Won First Prize in an E&R Kaleidoscope Event

E&R (Education and Research) is the team at Infy which facilitates learning (facilities like library, certifications are all included in that). They have been celebrating a week as E&R Kaleidoscope, every year. Out of the many events (like code writing contest for s/w engineers), they were conducting this time, there was one contest which was a glossary creation contest. We had to create glossaries (under different segments like manufacturing, retail, software engineering etc) – I chose “ES” as the category.

On Friday, I received a mailer informing me that I have won FIRST PRIZE in the contest. The second position is also occupied from Pune DC and the third belongs to an Infoscion based out of Houston, US.

Today from 9.30 to 11.30 AM we had a prize distribution ceremony. The winners from Bangalore DC had the privilege to receive the prize from the hands of Kris himself who gave a closing speech asking us to keep “learning”. Other senior management people gave away the prizes in other DCs. The whole program from all across the DCs was telecasted on V/C. I received a certificate of appreciation and a small gift.

Happy to have won my second "award" at Infy. The first one was a C-LIFE award. Hope to get more such occasions.

- Rahul

Shocking News from Alumni Group

This is a shocking piece of news one friend posted in our Alumni group. These are exact words with names removed for privacy:

(...) (2000-2004) beaten and injured by some Pakistanis in Edison, NJ

Hi Friends,

I heard a shocking news yesterday and thought would share the same with you.

Our beloved mate of NIT Durgapur Alumni ‘(...)’ was in trouble yesterday with some of the Pakistanis in Edison, New Jersey.

While he was returning from a Pakistani shop after office in Edison a Pakistani crook punched in his leg on his way.

He fell down with the heavy baggage he was carrying and got a fracture in one of the hand. He did not indulge himself with any confrontation with them.

Somehow he managed to get admission in hospital and got released in late night.

Today his health condition is good.

Flipkart: Fuelling a Revolution

I have done shopping of books on Flipkart.com for a number of times. I have always found it very user-friendly and convenient. I have even availed discounts in the range of 30-40% on the website. More than satisfactory, I would say I have experienced customer delight through Flipkart.

Flipkart has employed technology for better user experience in a wonderful manner. For example, it always ‘remembers’ my shipping address and asks me if it can use the same. I have now realized how well it makes use of analytics.

During my last shopping session, I had bought a book from the brilliant author Devdutt Pattanaik. Today, I received an email from Flipkart, informing me about two ‘forthcoming’ books from the same author, titled, “7 Secrets of Shiva” and “7 Secrets of Vishnu”. 

Many of my friends have bought electronics items from Flipkart too. All of them feel very happy about their experiences.

I think Flipkart is really going good to great. I hope they keep up the momentum. What pleases me more is that it is an Indian venture based in Bangalore (its founders are Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal).

Flipkart is now being called India’s Amazon.com.

While I hope more Indian websites and entrepreneurs take some leaves out of Flipkart’s growth story and take “Made in India” brands to greater heights, I also think that Flipkart in a way has fuelled a new “reading revolution”. By making books conveniently available at our doorsteps (Flipkart delivers books through couriers at a lightning speed), it has helped a lot of readers and made a lot of regular book-buyers out of occasional buyers. I am sure its contribution from this angle is immense and would grow in the coming days.

All the best, Flipkart!

- Rahul

Ego-Attachment Vs Love

I have kept an opinion that if you love someone, you can’t hurt him/her at the same time. Love is not a ‘temporary’ state of mind which can change with situations. If you love someone, you would be kind and harmless to the person, ‘always’. Even though at times you need to be strict or tough with the person, deep within you would still be feeling love for him/her. If this doesn’t happen, there is some problem. There is no judge other than your heart – you just need to keep calm and ask your heart if you love the person, despite his/her flaws, despite the problems and disputes, despite good or bad times, and the answer has to be “yes”. If the answer is “no” on some days, and a “yes” on some others, there is a problem.

On the other hand, a lot many of us do what can be called “conditional love” to take it in most optimistic sense. If you love a person if he/she does something or doesn’t do something, there is a problem. If you love a person only if one says something to you or if doesn’t say it, or to others, there is some problem. Such states of relationships are “conditional”. Until one fits into that criterion, or those criteria which you set in your mind, you would love one, the moment one behaves contrary to that, you would hate one – this is anything but love. The term “love” takes with it characteristics like care, empathy, non-violence, surrender, loyalty, without saying.

Some days back I read a book where the author not only confirms my thoughts but also takes it further. What I call conditional love, he correctly calls it ‘ego-attachment’. Here is an extract:

“Unless and until you access the consciousness frequency of presence, all relationships, and particularly intimate relationships, are deeply flawed and ultimately dysfunctional. They may seem perfect for a while, such as when you are “in love”, but invariably that apparent perfection gets disrupted as arguments, conflicts, dissatisfaction, and emotional or even physical violence occur with increasing frequency. It seems that most “love relationships” become love/hate relationships before long.

If in your relationship you experience both “love” and the opposite of “love” – attack, emotional violence, and so on – then it is likely that you are confusing ego attachment and addictive clinging with love. You cannot love your partner one moment and attack him or her the next. True love has no opposite. If your “love” has an opposite, then it is not love but a strange ego-need for a more complete and deeper sense of self, a need that the other person temporarily meets. It is the ego’s substitute for salvation, and for a short time it almost does feel like salvation.

But there comes a time when your partner behaves in ways that fail to meet your needs, or rather those of your ego. The feelings of fear, pain and lack that are an intrinsic part of egoic consciousness but had been covered up by the “love relationship” now resurface.” (P91-92)

Ref: Chap. 7, ‘Practicing the Power of Now’ by Eckhart Tolle, Yogi Impressions

- Rahul

Dilemma of a ‘Doer’

Be it in our day to day life or once in a while, at times we wonder if we can take all the credit for the work done or is it that things happen at their own will, beyond our control. This, I call the dilemma of the ‘doer’. In Bhagawat Geeta, Lord Krishna asks us not to wish for goals or to take credit; in fact reach a state where we don’t have any feelings of ‘doer’ also. Today, a very small and regular incident happened, which points towards many vital things.

As part of my daily job I have to send a report every evening. There is a time slot within which the report should go to clients. I have myself fixed a benchmark of 4pm for my reports – thinking that it won’t be best to received daily-reports at varied times, even though within the timeslot. Today, I had finished my report about an hour before time, so I kept it in draft, in ‘unsent’ condition. I wanted to send it exactly at 16:00:00 Hrs. When the system time reached 4:00, I sent it. I felt good about it. Then I started on other works. Suddenly I suspected if the email had actually gone. I checked the Outlook and found that the email was still in the Outbox. I clicked on Refresh, but it was not going. I kept on Refreshing, then closed and opened Outlook, and by the time the email actually went off from my Inbox, the clock was 4:02. What a shocking realization. It reminded me partially of Murphy’s Law. But more than that, it reminded me that despite the fact that I did everything right from my side, it was actually not in my hand to send the email at exactly 4:00. Though I tried my best from all aspects I could control, a simple job like sending a ready email was not in my hand. Then, we can imagine about ‘bigger’ jobs!

Hindus believe that God breaks our ego at various stages, in different forms. They try to see lessons even in conditions which appear ‘let downs’. Such an attitude gives them strong sustenance qualities. We are also taught from our childhood not to flaunt our success or riches, and to give credit for our successes to other things like luck. With today’s small incident, I am forced to rethink about the power of the unrevealed and in smallness of our efforts. Dilemmas of a ‘doer’…

© Rahul

The Role of Social Networking Sites in our Life

Now a day that I am getting busier than ever, I am getting less time for doing two things in particular: spend time on social networking sites, and to read articles which provide me good food-for-thoughts. I am still spending quality time with my near and dear ones, and I do read books regularly; and this brings the equation to some interesting inferences. Is life better with or without social networking sites like Facebook, Orkut, Twitter, or Googleplus? I happened to read two very enticing articles today; one is on the extreme and the other is rather a sane voice:

The first news says, “Internet hacktivist group Anonymous has urged to destroy Facebook on 5th of November”. I thought it would be interesting to read their allegations hence I read through the buzz, and here is something which was agreeable to some extent for most users (IMO): 

“Everything you do on Facebook stays on Facebook regardless of your “privacy” settings, and deleting your account is impossible, even if you “delete” your account, all your personal info stays on Facebook and can be recovered at any time. Changing the privacy settings to make your Facebook account more “private” is also a delusion. Facebook knows more about you than your family.”

“It is not a battle over the future of privacy and publicity. It is a battle for choice and informed consent.”

“Facebook keeps saying that it gives users choices, but that is completely false. It gives users the illusion of and hides the details away from them “for their own good” while they then make millions off of you. When a service is “free,” it really means they’re making money off of you and your information.”

“Think for a while and prepare for a day that will go down in history. November 5 2011, #opfacebook. Engaged.”

Read complete piece: http://www.buzzom.com/2011/08/anonymous-urges-to-destroy-facebook-on-november-5/

Not that I support hacking as a means to achieve some goal, but I do understand their concerns about lack of privacy and denial of choice and consent. The concern is real.

On the other hand, I found a very interesting article on the HBR Blog Network. Whitney Johnson uses most of the social networking sites and she sees the whole thing in a very different perspective:

“According to the jobs-to-be-done framework, whenever we buy something, we are hiring the product or service to do a "job," the job being a problem we want to solve or a way to advance toward a better self. With few exceptions, every job that people want done has emotional, social and functional elements. Let's start with what I presently hire social media to do:

1. Help me find my personal voice and get published.

2. Help me be found professionally.

3. Help me stay in touch with people I like, even though our lives don't currently intersect.

4. Help me expand my network.”

“While technology can hinder progress by making us hyper-connected, distracting us from those we love, and helping us avoid our to-do list, the important job of technology in general, and social media in particular, is to facilitate human connection, to expand our social circles and strengthen our in real life relationships. That's true progress — a job we all want done.”

Read complete piece here: http://blogs.hbr.org/johnson/2011/08/what-job-does-social-media-do.html

While this second article puts up facts and features in supporting the positive role of social (or socio-professional) networking sites, I wonder why we can’t have best of both worlds. Why can’t we do all good things with the social-networking sites, and yet don’t face risks of lack of privacy which websites like Facebook have inherent in them?

I think ideally the power should be in the hands of the users; sites like Facebook should provide us with features that we demand. But in reality I feel the power is still in the hands of the websites and users follow what is offered to them. This is why I feel the arrival of Googleplus (or Google+) is a good sign in my opinion. Given a serious competition, the s/n sites like FB will not have to look at what users really want (or fear), rather than throwing features and apps at the ever-amazed (or addicted) audiences. I believe the competition amongst social-networking sites will try to bring us to a situation where the users’ fears and demands would be genuinely addressed. And then, there won’t be any need for a hacker group to claim righteous-hacking of websites like Facebook, to teach them a lesson.

© Rahul

Challenges in Sharing Knowledge

Recently I published an article at the knowledge portal of our company. As a custom, I was suggested by colleagues to post an email to our group, announcing and informing them about the document. When I sent the email, I also marked a copy to a very senior person who was practice-head at our location. While I got applause and congratulations from my ‘friends’ (with whom I shared a friendly bond at work-place) some of the colleagues with whom I had only a professional relationship (due to the fact that we didn’t go along due to many reasons like difference in nature and attitude), I had a surprise in store. Many such colleagues, instead of saying anything in appreciation or support, pointed towards the fact that I had marked my email to the senior person, and made it a point for me to know about their objection towards it. It was shocking and disappointing. I wonder if people can’t add value or do something constructive, why can’t they contain themselves from doing something negative. This habit which I think stems from a host of feelings like envy, jealousy and inferiority complex, tries to discourage a person who has done anything new. If someone sends me a document sharing his/her knowledge, would I try to find mistakes in the email content or address itself, rather than saying anything in thanks or appreciation? Some of my colleagues have taught me now that when we do something good, we should also be ready to face some out-of-the-box scenarios like this, too.

© Rahul

Good Housekeeping and Problem Solving

I used to go to my office on the company’s shuttle-bus service (meant to run in-between two office-campuses). That morning, the bus had to wait at the main gates till the queue of cars cleared out from the security check. I was sitting near a window and my eyes wandered out lazily. Suddenly I observed something unusual in something very usual.

A housekeeping staff was sweeping the road. He used a broom with a long stick and skillfully wiped the road off any trash. When he reached a point, he discarded all the trash collected. I tried to find where he discarded all the stuff. I was shocked to find that it was actually an opening of a drain where he had conveniently left all the trash! It took me no time to guess that in a day or two, the trash collected there would choke the inlet of the drain and when it will rain (that being rainy season), the drain would find itself too choked to work! And that won’t be the single drain that would be choked – so we would see some water overflowing on the road and trying to find its own way. Water finds its own way, downwards, and I remember some Sanskrit Shlokas using this as example to explain some philosophies of human nature. For me, it was disappointing but revealing at the same time.

If a well-trained housekeeping guy at our office (which is certainly amongst cleanest places in India), leaves the trash to plug the drains, the practice can also be extrapolated to understand the lack of cleanliness at public places! Taking further, this practice actually points to something which is graver – we happen to solve our problems in a similar way. We leave our problems at a place which we think has gotten us rid of those – but it actually chokes some other systems which would ultimately give rise to more serious problems. For example, if I am not able to do a job I may delegate it to a colleague to complete it as a help, thinking that I have ‘managed’ it well. Only to find one day that the drain is choked (helping colleague is no longer there) while it has started raining (I start facing serious numbers of similar cases/jobs). This makes me think about the importance of solving problems completely. Just like it was important for the housekeeping guy to discard the trash at its proper place (collection bin), it is important for us to solve the problems completely (learning that new job myself, e.g.). If we solve problems completely, then only we can feel happy about our work, either at our workplace, or in our personal lives…

© Rahul