The living bullet!

Last night, my daughter was playing with her gun, shooting off bullets everywhere. One bullet fell into the tiny gap between the wall and the bed. She wanted to retrieve it, but the bed was too heavy to move. It was pretty late and I was at wits-end, trying to put her to sleep. So I promised her that we would pick it the next day. She cried for 10 minutes straight.

ME: Seriously! Can you please stop?

SHE: How would you feel if you were a newborn abandoned in a dark room full of dust?

ME: Eh? What?

SHE: The bullet is new to this house. (its a new toy)

ME: So?

SHE: It would feel very lonely!

ME: Gawd! Do you even know the difference between living and non-living things?

SHE: Yes.

ME: So is the bullet living or non-living?

SHE: Living!

ME: I gotta talk to your teacher!

SHE: Germs are everywhere! Germs are living things. I am sure there are germs on the bullet too!

ME: Err..!

SHE: The germs were in the fancy toy shop before! They’re used to that.. Now they’re in the dark gap full of dust. They must be really sad.

ME: Hmm..

SHE: So remember.. Non-living things may appear to be non-living, but are actually not!

ME: Okay.. Never thought of that.. Thanks for letting me know!

Image: Dexter's Laboratory

Epistocracy?

Around the time of the great Indian election results announcement, I came across this news snippet on Knappily about epistocracy. I wanted to write about it then and bam it’s been months now! Well, better late than never.

By the way, speaking of Knappily, I highly recommend this app. It’s a no-nonsense knowledge app with the articles put up in a neat format. It not only includes current day affairs but several articles on historical news too. So yes, if you that interests you, go ahead and install it.

Now coming back to epistocracy.

Epistocracy is a system in which the votes of people who can prove their political knowledge count more than the votes of people who can’t. It is directly opposite to democracy because it argues that the right to participate in political decision-making depends on whether or not you know what you are doing. Having heard the term for the first time, I was fascinated. I have heard a lot of people ranting that folks at their home vote for a particular party because they have been doing so for generations. A lot of people are ill-informed. Well, people believe and forward the WhatsApp message that says the Indian national anthem has been chosen as the best in the world. :) Need I say more? 

Most voters act as “political fans” cheering a team and there is blatant ignorance on the real motives of the candidate/party. Then there is the religious/racial bias on the support, especially in our country. The real knowledge to make an informed decision is very limited to a small percentage of people.  Well, in fact, I wouldn’t even count myself as very politically informed!

Of course, on the downside implementing such a system is not practical and is very complex. There is the matter of defining how a person can be marked as politically educated. And most importantly this will widen the gap between the haves and the have-nots, giving more power to those privileged enough to fit the definition of “politically informed” while pushing poor voters even further to the margins.

What is your opinion on this?

Leader, not boss!

**This is a blog that I penned in my company's blog, when I was asked to write about someone I had admired at work.**

When Kartic initiated Legends of Cognizant series, among the people I have closely worked with, Shankar is the first person who came to my mind. Everything in this blog happened 4 yrs ago. But to date he’s the best lead I have ever worked with.

Shankar had been an acquaintance for a while before I was moved to his team and he became my project lead. For an Associate with only 5 years of experience, he was handling such a big team (around 25-30 under him I guess). That itself speaks volumes about him. I haven’t yet heard of anyone given such enormous responsibility at an early stage.

1. The freedom that he bestowed on his team was commendable (trust me! not everyone does that) Did his team complete a work by sitting on it for 8 hrs or 6 hrs and a 2 hr break? It didn’t matter to him, as long as the outcome was a quality deliverable. He wasn’t the “boss” who tied reigns and micromanaged.
2. He wasn’t afraid to speak his mind, irrespective of who the person was. He was never manipulative and dint beat around the bush. You ask him a question, you get a direct answer. I remember once, when I was leaving for the day (after 10 hrs. in office), an onsite lead called him up.

Onsite lead: “Why is she leaving already? Maybe she could do some of tomorrow’s deliverables in advance!” Shankar: Has she completed deliverables for the day?Onsite lead: Yes. Shankar: So she’s leaving. End of conversation! If you think about it, not every offshore lead does that.

3. He always helped his subordinates to grow. You want to innovate? He will help you work on your idea and bring it to life. You think a template can be done differently to capture metrics better? There’s never a “oh but the client/manager wants it to be done this way only.” He always gave a chance to do things better, even if it meant uncomfortable changes or raising a few eyebrows. He made sure his teammates hogged the limelight when the time came (that’s what a leader is for, right?) He always gave credit when it was due and also never pointed fingers when there were escalations.

4. He was extremely committed- even though he never forced his team to stay back, I’ve seen him sit into late nights working on his deliverables or helping his teams out. If required, I’ve seen him pitch in and work on Test Execution also, even though that’s not part of his job. Also he was a man who donned several hats. His contribution to team building activities and event management is noteworthy. He was also a trainer and evaluator in Cognizant academy.

5. He was compassionate. He empathized with his team. To him an associate was a human, than just a resource. He was more of a friend to his team and spoke to everyone on a personal level. Once, I had to stay back for an emergency deliverable till 2am. The last cab was at 12.30 am. He came all the way (my home is 35 kms away) and dropped me home safe.

6. He had a great sense of humor- OK, I know some people are going to disagree with me on this because you can hear him crack “mokka” jokes all the time But whatever, it lightens up the mood- you either laugh or do a face palm.

So to summarize, Shankar is dream-lead material  I’ve had a lot of learning from him on how to be a leader rather than a boss. He’s not with Cognizant anymore and unfortunately I haven’t heard from him in the last 4 years, but I am sure he’s doing very well in his current engagement.

Edit: After I wrote this post, Kartic was kind enough to find Shankar’s mail ID and now we’re in touch

The Stalker

2018 has been a year of weddings in my family. My sister got married. A close cousin got hitched too. The shopping, the preparations, the numerous functions were all so much fun.

Indian weddings mean that several new members are added to your extended family. You get to meet so many people. And then there is the stroke of serendipity of meeting long-lost friends/family who happen to be invited by the other side. It’s a small world! 

Now, after my sister’s wedding a few of the groom’s cousins/friends popped up on my Facebook friend’s suggestion list. It was strange, as there were no mutual friends. I hadn’t yet added my brother-in-law. Well what do you know! I thought Facebook had worked it out with a neat algorithm considering my sister and BIL were friends.

Then came my cousin’s wedding. After all the ceremonies were over, there was again an update in my Facebook friends suggestion list. This time it was even more strange. Complete random faces that I saw at the wedding. There was no mutual network.

So there was only one common factor that Facebook considered to conclude that the person could be an acquaintance. The location.! The said persons were at the same location- Sangeet, wedding, reception for an extended time. This helped Facebook establish that I knew them.

That is interesting..! And scary..! 

While at times it could be useful to keep in touch with people, imagine how our profile would pop up on random people’s pages just because we were at the same location multiple times. Violation of privacy! I know what you are thinking! Once our profile is out there, we should just forget our rights to privacy! Agreed.

But this sounds even more unsafe. So if this piece of info is bothering you, you can turn off Facebook’s access to your location. And ‘believe’ that our profile is safe to ‘an extent’. 

Pinch of Salt

(In continuation to the last blog that I wrote like.. 20 yrs ago! :P)

Did you know that eating pineapple with yogurt will help you lose weight? Uhmm No.. I just made that up!

A few months ago, among the numerous motivation articles that I was reading, there was this one statement- 'Adopting the power pose (stand with your feet apart, your hands on your hips, and your chin tilted upward, like Superman or Wonder woman) for 2 minutes a day will boost your confidence for the rest of the day.'  Many articles mentioned that researches had been done and it was scientifically proven that this works. Well, I tried it but somehow I didn't think it made a difference. Maybe the chin angle was not perfect. :P Recently, this 'Power Pose' popped up again on my FB Home page. This time a different article. The effects of Power Pose was nothing but blown out of proportion overreach, propagated by media.

Btw, have you heard of the infamous 'NASA Scientist' who fooled Indian media for 2 years? It all started when he told some friends that he had been recruited by NASA. Somehow it reached media's ears and then news reports started flowing around. All the major newspapers-Hindu, Indian Express, Matrubhumi, all of them had stories written about how 'great' he was. He was also felicitated by many associations and invited to give lectures. One fine day, the cat was out of the bag! A police officer who had doubts, enquired further. Every single detail in the news reports was a lie. NASA never recruited him! He was a teacher by profession.

I am sure that at some point, every one of us has received the email hoaxes.  For instance, the mail that stated that onions are magnets for germs, so cutting and leaving them out makes them poisonous. I usually verify it on sites like hoaxslayer.com. Now, what surprises me is.. These hoax mails or fake FB posts have crept into the Tamil/Malayalam magazines that the elders at home read. :O

Well this blog is not for really criticizing the media. After all, they are people. People make mistakes. People have deadlines. People are pressured by their bosses to deliver, irrespective of the outcome! People look for shortcuts!

But this blog is to remind us not to believe just anything that is published, even if it's a famous one. Every article/news item needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. With the internet being open for anyone to write anything they please and the mainstream media copying that, the probability that a post you read is incorrect is 56.87414%  :P

The Other Side

Recently I happened to watch the movie ‘Maleficent’ and it had an important message in it. Let me summarize the story before I begin.

We all know the story of the Sleeping beauty, where the evil witch Maleficent curses the princess to permanent sleep that can be revived only by true love’s kiss. The king sends the princess away to safety, under the care of 3 fairies who bring her up.. Yeah you guessed it right.. A prince arrives, kisses her and they live happily ever after.

But the movie Maleficent shows a very different perspective of the Sleeping Beauty story. There is a flashback where the king betrays Maleficent and burns her wings. Years later, she avenges by cursing his daughter.. And the 3 fairies are actually dumb and highly incapable of taking care of a baby. So reluctantly, Maleficent herself begins to take care of the little princess and eventually develops a maternal affection for her. And in the end, it’s not the prince’s kiss that heals her; she is actually revived when Maleficent kisses her, for she is the princess’ true love.

Of course, both the above versions are mere fairy tales. But if we think about it.. Through our childhood, we had grown up hating Maleficent because we were told the king’s version of the story.

How often does that happen in our lives? Everyday.

I once told a wise friend of mine that it’s a big coincidence that most of my friends are being dumped in their love life.. It was kind of weird that all of my friends happen to be the “dumpee” and none of them the dumper.. He told me, “That’s because you know only one side of the story.” How true is that!

We all make the mistake of judging after hearing what one person says. In most cases we do not get to hear the other’s person’s story at all, still we judge.

Not only in everyday life, but the content shown in today’s media is also one person’s viewpoint. TRP ratings seem to be the only goal for most news networks, so the context that sells is highlighted. The viewer is fed “what’s interesting” rather than “what really happened”. In most cases, all we see is the tip of the iceberg.

So the next time a colleague complains about his boss, a friend complains about her in-laws, a child complains about a teacher, lets empathize.. But let’s not judge. For everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact and everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.

Stepping into their shoes..

A few months ago, I had come across a post on Facebook. A couple went to a restaurant which was extremely crowded. It took over an hour for their food to arrive. What would you have done? Well, by thumb rule, I am never grumpy to waiters since they handle our food! Do not make them angry is my policy.  Anyway, the couple did something unexpected. They handed him a heavy tip and a thank you note.. For the waiter had been working tirelessly amidst the chaos and constant yelling by furious customers.

This post taught me a great lesson. I used to lose my temper when the security guards wouldn’t allow even the tiniest of chocolates to the workstation! (P.S. The last one was when I bought a pack of masala from a nearby store and the security wouldn’t let me take it in! Dude..! I’m not going to eat that masala and spill it at my desk) But it takes only a little patience to realize that it is not their fault and that they have been instructed to not allow associates to carry food to the workstations.

I am a fan of ‘Brain Games’ on Nat Geo. In one episode, the audience was asked to imagine their boss yelling at them for no reason. Obviously, we tend to get angry. Then the scenario was slightly changed. We were asked to imagine that our boss recently lost his house in a fire or has a sick child to care for. Now the imagination of the boss yelling had a different perspective. We were not so angry. Apparently, the human brain is naturally wired to be empathetic. Even if the boss did not really have a tragedy, imagining it helps. I don't really imagine a tragedy but just that he/she being yelled at by their boss. 

The black-blue-white-gold dress that broke the internet a few months back (read about it here, in case you haven’t come across it.) is a proof that we need to look beyond our perspective. We believe our eyes and hence are convinced that the dress is black-blue, but we should not fail to see that people who see it as white-gold are right too.

It takes only a moment. We have a choice to lose our temper or to empathize. It could be anyone- a spouse who has cooked a bad dinner, a child who has broken your favourite watch, a parent who takes time to master a new gadget, a friend who did not turn up when you needed, a co-worker who did not approve your idea or a complete stranger who was rude to you.

It takes only a moment to step into their shoes and see their perspective.

It does require patience and regular practice to get into the habit of empathy. But.. Wouldn’t the world be a better place to live in, if we reminded ourselves to step into their shoes every single time?