Beggars Get What Others Have left

Give Me Some Sunshine

Give Me Some Rain

Give Me Another Chance

I Wanna Grow Up Once Again

 

One of the characters in a movie "3 Idiots", sings this song when the college director disapproves his project and tells him that he may not be eligible for graduating in the current academic year. Depressed and hurt, the guy starts singing the song and commits suicide ….

Overnight, this song has become a cult song in India for teenagers and people upto age of late 40s. Most started attributing their failures on parents, teachers or bosses saying they didn’t achieve as they didn’t get a right chance and things forced upon them by authorities. Unfortunately, instead of asking question of one’s own self, people were quick to blame others and found an easy path to run away from responsibilities.

To all those, I am having only a saying “Beggars Get What Others Have left”

I may be little harsh here but isn’t it true? How can someone be so naïve to expect a fair treatment when begging for it? Unless you fight for your rights, nobody in this world going to recognize it. There may be few exceptions who sailed through very smoothly but that’s why they are THE EXCEPTIONS. For the less mortal souls like most of us, the option to get what you want is to prove that you really want it and you can do anything to get it. Isn’t the “Survival of the  Fittest” principle by Darwin conveys the same message?

My dear friends, LIFE is really a choice and its upto a person what choice he or she is making to go forward. Though people try to influence you, its really you, yourself  who is making the choice. Its you, who is deciding either to give in or to stand out for your own wishes. So it gives a signal of immaturity when someone begs for Another Chance.

Infact, when someone is taking decision under the influence, the person has accepted it with all the caveats and all the possible incentives for oneself. Those incentives can be either to please someone, or to avoid hurting someone or either to not incite the wrong side of authorities or no confidence and trust on one’s abilities. Whatever the reason may be but the decision maker has already weighed those and that’s why he or she is in. Now once you are in, whatever may be the reason, you have to give your best so as to avoid the failure. And please bear me my friend, it’s totally unfair to blame anyone for your failure if you haven’t given your best. Rather you have no right to even ask for another chance if you haven’t tried full heartedly in first attempt.

I don’t mean that failure is not accepted. Rather, I am trying to imply that failure after giving your best shot is  what required and most appreciated. That’s where you can have the bargain power with this world and world can come to your terms.  But if you start crying before you give it a try and started giving funny reasons of taking decision under influence then my dear friend, world will only crush you and your ego to the worst possible level. Forget about the second chance, they will rather make sure that the first chance  won’t even been recognized and your value will be termed as less than a ZERO.

Bon Jovi has rightly mentioned in his song, Its My Life,

This is for the ones who stood their ground
For Tommy and Gina who never backed down
Tomorrow's getting harder make no mistake
Luck ain't even lucky
Got to make your own breaks  

Better stand tall when they're calling you out
Don't bend, don't break, baby, don't back down
 

Is this ringing any bell? Are you hearing your own voices about “Why Did You Quit?”, “Why Did You Stop Trying?”….

If yes, then please do not ignore those. Do not blame others for your failure. Remember, you are also equally responsible for implementing those decision taken by others.

As most of us are very ordinary and average people who do not have any extraordinary skills or intelligence or money or power, LIFE is always a full of COMPROMISE. Hence at every instance there will be someone who is trying to influence you one way or other. Mind me but due to one or another reason, most of us have to accept many of those decisions. In the end you have only two choices, “Take your own decisions and be responsible for it” or “When allowing someone to take decision on your behalf, make sure that you have to perform as there is no choice for excuses if you perish”.

If Following Your Passions, is not the way and you may have to put brakes sometimes, never let the inside steam to be vent out due to such unforeseen stops. Always keep it in Ready To Run conditions and whenever you find a suitable situation, just grab it but please NEVER EVER BEG FOR ANOTHER CHANCE.

 

 

Fariyaad

कौन हो तुम , मैं तुम्हे नहीं जानता |

शक्ल हुबहू वही हैं , इंसान अंजाना हैं ||

                                        

                                - Nikhil (09 Mar 2012)

 

 

 

Its My Life

This ain't a song for the broken-hearted
No silent prayer for the faith-departed
I ain't gonna be just a face in the crowd  from
You're gonna hear my voice
When I shout it out loud

It's my life,
It's now or never ,
I ain't gonna live forever ,
I just want to live while I'm alive ,
It's my life !!!!

 When Bon Jovi wrote & performed this song, he would probably not have thought that he was about to bring a new revolution. This song is the biggest single hit post 1980’s era. No doubt, it has a great spark to create &  channelize positive energy among the listeners. Bon Jovi asks you to be your own and live the life as you want while being fully aware of its implications. It shows the maturity of the him when he says,

 

This is for the ones who stood their ground
For Tommy and Gina who never backed down
Tomorrow's getting harder make no mistake
Luck ain't even lucky
Got to make your own breaks  

 

Better stand tall when they're calling you out
Don't bend, don't break, baby, don't back down

What an amazing Thought !!! Such a great message with so beautiful lines !!!! No doubt why was this song became an anthem for youths all over the world!!!

 

But what happens in real world ? Why a handful few can only stick to follow this philosophy? What it makes to turn most of the proponents of “Its My Life” into stern opponents when their kids utter “Its My Life, Take it or Leave it, Set me free !!!”? Why many adults even in their 30s start believing that  golden principles and ideologies of early 20s were remote fantasies and idiotic mistakes ? What is that which changes the whole innocent universe of dreams upside down for most of the people ??? Or are we just reading the story from last page of the book ? Does it mean as, most of the people can not do what they want, Bon Jovi becomes an overnight superstar?

 

Whatever might be the real reason, but one thing is sure that Bon Jovi ignites the fire in mind. Somewhere in deep within you can start hearing your own voice which though with so many years of suppression has lost its strength but never lost its edge. It bounds to make think about the dreams and efforts put to build those dreams. And then sets of questions shoot at you, “Why Did You Quit ?”, “What If …?”, “Why Didn’t I Hold The Fort For A While ?” ……

 

Obviously with no convincing answers and to avoid loosing face from one’s own self, people sometimes can take a complete U Turn and try convince others about futility of “Its My Life”. Many can argue that its easy to freak out and say “Its My Life” during early 20s but  life after college is different and there you need to do all sorts of Compromises for SURVIVAL. Unfortunate though but that’s hard reality too.

 

Does that mean, Bon Jovi’s thoughts are out of this word ? Does it mean those beautiful words are only to be listen as a mere song and not to adopt as a serious philosophy of the life ?

People might be having various opinions on these questions. But it reminds me a beautiful dialogue from movie ‘Letters To Juliet’, “Dear Claire, "What" and "If" are two words as non-threatening as words can be. But put them together side-by-side and they have the power to haunt you for the rest of your life: What if? What if? What if? ” It is at that point the lead character realizes the futility of running away from a love  and then at the age of 70 she decides to search the boy whom she left while she was 16 because she did not have courage to revolt against her family.

Many may argue that such things happens only in movies & novels , but I have a counter argument that movies & novels are another ways to express human emotions. They depict that life is really a beautiful thing if you know how to live it and if you have lived it in that manner.   

Just like Lance Armstrong said in his biography, “Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever.”

So my dear friends, Its Your Life, though full of compromises, always look for ways in which you can still achieve the real happiness by doing what you like. Follow your passions. Although you may have to put brakes sometimes, never let the inside steam to be vent out due to such unforeseen stops. Just keep it in ready to run position and whenever you find a suitable situation, just run away !!!!!!!!

My heart is like an open highway
Like Frankie said
I did it my way
I just want to live while I'm alive
'Cause it's my life

Encounter With a Politician

It was one of those sunny days when I was coming back to home after a long business trip. Having a transit time of 5 hrs between two flights and fed up with the food plus  straight faced people in Business Lounge, I had decided to spend time at common sitting area instead. I must say it was a wise decision; because soon I found a cute & bubbly girl asking me whether she could sit next to me. In next 10 minutes  I learnt her to be one of the ABCDs and also an avid globetrotter who after her last visit to India was giving a serious thought about taking 1 year sabbatical to explore each & every corner of  India. I was amazed with her thoughts and soon we found ourselves discussing about Incredible India !!!

Slowly our discussion shifted from travelling to Indian Economy and having stayed in China, evidently talks directed towards comparing Indian progress with that of China. It was this time when a middle aged person sitting behind interrupted us and asked politely, “Apologies for overhearing your discussion but I do not agree with your views on Indian Economy’s Indicators”. Without giving us any chance to talk, he explained further, “I am involved with some of those statistics part so if you allow I can provide you the right information” Once again without waiting for our approval, he started churning numbers to weigh his arguments, “Media is very biased and provide distorted picture only to instigate youngsters like you against ruling party.” Whew !!! we realized that we had been stalked by a seasoned politician !!!

Thereafter we were bombarded with various stories of so called false propaganda by opposition, efforts of derailing economic growth etc for next half an hour !! Fortunately he got a call; my airport friend winked at me and  literally pulled me to the nearest Café.

While we were about to take a sigh of relief, I heard the same familiar voice instructing cashier to debit our bill to him. We knew for sure that those 50 bucks would be costing at least 2 Aspirins and few hours of meditation to come out from all evil scenarios (p.s. happening in our active imagination) of breaking teeth & nose of that guy !!!!

Almost after an hour or so, he stood up from his chair. Thanked us for patiently listening him. Also gave us one last motivational speech “You are the future of India. Even though you do not stay in India, you are our representatives for the world. So please help us spreading right message across !!!!!” And there was a pause.

 
It took us a while to come to our senses and realize that we would be free in couple of minutes !!! Understanding the importance of this freedom and fearing repeat of the drama unfolded some 1 hour back, this time I took my airport friend to the Business Lounge instead !!!

Exhausted by his continuous hammering, I preferred to remain silent for a while. On the other hand, my friend was now in full charge and wondering about having such politicians in US !!! She told me that apart from Obama, she had never seen such passion and fire in any of other politicians !!!! She felt most of the politicians back home were like a shrewd businessman who prefer to do things tactically. Shocked at her admissions, I was trying to figure out whether it’s a genuine one or was that as a result of 90 min of trauma !!!

But somehow I couldn’t resist thinking on her viewpoints. Slowly, I started realizing that she was probably right in a way. The job that man did was spectacular. Its not at all an easy task to interrupt a young couple in an unknown location and talk to them on a worthless topic of Dynamics of Indian Politics for almost 90 minutes despite knowing that the audience is there only because of respect for grey hairs and not because they care for what you say !!!! It requires an exceptionally thick skin and extraordinary patience !!!! Moreover, it requires guts to bombard your ideology with full energy and cheerfulness to an uninterested & atrocious audience.

 The more I started thinking, the more I was getting astonished by various dimensions of the politicians personality. I had faced a lot of office politics & so called political people during my job but when I met the real politician, I felt there was no comparison of that man with any of my previous encounters. There are definitely lot of good things to be learnt from these guys but the most important of those all are (1) “Keep faith on yourself, your ideologies and your communication.” (2) “Have patience till others understand the value behind your ideals.”

Thank God for showing me a lifetime experience.

Malaysian Spirit @ Superseries

In my past 4 yrs in Malaysia, one thing I loved is the obsession of Malaysians for Sports & Music. Go to any café (even Mamak’s shops) and you will find LCD’s placed at each corner displaying Football Match or some Rock Concert !!! Having  ban on consumption of Liquor, Malaysians have discovered spectacularly impressive way of having Mass Hang Over !!!

While drums, bong-pongs, flags & caps start creating its mesmerizing impact on you, the ageless beautiful angels ensure that for no reason you won’t believe that you are a part of some fairytale magic !!!!  Once addicted to this hangover, nothing seems enticing any further.

Yesterday I had one more booze of the same.. It’s a season for Malaysian Open Superseries for Badminton. Semifinals scheduled on yesterday. Fortunately all semis were in between top 10 shuttlers in all categories.  Being a shuttler myself, I did not waste the opportunity to see games of top guys. It was a mind blowing show. As perfectly predicted by Newton’s 3rd Law, for every action in the court was an equal reaction in stands !!!

However, Newton’s 3rd law was no longer applicable when Hot Favourite Malaysian Pair was outclassed by Chienese Pair, !!! Reaction turned from scalar to vector with its direction pointed towards Chinese players and its magnitude was multiple times the action !!!! Whoever defeated Chinese thereafter got a Hero’s Welcome ….

When one of the singles between World no 2 -World no 3 found to be all Chinese, crowd became nervous. Not understanding whom to support, first few minutes were like a sea of confusion where everyone looking across before banging drums or bong-pongs !! Soon the shock wave died and stands started enjoying the game. As they said, beauty wins over brain, slowly the support shifted towards more beautiful shuttler between those two, who unfortunately could not win the match despite the cheer...

The last match of the day was of Local Hero who is World No 1 with Chinese shuttler (World No 3). As expected the whole stadium moved in another world and nothing could be heard except “Boleh !!! Malaysia Boleh !!!” , “Go Red Go !!!!!” and drum beats …. Crowd gone crazy seeing their Hero had edge over his counterpart in the game. Then the golden moment came which everyone was awaiting since the beginning of the day. All the walls of stadium stared shaking when the Hero smashed the winning point. Cheer & Uproar in the stadium was reflecting as if these down to earth people eat, breathe and sleep the sport.      

Unknowingly tears rolled down on my cheeks !!!! 

What ? Are You Going to Teach Me ?

“Don’t instruct me on my duties! I’m the brother of a King...the son of a King...we have a history that goes back untold centuries. You’re the disappointing son of a brewer! A jumped-up jackeroo from the outback! You’re nobody. These sessions are over!” Bertie shouts at Lionel in movie ‘Kings Speech’.

I am sure most of us who had seen this movie, must have been shocked while watching this scene. Most of us must be feeling pity for poor Bertie who had chosen to turn blind eye towards well intended suggestion of Lionel and driven instead by wrong analogies. Well, my dear friends, Bertie was neither  the 1st person on this earth to behave like that nor the last one. We all rather represent Bertie in some way or other in our daily life.

Just take an example of dealing with peers or subordinates at workplace. Imagine a situation when a peer/subordinate accidently exposed our lack of understanding in the subject and on top of that offered a meaningful solution to improve our capability. Most people at some point of time do face this uncomfortable conversation. Do you remember what was the instantaneous reaction ? Wasn’t that in similar line to what Bertie reacted to Lionel ?

 

Question is “Why? Why most people behave irrationally when challenged by peers/subordinates (with respect to age, rank, power, wealth etc) but react in almost opposite manner if challenged by authorities?”

 

There may be numerous justifications but I believe that both the reactions are caused by only one emotional state, FEAR. It may sound strange, so lets take this way; Fear of Loosing Face directs irrational behavior towards peers/subordinates. Whereas Fear of Loosing Stability asks to keep calm in front of authorities and swallow the anger.

 

However, most people in this world would rank Fear of Loosing Face higher over Fear of Loosing Stability.  Reason might be rooted in social nature of mankind. We live in the society where everything is measured by loosely defined tapes like Wealth, Position, Age & Knowledge. Naturally the ones who are being respected by others do possess command over one or more of those parameters. Slowly, those beneficiaries built their own World of Influence (An Empire of their own belief), where they can live in a false comfort zone. When a smart peer/subordinate tries to pull them out from that comfort zone by challenging, it can be considered as an ultimate loss (i.e. loosing the so called Empire) and then people behave in an extreme manner (or irrational) to save it any cost.

 

In fact, Fear of Loosing Face also plays a vital role in the response for Fear of Loosing Stability. People normally accepts decisions from authorities till they find their comfort zone is not being busted. As soon as attack is on the Comfort Zone (e.g. Question on abilities during a public meeting), most people turn defensive. They prefer to loose stability rather than loosing face.

 

However, such a defensive attitude has a potential danger of ending up being complacent. Person practicing it may build layers of Ego and Overconfidence. It can affect productivity, as the thirst, for learning new things and honing existing skills has been either reduced or no longer exists. If so, then it is the perfect road to pitfall, both for an individual and the employer.

Some blessed individuals have abilities to control their emotions. They can analyze situation as a neutral person and then decide how to react. But most people fail to practice this. There is no silver bullet to handle such tricky solutions, but a combinations of two prong approach may help.

Address Individuals' perspective & Address Manger’s perspective.

1) An Individual may do an introspection (self reflection) to identify potential areas of clashes (Ego / Strengths / Weakness / Viewpoints / Bias etc) in long run. It may help in avoiding surprises and being defensive to some extent.

2) Manager / authorities normally like to choose the best talent in the Team. While choosing team, if  focus is also kept on team composition (e.g. who are natural leaders, who are logical/strategic thinkers, who are doers and to run the show which kind of members are needed), then interactions between the individuals can be managed more swiftly and incidences of Loosing Face kind of clashes may be reduced upto certain extent.

Its easier to say than practice. But if we do not start practicing because its difficult then chances of success are far remote. As one of my colleagues says, “If you have to go to moon, you should 1st try getting few inches up from the ground”, so lets try doing it to see the impact.