The inspiration for this list is my friend Tom. He sent me an e-mail with a list of ten things to do to be happy. Of course, my schtick is “things not to do,” so I turned it around a little. I hope you enjoy the list.
Top Ten Things Not to Do if You Want to Remain an Unhappy Grump
10 If you want to remain unhappy, do not take care of your health. If you don’t take care at best, you’ll have a lot to complain about. At worst, we will all be glad to be rid of you. (Not a nice thing to say at the memorial service, eh, Ralph?)
9 If you want to remain unhappy, do not engage in a hobby that you are passionate about. If you don’t engage, at best, you’ll have nothing to talk about with others…
Don’t beat yourself down if you didn’t. How could you? Had Siddharth Shukla, the 40ish year old recently deceased actor, died ever before?
May he rest in eternal peace! Om shanti!
And since this was the first time he died, there was no way our venerated tabloids, journos and writers could have told us what we needed to learn from his death. QED.
We all know that the common man does not learn about the dangers of smoking from the mandatory warnings on cigarette packs, complete ban of cigarette advertising and government advertising communicating the horrifying consequences. He does not. He waits for an article in some barely-read tabloid to learn that smoking is injurious to health after Siddharth Shukla has died.
And here I was, thinking that only sporting events play this important role in our lives.
No, not winning and losing. Not displaying the limits of human endeavour either. But learning all the things we couldn’t otherwise have the foggiest about. Like the recently concluded Olympics that have been a great knowledge-imparting event. I wish the 2021 Olympics had been held in 1976, so that I could have learned all that I learned at a much earlier age.
Like what?
Like in a competition some will win and many others will not. Some might even be second and third.
Did you know that? Answer truthfully. You can lie to the world but not to yourself. This must be life-changing for the millions who play tennis and golf and everything else, knowing they will never be Roger Federer or Jack Nicklaus. And to think that they have been playing the sport just for their love for it all along. Shame on them.
Like one should learn from one’s failures.
Really? The one common thing I have seen in the (at least) thousands of people I have interacted with in my life is their steadfast refusal to learn from their failures so that their life can go downhill like a runaway toboggan. Lawyers, doctors, students, army men, politicians, priests, I believe all are guilty. Who has ever learned from failure? Isn’t one of the driving forces of human life as we know it the refusal to learn from failures?
Like associating and spending time with like minded people, those who can support you and uplift you when you need it most.
I wonder if such a drastic change in lifestyle will be possible for human beings? After all, we all know that we like to associate with people who are the antithesis of what we are. People who like to pull us down every living moment of our lives. Who rejoice at our failures and mope at successes. These are the people we hop over to the pub for a drink with. These very same people are the ones we share our most personal and precious moments with. Show me a human who is close to people who support and uplift him when needed and I will show you a Martian.
Like discipline is required for success and that many athletes get up early and work long hours to achieve success.
Who cares about discipline in the real world? The humble newspaper vendor who has to begin his day well before sunrise to pick up the newspapers and distribute them? The call centre agent who works the night shift because her employer handles calls for a client from the other side of the world? Or even the rickshaw puller who used to show up at our house, day after day, come rain or shine, to take my sister and me to school when we were kids? We went with him for several years and never once did he fail to show up. How would these poor folks know about discipline unless someone really intelligent gleaned it from the Olympics and wrote about it?
All these learnings, and all from just one single tabloid. Boggles the mind.
But they seem to be old fashioned. Publishing learnings that are meant for everyone is a dead giveaway.
Take another tabloid, for example, that has published learnings from the same Olympics, not for everyone, but only for children. Absolutely unique ones, only applicable to children.
Like in a competition some will win and many others will not. Some might even be second and third.
Like one should learn from one’s failures.
Like associating and spending time with like-minded people, those who can support you and uplift you when you need it most.
Like discipline is required for success and that many athletes get up early and work long hours to achieve success.
Never heard of them. Have you? I don’t blame you.
These really intelligent people have whetted my appetite. I wonder who will be the first to publish 5 learnings from the Tokyo Olympics for 27-year-olds. Or 55-year-olds. Or 3-year-olds. Or 5 learnings from the Tokyo Olympics for 27-year-old females born in September with a college degree in computer science. An avalanche of learning is about to hit us.
But I digress.
I now realise that sporting events do not have a monopoly on teaching us stuff that we already know. And why should they? We are in the highly developed world of the twenty first century. All major societies have rules against monopolies, enabling the largest technology companies to have gotten so big offering their unique services that nobody else does.
Celebrities, or celebrity deaths to be specific, are equally useful for the foolish common man to be taught lessons by some of our venerated tabloids and journos and writers, that they would otherwise have had to live without. That itself has been a learning for me. As has happened in the case of actor Siddharth Shukla’s untimely death.
Like what?
Like one should not over exert. Apparently hard work does help but our bodies need rest as well. Makes complete sense as I just finished reading a lesson from the Olympics: “Discipline is required for success and that many athletes get up early and work long hours to achieve success.” I will rest as well as work long hours. Elementary.
Like genes are important. We need to know about the health of our parents and grandparents and take care of our health accordingly. Makes sense as I just finished internalising another lesson from the Olympics: “Everyone has it within themselves to become someone or something magnificent (or at least better than we are now) with a ton of hard work and focused determination.” I can do it but I can’t do it. Simple. There was a bonus lesson hidden in this one; I am useless whichever way I am, because I can at least become better than I am now. Wouldn’t you pay for these lessons?
I can already visualize fingers gliding across keyboards and producing an article on ‘Five lessons on resolving conflict between five lessons from a sporting event and five lessons from a celebrity death.’
All for the foolish common man, who just does not seem to learn. Olympics have been held for over a hundred years to produce lessons for him. Celebrities have been dying, some young and some old, for centuries, producing lessons for him.
5th September, marked as Teachers’ Day in India, has just gone by. On this day, we should be celebrating our venerated tabloids and journos and writers for teaching us these life lessons and making lifelong learners out of the common man.
Behaviour change is often the best solution, whatever the problem. Especially when the behaviour to be changed belongs to someone else.
In the wake of the steep rise in active Covid-19 cases during the second wave, there has been no shortage of advice on behavioural changes other people needed to make to ensure the whole world was safe.
“I want my courier deliveries to be accepted by the security guard at the reception and not come up to my apartment.”
Of course, I cannot stop ordering delivery service. I have some rights, do I not? Are you telling me even security guards can get infected?
“Can people please ensure that their children are wearing a mask when they go to the playground so that my children don’t catch Covid from them.”
Why should they stay at home to stay safe? Don’t we contribute to the maintenance of the playground?
“I suggest the management committee declare a voluntary shutdown so that all of us stop going and coming as we please.”
Why should I stop voluntarily when my neighbour is still going to work? Isn’t that unfair? Only when he stops will I stop.
Of course, as usual, I exaggerate. I suppose one should also not read too much into these statements and reactions. There is fear. There is uncertainty about what might happen next. Living through a pandemic is a first for all of us. No doubt there is good intent in these statements. For all I know, the solution may lie hidden in these suggestions.
Just when people had started to think about partying and travelling, the surge of infections has played party pooper. The medical infrastructure has been caught off guard with the speed and scale of the surge.
Maybe it is just me, but I find myself struggling with answers even as I see vaccinated folks, who, just a few weeks back, were promoting vaccines as the final solution and encouraging others to go in for it, equally stressed and fearful of catching the virus. When pushed for an answer, the standard reply seems to be, “Nobody is safe.”
In the post titled ‘One FLU over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ published on 30th November, a little over the halfway mark between the onset of the pandemic and now, I had posed some questions on my mind at that time, more to do with Covid-19 as another form of influenza. I am happy to say that I have got no answer to any of those questions. What’s more, I now have even more questions! Without further ado then…
Is it true that every person will fall in one (and only one) of these 5 categories?
A. I am currently infected and have symptoms
B. I am currently infected and am asymptomatic
C. I have previously been infected and have antibodies
D. I have previously been infected and no longer have antibodies
E. I have never been infected
where A+B+C+D+E = 100%
2. What is the best guess at the approximate current number (percentage) in each of these 5 categories?
3. If I am infected but asymptomatic I have no risk from the infection to my own self as I am already infected. Is that correct? Of course, I can infect others.
4. The infection can further spread only in categories D and E. Is that correct?
5. People who get infected can be expected to be in a symptomatic to non-symptomatic ratio as per the population ratio. If today 80 are asymptomatic out of 100, the next 100 people to be infected can also be expected to have around 80 who are asymptomatic. Is that correct?
With the vaccination drive now on, people from all the 5 categories are being vaccinated, whether they have antibodies or not. We know that. The number of susceptible people in D and E will gradually reduce as the coverage of the vaccination increases. That is a reasonable assumption to make I believe.
Vaccinations started at least two months back now. Perhaps it is time to get some data around their performance. There are many who question the need for the vaccine, including me. If there is data that settles the issue why not put it out?
6. Out of every 100 vaccinated people, what percentage got infected, with or without symptoms?
7. How does that percentage compare with the infection percentage for non-vaccinated people?
8. The benefit of the vaccine has been understood (at least by me) to be that the virulence of the infection will be much lesser, as an explanation for the 70% and 88% effectiveness of different brands. Do we now have data on the vaccinated vs. non-vaccinated virulence?
An ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research) survey published in February concluded that 21.5 per cent of India’s population showed the presence of antibodies for the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19). A Delhi government survey around the same time had established the seropositivity rate at 56%. There is a wide variance between the two numbers. If the percentage is indeed 56%, it would mean that despite our best efforts most people got infected without realizing that they had been. So, what is the point in following prevention protocols that do not prevent?
9. Before we reach a conclusion, should a wider survey be done to establish the prevalence?
While many of the questions are for a better understanding of the situation, there are some incipient suggestions in there as well. For example, going back to the categories in question 1, would it not be better to complete vaccination of people in D and E categories before moving to A, B and C?
And lastly, what about these mutations of the virus?
10. Does the vaccine cover these mutations or will we be developing a new vaccine every year, to prevent the popular version of last year while this year’s version will be prevented by a vaccine next year by when it would have died out a natural death and made way for a new version?
I know the answer to this one. “We don’t know what will happen in the future.”
Not one to waste a good crisis, the Delhi High Court has promised to hang the people responsible for preventing oxygen from reaching patients, as liberally provided in the Constitution, while upgrading the ‘wave’ to a ‘tsunami’ resulting in no change to the response from any government agency.
With apologies to Lord Alfred Tennyson for mixing up his words in the title.
Covid-19 is a cute little virus. And playful too. It likes to jump. It jumps from one person to another. I think it likes to play games with us because sometimes it jumps and sometimes it does not. Perhaps it wants to play a guessing game with us.
Because of Covid-19 children don’t need to go to school any more. They can pretend to study from home. Some can’t do that as they cannot afford the devices and bandwidth needed for online studies. These children can play all the time. So wonderful.
There are so many nice people who are getting salaries without having to do much work. And there are so many nice companies that have perhaps saved much money by retrenching staff they did not need.
It has brought many families back together since migrant workers, after retrenchment, had to go to the place they hail from.
So many people have become rich. The soap and sanitiser makers. The mask makers. The infrared thermometer makers. The hospitals. The foot sanitiser makers. The bandwidth providers. The virtual application makers. The personal vehicle makers. The software makers. So many people have also become rich by not buying things they did not need.
It has allowed interested individuals to beat pots and pans along with the Indian PM for a wonderful purpose explained by the PM and understood by these people that others could not. When has the common man ever got the opportunity of beating pots and pans along with their PM? And Corona made it possible.
It even made it possible for people in Delhi to breathe, even if it was only for a few days. But I will not focus too much on this aspect because it had an unintended negative fallout of indoor air purifier sales falling during that period.
The metro ride in Delhi is now so comfortable since only a few people are riding.
So many people have become knowledgeable and popular overnight and are now followed by thousands, in India’s case millions, of others. People who say that we will all die if we move an inch or take a breath. People who say this is a farce and nothing will happen as long as we behave sensibly. People who say that only cures based on ancient wisdom of a culture with a proud history that only they know about will work. People who say that only cures based on modern medicine will work. People who provide instant cures for conditions like low immunity that treatment of tens of years has not been able to fix. And, above all, positive people willing to believe anything and everything while giving a complete rest to their grey cells!
Thank you Covid-19. Thank you Corona.
How is that for some positivity at the start of the year? Or even day? Or hour?
“Why are you always so negative?” “Why can’t you be more positive?” I hear these remarks ever so often. Because of what I write. Because of what I say. Because of, I guess, how I think. And, in fairness to myself, it always sets me thinking.
Now I have decided to act.
Earlier, I might have said, “How is that for some positivity in a year that is seven days old?” No longer. Old? Smells negative, doesn’t it?
It puts historical events in perspective.
Mahatma Gandhi was being negative when he led the Dandi March opposing the unilateral imposition of taxes on salt, He should, instead, have sent a Thank You card to the British authorities for their wonderful thoughtlessness in trying to enrich themselves at the cost of others.
What about Hitler? Who would dare to call him evil and risk the ignominy of being termed ‘negative.’ Wasn’t he the guy with the cute moustache who devised unique reasons and ingenious methods for murdering human beings?
I am beginning to get it. And enjoy it.
Thugs of Hindostan was a great movie. It just did not get viewers because people did not like it. But it was a great movie. Even if nobody believes me. It was still a great movie.
The national football team of an unnamed country is a great team. It makes its opponents feel good and happy after each game.
I can now see positivity everywhere. Even the daily newspaper I read has a section where celebrities give out positive messages like “focus your energy in bettering your life” and “stay happy always” and “don’t let negativity get you down.” Not once in a while but every day. Who would have known such things otherwise?
Reminds me of the Extrovert and introvert equation. The way it is always introduced in a conversation by a self-proclaimed extrovert only for the purpose of proclaiming himself to be an extrovert and, by extension, a gift to society, and the ‘talkee,’ me in these cases since I am recounting the experience, as the introvert and therefore a lesser human and a burden on society. Of course, I have been a witness to exchanges where the ‘talkee’ has talked himself blue in trying to contend that he was, in fact, an extrovert. The exchanges, at some point got so evolved that whenever two people met, there was a healthy battle of wits to be the first to introduce the term extrovert or introvert into the conversation so that the introducer could paint himself as the rockstar extrovert and the introducee as the introvert who needed to be pitied and helped. The roles kept changing with each meeting.
There are obviously no shades. Extrovert or Introvert. Positive or Negative.
Wonder if my condition will last long? Wonder if it is contagious?
The website of India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MHFW) gives us the lowdown on the status of Covid-19 in the country, in numbers. The status on the morning of 30th November is:
Active cases
4,53,956
Recovered cases
88,02,267
Died
1,36,696
Reported
93,92,919
Tests done
13,95,03, 803
Population (inserted by me)
1,35,26,00,000
Numbers often do not leave room for doubt. Everything else seems to.
Of course we know:
This data would include tests initiated by an individual as well as tests done as part of random testing and sero surveys or as part of some regulation, like asking air travellers to produce a negative certificate before boarding. It is possible that self-initiated tests have a higher incidence of positive cases, but that cannot be established from this data.
Cases reported as positive include asymptomatic ones as well. The person would have gone about normal life without feeling any difference till told he was a ‘case.’
There could be many untested cases that could not be established as Covid-19 cases. Even deaths. Though the government did put in a protocol of testing dead bodies for Covid-19.
While the cases and deaths and recoveries are all person specific, and should not have any double counting, it is possible some people have been tested more than once. Elon Musk apparently had 4 tests in one day with the verdict of him being infected split right down the middle. Thankfully Mr. Musk is not part of the numbers on the MHFW website.
So?
For one, Covid-19 has broadened our daily-use vocabulary. Who used, or had even heard of, social distancing or quarantine or self-quarantine or community spread or flatten the curve or contact tracing or super spreader or antibodies or asymptomatic or case fatality rate or herd immunity or incubation period or PPE or shelter in place or ventilator. Rarely, if ever, have so many words been added to the common man’s vocabulary in one year.
The government has been able to make guidelines and rules. Unopposed. For once, they have been encouraged, nay forced to.
Guidelines for international arrivals. Then revised guidelines for international arrivals.
Standard Operating Procedure for passenger movement post embarkation.
Travel Advisory. Additional Travel Advisory. Another additional travel advisory.
Guidelines for workplaces. Then updated guidelines for workplaces.
Guidelines on containment of local transmission.
So?
Hmmm. Not quite sure.
Before going deeper, let me state clearly that I am not a doctor. I probably won’t even know my Femur from my Tibia, assuming the body still has bones by these names, that I picked up in Biology class in school many moons back.
I am trying to make sense of the paranoia surrounding Covid-19, instead of playing dead and blindly following the blind. The blind who make loud noises to hide their blindness.
Have an ache, pop a pill.
Have a sniffle, pop a pill.
Have a reaction to a pill, pop a pill.
Unable to fight the next illness because it is now dependent on pills…you know the answer.
Of course, the rest of the world should do the same. Else they are irresponsible.
With the government, and big business, happily complying and salivating at the prospect of total control over the lives of people. Who you are. Where you live. What you ate today. Where you went today afternoon. Sorry, you cannot board that flight because the last vaccine shot was on Tuesday, 5th May, more than six months back.
You asked for protection, did you not?
Comfortingly, one of the vaccines mankind has set its hopes on has shown success rates of 90% apparently through a dosage combination arrived at scientifically as the result of an accident.
And all vaccines, at least from a lay person’s perspective, are aiming at a moving target, as apparently the virus keeps mutating while jumping from one human to another. So, the shot you eventually get might be effectively protecting you against a virus that was there last year. I think it has a 100% chance of success against a virus no longer there.
The data shared earlier is for a period of 9 months, give or take, since the, issue, started around end February and we have almost rounded off November.
I have annualised the data to make it more easy to understand and compare, since historical data is not normally be maintained for 9 months and 11 days or any such odd period. If 100 people have contracted Covid in 9 months, assuming the same rate of infection, for the full year, the number would be 100×12/9 = 133.
The annualised data now looks like:
Active cases
6,05,274
Recovered cases
1,17,36,356
Died
1,82,261
Reported
1,25,23,892
Tests done
18,60,05,070
Population (inserted by me, probably increased since then)
1,35,26,00,000
In a year, less than 1% of the population would be infected with Covid-19, and 0.0139% of the population will die. In other words, 0.139 people in a thousand or 139 people in a million will die of Covid-19. Based on 1,81,600 projected Covid-19 deaths in a year.
How does this compare with other causes of death in India?
178832 (1.78 lac) people are killed in road accidents in a year
15.4 lacs on account of Heart disease
7.2 lacs due to Diarrhoeal disease
5.1 because of Respiratory system issue
4.5 lacs owing to Tuberculosis (TB)
2.5 lacs caused by Diabetes
This is based on a study published in the Times of India in March 2020.
As many people die of heart diseases in India daily, as do people of Corona in the whole world.
But comparisons are odious. Of the above, only TB is communicable.
What should we compare with, if at all? What about influenza, the flu? The common flu. Which seems to be the closest cousin of Covid-19. Everyone in India gets it. Many get it multiple times a year perhaps.
Why don’t we have a comparison of Covid-19 with the common flu? We have many articles and reports and opinions, but little ‘data.’
Maybe because common flu is just that, common. According to the Centers for Diseas Control and Prevention (CDC) of the US, “each death due to influenza in the U.S. does not have to be reported, so there is never a direct count…Conversely, each death due to COVID-19 is being recorded.” In India, even testing the dead for the infection.
So, how does one get perspective? Should one bother about perspective? As they say, perspective is not popular at the best of times.
No answers. All I have is questions.
If two groups are constructed of a million people each, with a comparable distribution of age, precondition, etc., and exposed, one group of one million people to Covid-19 and the other to seasonal flu, in each group:
A. How many will not contract the virus?
B. How many will contract without symptoms?
C. How many will contract with symptoms?
D. How many in each of the three categories above will die?
E. People in which of the categories above, A, B and C, will be transmitters? For what duration?
G. If category A did not contract the virus, can they be considered to be immune? For how long?
H. Will people in categories B and C become immune as a result? For how long?
On to the vaccine now. The one with a 90% success rate.
It now seems increasingly apparent that everyone will need to take the vaccine.
Like to eat out? Have you taken the shot?
Fly to Mumbai? Taken the shot?
Attend college? Taken the shot?
Ride the metro? Taken the shot?
Without a vaccine, in a million people, 9590 get infected, and 990410 don’t. And 139 die.
After the vaccine is given to all million, whether they want it or not, and possibly lowering their immunity a notch for future mutations, at the 90% rate of success, 900,000 will be immune and 100,000 will not be. Which 100,000 we don’t know.
Out of these 100,000, 959 will get infected, and 13.9 will die. Which 13.9 we don’t know.
1. “Look hard at the darkness and you will start noticing rays of light.”
— Judith Marlow
2. “You cannot control your thoughts, but you can control the actions they result in.”
— Iain Bradshaw
3. “Yesterday shines a light onto our tomorrow.”
— Leslie D’Souza
4. “Positive thoughts are their own reward. There is nothing you cannot achieve with positive thoughts.”
— Sook Yi Ng
5. “I always like to look on the optimistic side of life, lest I look at the pessimistic side and get consumed by it, never to come out.”
— Alyssa Amin
6. “Positive thinking will show you the path. Negative thinking will show you the obstructions on the path.”
— Roger Johnson
7. “Pessimism leads to pessimism, optimism to optimism.”
— Swami Charitranand
8. “If you make positive choices, the environment around you will respond and make your future choices easier, more natural, and more enjoyable.”
— Lee Chopra Bravinsky
9. “Positive thinking is more than just thinking. It is a way of life. Indeed, it is the only way of life. We have not been put on this planet to wallow in the misery of our negative thoughts. We are here to be positive, as being positive not only makes me better, but it also makes those around me better.”
— Haruto Nagoya
Inspirational? Motivational?
What is wrong with Ankur? No satire? No sarcasm? No highlighting any absurdity? Has the 45 degree Celsius (113 F) heat in Gurgaon got to him?
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If you are one who looks closely at motivational quotes, you might find that none of the quotes bear any resemblance to anything said in reality ever and offered as motivational quotes. Would a close looker at motivational quotes notice, or care, even assuming there was a way of finding out? But, let me not over-reach. Let me add, ‘…and not seen by me.’ Who knows, motivational quotes of these exact words, words that I just conjured up by some mixing and matching and imagining, might be on offer as, well, motivational quotes.
Will the motivational quoters take me to the cleaners for playing with their words? Motivational quoters who? The attribution is to names made up by me on the spot, and adding a sprinkling of names from around the world to give a global look and feel. Would a close looker at motivational quotes notice, or care? But again, it is entirely possible that there may be real people answering to these exact names, sitting with their lawyers at this very moment, waiting for someone to make up a name exactly like theirs and slapping that someone with a legal notice.
Hopefully, the combination of the exact motivational quote and the exact name will be too much of a coincidence for me to worry about.
There is a Nike ad doing the rounds these days with people, perhaps close lookers at motivational quotes, gushing over it. This ad has footage of famous athletes in slow motion, set to the beat of music. Cristiano Ronaldo, Tiger Woods, Serena Williams, Rafael Nadal, and several other American athletes who I could not recognise. The message, “You are never too far down to get up again,” or some similar words.
There was an ‘inspirational’ Coke ad that I received a few days back. With rave reviews from many people, perhaps close lookers at motivational messages.
Seriously, are these two different from millions of other ‘motivational’ messages and advertisements developed by millions of businesses constantly looking for ways to gain mind and wallet share of their target customers? Of course, they are, different. The athletes are different. The background score is different. The narrator is different. The wordings are different. So what if there is some music, some slow motion, some high-quality footage, some nice sounding words in a deep voice saying something that translates to, “Hey you consumer, you idiot. Let me mess with your emotions, get you to associate my brand with ‘positive’ feelings, and help you make me rich beyond your wildest dreams.”
You and I could write those words. And put together that footage. Someone like you and I has perhaps done it for these businesses. Don’t believe me? Check out the ‘motivational’ quotes earlier in the post written by me. I am sure any of us can conjure them up. But I assume many people would rather a consumer than a producer be. Watch a promotional video of a fast food or garment business that has some music, some slow motion, some high-quality footage, and an audio in a deep voice belting out an inane truism that they would never have known otherwise, like “You can do what you want to do,” rather than making the effort to do what they want to do.
And then, there is Al Pacino. Always Al Pacino.
During my corporate life many years back, it was inevitable that one participated in events known by various names like Workshop/ Training programme/ Outbound training/ Seminar/ Offsite, etc. There were many objectives for these events which I will not go into here, but one common theme running through each was that, as an outcome of the event, all participants should be able to make more money for the organisation that employed them and probably paid for their participation. And the methodology for training them to do so was also disarmingly simple. Showing an ‘inspirational’ clip from a Hollywood movie with Al Pacino. Always Al Pacino. Asking his team to “Claw inch by inch, play by play” in Any Given Sunday, or telling the jury “And that, my friends, is called integrity! That’s called courage!” in Scent of a Woman.
And we would spend the rest of the evening talking about how that video clip changed our life, which would change back to its pre-event shape the moment we hit the workplace.
Don’t we get it that it is a setup? We could have made anything happen. It was all in the hands of the makers of the movie. Al Pacino could have sacked his team and took on the opposition single handedly. And won. And we would have cheered and said it was such a great example of belief in oneself, no matter what the odds. He could have changed three players at the last minute and still won. And we would have cheered and said that it was such a great case study for future generations for ‘decision making under adversity.’ He could have debated with a referee on a technicality and held up the game for an hour to enable a key player recover from a bout of dizziness. And we would have cheered and said it was such a great example of negotiation skills. All to be shown as ‘inspirational’ videos at the next Workshop.
What is it that keeps driving people to consuming these ‘motivational’ quotes? Looking constantly for external motivation? Acting as super-spreaders and spraying these messages liberally amongst their near and dear ones, even not so near and not so dear ones? Is it an unwillingness to face up to what we may consider to be the unfairness and hard facts of our life? Lack of self-respect? Trying to get someone else, anyone, to solve their problems?
I am not an expert. In fact, I am pretty much out of my comfort zone here. I am not questioning the likes and dislikes of others. If reading motivational quotes and watching motivational videos is what sails your boat, who am I to complain?
In fact, if it is so good, why don’t we just get all the business corporations and all governments to stop doing whatever they claim they are doing, and just keep churning out motivational videos and messages all the time and the world will be a better place. Right?
What I am saying is that it does not sail mine.
The question is – Did it (the producing and consuming of the motivational) message make the world a better place?
My stories made it to two books that have been published recently. Both are collections of stories contributed by different people, and related to their own life and experiences.
What is common between the contributors in the two books and in each book? They are all alumni of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), the coveted institution of higher learning dedicated to business education.
In “A Chapter Out of My Life,” the contributors are drawn from different IIMs, from different cohorts in different years.
In “Reflections,” they are all a part of the same cohort, the batch of 1987, who spent the same two years at the IIM in Ahmedabad.
What is common between the two books? I believe I am the only author contributing to both.
Over to the books then. If you do read them, please try to leave a ‘Review’ on either Goodreads or Amazon or any place online you are comfortable with.
1. A Chapter Out Of My Life: Gems from the lives of ordinary people
This has been published by Salil Agrawal, a senior by a few years from IIM Ahmedabad and the founder president of IIMAGES which is a society of the alumni of IIMs. He has been instrumental in creating the ‘network’ impact of the IIM alumni and hence, in many ways, the most suitable person for putting together a book of this nature. The contributors have been drawn from different IIMs, from different cohorts in different years.
In Salil’s words:
“There are extraordinary people and then there are ordinary people. People like you and me. People who are accomplished in their own way and who have had interesting lives. But they are not extraordinary, they are not celebrities. Their stories do not get published even though they are very inspirational.
This book brings to you stories from the lives of nineteen such wonderful people. All of them are alumni of Indian Institutes of Management. They write about an experience from their life that made a difference to them.
These stories will be very useful for younger readers – management grads in the first few years of their career, students of management, those aspiring to do an MBA and also those planning to join the corporate world in the near future.”
Kindle edition on Amazon India (Rs. 49- with proceeds to charity): https://bit.ly/sllbk1
This has been published by Sanjeev Kotnala, a classmate at IIM Ahmedabad, from the 1985-87 batch that graduated in 1987. The contributors are all classmates of ours. People who spent the same two years of their life in the hallowed precincts of IIM Ahmedabad, pursuing an MBA programme, amid the iconic exposed brick architecture of Louis Kahn.
Sanjeev is the founder of INTRADIA World and a Marketing and Branding professional devoted to enhancing potential and capabilities of clients’ team. He runs 2-day workshops on Ideation and Innovation and is a certified NLP practitioner and an ICF accredited life, Mid-life transition and Master Spirit Coach.
In Sanjeev’s words:
“Eighteen Authors, from CLASS OF 1987, IIM Ahmedabad, share more than 28 real impact stories from professional and personal life. These are small, compelling incidents that challenged their thinking, making an impact in their lives.
Read their ‘aapbeethi’ (self-experiences) as they transparently open up to allow you a behavioristic peek into their lives.
Yes, you can question their Approach and Learning, or maybe you could end up questioning your approach to life. Who knows, which incident here mirror’s your life and touches a chord? Why wait for Self Experience when others’ experience can help guide your approach.
What you gain from these stories presented in five sections; ‘Business’, ‘People’, ‘Encounter’, ‘Life’, and ‘Institute’, is all up to you. Happy reading.”
People are no longer buying things they don’t need. And that is apparently bad news for the world.
I have always been awed, and perplexed, by the working of the great Economic brains of the world. How they always seem to know what will happen after it has happened. And how, mostly either through a Rate Cut, or Rate Increase, they can solve the most internecine problems plaguing our world.
But how does it work? In order to not further tax the already busy brains of the Economists who are probably working out how they already knew about the impact of the Corona pandemic, and to decide whether it should be a Rate Cut this time or a Rate Increase, I decided to work it out for myself.
Let us take the example of the travel industry, one of the industries often cited as an example of being deeply impacted. As we are not travelling, they must be going through a torrid time. Airlines and hotels must be losing money because travellers, the people who would be paying them for their services, are not paying them. In short, because travellers are not coughing up money, airlines and hotels are getting poorer.
If they are getting poorer because travellers are not spending money, then travellers, who are not spending the money they would normally have, much be getting richer.
Makes sense?
Some of these travellers getting richer could be the people who run small businesses. Like restaurants. In Japan.
But people who run small businesses like restaurants are losing money because they have to shut down, and customers cannot come to them and buy their services. In other words, they are getting poorer.
If they are becoming poorer because customers are not coming and buying their services, then the customers who would have come to them must be getting richer because they are not spending that money.
Some of these customers getting richer could be makers of protective face masks. In Kenya.
Makers of protective masks are making money because there is huge demand for these masks. They just cannot make them fast enough. Hence, they are getting richer.
People buying these masks are becoming poorer as they now have to pay for an item that was not budgeted in their original scheme of things.
Some of these people becoming poorer could be employees of a software company. In Mexico.
On account of uncertain business outlook, the software company that employs them has offered a choice of retrenchment or pay cuts to employees. Hence employees are becoming poorer still.
If there are fewer employees and they are being paid lesser, and are becoming poorer as a result, then the employer, because it is spending less money, must be getting richer.
At the same time, the software company getting richer is seeing its carefully built business crumbling. The investment in creating a sales pipeline seems to be wasted as clients are unwilling to place new orders and even cancelling existing ones. If orders are not coming through and existing ones are being cancelled, it will gradually become poorer.
As clients of this software company are not paying money for new orders and saving money on placed orders, they must be getting richer.
Some of these clients getting richer could be mid-size garment manufacturing units. In India.
Mid-size, or any size, garment manufacturing units are seeing a steep decline in orders and are losing money because of that. Not only are they not getting orders, they have to keep paying salaries which is what the government has mandated. As is the business of governments in free markets to do. Mandate. Hence, they are becoming poorer twice as fast.
If they are becoming poorer because customers are not placing fresh orders and buying their garments, then the customers who are not placing fresh orders must be getting richer because they are not spending that money.
Some of these clients cancelling orders and getting richer could be retail clothing stores in Europe.
Retail clothing stores are losing money because footfalls have totally dried up on account of the lockdown and people are restricting purchases to essential items. Hence clothing stores are getting poorer.
Customers who are restricting purchases to essential items are paying lesser for clothing items and hence getting richer by saving money they would otherwise have spent on clothing.
Some of these customers getting richer could be people working for online platforms that facilitate video meetings and interaction over the Internet. In Canada.
They have been offered overtime pay and bonuses because their employer’s business is booming. Hence they are getting richer still.
Their employers, the businesses that own and run these online platforms, must be getting poorer as they are paying more to employees than was budgeted.
Online platforms that facilitate video interaction over the Internet getting poorer are experiencing a surge in demand and cannot seem to be expanding fast enough to keep up with it. Their revenues have seen a spike and they are getting richer.
People buying these services are becoming poorer as they now have to pay for an item that was not budgeted in their original scheme of things.
Some of these people getting poorer could be farmers growing food for the teeming millions. In Brazil.
Farmers are continuing to grow and sell food as people need to eat. They are neither getting richer nor poorer as people continue to buy food and eat. If anything, they could be getting marginally richer as the focus on buying and consuming food is now much higher than just a few weeks back.
People buying and consuming food would be getting neither richer nor poorer as they continue to buy and consume food like they have always done. If anything, they could be getting marginally richer as the more expensive eating-out options are not available at the moment. Not only that, they could experience an unforeseen improvement in health as the home-made food being consumed these days might be healthier.
Some of these customers getting neither richer nor poorer could be employees of a large corporation that operates an airline. Because there is no demand for travel, the airline has sacked a large number of staff. Without jobs, these staff members are getting poorer.
The airline that employs them must be getting richer as it no longer is paying what it had expected to pay in the form of salaries.
But we already learnt at the start that the airline is getting poorer because nobody is travelling and their capacity lies unutilised.
Clear? As mud? Or, using an Indianism, ‘as a jalebi?’
Are we getting richer and poorer at the same time? Or, are we getting neither richer nor poorer at the same time?
And I haven’t even begun to decide whether it will be a Rate Cut or a Rate Increase this time.
I think I better leave it to the Economists.
But all is not lost. At least I have been able to establish that, like the oceans of the world, we are all connected. You wouldn’t have known that, would you?
I am thrilled to announce the launch of her new book by my long time blogging friend and popular author Jacqui Murray.
The Quest for Home
Chased by a ruthless and powerful enemy, Xhosa flees with her People, leaving behind her African homeland, leading her People on a gruelling journey through unknown and perilous lands. As they struggle to overcome treachery, lies, danger, tragedy, hidden secrets, and Nature herself, Xhosa must face the reality that her most dangerous enemy isn’t the one she expected. It may be one she trusts with her life.
The story isset 850,000 years ago, a time in prehistory when man populated Eurasia. He was a violent species, fully capable of addressing the many hardships that threatened his survival except for one: future man, the one destined to obliterate any who came before.
Based on a true story, this is the unforgettable saga of hardship and determination, conflict and passion as early man makes his way across Eurasia, fleeing those who would kill him. He must be bigger-than-life, prepared time and again to do the impossible because nothing less than the future of mankind is at stake.
This is Book 2 in the Crossroads series, part of the Man vs. Nature saga (Genre: Prehistoric fiction), and is available at:
Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy, the Rowe-Delamagente thrillers, and the Man vs. Nature saga. She is also the author/editor of over a hundred books on integrating tech into education, adjunct professor of technology in education, blog webmaster, an Amazon Vine Voice, a columnist for NEA Today, and a freelance journalist on tech ed topics. Look for her next prehistoric fiction, In the Footsteps of Giants, Winter 2020, the final chapter in the Crossroads Trilogy.
Jacqui will be visiting blogs September 16th – 30th to chat about The Quest for Home. She answers some questions about the book here.
What’s the relationship between Xhosa (and Homo erectus) and animals?
Early man had no idea animals weren’t simply another intelligent creature who spoke a different language. Why would they think differently? Man wasn’t the alpha in this environment. Mammoth or Sabretooth were. Man thought he could learn from these animals and become stronger. He respected them.
What one characteristic would you say allowed Xhosa to survive in a world populated with Sabretooth Cats, violent volcanoes, and predatory species who liked to eat man?
Really, with our thin skin, dull teeth, and tiny claws (aka fingernails), Xhosa had no right to survive against the thick-skinned mammoth or tearing claws of the great cats of that time. But she did. The biggest reason: Even then, Xhosa and her kind were problem solvers. They faced crises and came up with solutions. Where most animals spent their time eating and sleeping, Xhosa had time left over. This, she used to solve problems.
To me, that thoughtful approach to living, one no other animal exhibits, is why we came to rule the planet.
Here’s wishing success to Jacqui Murray and The Quest for Home.
My guess is that many of the readers of my blog are writers themselves.
And, much like me, I have no doubt that as writers, you would be facing your share of difficult days for writing.
Sharing a post from my long-time blogging friend Jacqui’s blog that might help us through some of those days. She is a treasure trove of nuggets of information for writers.
Photo by charlesdeluvio on Unsplash 
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