Poem: Frustration on project release night

Helpless, tired and clueless
Weary and sleepless
We plod along, with half a heart
with mind and body, all apart

Amidst the dreariness, sparks of ideas
Around the cribs, twinkling thoughts
That fade as fast as they had twinkled
That elusive solution to a bug that humbled

Here comes Harsha, all ready to fight
And there's Srini, vanishing through the night
Jayasimha, like a lion, keeping watch
Aravind B'rother, with no 'test' match

We hope there is an end to the story
A simple, stable, release with no worry
So that we can take a little break in peace
And take a respite before the next release :-(

Travelogue: Hsinchu, Taiwan

An offbeat trip into Hsinchu in Taiwan.



Hsinchu Science based industrial city is very much like any new IT technopark , except that Hsinchu is endowed with the natural beauty of a deadly combination of mountains, rivers and the sea.

Every normal tourist to Hsinchu knows about its wide variety of birds, the prospects of mountaineering and trekking and also about the famous universities of Hsinchu. Here is a report of an offbeat visit to a "Hakka" village on the outskirts of Hsinchu.

But before we begin, one must clear off any apprehensions about accomodation in Hsinchu. I was put up at the very decent Berkeley Business Hotel whose lobby and suite can be seen in the photographs. The best thing of course was the 24 hour free Internet access in the comfort of your room!




As you set out from the Berkeley hotel on the busy Kuang Fu road, this is what you will see:



"Hakka village" is famous for homemade "Hakka noodles", which are made of rice and dried in the salty breeze of the sea.

Article: Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva

Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva

The simultaneity of creation, preservation and destruction


The ocean has been an object of ceaseless fascination for mankind over so many centuries. To describe it just as an unfathomable and enchanting body of water would be a definite understatement. The beach, where the notional boundary of the physical space of human existence ends and the mighty ocean begins, has been the inspiration for many a poet to muse on the mysteries of life. The relentless waves many a time appear to resonate with the emotions and passions of the human mind, ranging from powerful and ferocious to frivolous and gentle. The waves are also forever romancing with the rocks and the sands to simultaneously create, preserve and destroy innumerable works of art, many unseen and unappreciated. No wave pattern ever repeats itself, yet there is a spectacular sense of rhythm in this drama that has continued over millions of years, even before life itself came into existence.

Creating a film that tries to capture this complex tapestry of “nature’s theatre” within the technical constraints of the medium is undoubtedly a daunting task. The filmmaker R.V. Ramani has been able to do a fair amount of justice in capturing the engagement between land and water, life and death, creation and destruction and other multifarious confounding contradictions in life. Ramani has even gone one step ahead in his adventure, by also capturing a gamut of human emotions on the seashore, and also involved an artist in the whole experience. With the dexterous use of the video camera, he has seized many candid flavours of the human mind with the backdrop of the Chennai beach.

The first thing that strikes about the "story" is its sense of adventure. An artist, who is comfortable with the medium of clay, is faced with the challenge of doing something with sand -a medium with contrarian characteristics. The movie begins with a shot of the artist staring into the ocean, appearing to be confounded and searching for an elusive creative spark. Or perhaps one wonders if he is just awed at the very sight of the infinite entity and is at a loss as to what to do. Nevertheless he does make a beginning. The first creation is that of a few radially outward spiral arcs. One wonders if the artist is trying to rival the creativity of the waves by drawing a pattern that they had perhaps never created. Ramani's focus now subtly shifts from filming the artistic process to filming the happenings on the beach. One recalls that to be the nature of documentary, to capture action as it happens. One appealing scene is that of the young boy who stares into the camera for a long time and very gradually yields in to an unsure smile. Perhaps we as individuals also will similarly require time to overcome our baseless fears and smile away through life!

Ramani brings the focus back to the artist. A deep hole is being created very intensely by the artist, but to the children on the beach it is a joke to laugh about. Rings a bell on "different perspectives". The waves seem to now be competing and playing games with the artist and in one big sweep the whole thing is washed off. The artist laughs it off and possibly realizes that it is futile to compete with this giant and there is no way but to cooperate. Ramani's attention now seems to be zigzagging between the people on the beach and the artist. He captures the footprints on the sands, and how they are washed off with the tide, irrespective of whose footprints it maybe. Surely this is true of all achievement and fame too. Ramani also captures the diverse reactions of people to the waves. While some are apprehensive and do not dare to venture, there are others who joyfully plunge into them. People seem to come to the beach for different reasons, some come to remember, and some come to forget.

By now the artist seems to have finalized on an approach and has begun dumping buckets of wet sand that look like mini pillars. The first few are merrily devoured by the merciless and inevitable arrival of the waves. Or is it that the artist is making some initial offerings to appease the hungry beast? Ramani captures the artist's intensity and dedication in crazily churning out more and more pillars. There is great sense of purpose in the artist though the whole thing appears meaningless to passers-by. The waves play a game of destroying them partly and in the process creating new forms. The pillars now seem to resemble the ruins of some long lost civilization. Time and tide are undoubtedly great levellers.

The uncontrollable rage of the waves is greatly creative and at the same time greatly destructive. I wonder if all uncontrollable creative urges necessarily require a refining element to them to bring about beauty. If so, what was nature's check for refinement here? Is it the play of the low and high tides? I then wonder if it is fair at all to compare nature's creativity with human creativity. Perhaps both have entirely different purposes, or perhaps one already knows its purpose, and the other is still seeking the purpose.

Ramani once again meanders focus into the scene of action. A little fish has been caught and is gasping for breath. The innocent children are overjoyed at their little success, but it is a life and death situation for the unfortunate fish that yielded to temptation. Ramani makes the viewer uncomfortable about life's strange equations by acutely focussing on the imploring eyes of the fish and its last struggle.

Meanwhile the artist continues relentlessly with his offerings. A shy little girl smiles away selling a bunch of colorful balloons, jarringly in contrast against the silvery-gray dull background. The waves have now become boringly regular. I wonder that if there is so much of striking regularity and rhythm in everything in the universe, from the tides to the days and nights and planetary motions, why is there no sense of rhythm in our life? Events and experiences seem so disconnected, our plans never work and there are twists and turns at frequent points. Is it that we are riding on a single wave and are missing the big picture of the tide…?

All along the film until now, Ramani's focus is dominantly on the activities on the beach, attributable both to people as well as the waves. Suddenly towards the end, when the activities have become monotonous, one notices that the only sound all along has been that of the waves and occasionally of children's laughter. One becomes acutely aware of the ocean's existence all along. Ramani now wields the camera to slowly but surely make the sea look bigger than the activities on the beach. He succeeds in capturing some part of the majesty of the waves on the ocean, perhaps signifying its unfathomable depths, and maybe also those of human creativity. In one swift contrasting shot, Ramani refocuses on a single wave that is receding gently with the tide, and in great humility appearing to give way to the artist by leaving his creation intact. A quotation of Kabir occurs to me here: "All know that it is the drop that merges into the ocean, but few know that it is the ocean that merges into the drop".

The movie ends with the artist creating the form of a Shiva-Linga with the sand and the little children spoiling it playfully. The artist wears a satisfied look in the end, and there is a definite sense of completion. I imagine his ego has been humbled by his realizing the infinitesimal and transient nature of his contributions. In conclusion of this review, I reproduce here an overwhelming poem on the same topic of a beach by none other than the greatest poet William Wordsworth.


Evening on Calais Beach
By William Wordsworth
1770-1850

IT is a beauteous evening, calm and free,
The holy time is quiet as a Nun
Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
Is sinking down in its tranquillity;
The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the sea:
Listen! the mighty Being is awake,
And doth with his eternal motion make
A sound like thunder--everlastingly.
Dear Child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here,
If thou appear untouch'd by solemn thought,
Thy nature is not therefore less divine:
Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year;
And worshipp'st at the Temple's inner shrine,
God being with thee when we know it not.

Poem: Evening on a Calais beach: Wordsworth

Evening on Calais Beach
By William Wordsworth
1770-1850

IT is a beauteous evening, calm and free,
The holy time is quiet as a Nun
Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
Is sinking down in its tranquillity;
The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the sea:
Listen! the mighty Being is awake,
And doth with his eternal motion make
A sound like thunder--everlastingly.
Dear Child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here,
If thou appear untouch'd by solemn thought,
Thy nature is not therefore less divine:
Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year;
And worshipp'st at the Temple's inner shrine,
God being with thee when we know it not.

Poem: Corporate context, a request to marketing

O traveller! What news dost thou bring from far lands?
O'er the seas and across the mountains
And from the expo stands

The plains are weary for want of news
Of interesting events, of competitor ruse
Awaiting the trip update hues

The days are busy, and schedules hectic
Spare a minute, when it does permit
O'er a coffee or a lunch instant
And we’ll make the product tick!

Poem: A friend's engagement

A little birdie sang to me
Of good news from a friend
And sang it did of his to-be
All I had were ears to lend

Of wedding bells that ring aloud
Of happy times and cheer
I ask him if he may be allowed
To share the news more clear!

Poem: Corporate context, campus recruitment

Selection criteria
-----------------

They came in well ahead of time
And strode in self-assuredly
All questions solved, eager for more
The eyes they shone unabashedly

I saw in them that adorning spark
Of challenges braved, of hope and faith
The gracious confidence that makes its mark
When tickled potential meets its mate

Poem: The hotel room

The hotel room
----------------

Not oft it is that one does get
The luxury of solitude
A space unique, for the mind, a treat
That the self expands with fortitude

Poem: Thumbi vaa

Little butterfly, my dear friend
Will you fly with me to the hillock’s bend?
We’ll prepare a swing on the marigold’s bough
And sway it happily, high and low

The limitless sky beckons us to touch
With every humble thrust, as much
The golden borders of the carefree clouds
That speak to us of the end of bounds

Up and down, back and forth
Swing we shall in merry mirth
Melodious refrains to hum along
With which we create our own song

Swing and sing we shall in rhythm
Our hearts shall touch the gold that’s within
Until the singer, song and singing
In one final swing, become the being

Poem: View from the airplane

View from the airplane
-----------------------

Behold the awesome sight, my friend
as we rise above the earth so dear
A thousand homes, a miniscule trend
Rivers, mountains, towns so mere

An alive map with no name-boards
Highways like arteries, canals the veins
Little people with lives so bored
Searching for life’s purpose in vain

In the night, the neon lamps glew
Of cities, they spoke with jazzy hue
The crescent moon came near my window
communed with my view, of the design below

Above the soft and fluffy clouds,
Amidst the dwelling of the gods
T’was a grand and majestic spectacle
And my little mind, the receptacle

Article: Learnings from conference notes...

Well, its possible to learn from anywhere! Lets see if an old set of conference notes can still inspire!

The NHRD conference took place on the 19th, 20th, 21st of October/04 at the Tata auditorium at IISc. The theme of the conference was "Emerging Asia - An HR trend". Sasken was silver sponsor for this event. (The platinum sponsor was Reliance Infocomm, and there were many other companies as gold and silver sponsors.) Some of these companies had put up stalls at the venue marketing their services.

Sasken was represented by various members from HR and line managment. KSG Shankar represented Quality and Operations.

Day 1
-------
We started with registration and we were all given a kit containing various material which importantly included: -

1) 'Emerging Asia', a heavy book containing a compendium of papers by various contributors on HR trends in Asia. It includes a paper by Prof. Balaji, one by ex-Sasian Pallab Bandhopadhyay, and some by Prof. TVR Rao who is a very eminent member in this field and many others who are probably as eminent but not known to me. Sasken is a sponsor for this book and there is a writeup about Sasken on the cover.
2) 2 magazines: 'Human Capital' and 'Academy of NHRD newsletter' which contain various articles of interest to the current HR trends in India.
3) Statement of the 'Code of Conduct' for HR professionals. The code of conduct was released in this conference. This work on the code was triggered by reports about unholy nexuses between head hunters and industry HR professionals.
4) Some well designed marketing catalogues from 2 local management schools in Bangalore, who showcased the portfolios of their students. These students also played a big role in organising the conference and did a good job of it. It was a win-win arrangement and we could think of this if we are organising something.

The day started with an inaugration by PGR Sindhia, who is the Karnataka minister for industries and infrastructure. Contrary to general expectations of a politician's talk, his speech was extremely well planned and focussed. He urged the industry to come up with suggestions to stall the rural-urban exodus, make strategies to outsource work to rural areas, and also devise ideas for educational qualifications below the SSLC levels.

Dr. Santrupt Mishra, national president of the NHRD gave a crisp introduction to the why the conference: to understand the possibility of a leader in Asia, to appreciate the regional perspectives and enable a collective reflection on the issues. (My takeaway here was that the purpose of any conference is to enable collective reflection)

Som Mittal of HP Globalsoft fame, underlined 3 things that are happening in Asia. That the Asian economies have proved themselves to be resilient in spite of SARS, currency fluctuations et al, globalisation is a reality and demographics (which seems to be a hot topic common to many speakers) indicates interesting trends for the Asian population. He ended with a small story where a young student overnight works out unsolved math problems just because he didn't know they were impossible.

The Pathfinder award was conferred on ICICI head K.V. Kamath for his outstanding contributions in the field.

Gurcharan Das, spoke on 'INDIA'S FUTURE'. He called himself a cheerleader for India Incorporated, and that was what his talk was about too. He presented data on the economic, political and social growth indicators in India, mostly from the World Bank Research website. He explained his enthusiasm and vision for India's future, inspite of all the governments, this was very inspiring to hear and many of us were left with a great deal of feel-good factor about India after this. He compares East Asia to a tiger, China to a dragon and India to a Wise Elephant.
According to Mr. Das, every manager is an HR manager and should have only 2 items in the appraisal form: Produce results and Build the organisation. He recommended reading 2 books: 'From Good to Great' by Collins and 'In Search of Excellence'. I have more notes on his talk if you are interested.

Mr. Prasanjit K. Basu, is an Asian economist researching exclusively on Asia. He spoke in detail on the economic and business scenario in Asia. He had plenty of economic data to present about China, Taiwan, India and the rest of Asia and his insights were extremely interesting. Particularly he explained the trade related equilibria that existed between US-China, China-(rest of Asia) and China-Europe and also demonstrated why China would never go to war with Taiwan and how India would benefit if that really happened! He explained how China's short term financial outlook is that of 'financial feet of clay' what with more than 50% of non-performing loans as against 30% in India (going by most stringent standards). He called India a 'stealth miracle', because there is no record of a democracy with 150 mn plus people with a sustained annual real GDP growth of 5.9% over a two year period. Mr. Basu concluded with some demographics data on how China's working age group would reach a productivity peak in 15-20 years time, whereas Japan would consist of a lot of older people, especiall women over the age of 80, which meant healthcare is likely to boom there. In the Q&A session, he advocated that India should try to attract investments from overseas Indians in Fiji, Guyana, Trinidad, US and Europe where they were present in large numbers.

The afternoon session was woken up by Rajiv Narang's high-energy presentation on Innovation. He gave numerous examples of companies that faced extreme odds of 'mindset gravity' to achieve great results. The key to great achievements is by 'generating escape velocity by posing huge challenges'. One must look beyond traditional incremental goal setting to creative impossible-type challenges. In the Asian context, the greatest fear is that of personal risk, hence one must remove escape buttons and burn bridges that pull us down to normal mode. Some of the examples of companies he gave are Divya Bhaskar, India, that revolutionised the thinking on the newspaper market; Independent Liquour, New Zealand; Smart Telecom; Phillipines; Tanishq, India; Grameen Bank, Bangladesh which brought about a micro-credit revolution that a Citibank might never think of and ITC's e-chaupal initiative.

Key takeaway: Conformism and hierarchy are the two great mindset gravity factors for Asia which cause 'idea poverty'. We must remove these inhibitors if we are to innovate. Also, ideas do not get killed in Asia, they run the risk of dilution, which we must guard ourselves against.
Kandhavel P., a civil servant from the Singapore government showcased the Singapore government as an organisation that competes with the private industry in terms of professionalism and a high degree of responsiveness. He explained the HR policies for government employees, with significant aspects being variable pay tied to performance, 100 hours of training per year to ensure continuous learning, and a host of policies wrt rewards/penalties that encourage highly responsive behaviour.

Ravikant from Tata Motors Ltd, showcased the Tata-Daewoo story of in sequence of how they turned around to achieving domestic growth, international growth and to becoming a true multinational.

Introduction

Hi,

I am a late and ignorant blog entrant. I wish to look back on my life with having done what I like most, writing. I hope I find encouraging readers and writers alike, through this medium. Thank you for stopping by and have a great day!

Cheers!
Ramya TV