiddo, today I will tell you an interesting story. And incidentally, it’s a true story - a story of the transformation of a nation.” I replied. “So, here it goes.”

“Sometime around 2010-11, corruption in India broke all records. Almost every month there was news about some scam being unearthed. There was a humongous 2G telecom scam, which involved a stake of some 1.76 lakh crore. We were simply struck by the number of zeroes that appeared on the front page of The Hindustan Times. Thankfully, this scam still remains the biggest scam in the history of independent India. Then there were other scams like the Commonwealth Games scam, Adarsh scam, Mining scam in Karnataka, MNREGA scam in Uttar Pradesh, Hassan Ali scandal and many others, that occurred during the same period. The entire nation was shocked and angry at the turn of events. We felt betrayed by our political system.”

“Expectedly, the polity was barely moved by these scandals. Every political party was not much concerned by the As-Is situation, but were simply occupied with accusing one another for the rot. Opportunistics organized Rath Yatras, Sadbhawna Days, Jan Sampark movements and other similar jingoisms to score political brownie points.”

“The situation was at best, hopeless & at worst, catastrophic.”

“During this dejected stage, appeared a savior named Anna Hazare. An ex-army man, he took up the job of bringing order & cleaning the mess in the system. He, along with his team members, came up with a movement named India Against Corruption and proposed an idea of a Lokpal Bill, which aimed to reduce the level of corruption at all levels. Anna launched a fast-unto-death campaign to force the government to adopt the bill.”

“So, was Anna Hazare able to convince the government? When was the bill passed?”, Kiddo asked curiously.

I smiled. “There were many roadblocks. After the 12^th day of Anna’s fast, the then government gave in. But that was not the beginning. The then government did its best to delay the process, but finally, the Lokpal Bill came into effect during the monsoon session of 2012. It was a joyous moment for all Indians.”

“So was Lokpal able to eradicate corruption?” the girl was now looking more interested.

“Both, Yes & No. Yes, because the Lokpal bill brought the level of corruption down in public & private sectors, and there was a sharp decline in the number of scams. There was stress on accountability and transparency. And No, because the so-called accused used their monetary & political clout to find loopholes in the system and at times, got away lightly.”

“The underlying problem was that all political parties were corrupt. They helped their stooges get away lightly, before more beans were spilled. So, there was an urgency to cleanse the political system.”

“People again looked towards their hero, Anna Hazare, and he again did not let them down. Bhartiya Vikas Party (BVP) came into existence on 2^nd of October, 2016, the birth date of Mahatma Gandhi, with Anna as its first president. The party released a vision statement – Make India Free – free of corruption, hunger, unemployment, diseases, and full of integrity, power, and self-reliance. The party spoke about the need & importance of another freedom struggle – this time from the rogue elements that were born from within independent India.”

“Through his party’s launch, Anna rolled the biggest political campaign in the history of independent India, and asked the people to support BVP in order to provide real freedom to an independent India. The campaign mobilized the entire nation; the best part being that the campaign was self sustaining in nature and people were all with Anna.”

“Finally, after the Lok Sabha elections of 2018, BVP bagged more than 450 seats to emerge as the single largest party. BVP formed the government and kicked-off all the reforms that were promised to the nation.”

“The significant work of BVP included bringing more than 85% of black money to India and initiating enquiries against the accused. Corruption dipped to an all time low post 2022. As per one of the UN reports, about 92% of the corrupt in India were either behind the bars or facing judicial enquiry. Initially, we were all shocked to find that most of our so-called clean netas were the most corrupt ones.

“Then there were reforms introduced in all sectors; with focus on sectors like Education, Healthcare, Infrastructure, Energy and Technology. The 3 Ps – poverty, population and pollution were humbled. Entrepreneurship was encouraged and India boasted on having the maximum number of entrepreneurs. In fact, India established its indigenous Silicon Valley in 2021 in Cochin. India was now counted among the members of the developed world.”

“India began its real progress and continues to be a much better & happier place. The foreign world now hails India as the New Land of Opportunities.”

“Wow Dad, this is giving me goose bumps. I am so proud to be an Indian. So, was this all done by Anna Hazare? How can he do all the work himself?” the child was really overwhelmed by the positivity.

“Beta, the success of a nation is made up of acts of a number of heroes. Our country is blessed to have a huge number of capable & honest people. All Anna did was to identify these heroes and gave them the platform to bring positive transformation to India. Anna could not have achieved the success without these heroes; alternatively, these heroes would not have got the chance to come to the fore without Anna.”

“Which means Anna is a super-hero - someone like Spiderman, Superman or G.One?” Kiddo exclaimed.

“Hmmm, not quite sure about the third example. But anyway bachcha, time for dreams”. I started wrapping up.

“One last question Dad – I heard about a gentleman named Rahul Gandhi. What happened to him? He was supposed to the heir to the throne?”

“Well, he is still a Member of Parliament from Amethi, and can be seen sometimes in public meetings. Fortunately, Indians realized that they needed a Hero more than a Heir. Good night Sweetie.”

When Tunnel taught the Lesson

They say, there is light at the end of the tunnel
But for me, the tunnel appears very long
Tried hard to get out of it, but failed
It seemed like an unending and boring song

A question came to my mind– Is the Tunnel big or my Will?
Honest answer was Tunnel, though I wish it was Will

I thought, and thought, and thought again,
Would I be able to see sunshine?
The tunnel was making my life hell
I couldn’t just sleep, drink or dine

A question came to my mind again – Is the Tunnel big or my Thought?
Honest answer was Tunnel, though I wish it were Thought

I decided to give it another shot
This time around, I made another plan
I started collecting bits and pieces
Hoping to find an exit and join my clan

A question came to my mind again – Is the Tunnel big or my Plan?
Honest answer was encouraging; it was not Tunnel but a bit of Plan

I started working day and night,
With only hope in my mind,
At last, I did find an exit
I realized, I was not that far behind

A question came to my mind again – Was the Tunnel big or my Work?
This time around, the honest answer was only Work

But then, I saw a strange event
There was no tunnel, there was no dark,
There was no night, but I removed
Only thick dust from my glass

A question came to my mind again – Was the Tunnel ever there?
Honest answer was pointing towards my mind, Tunnel was only here

A Blissful Dilemma

Through this post, I take a dive in the not-so distant history and present to you a poem, which I wrote during those days when my heart used to control my actions; in short, when I was in love.

A quick flashback - these so-called verses came into existence during November, 2005 when Cupid struck me for the Nth time (where N belongs to Natural Number and must be greater than a Million). The target audience of this poem was a girl whom I met during my TCS training days. With cut-throat competition in place, I thought of writing this poem for her, in order to differentiate myself from others. Whether that differentiation happened or not, is something beyond the scope of this post and should not be discussed.

With that girl now being my wife, I finally decided to make this poem public, since my chances of using it again for any other girl are close to nil. If anyone feels that this poem can be of some help, go ahead and re-use it against your name.

So, here we go.

It is the time in life
When it’s hard to survive
Is it truth or fiction
I don’t know the reason
My heart is at a rough
Oh God!! Is it LOVE?

I wander here n there
With hope n despair
Tea, coffee is not hot
Life's become a full stop
Can't separate soft n tough
Oh God!! Is it LOVE?

I pass my nights awake
Every charm is like a waste
Jokes don't excite me
Fear doesn’t fright me
Life's playing a bluff
Oh God!! Is it LOVE?

I receive many advices
From virtues n vices
Don’t know what lies ahead
My Heart is now my Head
Sounds like a crazy stuff
But God, I now believe, it is LOVE.. it is LOVE…it is LOVE !!!

Disclaimer: This work was created keeping my wife in mind. Any reference to any other girl is purely co-incidental and un-intentional. Some inspirations have been taken from my previous encounters, but as I said, they were purely inspirational. ;-)

The Power of Nriticism

“I haven’t seen a person as irresponsible as my manager”, said Mr X. Added Mr Y “I think the project is facing heat just because of lack of a clear-cut vision”. “Yaar, I believe, I can do 100 times a better job than him” came the comment from Mr Z. This is a magnified excerpt from a conversation of 3 members, who have just joined a new team, one week back. All of them suffer from their bloated egos, are quite self-centered, and would not hesitate to stab the other in the back, given an opportunity.

Inside their hearts, they disdain each other; but perhaps, there’s one thing in the world that is binding them together on one table – “Criticism”. They love to criticize everything. They highlight and re-highlight the “shortcomings” of their managers, colleagues, juniors, etc. They talk about perfection as if the Almighty had kept them in mind, while seeding the term “Perfect” in a lexicographer’s mind.

A quick fact – dictionary.com defines Criticism as “the act of passing judgment as to the merits of anything”. Additionally, it has been categorized into positive and negative categories indicating the impact they create. For all practical scenarios, it’s the negative Criticism or “Nriticism” (coined this term), which I would be referring to in the coming paragraphs.

Nriticism is not limited to these 3 individuals but is a common ingredient in everyone’s lives. The larger point is that excessive Nriticism is not a problem at an individual level or at a team level; our capability to nriticize can be extrapolated to virtually every subject – be it society, management, politics, sports or even country. We try to nriticize each and every gesture by an external entity, irrespective of taking circumstances into consideration. Whenever we face any such grim situation, the initial activity is to start cribbing or to sport a disgusting grin.

And I guess, we Indians can boast of executing this job better than most of our foreign counterparts.

A considerable portion of our energy drains away in nriticizing people & situation. Post mortem analysis is a common and comprehensive activity. All we do is waste our time to nriticize the concerned entity and move forward. We have the habit of leaving most situations unattended.

But, time has arrived that we answer this question – Will we continue to nriticize and do nothing OR bring about a change in our mindset?

I strongly believe that it’s time now that we change this attitude for our upliftment. Nriticism is beneficial only when it can arouse positive passion inside us; passion to dirty our hands and bring improvement. Let’s cross the threshold limit of negative criticism and enter a positive phase, where every negative experience/observation motivates us to bring positive metamorphosis. The degree of metamorphosis does not matter, only the purpose. Let’s sideline the infamous “Chalta Hai” (Let it be) culture and replace it with “Karna Hai” (Let’s do it).

Let’s work together to recycle this Nriticism into positive action; to bring the so-desired and so-required transformation. The benefits of such a transformation would be immense – to the individual, to the society and to the country. And this blog post might fall very short of space, in summarizing those benefits.

Ye hai meri kahani...

"How does one become great?" This was the question I asked my mom when I met Anil Kumble at my school, circa 1992. Mom answered – “Study hard and you will get whatever you desire”. Unable to do feasibility analysis at that age, I took the advice and started studying hard, but the relation between hard work and percentage was mostly inverse, at least for me.

The following year, I saw a movie whose Hero was someone with whom I could correlate. He also used to wander around, had little interest in studying and for most part of his day, was busy in creating heroics in his fantasy world. Things were going fine for him, until one day, there was an earthquake in which all his family wealth was lost. The losses overpowered his father too. His mother went into coma. His house was sold, etc etc etc. The Hero was so much affected by the turn of events that his life took a U-turn. He studied hard, the wheel rotated and very soon, he became a tycoon, thus reclaiming all his lost possessions in a very short span.

I asked Mom –“Does an event carry so much power such that it can change a person completely??”. “Yes”, was the answer, “Great souls in the world have renamed setbacks into successes. Ups and downs are a part of every individual’s life but how you learn from your troughs is really what makes you stand apart. There are souls like Indira Gandhi who have created examples for entire human race”. Then she gave some more examples of IAS officers, Engineers, Doctors, whose parents were subziwallahs and rickshaw-wallahs. Of course, I already had one more example with me – my movie hero.

With mind full of determination, I resolved to make it big. I charted a plan which would help me in becoming immortal. All I would need is an unfortunate event which could turn my fortunes. One unholy event which could provide torque to my non-self starting machine

And that’s how my lead time kicked-off. I started waiting for events to occur, which would provide me with the energy to change myself. I prayed for earthquakes, hurricanes, cyclones, nuclear wars, etc to occur, but none happened. Parallely, I waited for my family’s financial position to deteriorate, but the profit gradient remained positive.

I remember one event which I could have used, in order to satisfy my pre-requisites. My grandfather passed away the following year and I tried using this event to follow my plan. But my parents and relatives convinced me that it was not an unfortunate event, since my grandpa was suffering with many diseases and it was better for him only, that he passed away. Thus, my waiting time continued.

Things, big and small, continued to happen around me but then, either I was not interested or I was not affected. Time moved on, the wheel rotated, I did nothing substantial in my life, I waited for things to occur before I acted, and that’s how I became a
Common Man.

Savings In Disguise

I had received a good appraisal this time and was thinking about informing my friends about the same. Just as when I was thinking about the content of the mail, I heard an announcement-cum-whisper from one of my team members. It was regarding a message from our HR head – probably related to our salary structure.

 

It must be definitely about the increment, I thought. News related to salary can tempt us to put a customer call on hold, grab the news and then, resume the call. I quickly logged to my company site and saw a big picture of our HR. I joined my hands, so as to say "Paaye Laagun Madam", and clicked the link.

 

As I was going through the message, my face color changed from Eastman Color to Black-n-White. No, it was not about increment, it was about a cut in the VARIABLE pay, due to average performance of the company. The performance was not as expected. But the company performance was not bad at all. Recently the management had declared the results and it was very good.

One thing was, certainly, not clear to me. When a company is providing good returns to its investors, why can’t it pass the same to its employees? After all, it’s the employees who have brought this profit and not the investors. If the performance is not as expected, why should the employees bear the brunt of it? Why is there no cut in the dividend paid to the investors?

 

All sort of thoughts clouded my mind. Should I remain in this company anymore? Should I plan for a switch? Will it be beneficial to go for a switch in such market? How will I repay arrears? What about the ever soaring credit card bills? How will I afford the RCs and the KFs now? I was not able to sleep properly for 2-3 days, wondering the answer of these questions.

They say great ideas strike during the darkest of nights. One such great idea struck my skull at around such time. Why shall I not adopt the way which my company is adopting? I can save money in the same way as my company is saving. I have got an answer to my financial casualties – COST CUTTING.

 

Next day, I made a list of items where my NEW scissor will be at work

• Skip breakfast every alternate day
• Eat one chapatti less; no sweet dishes
• Only one party per month and that too, on the last weekend of the month, to avoid overruns
• Minimum visits to malls, since the trips really decrease my purchasing power

 

I planned to put these points to work. Next day onwards, I started eating less. I bought only 1 shirt and no jeans in the month. Smoked only half lungs full and drank only when it was almost required. Although there were deviations in the plans early on, I maintained that they do not go the Kolkata Knight Riders way.

 

After one month, I started calculating the so-called ROIs on my cost-cutting measures. Here were the findings:

• Since I had started eating a bit less, I actually reduced the circumference of my stomach by 0.5 millimetre. My burden on the earth was now, 5 kgs less and my old clothes had started fitting. So, a cut in the clothes arena as well.
• One party per month meant that I had saved a lot of money on my expenses.
• Minimal shopping had led to further dip in expenses. Also, there were troughs observed in the transport cost.

 

I actually realized that due to these cost cutting measures, I had saved a so-called good amount – Rs. 2175. Hurrah!!!! I have a saving now. I thought about consulting with my friends on investing this amount. ;)

 

I had something which I never had before. And as the film stars say during the award ceremonies, this achievement of mine could not have been accomplished without my company HR. Thanks a lot Madamji for showing this path. Thanks a lot for the cut in the variable pay which prompted me to adopt the company policy of cost cutting.

Looking forward to many more such cuts in the future.