Friday, October 30, 2009

Alliterative flights

Mom: You need to lose all that unwanted ungainly weight
Me: Verily wanton weight
Unwelcome unwholesome weight
Ultimately ululating weight

and then later (staring ahead on an airplane):
Me: Verisimilitudinally vituperative weight
Finally my favourite: Vacuously vaccilating weight!!!

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Art.. and a new vocation :-)

The wife is very artistic, and spiritual to boot. She has demonstrated an aptitude for a dazzling new career :-) Meet Mata Gayatri Devi (drumbeat roll....).

The following pics say it all...



Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Old email folders

I happened to look through some old email folders recently (the kind that you file away while you were a young student and never look at again), and I was amazed to see that I had worked with some really great people!

Even when I was just a (supposedly lowly) intern, in a (supposedly parochial) country where I did not speak the language, there were these guys who were super friendly, considerate and helpful! While I did not value all this at the time, I really am quite touched to read those emails again as the memories come flooding back! Really, there is so much more to life than the pursuit of money and constant compromises to achieve this pursuit. Work is something we all do, and a enabling work environment really does wonders for productivity and efficiency. In my earlier avatar as a management consultant, I was (ironically!) very cynical about this mythical beast called the 'culture' of an organization. I now think it matters tremendously more than I thought. And that it exists in a good form very very rarely!

Note to self: Try to spend the rest of my days in the pursuit of happiness, and not moolah!
Amazing what some old emails can do!

Friday, October 02, 2009

Wise and Otherwise

The wife picked up this book by Sudha Murty last week. I've been reading it, and its contents make me wonder a bit at how removed I am from the pulse of the our country. For those who do not know, Sudha Murty is the wife of one of Infosys' founders and runs the Infosys Foundation, a charitable and social organization.

The book itself is very easy reading, with short 'stories' each commenting upon some idiosyncratic aspect of life in the real India. It is easy to get moved by the plight in these stories of the common person in India, grappling with poverty, social pressures and ills and yet maintaining a stoic and dignified attitude. That said, the book is not heavy at all (something I had feared) and has a liberal dose of light moments.

For me the real story was the kind of transformational work being done by the foundation and the amazingly simple and direct approach of the author. It is easy to see after reading this book why Infosys is a real revolution, and why it (and its founding philosophy) will survive forever. It is easy to throw money at charity or social work (something I've been guilty of) but difficult to devote all one's time, efforts and skills at it. This is the real greatness of the author and the foundation.

I'm going to stop shorting Infosys as a mark of respect. The company has a wonderful future!