Our World

What We Need In Customer Service

2010-08-17T07:50:00.000-07:00

We all are aware of what a customer service representative of an organization should do to keep the organization in the good books of the customer but the biggest gap is in the form of:

Customer Awareness. Most often, the customer (be it internal or external) is not aware of the products and services and their usage leading to nightmarish experiences of the Customer Service workforce of an organization. At times, the organizations form their functional strategies based on this gap, but this only leads to the added expenditure in revamping and elaborating their Customer Care Services which becomes a lost cause with the front line executives becoming the spent force, as they are always in the line of fire juggling between the company policies and the customers, who always feel they have been cheated by the organization.

This requires the organization to take the initiative to make the customer aware of the benefits of the organizations products and services considering the unique requirements of the customers. This calls for consumer education initiative (Educating the customer of how to use the products and services and its entailing benefits.) This proactive effort will definitely go a long way to have a happy customer service force and customer too.

Catch Them Young it may sound more like a far cry but it is a fact that most of us are not aware of our social responsibilities and social systems and this unawareness always makes us feel insecure eventually making us prone to the fear of being misguided or misled through wrong information. This needs holistic approach of making the consumer aware of his or her social benefits and responsibilities so that when availing any products or services of an organization, is fully aware of what he or she needs and what information to seek from the organization helping him to fulfill his requirements.
That Extra Mile we are all aware of who is an irate or angry customer and the objective of the Customer Care Department is to keep such a customer at bay and should be treated like a pariah. We also are aware of the fact we should not have angry and irritable Customer Care Executive. What we all ignore is, why do they exist. Attend to the symptoms and not the cause. This is where we need to walk that extra mile to make the customer as well as the Customer Care Executive (The facade of the organization) to make them aware of their responsibilities and the consequential benefit to both conscientious customer as well as the organization. This is no philosophy and not rocket science either. It is merely the initiative of the organization as microcosm of the society at large to proactively share knowledge and information thus educating the segment of the society it is catering to. Subsequently, completing its fair share of responsibilities to the society at large.
Shared Identity. the relationship with the customer is not merely of give and take but of perpetuation hence the term customer "relationship" and customer "service". We usually refer to the term "Word-of-Mouth" and most of the business enterprises believe that customer's reference is vital to perpetuation of business and beneficial relationship with the customer leads to more avenues for business. This is possible when the customer feels that he or is valuable part of the organization's clientele and this is possible only when a genuine relationship of shared identity is developed with the customer. What we mean by "shared identity" is that both the customer as well as the organization are able to identify with each other and is able to synthesize the progress to be mutually sustainable. This is the key to success of the business enterprise.

This to a great extent can make the organization benefit from the customer through a wise and knowledgeable customer.

Writing Using Idioms with Numbers

2010-07-20T03:22:00.000-07:00

We use idioms to speak our mind with wit and and a dash of humour to accentuate the message we intend to convey. So, let us try to use some of the idioms that use numbers in them to convey our message with peppered humour:

Have one over eight:     Someone who is tipsy due to drinking too much alcohol
At the Eleventh Hour:    Just at the final moment
Five o'clock shadow:    Someone who has not shaved and stubles appear on his face
Have Forty Winks:          Take a quick nap (sleep or rest for a short while.)

Now let us try to form a sentence using the idioms we have learnt the meaning of and listed them above.

Waiting for his project to complete successfully, Will had one over eight at the eleventh hour, so decided to have forty winks only to find five o'clock shadowing his face.

[This means: While Will was waiting for his project to complete successfully, at the final moment he was was influenced by the alcaholic drink he had and decided to take a short nap only to find that he had slept long enough to grow beard on his face.]
So, are we ready for some more after the warm up session?

Let us take a few more idioms:

A chance in a million:           Rare and much awaited opportunity
Feel like a million dollar:      Feel extremely good
Never in a million years:     That which does not happen at all
Nine day wonder:                  Excitement lasting for a short time

For Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, it was a chance in a million making him feel like a million dollar, a nine day wonder that never had happened in a million years.

[This means: Astronaut Neil Armsrton, the first man to land on the moon, this was a rare opportunity he much waited for he was proud of his achievement, though it was an excitement of short visit that has not happened at all.]

Let us now try to form a sentence using some of the eight idioms listed above:

At the eleventh hour the hare had forty winks making his excitement a nine day wonder giving the tortoise a chance in a million to feel like a million dollar.

Refer to the meaning of the idioms to see what the sentence means.

Shall we have you use the following idioms to form a sentence or two:

A drop in a bucket:                                  a small part of a bigger whole(entity).
A penny saved is a penny earned:     saving money little by little
A picture paints a thousand words:   image impresses more than verbal description
A dime a dozen:                                       Anything that is in common

Happy time making sentence by combining one or more of the idioms to discover your creative potential!

An Experience of Cross Culture Blending

2010-07-17T08:26:00.000-07:00

I was once asked, "Where are you from" to which I replied, "My Father is from West Bengal, Mother hails from Punjab. my birth place is Orissa and have lived in most of the major cities of India. I hope I have replied to your question."

As a resident of Bangalore, I preferred and also found the Public Bus service to be within my means to travel length and breadth of the city. As a commuter, I was impressed by the bonhomie the women commuters shared among themselves. A woman would leave her seat for an elderly woman and students, who would be seated would offer to hold the heavy bags of their friends who had to travel, stnading in the vehicle.

In Calcutta, I found the gents eagerly offer their seats to the women fellow travelers while the bus conductors helped the women to easily board and alight the bus.

My Mumbai experience is also quite impresseive as I found the commuters stand in a queue and wait for the bus. They even board the bus in a queue. It is a remarkable sense of discipline and self restraint.

The migratory birds like me, who live in various cities and experience unique cultural ethos, can help in blending the myriad hues of culture and enable the homogeniety of myriad cosmopolitan hues thus making India a truly Nationally Integrated country making our lives worht living in the country we call our Mother land

Anukaran kaa Anusaran (Emulate to Follow)

2010-07-15T21:57:00.000-07:00

पथ पर राही ने पायी नहीं  ठौर
चलता रहा, चलता रहा
पथ पर अडिग निरंतर.
पथ पर रही ने पाई नहीं ठौर
बढ़ता रहा, बढ़ता रहा
वह मंजिल की ओर.
पथ पर रही ने पायी नहीं ठौर
समझता रहा, समझता रहा
वह इस सफ़र का दौर
पथ पर रही ने पाई नहीं ठौर
निरंतर, तत्पर
वह बढ़ता रहा अपनी मंजिल की ओर.
पथ ने कहा, 'मैं हूँ बहुत कठिन, यह तुमने है जाना
तुम हो तत्पर, यह मैने  है माना.
क्या है तुम्हारा उद्देश्य पर यह तुम मुझे बताना.
राही ने मुस्कुराकर कहा पथ से, "मेरा मकसद है जीवन,
पथ है माध्यम जीवन के निरंतर क्षण भंगुर से आगे बढने  का
पथ है माध्यम चिरंतन विचरण सुघड़ भावनायों का
पथ है माध्यम आत्म मंथन कर जीवनकाल चक्र से मुक्त होने का.
पथ, तुम हो आशा, प्रथ्याषा हीन
यही है मैने जाना.
मैं राही एक अंश तुम्हारा, येही है मैने माना.
तुम्हारी प्रेरणा से प्ररित होकर बढ़ रहा हूँ निज जीवन मैं
तुम्हारा अनुराकर्ण कर कर रहा हूँ अनुसरण जीवन का."

Top of the House 100

2010-07-14T03:41:00.000-07:00

There once lived a monk in a monastery in the Alps with only a St. Bernard as his companion. The dog also did the job of rescuing the travelers stranded in snow storm or buried in snow. The monk called him “GOD”. When GOD would rush to the monk with message to help any poor soul in misery in the Alps, the monk would quickly follow him and get the destitute to the cozy confines of the monastery.

One cold, dark morning, when snow blizzard was raging outside the monastery, GOD rushed to the monk and tugged at his habit. The monk, who was praying at the alter immediately got up and rushed after GOD who led him to the spot where a weary traveler lay unconscious, buried under thick pile of snow. GOD immediately began digging the snow in a frantic gesture to help the monk. To revive the man, the monk poured a few drops of brandy in the traveler’s mouth, wrapped him in a thick blanket and brought him to the monastery where he nursed him back to health.

While the traveler was recuperating in the monastery from his rough encounter with the fury of the Alps, he always found the monk ask GOD to go to the top of the house and have his “Hundred”. Curious to know what it meant he asked the monk, “Father, you often ask the dog to go to the top of the house to have his ‘Hundred’, what does it mean?”

The monk smiled at the traveler and said, “Son, the creature you call dog is a God Send for weary travelers like you who fall prey to the vagaries of Nature and that is why I call him GOD. I ask him to go to the top of the house to have his Hundred is to go out of the monastery to see if anyone needs our help.

(Foot note: The Numbers or creatures don’t always mean their face value, they also mean the purpose they serve in the grand design called the world at large we live in.)

2010-07-13T22:15:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, there lived an old baker named Barkis, who hardly had any customers visiting his bakery that he almost lost hope of selling the bread loaves he used to bake every day to sell.

One winter morning, a stranger walked into his bakery and said, “Barkis, I am new to this village and I have no family too, but I still want you to bake me a dozen loaves of bread every morning and I shall buy them from you.”

Happy with a sudden turn in fate, Barkis set about baking a dozen loaves of bread and completed his work by daybreak.

True to his words, the stranger visited the bakery in the morning and asked Barkis for his ware.

Barkis eagerly picked up the wicker basket he had packed and kept for the stranger and handed it over to him.

The stranger quietly took the basket and opened each of the brown paper packet to check the bread loaf. After having checked all the loaves he produced one to Barkis and said,” Barkis, this loaf of bread is partly burnt, can you replace it with a fresh loaf tomorrow with the dozen loaves you will deliver to me for tomorrow?”

Quite amazed at how he could overlook the burnt loaf, Barkis quietly took the loaf of bread from the stranger and agreed to replace it with a fresh loaf the following day.

The following day too, the stranger pointed out to a partly burnt loaf of bread and requested Barkis to replace it with the fresh loaf the next morning and this continued till such time that it became habitual for Barkis to bake thirteen loaves of bread instead of twelve for the stranger.

One day, the stranger visited Barkis’ bakery with his friend who requested Barkis too, to bake a dozen loaves of bread each day.

Habitually, Barkis baked thirteen loaves of bread each for the stranger and his friend and packed their wares in two separate wicker baskets.

Next morning the stranger and his friend visited Barkis’ bakery to collect their loaves of bread and the stranger’s friend was the first to open the basket to check the loaves. After having seen them, he returned one loaf to Barkis and said, “Friend, I had ordered for twelve loaves but you have given me thirteen.”

Barkis smiled and replied “So, after all, no more burnt loaf of bread.”

So friends, to be habitually proactive is what Baker’s dozen means, to avoid any eventualities.

(Foot Note: Especially quality compliance.)

Hiring People to Fail?

2010-05-24T06:59:00.000-07:00

I was amazed to find that a friend of mine used to hire people to amuse himself on their shortcomings and follies. He would make them feel miserable by pointing out their mistakes in front of others and then recount the mistakes to his friends and have a good laugh at the expense of his office staff.

Even more intriguing was a recruitment firm hiring recruitment executives every month only to fire them within a span of three months on the grounds of poor performance. It is quite inevitable that very soon the firm closed shop.

Even came across an organization that would place new hires in all its questionable projects and then retain only a fourth of them, while asking the rest to quit because of the closure of the projects they were executing.

A company providing home based documentation job work would send test files to job aspirants for transcription and documentation and would report to the examinees that they had failed the test and encourage them to take the test again on a different test file, thus getting its documentation work done for free from the unsuspecting examinees.

Such unscrupulous means of meeting short term objectives do not help in setting up a credibly successful organization too.

Everyone is aware of the time and resource an organization has to expend to hire new hands for its functions. This makes it all the more important for the organization to ensure longevity of the new hires in the organization so that it can cut down on the hiring and attrition cost. This is only possible when:

The functional objective aka the job description of the new hire is in tune with the operational vision and mission of the organization.
The eligibility criteria (Knowledge, skill and experience) is well defined in terms of the job description of the portfolio for which the organization intends to hire a new hand.
The induction process to help the new hire to align completely with the vision and work culture of the organization along with the functional objective of the portfolio he/she has to manage in the organization.
Through regular mentor support, enable the new hire to align his/her career objective with the functional objective of the organization.
Organization should have open door policy at all levels of its functional hierarchy so that a positive work environment can encourage free exchange of views, ideas and feedback that can encourage an individual to improve upon his or her performance to mutual benefit as this well help the organization to remain in tune with the changing trends in the market it is catering to.
Organization should encourage integrity, honesty, an inquiring mind along with pragmatism in its work ethos in order to encourage its employees to remain in tune with changing market trends, change in technology to maintain the good will the organization has created for itself in the market.

Organization should also encourage enhancement of knowledge and skill so that an employee can improve his or her performance. Should also encourage one-on-one coaching and mentoring to ensure success of succession planning from its shop floor level up to the summit of its functional hierarchy.

Therefore, it is time for every organization to ponder over its hiring policies and its work ethos to see how it is failing to achieve its functional vision and mission with the failure of each employee it hires to achieve its functional objective.

Job Hop and Attrition: Individual and Oranizational Perspective

2010-05-24T04:23:00.000-07:00

According to Khuram Shahzad, in terms of Job Hop:“There can be multiple reasons, as explained by Herzberg's Motivation-Hygiene Theory. Employees want to move to other departments/teams when they feel that they can get better personal growth, self esteem, salary or better relations with manager/peers in other team as compared to their existing team. ” He feels that Attrition happens: “when employee feels that the overall environment of the company is not according to his required standards then employee thinks to go in some other company which is more aligned with his future goals and plans”.

This is what Suhasini Sahakare thinks about Job Hop and Attrition, “The first typically happens because of “short termist” priorities at the top leadership level, which impact organizational culture.

After all, retaining people yields benefits only over the long term. Only when leadership is focused on the long term does it make the sacrifices necessary to retain people.

The second may happen for any reason under the sun really. I mean, a number of employees move because their spouse got transferred. How do you control that?”

About Job Hop and Attrition, Steve Sutton says:”I not so much believe in "Human capital" as in humans.

People are not just one of the four types of fixed capital as Adam Smith wrote ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_capital ), but the base of any organization.

You can have machines, instruments (tools) of the trade and buildings, but without people you still have nothing.

On the other hand, people without machines, tools or buildings can and are capable of making a difference and earning profits.

A company who "cuts costs" by reducing staff is either making a big mistake now, or made one in the past by hiring the wrong people in the first place. If they have the right people, getting rid of them will cost more in the long run than any perceived savings in the short term.”

This is what Abhijit Sinha has to say about Job Hop and Attrition, “People dont live organisation they live their bosses.

this statement is true in majority.

I firmly believe and have seen that people who shift or change job ofcourse think and say that they are moving for growth,but the question is if they get opportunity and growth in their own organisation why the will shift and start from scratch.,

As there can be vision of organisation and scenaroi in varoius pahse plays imp.role.”

regards

abhijit

Milton Rivera Manga says, “Individual and organizational level are of course related.

It seems that a large proportion of individual job changes are due to a bad relation with the superior or boss.”

Zach Jonson says, “Employees are constantly moving within companies, sometimes outside factors like completion of college leads employees to a different employer and higher pay. With high turnover it basically means people are leaving the company fairly quickly. When people leave the company normally someone else changes positions to fill that vacant position leaving their position open to another person or a new employee.

The key for great companies is finding talented people and being able to retain those people within the organization for a long period of time.”

Christine Hueber opines:

“More enjoyment in another position.

Links:

[ http://ChristineHueber.com|leo://plh/http%3A*3*3ChristineHueber%2Ecom/HRT6 ] “

The discussion makes it clear that an employee can change job within the organization for the following reasons:

1. Lateral movement from one department (functional area) to another functional area.
Benefit to the employee: Employee gets opportunity to acquire knowledge, skill and experience of different functions of the organization and this gives twin benefits to the employee in terms of becoming more valuable to the organization by acquiring more comprehensive knowledge and experience of its activities and secondly, the employee gets an opportunity to move into the functional area of better comfort level, which helps in his/her career development objective.
Benefit to the organization: Through such movement, the organization is able to develop employees internally for its functions use their talent, skill and experience on the long run in decision making process at the management level as part of the organization's management or skill succession plan to groom its people to plan and perpetuate its vision on a long run. This is also useful in technology intensive organization as they can help their employees to upgrade their technological know-how while developing their cross-functional skills and experience.

2.Vertical Movement: What we all generally know as internal job posting or addressing the vacancies through the existing resource within the organization, who has the required expertise to handle the portfolio, instead of hiring an external resource for the function. it is similar to lateral movement only that movement is up on the functional hierarchy ladder.
Benefit to the employee: Employee is able to utilize the opportunities available within the organization in career advancement. He or she can avail such opportunity to showcase and exploit ones multifarious talent to mutual benefit and this will also provide scope to the individual to enhance know-how and experience in mid and long term planning and preparing the road map with clearer vision gained from the experience gained from various levels of functional hierarchy.
Benefit to the organization: The organization is able to groom and retain talent who can align their career objective with the vision and functional objective of the organization and can help it in fortifying and successfully executing the long term plans and objectives.

3. Geographic movement: from one location to another. Usually, an employee can move from one location office to another location office of the organization.
Benefit to the employee: In case an employee has to join his or her family or work from home town or country. This also gives the employee an opportunity to gain experience of the unique functionality of various geographic locations and this is of benefit for the marketing and media development professionals as well as those in research and development activities, who need to be aware of the ground realities at various geographic locations.
Benefit to the organization: Have employees comfortably positioned at its location offices so that they can help in executing its functions effectively. Have employees placed at locations who are aware of the place and the ground realities to effectively implement the organizations policies and functional objectives. Especially, when an organization is opening a new location office, it can relocate its employees who are from the region to do the pioneering activity of setting up base and establishing the organization in the region. Most of the MNCs are in the practice of giving home transfers or home relocation with promotion to their employees.

External Movement in terms of an individual and attrition or manpower turn over in terms of organization can be due to various reasons. Let us see what they are:

External Movement: Individual:- It is true, people do not leave organizations, people leave people.

No more career advancement prospects with the current organization.
Unfavourable working conditions.
Lack of recognition and functional motivation.
Office Politics or derogatory work pressure.
Fallout with the immediate superior.
Disagreement with the policies or the functional objectives of the organization.
Better opportunities available outside the organization.
Personal reasons viz. family pressure, health conditions, etc.
Move to better matched job opportunity if available.

External Movement: Organization:- High employee turnover experienced by organization.

Challenge from its competitors who body snatch its employees.
Poor working conditions.
Lack of functional motivation to its employees.
Flawed work policies and regulations.
Improper planning and implementation of its vision in terms of resource management.
Lack of proper alignment of its vision with the functional objective of the employees.
Over-emphasis on short-term objectives leading to improper remuneration and compensation policies.
Improper leadership at various levels of functional hierarchy.
Improper hiring and training policies.

It is quite apparent that what ever may be the reason for job hop and attrition, proper hiring of resource supported by proper HR policies and working conditions giving opportunity to an employee to align his/her career objective with the vision of the organization will address job hop and attrition in a positive way.

Three Pronged Approach in CRM Projects - II

2010-03-12T22:45:00.000-08:00

Some of the popularly used automated CRMs are SAP, SIEBEL, BAAN, ORACLE, etc.
CRM is a way for an organization to survive and prosper. This is only possible with its vision and mission translated into a road map. The organization can achieve this through realistic, strategic and tactical planning to achieve its objective in the days to come. This requires proper study of the external and internal environment including the competitors in order to draw up its ethical and value system in the form of specialization through better CRM technology support. This will improve the product or service and give the organization edge over its competitors. Eventually, the organization should concentrate on its core content with the help of its Centre For Excellence. This is where the automated CRM can go a long way in clearly defining its process, build its infrastructure to the benefit of its customers, partners, suppliers/vendors, employees forming beneficial values, thus synergizing the efforts of each entity to each others benefits.
Similarly, according to the Three Pronged Approach, the functional strategy has to be drawn on the organization’s core competency that is transformed into the organization’s ethics and Centre for Excellence, where the organization concentrates on its core competencies in relation with the internal as well as its external customers.
The Strategic functions are taken care of by the middle management and this is where the strategic functional planning is formulated,
The Tactical or the executive level planning is done by the executives in sync with the strategy and they prepare themselves for the market and the competition too.

Project Vs. Program:
As mentioned above, projects are tactical plans while Programs are strategic plans. Projects are always at a micro level and are a defined set of activities that must be completed on time and within the allocated budget; but the program are always in the form of change management giving a holistic definition of a product or service to be provided to the customers with the optimum utilization of time and resources. It also encourages innovation while maintaining harmony with external as well as internal environment. This is where complete integration of automated CRM takes place.
Projects are an essential part of a programme. The sub modules delivery should be well defined and measurable.

Program Management	Project MAnagement
Focus is on delivering benefits based on a business strategy at macro level	Focus on single objective usually tactical at micro level
An organizational and management framework (A vehicle) through which one or more projects are delivered	Focus is on delivering a single project
Focus is on delivering a single project,	Objectives are clearly defined at outset.
Can lead to organization level change management	Can lead to specific team related change management
Benefits are delivered incrementally by projects and other change vehicles during the life span of the program	Capabilities are delivered through a single undertaking and are generally delivered on completion
Main deliverable tend to be many	Main deliverables tend to be few
Strategic planning, considering external factors has larger time marginsStrategic planning, considering external factors has larger time margins	Time scale rigidly defined
A program is designed for scope changes	Scope changes are managed as exceptions (e.g. scope creep)
Programs may be inter-relatedPrograms	Sub projects are related to project outcomes and themselves.
Generally applicable to division level or at higher levels of an organization	Applicable to any level of the organization
A program can assist in prioritizing projects and activities	Projects can only prioritise activities within itself
Program support the concept of portfolio management	Time scale rigidly defined

Programs are the realistic road maps of the business strategy and its sub-modules, the projects are the tactical plans of how to deliver the goods, service. CRM plays a vital role in laying out the road map and controlling the execution of the tactical plan. Therefore, the main objective of a plan is to align the organization’s internal environment with the external environment in order to appropriately deliver what the external clients deliver from the organization.
Project management is capability based and net benefit based. It focuses on delivery and not the process, which is the crux of quality, which highlights the focus on the quality of product or service delivered and the actual benefit provided. This means that, in terms of program, an organization endeavors to align its process to match the end users’ expectations with the help of innovation and change management.
According to Three Pronged Approach, The Management responsible for overall strategic planning and the executives responsible for translating the strategic planning to water tight tactical planning should share adequate market and competitor knowledge and past experience from the point of designing or revamping the product or service to the to meet the market demand to the pricing function so that they maintain the vision and mission of the organization well aligned with the changing market trends in order to create their market niche and also effectively respond to the market competition, The organization needs to realize, they are not the market, but they are for the market.

According to the table above, the Prong One states that Management and Executives need to align themselves and the market demand and for that, the role and responsibilities of each individual should be aligned with the changing market trends and the functional objective of the organization. For instance: To beat market competition, the organization may need to make some strategic functional change resulting in challenging delivery time of the product or service to establish ones credibility in the market/ For instance, Domino Pizza promising to home deliver pizza within record half an hour. This therefore is the management focus to see how the strategic change is working to the benefit of the organization, its customers as well as its employees.

Feature	Project	Program	Endeavours
Management focus	Delivery on time	Strategic Change	Competitive Advantage
Breadth	Function boundary	Across Enterprise	Complete External and Internal Environment
Manages	Cost/risk	Corporate cost/benefit	Stake holder returns
Scope	Easily identified	Evolving	Shifting
Justification	Return on investment	Competitive Initiative	Survival
Timeframe	3-15 months	18-36 months	Many Years
Leadership	Motivate team	Influence Enterprise	Lead enterprise
Change focus	Reduce Ambiguity	Thrive on Ambiguity	Create Ambiguities
Links	Departments	Multiple Projects	Programs

The above diagrams show the proper blend between the strategic and tactical planning in terms of market the external environment and the internal environment to tactically prepare the resources in order to effectively cater to the existing market demand and establish a positive customer relationship. Starting from the client to the executive catering to the client's needs to the organization planning both on the long and short run to keep pace with the changing market trends.

What to do to Write an Impressive Curriculum Vitae (CV)

2010-03-04T01:56:00.000-08:00

Rejection is the method used by recruiter for short listing CVs for interview. Just a small error in your CV is enough for the recruiter to reject it.

Use the following mapping method to logically structure your CV:

Following is an introductory Personal Map which can be placed as an index of your book called "Your Curriculum Vitae":

The most common error is incorrect spelling or typographical mistake(s): It implies the following about you:

1. You cannot spell

2. You are inattentive

3. You are lazy

4. You are not serious about the job.

You have only 60 seconds to grab the attention of the reader and get your message across. So, begin the CV with the Map and make your CV easy to read. Write short sentences to make your CV readable. The active voice in the sentences is the best.

Carefully select the words you use in the CV. They should have positive influence on the reader. For example “addressed clients’ issues” is better than “handled clients’ issues”.

After writing the CV, examine each word in it very carefully to see whether another powerful or positive equivalent can replace it. Your writing reflects your personality; so, let the right choice of words reflect a proactive rather than passive or over-reactive trait to work situation. The following words are often used by a passive person who responds to a situation rather than plan and implement it:

Support; perform; rectify; prevent; maintain; revise; re-implement; specified; recommended; maintained; liaised; executed; etc.

So, find positive synonyms to such words used in your CV to create an optimistic impression. This will eventually give your CV more mileage to impress your prospective employer.

Make your CV unique by mentioning even your smallest outside-work achievements. Such non-work situation experience shows that you fit the job specification apart from your work experience. For example, your election as president of your local youth club reflects your reliability and honesty to be elected in that capacity to serve others.

Three Pronged Approach in CRM Projects I

2010-02-23T00:11:00.000-08:00

Three Pronged Approach in CRM Projects I

Salient points of CRM Projects:

The CRM Way of doing business is by linking to customers, stakeholders, share holders, partners and suppliers through whatever channel is appropriate based on stored and applied knowledge. The organization will continue to enhance its overall relationships for continuous, competitive advantage.

According to Three Pronged Approach, the integration between external environment, clients, shareholders, partners, vendors/suppliers (external environment) and the management, executives and the other resources (internal environment) through appropriate use of knowledge of management tools.

This means – mapping the entire scope of services and other related functions to create an established relationship with customers, stakeholders, shareholders i.e. both external and internal clients and resources. This form of solution is a holistic one, which circumvents all risks and helps to develop credibility with value based services. This can also be termed as a Macro solution, which can be further fragmented to point solutions.

Note: Point solutions are normally associated with divisional needs or needs that merely solve a particular problem without considering the needs of the whole organization and their implications regarding strategic decision.

Three Pronged Approach is a holistic approach in providing A macro and micro solution to a problem. In this approach all the divisional or functional entities are considered.

Fact: Three Pronged Approach enables a business enterprise to align its serves and products to customers’ requirements or the market demand, without trying to lure the customer through false promises highlighting false benefits, that, in reality, are of no intrinsic benefit to the customer or are core benefits, but falsely promoted as additional benefits to build customer loyalty or relationship/retention benefits for the business enterprise (organization), but does not help in forming the credibility of the organization in the market. e.g.

· Promote sale of products through discounts on inflated prices.

· Promise life time service on a price that the customer may not be able to enumerate, because the definition of lifetime itself is subjective.

· Highlight the benefits of well organized and professional sales force; in fact, it is a necessity of any business enterprise to have one and not a privilege for a customer to be served by one.

· Event based actions and automated marketing service.

· Personalized e-services.

· Grandiose in infrastructure and frills.

These are mere false promises or frills in the name of CRM.

The best example of CRM gone wrong is the bursting of the DOT COM bubble. Virtual benefits proposed were unable to satisfy the expectations they had created in the minds of the customers. Therefore, all the technicalities associated with the DOT COM business initiatives could not achieve what they had envisioned to.

Following the principle of Three Pronged Approach (Organization):

CRM should not be implemented without integrating it with the vision and mission of the organization; with full knowledge of the total cost, benefits of undertaking the initiative in terms of both the internal as well as the external environment.

For proper implementation of CRM as part of a business process, a well defined and comprehensive roadmap of the entire process is needed. Then the CRM technology (if any CRM technical solution is being used) should be integrated to each segment or division of the process.

Implementation of CRM technology (automated CRM) in human centric process/function, such as in sales and marketing or in service sector, the existing system needs to be organized and every aspect of it should be well defined. For instance, to implement Call Centre Service as a CRM technology initiative with the business objective of turning around the figures on the dipping sales charts due to the insufficient results generated by the existing sales force, in itself will be, rather is a failed objective. Call centre cannot replace the existing sales force in executing the entire sales, marketing and market research activity. But it can complement the existing sales force and provide the following support in helping boost up sales of the organization’s products/services:

Create database of prospective clients.
Provide support in terms of data-warehousing, maintaining necessary details of the customer base.
Help in cross-selling, when the organization has more than one product or service to offer.
Provide first hand information for market analysis to be aware of the market trends.
Pre-sales and post sales support to provide extra service benefit to the customers in the form of service within warranty period and this provides vital feedback on consumer opinion and sales trends, vital for market research.

Seven Principles of Effective Distance Learning or Knowledge Sharing

2010-02-06T20:37:00.001-08:00

When designing the pedagogy for Distance Learning in any field, the technical field in particular, we need to answer two fundamental questions:
1. Pedagogy
2. Will that pedagogy work over the internet using a variety of internet based training delivery techniques?
To answer these questions, let us use "SEVEN PRINCIPLES OF DEVELOPING EFFECTIVE PEDAGOGY" by "Chickering and Gamson":

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PR#	PRINCIPLE	TECHNOLOGY AS LEVER	TOOLS FOR LEARNING & EVALUATION (EXAMPLES ONLY)
P1:	Encouragement of contact between learners and faculty. Frequent student-faculty contact in and out of the classroom is most important factor to motivate and involve the learners in the learning process.	Asynchronous means of Communication allows for greater contact between allows greater contact between faculty and learners with the varying schedules. Learner faculty contact can also be enhanced by synchronous means such as Chat Forum, Video conferencing or WebEx session.	E-mail; whiteboard; chat forum; WebEx; E-Workspace (e.g. Huddle Workspace); Twitter; Skype; etc.
P2:	Develop Reciprocity and cooperation among learners. Good learning, like good work, is collaborative in a social way and not competitive as learning now is done in isolated way	Since learners are at extensive geographical distance and time between them, so the enhanced interaction between them is possible using internet tools, television, WIFI, etc. to create a sense of community, both for intra and intra student community communication.	Chat forums; instant messaging; Skype; Yahoo Messenger; Blog sites with widgets; E-Notepad or E-Notebook; SharePoint Service viz. That of Microsoft; E-Discussion Groups; WIFI; WebEx; Free Storage sites like Picassa (for illustrations, images, visuals of related to learning projects, etc.); ScribD (to maintain documents viz. dissertation and research papers, etc.
P3:	Use Active Learning Techniques. Learning is not a spectators’ sport; therefore, it is not a competitive activity and should not be a competitive activity. Learners must discuss what they are learning, reflect upon the concept learnt, relate it to their past experience to understand how the learning can be applied in activities at present and the future in order to improve their life and concerned activities.	Learners to use tools to become more active learners. Viz. Searching the internet for more information; Use simulation games and activities available at various sites. Simulations, that can replace dangerous and expensive experiment like in the field of engineering, medicine, geology, oceanography, aviation, etc. Can be taught through simulation, which can be more interactive and therefore more effective learning procedure for the learners.	Online Edutainment games; Interactive tools found in the form of video and presentation preparation sites; video conference and V-sat sessions with the facilitators; WebEx; Television, V-Sat; Learning Management Systems (LMS); Free Case Studies sites; Free Research sites for data collection and analysis; Simulation or Avatar viz. For speech and accent learning sites
P4:	Give Prompt Feedback. Through feedback the facilitators or teachers help the learners have achieved in their objective of learning and applying the concepts or they need to focus on certain concepts or aspects of learning. It is pertinent that during the learning sessions too, learners need frequent opportunities to apply concepts learnt and receive immediate feedback on it.	Computer programmes can be used to assess the learners online and give them immediate feedback with a complete report on how effective the learning experience has been for each learner.	Skype; Yahoo Messenger; WebEx, videoconferencing; Online tutorial; quizzes, Case studies with feedback; Online assessment and self assessment tools.
P5:	Emphasize time on task. Time + Energy = Learning. Allocating realistic time lines for effective learning. This can also help both the learner and the facilitator to know whether they are progressing within the learning time schedule	Using new technologies to allow learners to learn when they are ready without having to travel or work at unusual times due to geographical and time diversities.	Facilitators need to formulate flexible and intuitive course design for the learners at different locations. Schedule should have appropriate timelines drawn according to the availability of the learners. Facilitators can use online monitoring tools such as Skype, Yahoo Messenger, WebEx or video conference for personalized approach at the time of reinforcement of learning.
P6:	Communicate high expectations. Facilitators should let the learners be aware of what they expect the learner to achieve at the end of a learning session (The learning objective)	Many Learners are motivated to learn more effectively, when they will they are appreciated by the facilitators and that their learning in the form of a report, case study, and research paper will be recognized and published. It becomes the facilitator’s or the teacher’s responsibility to remove any mind block that the learner may experience due to the fact that other learners to be aware of how much and how well the learner has progressed on the learning roadmap. Facilitators also need to see that the learners do not set too high a learning goal for themselves to impress other learners. Facilitators have to reiterate regularly that it is collaborative form of learning and not a competitive one.	Online web tools for training content creation (Creation of LMS); Skype; Yahoo Messenger; Group-Discussions through forums as in LinkedIn; Publishing in Blogs, SharePoint, etc; use of Wiki etc. WebEx, video-conferencing, V-Sat facilities, etc.
P7:	Respect diverse talent and ways of learning. Many roads may lead to learning the same concept. Different learners bring different talents and patterns of learning. Therefore, learners should not be compelled one specific pattern of learning, instead, should be given opportunity to show their way of learning and the facilitator should document the different patterns of learning used by the learners.	New technologies can provide learners with multiple ways of learning a concept and they should have the freedom to pick the one that suits them. This will bring more flexibility in learning a concept and enable the learner learn within the time-schedule.	”Personalisable” online environment such as provided by LMS, Moodle, E-Workspace such as Huddle Workspace; are a small variety of content media that provide interactive means of learning with learners choosing his/her way of learning a concept. [NOTE: There is tremendous scope of coming up with a Complementary Learning Portal supporting learning any skill from elementary to professional level in viz. BFSI, Retail, IT, ITES domains

Child Labour and Exploitation~ Are you aware of it?

2010-02-01T10:31:00.000-08:00

A neighboring family in the apartment building we reside has employed a teen-aged girl named Bharathi to do house hold chores and take care of their toddler too. Coincidentally, my Maternal Aunt shares her name with the girl. I am not aware of what the family is doing in terms of the teenagers education and future as a conscientious citizen of India, in terms of educating her and make her aware of her privileges and responsibilities towards her family and the country at large. When ever I chance upon the scrawny little teenager girl with the baby in her arms, trying to take care of it, I feel that we have stolen her freedom as a teenager and all the rights due to her as an Indian national.I am told that there are 50 million child laborers in India.

I even chanced upon a group of ladies in the locality we resided in, Cuttack, Orissa who planned to the women and children from the nearby slum on hygienic living and civic sense. They formally invited the slum dwellers to the venue, distributed clothes along with food packets and tool kits to be used to clean the slums they inhabited. The attendance of the slum dwellers was overwhelming when were to them, but their number petered down to merely five or six to actually get trained on the methods of cleaning the immediate localities and environments of the slum. Even the volunteers were hell bent to train the ladies and then use them as peer volunteers in the locality to encourage other inhabitants to adopt methods of hygiene and cleanliness. How effective the project was, I really have to find it out from my friend who had volunteered in the project.

Shall mention yet another project initiated by my Aunt and other members of "Saroj Nalini Nari Mangal Samiti", a voluntary organization working for the uplift of the destitute women and girl child working as domestic help in wealthy households. They conduct open school classes in the evening for these women and train them to appear in West Bengal Board for Secondary School Exams through Open School Schemes and to their delight, many girls have successfully cleared the Board exams and are undergoing vocational training in weaving, tailoring, block printing and many such creative vocational skills to be self employed and above all, to form an independent identity of their own and earn their livelihood with due self respect. Kudos to the volunteers who are trying to help those aspiring to find their unique identity and use it for not only their own uplift, but also that of the others too, this is really a source of inspiration for many of us!

Often I have asked many of these children working as domestic help or at construction site, whether they would like to study and improve their life-style on the long run. Surprisingly, they prefer to work and be independent rather than go to a Government school for free mandatory education for, that does not catch their imagination, nor does it provide them the challenge and adventure they face in earning their daily wages. They rather look down upon their friends who lug their heavy school bags to school. We cannot blame them for it. They are practically better equipped to face the drudgery of life and avoid the useless formats and formula the formal education provided by rote in the form of three 'R's (Reading, Writing & 'rithmetic) that are of no consequence when it comes to facing the harsh realities of life they live as members of B.P.L. (Below Poverty Line) or lower income group.

"Mid-Day Meal" or free compulsory education is not the solution to this problem. We need to organize the unorganized sector, that is nearly three fourth of the industry our country in the form of Domestic helps; workers in the construction sites, matchbox, handicraft makers viz. bangle and jewelery makers, small hotels and restaurants; workers in the agriculture fields or in trading or cottage industries. These children to whet their curiosity and to find and answer to the remain unanswered by their parents are lured into the world of crime and black market; where their imagination is wrongly used by the perpetrators of crime, terror and destruction for anti social activities.

Lion's share of Indian Industry is unorganized. Unless we organize the unorganized sectors of the industry, child labour will persist and stare hard into our face asking the same old question? Why don't we belong to the previliged group of the society too?

The next factor we need to look into is Education". Our Macaulay form of education will not help in solving this problem.
In the B.P.L. or lower income groups, children are not considered as an extra mouth to feed and an added responsibility of bringing up responsible citizen of the nation, but as an "earning member of the family"; we need to provide education in its holistic approach: i.e. not a theoretical education, where a student commits learning to memory and regurgitates, without being aware of how to apply it in ones own life.
We need to provide vocational training in the apprentice pattern of learning with a token stipend. The vocational training with basic education and above all: emotional education, should be provided according to a child's interest and aptitude, so that the parents will understand and appreciate the significance of formal education. This will also go a long way in merging division of labour with dignity of labour and also strike at the root of casteism and socio-political along with sectarian aggression rife in the society. This will help in paving the way and defining each child's life according to what he or she imagines and likes to work upon.

Following are the facts drawn from UNICEF data, which makes it evident that we have miles to go before we as Indians can say like the protagonist of the Hindi film: "Three Idiots" can say "All is Well!"

Child Protection	to the top
Child labour ; (5–14 years) 1999–2007*, total	12
Child labour ; (5–14 years) 1999–2007*, male	12
Child labour ; (5–14 years) 1999–2007*, female	12
Child marriage ; 1998–2007*, total	47
Child marriage ; 1998–2007*, urban	29
Child marriage ; 1998–2007*, rural	56
Birth registration ; 2000–2007*, total	41
Birth registration ; 2000–2007*, urban	59
Birth registration ; 2000–2007*, rural	35
Female genital mutilation/cutting 2002–2007*, women (15–49 years) , total	-
Female genital mutilation/cutting 2002–2007*, women (15–49 years) , urban	-
Female genital mutilation/cutting 2002–2007*, womena (15–49 years) , rural	-
Female genital mutilation/cutting 2002–2007*, daughtersb, total	-
Attitudes towards domestic violence 2001–2007*, total	54
Child disability?; 1999–2007*, total	-
Child discipline 2005–2007*, total	-
Definitions and data sources

The Rate of Progress	to the top
Under-5 mortality rank	49
Under-5 mortality rate, 1970	190
Under-5 mortality rate, 1990	117
Under-5 mortality rate, 2007	72
Average annual rate of reduction (%)T, 1970–1990	2.4
Average annual rate of reduction (%)T, 1990–2007	2.9
Reduction since 1990 (%)T	38
GDP per capita average annual growth rate (%), 1970–1990	2.1
GDP per capita average annual growth rate (%), 1990–2007	4.5
Total fertility rate, 1970	5.4
Total fertility rate, 1990	4
Total fertility rate, 2007	2.8
Average annual rate of reduction (%), 1970–1990	1.5
Average annual rate of reduction (%), 1990–2007	2

Child protection

Definitions of the indicators

Child labour – Percentage of children aged 5 to 14 years of age involved in child labour activities at the moment of the survey. A child is considered to be involved in child labour activities under
the following classification:
(a) children 5 to 11 years of age that during the week preceding the survey did at least one hour of economic activity or at least 28 hours of domestic work, and
(b) children 12 to 14 years of age that during the week preceding the survey did at least 14 hours of economic activity or at least 42 hours of economic activity and domestic work combined.

Child labour background variables – Sex of the child; urban or rural place of residence; poorest 20% or richest 20% of the population constructed from household assets (a more detailed
description of the household wealth estimation procedure can be found at www.childinfo.org); mother’s education, reflecting mothers with and without some level of education.

Birth registration – Percentage of children less than five years of age that were registered at the moment of the survey. The numerator of this indicator includes children whose birth certificate was seen by the interviewer or whose mother or caretaker says the birth has been registered.

Female genital mutilation/cutting –
(a) Women – the percentage of women aged 15 to 49 years of age who have been mutilated/cut.
(b) Daughters – the percentage of women aged 15 to 49 with at least one mutilated/cut daughter. Female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) involves the cutting or alteration of the female genitalia for social reasons. Generally, there are three recognized types of FGM/C: clitoridectomy, excision and infibulation. Clitoridectomy is the removal of the prepuce with or without excision of all or part of the clitoris. Excision is the removal of the prepuce and clitoris along with all or part of the labia minora. Infibulation is the most severe form and consists of removal of all or part of the external genitalia, followed by joining together of the two sides of the labia minora using threads, thorns or other materials to narrow the vaginal opening. A
more detailed analysis of these data can also be found at www.measuredhs.com and www.measurecommunication.org

Main data sources
Child labour – Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) and Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS).
Birth registration – MICS and DHS.
Female genital mutilation/cutting – DHS conducted during the period 1996-2001 and MICS conducted during the period 1999-2001.

Notes
Only countries whose adult prevalence rate of HIV/AIDS is 1% or higher and/or where 50% or more of the population lives in malaria–endemic areas are included.
-	Data not available.
x	Indicates data that refer to years or periods other than those specified in the column heading, differ from the standard definition, or refer to only part of a country.
*	Data refer to the most recent year available during the period specified in the column heading.

Why Employees Leave...

2010-01-30T04:52:00.000-08:00

Why Employees Leave (Employee Turnover/Attrition)

In an opinion poll, the most popular response was: “employees leave for better job prospects”. The next most popular response was: “Not happy in the existing work place.”

When we analyze both the responses, we find that, employees begin to disengage and think about leaving when one or more of five fundamental human needs:

Leaving for Integrity or Self Respect: Sounds strange, but is often the reason in course of mergers and acquisitions of two or more corporate entities. In this situation, often employees, who are unable to cope with the cope with the major changes that take place in the form of policies, procedures and functions, prefer to leave the organization.

1. Need for Sustenance: The most valid reason for the employees from the grass-root level is the lack of resources, financial or otherwise, that do not provide enough sustenance for the employee and his/her family to exist.

2. The need for Trust: When the organization does not keep to the promises it makes to the employees say, in terms of incentives and compensations, which is also reflected in lack of open and rather effective channels of official communication. This finally makes employee feel being treated rather unfairly by the organization and eventually questions the organization’s integrity.

3. The need to have Hope: When an employee realises that he has no scope to grow, develop his skills on the job and through training, and have the opportunity for career advancement or career progress leading to higher earnings in the organization.

4. The need for real sense of worth: When an organization counts an employee as a cost head and not a revenue earner, the employee then works work hard, does his best and demonstrates his commitment to make meaningful contributions in revenue generation; yet, if he is not recognized and rewarded accordingly. This leads to loss of sense of worth and self respect; which means the organization does not consider the employee a valued asset to the organization.

5. The need to feel competent: The axiom: “One gets promoted to the position to prove he is worthy of it” at times does not hold good when an employee, in spite of meeting all the challenges and necessary training gets a below par formal performance assessment feedback.

The ten most frequently mentioned reasons for leaving the employment are:

1. Poor Management also in terms of ineffective change management.

2. Lack of career growth and advancement opportunity

3. Poor Channels of communication

4. Office politics

5. Lack of Recognition

6. Poor Senior Leadership

7. Lack of training and knowledge sharing.

8. Excessive workload/multi-tasking

9. Lack of infrastructure and technology

10. Lack of teamwork.

We also need to keep in mind that, while all employees want trust, hope, worth and competence, they may differ as to which ones are most important at any given time. This may depend on their age or tenure with the organization, for example, as with young employees; career growth in the company may be paramount. Older workers may be more concerned about the health-care benefits. When it comes down to engaging and retaining employees at a time, effective managers will respect these differences.

Many of the cause and effects and the reasons that are mentioned here can be avoided and even taken care of as is explained in "The Three Pronged Approach" (http://www.scribd.com/doc/26099204/Three-Pronged-Approach).

What Parents Should...

2010-01-14T19:32:00.000-08:00

It is way back in the nineties, the decade of IT boom which led to the demand for Management studies. During the IT boom, not a single family was untouched by it and most of the parents wanted their child either to be an engineer, doctor or software engineer.

Even my parents, and the family, had lost most of our savings in forced greasing of the palms of Orissa State Financial Corporation officials and other government officials to make their (Rather legitimate enterprise) polymer and paper industry see the light of the day, My Father, a retired paper technologist and my Maternal Uncle a retired technical person from Indian Air force, were struggling to make ends meet at the domestic front. too. We had to struggle to even fend for our basic daily existence.

My Grandmother, who was a born optimist and my pillar of strength, asked me to teach her how to write the Hindi alphabets and how to sign the documents in Hindi, because she wanted to open a savings account in the neighboring Post Office, so that she could deposit the meagre amount she could endeavor to save through the daily household expenses. .She did it and all the money she could save from the grocery, and other sundry expenses, she used to deposit it in her Post Office account.

Whereas, my Mother was hell bent on my going to study abroad, to U.S.A. to study M.B.A. She made me sit for the TOEFL and GMAT exams. I cleared the TOEFL exams, but not the GMAT exams. I appeared twice for the exam. Every time she encouraged me to take the test, I used to make her see reason that the family was struggling both financially and mentally and at that juncture it was a farce for me to even think of studying abroad. Rather than appearing for the GMAT exams it would be be worthwhile finding a better paying job which suited my capabilities and aptitude.

She even took me to discuss an astrologer with Mrs. Rath, a friend of my Mother, whose son was going to the U,S,A, for further studies in IT. While waiting at the Astrologer's residence for him to arrive, I saw a small white dog tightly leashed to a wooden clump stuck into the ground. Somehow, I was able to identfy myself with him and had a good mind of setting it free to end its misery.

At last, the astrologer arrived to rescue us from the mosquito invested veradah of his house and he asked my Mother to get my Computerized Horoscope" so that he could answer her queries. He therefore added to the unwanted expense so that he could earn his commission from the the agencies making the horoscopes.

During the next trip to the astrologer, I refused to go with her and she returned from the astrologer with her face beaming with happiness. "You will surely go abroad for MBA studies"! she said. I only thought of the dog leashed to the people, whining to be ser free from its misery. After a couple of months, Mrs. Rath's son went to the U.S.A. for M.S. studies in IT.

I wondered, why the parents heard their children like cattle? Why cannot the parents help the child discover his or her unique talents and capabilities so that the child is able to develop a sense of worth and a sense of belonging at home and within the human society; this therefore helps an individual to develop both self confidence and self respect, which helps the child to easily and beneficially integrate in the society the with mutual benefit to the society as well as to oneself.. We need a social setup that does not herd people like cattle but as and integral part of the society in totality.

Even an animal such as dog, cattle do not require "training", which means obeying commands. They too, through constant verbal expressions and modulation of voice are intelligent enough to understand what a human is communicating to them. When we interact with the with respect and honesty they understand loud and clear, what a gentle pat on the head and gentle or loud voice is conveying to them. They get the message loud and clear.

The Indian society being agrarian had understood that nurturing an individual means mental, physical and skill development. While the Judaism believed in herd instinct. It is time for them to understand that holistic approach of spirituality is beyond boundaries and it can help attain internal and external harmony with nature and not the herd instinct.

Solar System Game

2009-12-21T23:29:00.000-08:00

This is an attempt to:

Form an integrated approach to learning different subjects or concepts that are part of curriculum with emotional intelligence; to make the school students of various age groups aware of self perception in order to help in developing their personality.
At work place, it will help in making the team members responsive to each other with more informal means of communication.
This can also be a form of team building exercise with focus on every member of the team.
The link below provides the details of the activity.

II समागम II

2009-12-11T23:07:00.000-08:00

जल के स्त्रोत से मैं उत्पन्न हुई

बनकर एक बूँद,

सूर्य की किरणों के स्पर्श से

कर प्रस्फूटित विभिन्न रंग ।

पवन की लय पर थिरका

मेरा दीपशिखा सा अंग।

मंद गति से डोलती

बन विश्व की नीहारिका,

मैं उतरती गई निरंतर;

भूतल की चुम्बकीये आकर्षण के प्रत्युत्तर ।

हुआ मंद मेरा वर्ण,

जब पहुँची मैं सघन वन ,

जहाँ वनस्पति के घनेरे में प्रकाश हुआ मन्द।

झरने के कलरव को सुन

मैने त्यागा चिंतन मनन।

मैं जल की एक बूँद,

जा मिली निर्झर जल धारा से ,

प्रकृति के दिव्य रूप मैं हुआ मेरा समागम ॥

अस्थायी ही स्थायी है ॥

2009-12-06T09:15:00.000-08:00

अस्थायी ही स्थायी है ॥

जल की धारा जब हुई वाष्प में परिवर्तन
वाष्प ने जब किया अम्बर को मेघाछान्न
मेघ ने जब किया जल वर्षं
तब समय ने कहा:
अस्थायी ही स्थायी है ॥

श्वास, प्रश्वास से थिरकी नासिका
हुआ आगमन जीवन का
धड़कन बनी संगीत सृष्टि का
पर जब हुआ मृत्यु का आगमन
तब समय ने कहा:
अस्थायी ही स्थायी है ॥

Creative Problem Solving: Coping With Blocks

2009-12-06T08:43:00.000-08:00

Creative problem solving is the other name for innovation. We usually use the term “Innovation” for any technical solution to a problem or issues we may face. The fact is, any simple solution we arrive at to cope with any difficult situation is an innovative step we take to do so.
When we need to decide on a course of action to solve a problem, we may work out a process, which may not give satisfactory result or may prove to be very expensive. The very fear of failing to effectively solve a problem prevents us from trying to solve it creatively. We can overcome this first hurdle to solving a problem by “Properly Processing Given Information”.
Step One: Try to understand the information available in the form of “Raw Data” and identify the “Problem”. For instance: The Report card of a student or the balance sheet of an organization is the “Raw Data” The unsatisfactory marks/grades scored by the student or the losses incurred by the organization is the “Problem”.
Step Two: Understand the in terms of the “Goal”. For instance: the student’s goal is to clear the exam and the goal of the organization is to generate revenue (earn more than the functional expenses incurred). Then find out the reasons where and why one has deviated from achieving ones functional objective/goal. For instance: the student, in earnest, can find out by how much he was unable to achieve the score/grade. The organization, through internal audit process can gain the needed information.
Step Three: More information can be drawn from past experience, available in the form of memory and past data, on the processes applied to achieve similar goals in the past. Use the collected information through present and previous experience to analyse the difference and similarity with the present problem to arrive at a solution. For instance: The student can recall the satisfactory marks scored in previous exams and how he was able to do so, and what were the causes of his present failure. He can then analyze the information to find his strength and weakness, which can help him to solve the problem. The organization: through past reports and auditing conventions can also analyze the past and present data to find a solution for the present problem.
This step-by-step method of using given data to identify the problem and find a solution is “Programming”. This problem solving model is called “Newell and Simon Model” This is successful only when:
Accurate Raw Data.
Problem is identified properly.
The solution method is defined clearly.
Barriers in Creative Problem Solving are:
1. Mind-set: The other term used to describe it is “functional fixedness”. This usually occurs when one, who is tuned in to an existing system is unable to work out of it. This also makes the person to solve any new type of problem. For instance, for a long time, computer was considered to be a calculator and presently, many people are unable to appreciate the diverse functions of mobile phone. This is often attributed to “Negative Thinking”. Destructive (Negative) criticism is the biggest hindrance to creative problem solving and the common example is in the form of parents and teachers, through negative criticism, hinder the imaginative minds of children to cultivate the process and habit of creative problem solving.
2. For an Individual:
2.1. Cultural Blocks: Influence and pressure of society in the form of social customs and value systems.
2.2. Emotional Blocks: fear, anxiety, jealousy, etc.
2.3. Intellectual and expressive blocks: Vertical thinking or thinking in terms of “One Right Answer”; Personal beliefs and value systems; Improper sense of perception; improper self-image.
3. For an organization:
3.1. Lack of Resources and Management Support to try out new ideas. The biggest indicator of this is that floating or underutilized manpower is an anathema for the management of such an organization. Such organization is unable to afford “Slack” in its System, for it believes in “Task Force”.
3.2. Bureaucracy and Red Tape: it prevents functional flexibility and prevents innovation.
3.3. Functional Myopic Thinking: Thinking only on the lines of production, marketing, work force and finance. The organization ignores its objective of customer satisfaction, therefore ignores the relevance of understanding what customer needs and then innovate to find a creative solution for it.
3.4. Fear of Criticism: therefore, do not put forward their ideas.
3.5. Resistance to Change: due to aversion to change in working habits, new systems.
3.6. Fear of Taking Risk (Job or Career may be at stake): financial loss and fear of entrapment.
3.7. Tendency to conform: fear of fall-out with the members of the work-group.
3.8. Emphasis on Managerial Control: Rigid financial control expects quick and financially measurable results, thus hindering any innovative activities.
3.9. Ideas are often analysed under microscope: in order to avoid financial and other related risks.
3.10.Rigid Hierarchical Structure:
3.11. Tendency for one large successful breakthrough rather than many small success stories.

How to Develop Climate for Creativity and Innovation in an Organization
1. People
1.1. People should be encouraged to take risk in their work by defining the limit of risk they can take.
1.2. Creating and Encouraging Innovative environment is Management’s Responsibility: The management can do this by providing a given level of functional autonomy and risk taking behaviour within the organization.
1.3. Management Should Respond Positively to New Ideas: Should not resist innovation fearing change in status quo. Should ignore personal benefits for larger benefits of the organization as the latter benefit is bound to be mutual.
1.4. Generating Creative Ideas Requires Freedom of Thought ~ Some Degree of Autonomy: more functional autonomy develops sense of responsibility and creative thinking to problem solving.
1.5. Motivating Innovation through Reward and Recognition
1.6. Provide Adequate Financial Resources for Innovation
1.7. Create a Spirit of Teamwork: Free and informal interaction, encouraging the members to identify individual functional goals with organizational goals. This can help in free sharing of thoughts and ideas and light-hearted competition to motivate creative thinking.
1.8. Exposure of Employees to Outside Ideas: Free sharing of ideas within the organization through internal bulletins and newsletters and also through events and activities such as workshops, seminars and lectures and journal subscriptions for exposure external ideas.
1.9. Conduct Problem-solving Retreats: To go away from place of work to a different environment to ideate together to find solution to a problem.
2. Process
2.1. A Continual Flow of Idea is Required
2.2. Review or Revise Suggestion Schemes
2.3. Establish an Innovation Council
2.4. Provide Time for “Pet” Projects
3. Structure
3.1. Differentiate the Structure: Structurally, Organization should be flexible enough to respond to the changes in the External Environment. It should have well-defined cross-departmental interfaces with adequate scope to integrate in response to structural changes.
3.2. Encourage Different Viewpoints: This can help in getting different perspectives of a problem and eventually encourage creative thinking to find an appropriate solution considering the different functional entities within the organization.
3.3. Establish Creativity Rooms Containing Books and Idea-generating Aids
3.4. Proper interface between R&D and Marketing: This will help the organization to find accurate solution in the form of a proper product or service to satisfy the customer base.
3.5. Encourage Cross-Training with well developed Learning and Development Support: More the people will understand different aspects of the functions within the organization; it will improve their ability to comprehend the problem and find its fool-proof solution.

Acknowledgement: The Essence of Management Creativity (by: Tony Procter)

Resilience

2009-11-01T09:57:00.000-08:00

When I was feeling quite low and was trying recover from a rather rather long and arduous day at the office, I saw a column in the news paper speak something about how to cope with stress. It said that one needs to be resilient to do so. The word resilience for living beings is the ability to recover from physical and emotional setback; where as, for inanimate objects, it is the physical property to regain original shape, such as the property of plasticity, elasticity. As I belong to the first category, so I tried to find out how one can cope with stress: It reminded me of the words "hardy" and "stoic". I remembered my Father asking me to be hardy enough to rough up in any stormy weather and he still compliments my Mother for stoically withstanding the onslaughts of the partition of India in the 1940s.

Resilience means the ability to cope with stress. "Resilience can be learnt and nurtured." Rapid global changes have increased stress levels affecting the individuals as well as organizations. Some individuals excel in coping with stressful conditions while others buckle under stress. Close study of those who can cope up with stress has shown a particular pattern of attitude such as "Hardiness" and "Stoicism". They are equipped with a skill set called "3Cs": COMMITMENT; CONTROL; CHALLENGE.

COMMITMENT: ability and above all, the determination to cope with stress causing events rather than get away from them. This will help in charting the course of events to favourable outcome.
CONTROL: When we commit to cope with the unfavourable events so that we can face the changing circumstances so that we can understand the situation and the problem and find ways or solution to control the events/situation.
CHALLENGE: we prefer to resign to fate rather than face the adversities, come what may. Through self motivation and courage we can take up challenging situations posed by the changing circumstances.

The "3Cs" help to develop the skills of:
Coping With Transformation: ability to transform oneself to cope with changing circumstances
Social Support: ability to get others too who are trying to cope with similar challenges to jointly develop a solution.

Escaping from difficulties cannot solve them as they will continue to pursue us. In order to cope with them we need good health, morale and conduct. These will help us to find innovative and civilized ways to face the challenges.

HOW TO BE RESILIENT: We tend to be resilient when we cope with hardships and challenges. The following attributes make us resilient:

Exposure to stressful situations early in life.
Sense of purpose.
Well nurtured self-confidence.

These help an individual to:

Commit to exist positively influence an individual to positively influence the adverse situation rather than avoid facing it.
While doing so, understand the problem to plan and devise beneficial solutions to solve the problems posed by the changing circumstances.

REASONS FOR LACK OF RESILIENCE

Lack of Sense of Belonging: Little or no encouragement from family and the group to cope with the challenges posed by changing circumstances, that alienates an individual from the environment he/she exists in, so the individual avoids the challenges posed by it.
Lack of Sense of Purpose: The alienation from the society at large causes loss of objective and sense of purpose to effectively and purposefully exist in the group/society therefore demotivating the individual to develop resilient attitude.
Lack of Involvement: When an alienated individual faces the challenges by the environment viz group/society, the demotivated individual undermines ones ability to cope with them. So, such individuals tend to be escapists, passive or aggressive in nature with low morale and is easily overpowered by fear psychosis.

(A) TRANSFORMATIONAL COPING This is a proactive mental and behavioural style to cope with challenging circumstances. This helps helps an individual to take essential mental and physical steps to analyze and devise methods to solve the problems. This involves three important steps:

Broader perspective of challenges posed by changing circumstances.
Deeper understanding of the factors influencing the environment to pose the challenges.
Then decide on the plan of action or solution to meet with the challenges.

STEP-BY-STEP PROCESS OF TRANSFORMATIONAL COPING

Determine the magnitude or criticality of the challenge posed by the changing circumstances.
Try to understand the problem in terms of:

a. How common or rampant the problem is. b. Its manageability. c. Improveability. d. Time factor e. Unpredictability. Then try to understand whether these stressing causing factors are due to:

Ones own personal limitations.
Misunderstandings.
Clash of ego.

These can be understood through introspection or personal reflection; feedback from others and the results of the actions taken.
NOTE: To be resilient, we need to constantly practice it until it becomes our second nature.

(B) SOCIAL SUPPORT

We can develop social support by constantly interacting with those around us. We follow the pattern of social interaction with positive exchange of help and encouragement rather than competition and over-protection.

We can develop social interaction map.
We can resolve conflicts/problems by mutually discussing it in a constructive manner.
Free channel of communication should be a two-way street to help encourage finding a solution to solve a problem.
Actual plan of action should be effectively implemented and insights along with feedback collected to assess the efficacy of the solution to solve the problems.

The key to this is shared views and beliefs that help in reducing conflicts in a given situation. This means that both individuals as well as organizations have to stoically explore conflict free ways to find similarities and differences in order to understand the environment they exist in and which is posing the challenges. This eventually can transform failures into opportunities to growth and development.

Swayam

2009-11-01T08:25:00.001-08:00

स्वयं को समझ पाऊँ येही चेष्टा है मेरी।
इसी कोशिश में गैरों को अपना बना पाऊँ
येही अभिलाषा है मेरी।

स्वयं की कसौटी पर खरा उतर पाऊँ
करती हूँ हर प्रयत्न येही कर गुजरने की।
इसी से किसी और की भी ज़िन्दगी संवार पाऊँ
येही अभिलाषा है मेरी।

जीवन के आखिरी पल तक
स्वयं को संभाल पाऊँ
येही अभिलाषा है मेरी।

Lesson from a Sanyasini

2009-10-22T00:56:00.000-07:00

I was traveling from Cuttack (Orissa) to Calcutta by train.It was an over night journey. My Father was with me, to help me settle down in the city where I was to join a new job. The train reached Howrah Station, its final destination, quite early in the winter morning.My Father and I, like the other passengers were all set to alight from the train, when I saw a Sanyasini, in her late fifties, trying to step out of the train with a bag and a small basket. She was small built and frail and her saffron attire suggested that she was from Sharada Math of Ramkrishna Mission. I offered to help her with her bag, but she insisted that I carry the small basket instead for her. When we stepped on the railway platform we realized we were on the far end of it and had to walk its length to exit from the station. In sheer urgency to hire a taxi to reach our place of destination, my Father hurried ahead of us, towards the main building of the railway station, where the taxi stand was situated. Trying to keep pace with my Father, while carrying my bag and the Sanyasini's basket, I found that she was walking rather slowly but steadily behind me. I found it to be quite a task to keep pace with my Father, who was hastily milling through the crowd, while the Sanyasini was walking slowly. I was trying hard to keep both of them within my visibility range, trying not to lose track of any one of them on the crowded railway platform. In sheer exasperation, I realized that I was a stranger to the Sanyasini and she had entrusted her basket to me; while my Father who knew me, would definitely turn around to look out for me and on not finding me, would halt and wait for me to catch up with him. So, I walked within the Sanyasini's visibility range and as I had thought, I saw my Father waiting for us at the exit of the Railway station. The Sanyasini thanked me when I handed over the basket to her and said, "So, it is not easy to carry a small and light basket too. God bless you Maa" and quietly merged with the crowd.

Suggestions to...

2009-10-17T20:20:00.000-07:00

...Teachers and Parents

Positive attitude in life can help you help the learners overcome life's hurdles.
Simplicity in thought and action can help the learners to accept life easily and without any complications.
Patience with oneself, will help to patiently help the learner acquire the knowledge and experience to solve problems.
Understand yourself in terms of your interest, strengths and weakness and your own expectations. Then, it will be easy to understand the learners' expectations too and help them in aligning their aspirations to their capabilities.
Have a free mind and heart, sans all worries. By thinking and imagining like a child, indulging in childish fantasies like crying out loud, singing and laughing loudly, climbing trees, making paper planes and boats so that you can help the learner unleash his/her imagination and show inclination to innovate and invent.
Introspection will help you to understand yourself, consequently help you to help the learners understand themselves and others too.
Humility or ego management is key that requires balance of mind and heart. This helps the aggressive or passive nature transform into assertive and optimistic one.
Plan all activities in advance so that you can help the learners also to do so and be proactive rather than reactive.
Learning by doing is an example you can set to the learner by being honest enough accept that you do not know the answer to a question posed by the learners and make it a point to find the answer and inform the learners.
It is important to make learners know that unlearning is as important as learning in terms of transient nature of life. Do discuss any misconceptions or wrong information and help find out or realize the required information/knowledge.
Maintain transparency in your relationship with the learners. Openly discuss the subjects like crime, guilt, sex and human nature with the learner and educate the learners to have a positive approach to life. It is a fact that human mind remains preoccupied with thoughts of all that it is overtly restrained from dealing with. This can affect the learners' progress and wellbeing too.
Through self-discipline and mild manners, we can encourage the learners to practice all this in their lives too.
Do not maintain a stiff and authoritative relationship with the learners. Allow them to freely discuss their thoughts and point-of-view with you. so that you can help them to organize their thoughts and knowledge assimilated through any formal or informal learning process or any personal experience.
Do not discriminate between your learners. Treat all of them equally while making them aware of their unique qualities and traits that can help in their growth and development.
All this will help the learners to easily pave the way of their own life.

...Boss

The adage, distance creates love is true in informal relationship, but in formal relationship that of superior and subordinate, it only breeds contempt. Cordial and empathetic relationship helps to maintain harmony at workplace.
Respond to sweet or diplomatic wedges and spikes of the subordinate by reminding the latter of the purpose of his/her being part of the organization is to identify with the organization and the given responsibilities.
During face-to-face interaction, have the subordinate seated in front of you at same level of eye contact, even when you need to discuss issues where you need to accept your mistake or vice versa.
Avoid eating or drinking while conversing with your subordinate or, offer it to the latter.
After harsh altercation, make it a point to discuss it amicably with the subordinate to unanimously resolve the issue.
Keep tab of your subordinate's interests and family too. Show interest in his/her overall wellbeing and progress.
Know your subordinate's strengths and weakness too. Do not use them for your own vested interest, but to help the latter to develop and progress on his/her career path.
Do not impose functional goals on your subordinate, jointly set realistic goals and dissuade your subordinate from setting inflated goals just to please and impress you.
Discuss a project/ assignment and how the subordinate intends to work on it. Hand over the project only if you find the latter to be confident and comfortable taking care of it. Initially guide your subordinate in starting the project and keep tab on its progress through regular updates. Do not ignore it, only to take ownership of its success and blame your subordinate in case it fails.
Maintain proper and regular channel of communication, (both verbal and written) with your subordinate., so that the latter knows that you are aware and are interested to know of his/her work progress.
Maintain complete transparency in your relationship with your subordinate so that the latter is aware of his/her role and responsibilities and appreciates the fact that his/her performance appraisal is inter-related with that of yours in terms of the organization's goals and objectives.
Help your subordinate in planning and even participate in his/her learning plans to achieve his/her professional and personal goals.
Avoid communicating with your subordinate in innuendos and maintain clarity in your conversation. Your subordinate should not believe that you believe more in information received through office grape-vine (unofficial channels of communication) than direct communication. This will help in avoiding any work-related stress and unpleasant situations in work place.
Rules and regulations are to facilitate smooth and harmonious operation of the organization's activities. They are not for misuse such as encouraging the abider to break them by challenging them to do so, by constantly intimidating them of dire consequences, if they break the rules. You may encourage your subordinate to misuse them and challenge him/her to disrespect them, if you constantly intimidate the latter of dire consequences if he/she does not abide by the rules. Both you and your subordinate should be aware of the consequences of any deviation from work objective. Remind your subordinate, whenever you find him/her deviating from work objective.
Do not make your subordinate run your personal errands for you.
Do not discriminate between your subordinates. Treat all of them equally while making them aware of their unique qualities and traits that can help in their growth and development.
Respect your subordinate and do not command respect from the latter.

...not I

2009-10-15T09:03:00.000-07:00

You hurt the boy?

...not I!

You broke her toy?

...not I!

You holed up the field?

...not I!

You stole the shield?

...not I!

You wreaked the nest?

...not I!

spilled ink on Grand dad's desk?

...not I!

You ate up the cake?

...not I!

You reached school late?

...not I!

You went to the movies on sly?

...not I!

You pulled the dog's tail?

...not I!

You toppled the cart?

...not I!

You pulled her veil?

...not I!

Why do you lie?

....who, I?...

Links in a Chain

2009-10-15T06:44:00.000-07:00

Ms. Chandran (nee Balan), our English language teacher in the high school I was a student of, had quite an attractive personality and was a role model to many of my class mates. She took the initiative to organize us and publish the first hand-made school magazine and got me to illustrate all the articles and contributions. I was an average student with not much inclination towards Science and Arithmetic, but I was proficient in Hindi and enjoyed English language. Unfortunately I began expreience unpleasantness, when Ms. Chandran started pointing me out in the class for my inability to express myself properly in English and my test scores nose dived from modest 60% to 45% I was intrigued at this sudden discovery of my lack of knowledge of English language and it shook me up too. I was not a very self-confident student and was quite introvert too. Such sudden change in her behaviour made me lose all my confidence in expressing myself in English. One day, she blatantly told me and my class mate Debosree Das to take tution from her after school hours. Then, taking tution was not in trend and those who opted for tutions were looked down upon. I spoke to my parents and they decided it was not feasible for me to attend tution after school, while my friend Debosree started attending tutions after school hours. I worked hard to improve myself and still continued to earn low marks in English. Time passed and I prepared myself for ICSE exams and earned a modest score of 62%

My question is: How relevant are private tutions? What is school's responsibility in helping a student effectively learn a subject being taught in school?

In early nineties, our family moved to Orissa to set up an industrial unit, but the things did not work out in our favour leading the family to face financial hardship. In order to help the family to tarry over the difficult times, many of my Uncle's friends started sending their children to me after school to help them with their studies and now, I was giving private tutions. When I tried to explain the lessons to the children and explain various concepts and methods of language and science, the children insisted that I help them with their home work and to prepare for class tests. In the name of preparing for class tests, I had to help them to memorise all the answers their teachers had given to them to the questions on each lesson, of course, for each and every subject! According to them, this would help them to score good marks in the examinations!

My question is: Do we study to learn and understand? Is Education in school to learn and acquire knowledge and prepare oneself for life or to score impressive marks?

While working for an organization in its Livelihood Training Programme projects, one of my colleagues, had an uncanny way of avoiding any work related responsibilties as he was confident that the project would fail. He would only observe us trying hard to work on organizing the training programmes, for I personally believe in doing my bit and execute my responsibility to the satisfaction that no stones remained unturned to complete the project.

A time came when Management tried to set a functional target on us without providing us with the required support and it was then that most of the members of the team cautiously worked on the new assignment except the gentleman, who then jumped into the arena, while we had made it quite clear to the management that both external and internal (organizational) environment was not ready to help us meet the objective. At that time, out of clear exasperation I had exclaimed at the gentleman "Can't you keep your backbone straight and your head high and clear? You are Father of grown up kids and have seen life more than anyone of us?"

My question is: Are not the organizations and the society at large responsible or each and every individual, who is its integral unit or building block? To what extent can organization negate an individual's individuality and as a result alienate itself from those it is functioning for?

When I left the organization, one of its business partners' gave me employment. It is then I realised that the lady, who was the Director of the organization, was treating me exactly as my colleague in the previous organization and deliberately negated all the efforts made to achieve my functional objective as part of the organization. Respecting the social network and the functional objective, realising that I was employed to accept failure as part of the role reversal, without any further ado, I stopped from all my efforts in innovating and improving the operations of the organization to complete a farce called Performance Assessment when the building blocks of the organization were not in place.

My question is: Like the schools, are the organizations too not responsible for its employees? IS not the failure of an employee the failure of an organization? Is not the strength and potential of an employee, that of an organization? Therefore, is not the overall development of an employee or its unit, the responsibility of any organization?

Basics of Career & Solution Based Counseling

2009-10-12T03:34:00.000-07:00

Counseling generally involves two individuals. The Counselor: the one provides the ability to understand viz. an issue or a set objective to help develop the ability to decide on the ways and means to achieve an objective. The Counseled: the one who is facilitated by the Counselor to clearly understand the way to resolve issues and difficulties faced and find out the ways to achieve ones goal or objective.

Our focus is generally on issues such as career exploration, career change, personal career development and other career or livelihood related issues. Typically when people come for career or employment related counseling they know exactly what they want to get out of the process, but are unsure about how it will work

Let us now focus on the two basic forms of counseling that are effective for the prospective trainees as well as the trainees we interact with while explaining to them the various Livelihood Training programme that will be appropriate for them. At times, while training them on specific skill sets under Livelihood Training Programmes, we need to counsel them on how to remain focused on their training objective. We too need to counsel the team members to meet the common functional objective of the team.

(A) Career Counseling:

This is useful while counseling candidates from educational institutions or those who seem quite aware and are trying to develop their career or striving for appropriate means of livelihood.

Career counselors work with people from all walks of life such as adolescents trying to explore career options or with experienced professionals looking for a career change. Career counselors typically have a background in psychology, vocational psychology, or industrial/organizational psychology.

Each and every counselor has his/her unique way of counseling, but generally they generally use one or more ways to find out the interest, ability and aptitude of those they are helping in deciding on career options or appropriate means of livelihood. These assessments typically include: interest inventories, cognitive ability tests to find out the level of formal education i.e. school, pre-university, college or other levels of formal education, and personality assessments i.e. self assessment or behavioral traits such as integrity, Kindness, responsibility, determination, team work, etc.

Interest Inventories:

An interest inventory is a self assessment tool, used in career planning, that assesses one's likes and dislikes of a variety of activities, objects, and types of persons; the premise is that people in the same career (and satisfied in that career) have similar interests.
Examples:
· Ramana, who is aspiring to be a sales executive has listed his hobbies as making friends, traveling, learning languages, etc and the successful sales professionals have similar interests and their job description mentions that they need to get new clients and develop good client relationship. They need to travel to meet clients and make business deals with people who are located in distant places.
· Reshmi, who is a young Indian village girl, but is very shy by nature yet wants to work in the BPO industry has a very good voice and likes to sing, can play the harmonium and easily works on its keys and is good in accounting work; therefore shows all the interest and potential to be groomed into a successful Executive in BPO industry

Career counseling basically consists of four elements:
(a) Helping individuals to gain greater self-awareness in areas such as interests, values, abilities, and personality style.
(b) Helping individuals to gain opportunity awareness by connecting individuals to resources so that they can become more knowledgeable about jobs and occupations.
(c) Through job search engaging students in the decision-making process in order that they can choose a career path that is well suited to their own interests, values, abilities and personality style, and
(d) Through self-assessment assist individuals to be active managers of their career paths (including managing career transitions and balancing various life roles) as well as becoming lifelong learners in the sense of professional development over the lifespan.

Following is the detailed Checklist of the four basic steps of Career Counseling activity:

Checklist of Career Counseling Steps

The Checklist

Self-awareness:

1. What are my values?
2. What are my skills and abilities?
3. What are my interests?
4. What is my personality style?
5. What other life roles are important along with my job or occupation?
6. What are the family and cultural influences on my career path?

Opportunity-awareness:

1. What kinds of occupations and jobs am I suited for?
2. How much do I know about these different fields (job description, amount of pay, working conditions, opportunity for advancement, whether there is a demand for this field, the types of tasks performed, etc.)?
3. What are my options (possibilities: further study/training, work shadowing/ work experience/ volunteer work as a stepping stone towards long-term employment)?
4. What are my short-term and long-term goals?
5. How do I make decisions about these options?
6. Provide all necessary information on options available as professional training programmes that can help the individual to avail livelihood opportunities available according to his/her interest and aptitude.

Job search (How to prepare oneself for it):

Explain to the individual how Professional Training Programme will help him/her:

1. How do I prepare my resume and Job Application letter?
2. What do I need to know about attending a job interview?
3. How to search for employment opportunities? Contact potential employers to provide employment opportunities after the individual completes the professional training programme.
4. How to prepare oneself for career in the chosen industry’s specific domains viz. Customer Service in Retail industry.
Self Assessment
Self assessment is an important step in career planning process. It is the process of gathering information about oneself in order to make an informed career decision and plan and progress on the career path by regularly updating thus information. A self assessment should include a look at the following: values, interests, personality, and skills.

When you are able to clarify your own interests, values and skills then you can understand better about jobs/ careers which are a good match for you and those which are not. When you are well-matched to the career/ job you are likely to be more motivated and successful in your work, and would enjoy the job more than the person who is poorly suited for the same. That is why self awareness is so critical for successful career counseling.

An effective counselor helps a job aspirant in Self Assessment and guides the individual to Appropriate Livelihood (related Skill) Development Training Programme, if necessary, while enabling the individual to plan his/her career.

Individual Character Awareness is very important and Interest Inventory also has six basic character traits:
1. Kindness
2. Integrity
3. Community Existence
4. Determination
5. Responsibility
6. Respect
Based in part on the “Six Pillars of Character,” these traits are seen as cornerstones of good character and are necessary for social progress—regardless of one’s religious beliefs or cultural background. The Character Development Scale (CDS) allows individuals to explore their character development by rating how well actions and attributes tied to these six traits apply to them and this helps in their career development and advancement too.

(B) Solution Based Counseling:

This is useful while counseling candidates from slums, villages and other rural areas.

The counselor uses respectful curiosity to invite the candidate to envision their preferred future and then counselor and candidate start attending to any moves towards it whether these are small increments or large changes. To support this, questions are asked about the candidate’s story, strengths and resources, and about exceptions to the problem, seeking employment or means of livelihood.
Solution focused counselor believes that change is constant. By helping people identify the things that they wish to have change in their life and also to attend to those things that are currently happening that they wish to continue happening, Counselor helps the candidate form a concrete vision of a happy future for themselves through self development and livelihood opportunity available through various Livelihood/Career Development Programmes. The counselor then helps the candidate to identify an appropriate livelihood programme that will help to progress towards the desired future. Through many success stories of candidates with similar profile who have succeeded in charting the course for their life. Get such candidates to share their success stories with the job aspirants as that will boost latter’s hope and confidence. Through this exercise, the counselor can motivate the job aspirants to overcome their failures and help them plan and move towards their goal. In this way, the counselor helps the candidate devise methods to analyse the problems they face and draw up a solution to overcome them. Thus counselor helps the candidates move towards the preferred future they have identified.
Solution focused counseling can be seen as a way of working that focuses exclusively or predominantly at two things:
1) Supporting people to explore their preferred futures.
2) Exploring when, where, with whom and how pieces of that preferred future are already happening.

Coping Questions
Coping questions are designed to elicit information about candidate's available resources that will help the candidate to decide on the livelihood/career along with the required training programme(s) and how to organize finances for executing his/her career plans. Counselor should help the candidate to organize and cope with the available resources to avail to help the candidate develop required knowledge/skill specific to the chosen profession. "It is really nice to see how you are coping with your existing resources to travel from your village to come and meet me. Let me help you see how you can work out your joining one of the Livelihood programmes and in successfully getting a job at the end of it!"
Genuine curiosity and admiration can help to highlight strengths without appearing to contradict the candidate's view of reality. The initial summary "I can see that things have been really difficult for you" is for them true and validates their story. The second part "you manage to join the programme.", is also a true, but one that counters the problem focused narrative. Undeniably, they cope and coping questions start to gently and supportively challenge the objections raised by a candidate to joining a livelihood programme.
Problem Free Talk
Problem free talk is often over looked as a technique. In Solution focused counseling, it is thought to be a useful technique for eliciting resources. Many people do leisure activities that relax them, or have experiences of being assertive, and many other useful resources that can help. The counselor can also gather information on the candidate`s values and beliefs and their strengths. From this discussion during the counseling session the counselor can use these strengths and resources to help the candidate decide and confirm his/her joining appropriate livelihood programme. For example; if a candidate finds it difficult to convince his/her parent or is not free with parents to take their consent to join the programme then get a meeting with the parents organized through the candidate.

Checklist of Support and Materials needed during Counseling
1. Venue in the form of a comfortable place where two people can comfortably sit and talk to each other.
2. A note pad and a writing pen for the counselor to take notes while speaking to the candidate
3. Drinking water
4. Adequate fresh air and light
5. Information Materials on various career options available.
6. Information on financial assistance available to meet the professional training/education expenses.
7. Materials for Aptitude test or such assessments.
8. Information on the Industry Clients and domains and career opportunities in them.
9. Counseling log book to maintain candidate wise records for case studies.

Important
· It is important to counsel that parents and guardians of the candidates when counseling the candidates to various livelihood programmes Counsel the parents during the mid-term assessment of the trainees.
· Counsel the parents on how they can participate in the process of their child’s career planning & development.

Ponder

2009-10-01T02:02:00.000-07:00

I wanted to rush to the office, so I opted to travel by auto rickshaw than B.M.T.C. (Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation) bus. The auto-rickshaw driver was aware of my anxiety, so he dexterously negotiated the traffic on the road to avoid getting stuck in the jam; while doing so, he narrowly escaped brushing passed a car that suddenly appeared on the left hand-side without honking its appearance. The auto-rickshaw driver lost his cool and yelled at the driver for causing the confusion. In order to avoid further delay, I requested him to move on and explained that there are better ways of making erring drivers aware of their follies. I broke into conversation with him and realized that all those who are behind the wheels on the road break the traffic rules at some point in time, but they tend to generalize and blame those who make them feel as the underdogs to be the guilty party. For instance, the auto-rickshaw drivers consider the private car owners as the bullies, who consider the roads to be their private property, while the private car owners consider the auto-rickshaw drivers to be the dare-devils who don't even bat an eye lid to violate traffic rules; therefore the blame game continues.

This made me aware of the fact: the road traffic of a city very much depicts its urban character, its personality. It shows how urbane the inhabitants are.

The topic of discussion eventually changed from private vehicle owners versus auto-rickshaw drivers to the roads and traffic in Bangalore and how much the vehicular traffic had increased within the past ten years. Sayeed (that is his name, owner of the auto-rickshaw, who was ferrying me to my office in Gandhinagar, Bangalore) a young lad in his mid twenties seemed to be quite well versed in the arterial system of the city roads and also had expert comments on the methods Bangalore Metropolitan Corporation had devised to DE-congest traffic on busy routes. When I further probed him to find out if he had a better solution than the one implemented, I was amazed to also receive some rather innovative solutions from him. He pointed out that most of the traffic congestion near Bangalore race course was due to sudden spate of high rises springing up on the Race course road. Neither Race course, nor the high-rises that house many offices have adequate parking space make the car owners park their vehicles on the road causing traffic congestion. The problem could be solved through multi-tiered or underground parking lots. He also cited the congestion caused by the underpass and fly-over at Maharani Collage Circle that added to the massive traffic problem at K.R. Circle. This could be solved by extending the fly-over and deviating the private vehicular traffic from Gandhinagar area through the connecting roads to de-congest traffic at K.R.Circle.

I recalled that I had also come across a mason (brick layer) working at a construction site close to my place of residence who, through his years of work experience in construction, had some innovative ideas, but did not have the opportunity to hone his skills and formally blue-print his ideas as any trained professional can do. Many of the construction site workers have rural background with ample knowledge of indigenous construction especially adobe homes and when they are trained in modern techniques of architecture, they will be able to contribute effectively in innovating indigenous designs suitable and better adapted to the local climes, rather than we aping the western architecture that are ill-suited to the environment and add more to the ecological problems such as unusual warming up of the environment due to excessive use of glass as facades of the buildings.

Similarly, our farmers, sons of the soil, have generations of know-how of the land they till and crops they grow. When they are trained to more scientific approach in honing their skills to improve methods of cultivation and the crops they grow. We will be able to improve our indigenous methods of cultivation and reduce the plasticity of western technology that has alienated us from the natural means of producing crops and through profuse use of chemicals has affected the arability of land.

Are we not depriving ourselves of potential talent that remains untapped and unfortunately disused in the form of unorganized workforce in the form of farm hands, construction site workers, foundry workers and industrial workers, who are to blindly follow the methods to eke their living, rather than train them on the job, hone their skills to use their ingenuity to improve the techniques oriented to the environment: climate, land and the inhabitants. Then we can say that we have innovated and the whole country has evolved and not just grown organically and developed materially.

Do all the inhabitants contribute in planning and improving the village, town or city we live in to eventually develop a sense of belonging so that we can dispel the feeling of alienation that we try to diffuse through blame game? This is the question I asked myself when I paid the auto-rickshaw fare and started walking towards the office building.

Computers, Information Technology to Bridge Generation Gap

2009-09-08T06:13:00.000-07:00

"Baba, why don't you write emails to me when we have computer and internet system at home?" Asked Meghna when she visited her parents during her visit to India from Norway. Father and daughter had many common interests and both enjoyed sharing their views on the current events and developments both on the national as well as global front. The only point of difference between the two was the use of technology in daily life. Meghna's Mother chuckled and said "I have failed in making your Father use electronic gadgets, see if you can succeed..." Meghna immediately picked up her laptop and placed it in front of her Father and said "Baba, I am going to leave this for you and before I go, I will ensure that you begin using it!" while saying so, she deftly opened the system and with a click of mouse button the computer was transformed into a music system playing her Father's favourite Western Classical songs, Occidental classical songs and music. She encouraged her Father to go through the play list to choose the songs he wanted to listen to. Suddenly the melodious reverie was interrupted when the computer suddenly started tinkling like a telephone!! "Baba, sit up, now it is time for you to video chat with Manik Uncle in Iceland!" She quickly pulled her Father up to sitting position in front of the computer and nimbly tapped on the keyboard and hey presto! the computer screen transformed into TV screen and the whole family could see Meghna's Manik Uncle's cheerful and animated face appear on the screen which broke into a big grin and he yelled "Hey Sagar, how are you? you seem to have lost weight and look, your hair line too has receded beyond the visibility range? What are you all up to? how's the festival season in India? Thanks to Meghna that I have got a chance to chat live and face to face with you! The families in India and Iceland had a memorable reunion through the web meeting and all bade teary eyed farewell promising to login in again soon to such web meeting. After dinner, Meghna and her parents once again sat down in front of the computer to see an old movie, which was her parents' all time favourite. During her fortnight visit to her parents, Meghna spent most of the time with her parents in using the computer to help them unravel the versatility of the machine and by the end of the fortnight, she had succeeded in getting her parents hooked to the computer system. At last, it was time for Meghna to bid goodbye to her parents and get back to Norway and her work. Her parents had come to see her off at the airport. When Meghna heard the Airline's departure call, she hugged her parents and said "Baba, I'll eagerly wait for your aerogramme..." Before she could complete, her Father said, don't forget web meeting with us as soon as you reach there and then it will be my turn to call you on web meeting, your Maa and I...take care my dear and safe journey. Thanks for the computer, I will use it when ever both of us will miss you and want to contact you..." Meghna was moved to tears, tears of joy crept from the corner of her eyes as she hugged her parents good bye.

Analysis in the Process of Learning...What About Assimilation?

2009-09-08T03:30:00.000-07:00

"Do you know your p's and q's ?" We seem to often ask this question to the children when they are unable to discern the thin line that causes all the difference between two or more objects or concepts and that seems to be the very foundation of "Adult Material World", where we identify through differentiation, which is the crux of the function called "Analysis".

This is the very reason why in our existing education system of learning we believe more in the concept of organic learning (based on our five senses) like committing facts to memory or reasoning to differentiate in order to derive the uniqueness of an entity or to group or regroup the entities to conceptualise the very existence of a "belief" culminating into religious, cultural or political form. This is the primary reason why we eventually encourage any learner to analyze the very existence of an entity in its physical form and this is the fundamental principle of SCIENCE, which deals with the material aspects of an entity and even a thought and idea is immediately given a physical form or shape.

This also makes the learning process fall short of its very objective of making a learner realise the universal truth that one needs to be be aware of ones existence beyond the physical one. This is only possible through assimilation of one primary truth: "Everything is part of one, in its entirety". This is possible only by identifying one with the other leading to a more holistic approach in understanding the existence or various concepts and entities that blend with each other to form "complete one". This is not possible through our present system of education that is based on differentiation and not on assimilation. Assimilation encourages a learner to apply various concepts to realize ones own existence and this encourages the learner to realize that differences only appear in physical existence and everything ultimately blends into one whole concept of existence beyond the physical one.

Our education system ignores the very organ of human anatomy which is vital for the very existence of the process called "Learning and Education"! It is the well developed human mental faculty which makes human realize the existence beyond the physical existence and try to understand existence beyond the faculty of senses. Unfortunately, our current education system believes in unraveling the mysteries of all that challenges the physical senses by analyzing the facts and deducing or inferring the cause and effect of anomalies that defy the logic of the senses.; so do the animals with less developed mental faculty, so are they not better equipped than us to physically exist by their natural instincts in their natural surroundings?

Let us take the example of Robinson Crusoe, who,when marooned on an island was able to easily identify with the surroundings and ultimately realized that his formal knowledge only helped him in his physical existence on the island and the act of his "Man Friday" to save him from the tribal on the island makes him aware of the "Metaphysical" existence, the identification beyond the physical identity, which we cannot derive by analyzing any concept or entity. Awareness of metaphysical existence is only possible through assimilation, which we, unfortunately do not have in our current education system.

Should we not give it a thought?

What Education Really means?

2009-04-27T22:51:00.000-07:00

On a bright and sunny day, the six year old Shiuli jumped out of the school bus and ran into the arms of her Mother. She enthusiastically handed her Annual Report to her mother and said: “Mummy look, I will now go to class two (Standard/Level two of Primary School)! I am a big girl now!” Shiuli’s Mother kissed her and absorbed the contents of the Report Card. She looked at Shiuli and said, “Dear, you have stood second in your class, then who stood first in your class?” To this, Shiuli innocently replied, “Kakoli got No. One position, but Mummy, she has got only One while I have got Two and Madhavi has got Thirty, which is more than what I got, then why Teacher said that she cannot go to class two with us?”
Henceforth, it became an unwritten rule for Shiuli to mention her position in the class while handing her progress report to her Mother. It was yet another Final Examination Report declaration day and Shiuli was to collect report of her year-long progress in Sixth standard. She went to school with her friend Tulsi and her Mother. When Shiuli received her report card, she first checked was her rank in the class. She then hurried out of the school compound to find Tulsi’s Mother waiting for them, who smiled at Shiuli and took her in her arms. At this loving gesture Shiuli blurted out, “Mashi (Maternal Aunt), I have stood sixth in the class, I don’t know whether Mummy will be happy or not.” In reply Tulsi’s Mother held Shiuli close to her and reassuringly replied, “My dear daughter, you have cleared the exam and that’s all that matters, not the position you have attained in the class.”
While reminiscing her experience as a student Shiuli, who now is a mother of young girl herself, has these questions that she is still trying to answer: We are community beings but, does our marks and competition oriented education system help an individual to be fully aware of ones own potential and how to harness it to ones own benefit and that of the community? Is our education system geared up to prepare automatons and not enlightened individuals adequately prepared to co-exist in the society and not treat anyone and everyone as a contender one needs to compete with to improve ones own existence? Our Straight-jacketing form of education system begins the ordeal of tension and stress from our very childhood and the rat-race like existence that makes an individual prematurely burn out through undue stress and strain caused by the very misconception of “Struggle for Existence” and “Survival of the Fittest” within the community, when community animals like elephants, ants, lions et al have proved it wrong through their community existence where they co-exist and not out-perform each other within the community. Education system should be a prop or chains to fetter down an individual and smother his/her creative potential? Do the parents and teachers have to educate the children through comparative analysis and invariably fail to identify the true potential of a child?
Pramila Mohanty, who is a Computer Science Teacher in a High School in Orissa, narrated her experience as a teacher:
While helping the students of Class Nine and Ten with their Computer Project and Practical Evaluation as part of the Board Exams, she used to team them up with three students in each team. While teaming the students she used to keep above average, average and a slow learner in each team and make sure that none of them were good friends, so that it would be a chance for them to get to know each other too. She used to mark them on their intra-personal (within the team) and inter-personal (with other teams) skills and all the students were aware of it. The students were also aware of being graded on their performance, so the question of vying with each other for marks did not arise. The students were encouraged to pick up a topic for the computation project either from any of the subjects they were studying in school or from their everyday life or of any commercial scenario. No two teams could work on identical topics.
It was an external evaluation day for Class Ten students and just an hour before the arrival of the external Examiner, a team realised that it had lost the program code of its project it had saved on a computer system in the computer lab. Before Pramila could find a solution (of approaching the External Examiner, who had been handed over the floppy disk of the codes that were to be verified with the one in the computer systems allotted to the teams, and requesting for some more time to recover the code), all the students of the batch had already volunteered to type the code manually documented by the members of the team and then to compile it and hand it over to the team. The students achieved this herculean task within the hour of arrival of the Examiner!
Pramila too has the following questions in mind: Why do we have to have marks scoring system of education? Does it help us to know whether the one who has secured the highest marks in all the subjects has developed into a good human being too? We say that education means over all development of a human being but in the present system of education are we also giving due attention to the health (physical and mental) health of the students, their personality development? How well equipped is the education in developing the skill of an individual according to ones aptitude, that will eventually help one to develop into a successful professional? When will the education system help the parents to think out of the box and stop pressurizing their wards to become an engineer or a doctor, etc and allow her/him to pave their own path in life?

A Conscientious Voter

2009-04-27T22:38:00.000-07:00

Any citizen of a country is responsible for its wellbeing and can eventually take care of it by conscientiously exercising ones voting rights to elect representatives for effective and progressive governance, reflecting the voters’ will and efforts to social progress and national development at large. To make this happen, every voter should (irrespective of origin, gender, religion, caste and creed):
· Freely and easily identify self with the nation as its citizen. Be proud of the identity.
· Be educated and literate with knowledge of the country’s Constitution.
· Be aware of Duties and Responsibilities as a citizen of the country as well as ones global responsibility too.
· Be aware of the Rights and Privileges as a citizen of the country.
· Be aware of the National Heritage and its resources (natural, infrastructural, cultural, financial, human, etc.) and above all the ecology.
· Be aware of the National Objective (not only in terms of own well being but that of the neighbours too, both nationally and globally) considering the previous point.
· Be aware of the ways of organizing and conducting effective governance to meet the national objective.
· Be aware of the political groups and their political agenda in terms of fulfilling the national objective.
· Be aware of the members of the political group and their credentials in terms of their personality traits, their qualification, their achievements in the past and how all this will help in achieving the national objective. Functional transparency followed by the political groups as national representatives.
· Above all, should be aware of the fact that self interest or any vested interest should not be above national interest, therefore both the integrity of the voter and the members of any political group is at stake in terms of commitment to national development as well as global harmony along with ecological balance.

Amiss

2009-04-27T22:30:00.000-07:00

While recalling my life in M.E.S. College, Bangalore as a student of ‘B.A.’ Second year, I smiled to myself remembering my contesting the College Student Council elections in 1985. I am a shy individual, who is also an introvert and had a handful of friends in the college. It’d been a year since I had shifted from Calcutta to Bangalore but had not found it difficult making friends with my classmates. I had made friends with Anuradha Kanti, who was a year senior to me in the college and was behaviourally contrary to my rather passive demeanour. She had contested the Student Council Elections the previous year for the post of Lady General Secretary but had lost. This, year (1985), it was Election time again in the college.
In the college, the Student Council comprised of President, Vice President, General Secretary Boys and General Secretary for Girls [G.S.Girls] (Since it is a Co-education college) and all them were elected members of the Council. The students had to contest for the posts through student syndicates (aka parties) and not as independent candidates. This year too, as all the other years, syndicates were formed but one of the syndicates did not have a candidate to contest for the post of General Secretary Girls (G.S.Girls), therefore were not allowed to contest in the elections. There were only ten days to go (as the college allowed only 20 days to campaign for the elections) and I had Anuradha Kanti and two of my friends and class mates: Syeda Noor Asma and Anitha R.K. approach me to join the syndicate as contestant for the post of G.S.Girls. I was dumb founded as I had never even dreamt of participating in elections except as a voter. I asked for a day’s time to confer with my Grandmother and Maternal Uncle, who were my guardians, to decide on my joining the syndicate. My Grandmother was against it while my Uncle urged me to go ahead and experience contesting elections irrespective of the results. I told them that I had to pay Rs.160/- towards the promotional material expenses: pamphlets and banners and with their permission joined the syndicate the following day. While campaigning, I found that most of the students asked me whether I knew Kannada or not and what I had done for my classmates, to which I replied that I would learn the language if they would help me do so and also that I was not elected as Class representative to do anything for my classmates ~ following the axiom that “Honesty is the best Policy”.
On day three of my election campaign, which was day thirteen of general college syndicate election campaign, I found a small white cloth banner with the Words “ELECT AS G.SECRETARY-GIRLS” covering the length and breadth of the banner with the name (SUNIPA SEN) in blue just below it appearing as the atomic number of some chemical element or compound! This banner, which was strung to the branches of a tree opposite to the college main gate, too disappeared on the seventeenth day of election campaign. The pamphlet too had the name of the candidates of the syndicate at the bottom while three fourth of it was devoted to the manifesto. I was skeptical of even getting at least 9 votes as the promotional materials did not help in giving visibility to the candidates of the syndicates. There were three syndicates contesting and the other two syndicates were campaigning aggressively giving ample focus and visibility to the candidates.
The Election Day arrived and I was quite confident that all the members of our syndicate would get the least number of votes, but was amazed to find that we were the second in command as we lost to all the victors by an average margin of 25 to 30 votes and it was quite an achievement.
I thank my class mates, who elected me as the class representative to student council and the whole class made history by becoming the first to celebrate Kannada as well as English New Year. Go on two-day long excursion to Mysore and Ooty. Get fans and additional lights installed in the new classroom we occupied as students of BA final year. We were also the first batch to donate books to college library as part of our farewell ceremony.
I was reminded of all this while recalling my stint with TeamLease as Programme Coordinator when I was entrusted with the responsibility of organizing Job Fair at Jaipur in the year 2008, with Rajasthan Government’s department for Training and Employment. We had to organize the event for maximum 10,000 people within 10 days and with no prior experience in organizing such an event, we did manage to prepare ourselves with nearly 25 clients and 22 training companies to meet nearly 10,000 candidates during the daylong event; but to our amazement, we met more than 30,000 candidates on that day though we did not have adequate contingency plan to do so nor the required support from the State Government’s sponsoring department to manage such a surprising number of job aspirants, but we did it. We provided employment to nearly thousand candidates through the event. The Chief Minister Mrs. Vasundhara Raje too graced the occasion, as it was part of her election campaign and she too eventually lost the subsequent election and TeamLease too, in the meanwhile had organized its team of professionals with experience in event management to subsequently organize such events. What I learnt from both my experiences was, being a winner or being successful in a venture does not matter, but what really matters is you doing your bit to the best of your ability with all those who are with you and as long as it is being done for the benefit of everyone and not for any vested interest.

Punjab

2009-04-04T04:46:00.000-07:00

PUNJAB
On the festive occasion of Ramnavami (Hindu festival commemorating the birth of Lord Rama, a human incarnation of Lord Vishnu, the protector and sustainer of the world); like any other office goer enjoying the holiday relaxing over a cup of tea and newspaper, my eyes caught the brutal picture of two men pinning down a 17 year old girl to the ground to let a man mercilessly flog her. The news read that in Taliban occupied Svat province of Pakistan the girl was flogged for two minutes by Taliban along with her brothers as she was found in company of a man who was not her husband! It reminded me of Sita, wife of Lord Rama, who too had to prove her chastity to her husband Lord Rama through “Test of Fire (Agni Pariksha). I am not a feminist but the news really stirred my soul and made me wonder, are we progressing or regressing as human kind ?
I picked up the book mark I had received from Ramakrishna Mission and it has the following quote of Swami Vivekananda: “No chance for the welfare of the world unless the condition of women is improved” on one side and “Faith, faith, faith in ourselves, faith in God – this is the secret of greatness” How apt both the axioms are to the two events I have mentioned. We can trust others only when we trust and have faith in ourselves as an integral part of God, the very creation: man and woman, who are a part of and are the very manifestation of God: the Procreator and Sustainer. The way we ill-treat earth, similarly we ill treat women, who help the young to identify with the environment and nativity.
I intend to share my respect for five women, whose love and wisdom flowed like the five rivers of Punjab. They have contributed in molding me into the individual I am today:

ÿ My maternal Grandmother: She is from Punjab and even today she is a pillar of strength. It is she who has helped me to understand what self discipline, self righteousness and integrity means: In my childhood, I used to wake up with her in the wee hours of morning. I used to pick flowers from the garden for worshiping God and help her to bathe God and prepare God’s breakfast and then sit down with her to browse through the holy books admiring the colourful pictures and reading some of the simple text while patiently waiting for her to offer breakfast to God so that I could then relish it as “Prasadam”.
One day, she dressed me in one of my good dresses and took me to merge with the crowd gathered alongside the road that the Late Prime Minister, Mrs. Indira Gandhi’s official motorcade was to travel by. We fortunately were standing in the front row and I was too young to realise that I was about to see a woman, who will remain a stalwart in Indian political. history I was literally clinging to my Grandmother’s arm when Mrs. Gandhi’s open jeep slowed down in front of us and I saw a woman who looked quite fair, medium built like my Grandmother and she wore a full sleeve blouse with cream printed silk sari. She was standing in the jeep and waving at the crowd. The vehicle was full of bouquet of flowers she must have received during her official visit. She suddenly bent down and picked up a bouquet and flung it at me. I was awestruck by her gesture and remained on my Grandmother’s arm, while a girl standing beside me quickly picked up the bouquet and triumphantly waved it at Mrs. Gandhi. I expected my Grandmother to chide me for behaving like a dumb child, but was surprised to see her pat my head and take me to the nearest bookstall to buy me my favourite children’s magazine: “Chandamama”, which is still published from Chennai (then Madras).

(Frankly: I have always preferred to admire the flowers on the plants and not in the form of bouquet!)

ÿ My paternal Grand Aunt (My Father’s Maternal Aunt): She personified feminity, genteel demeanour and affection. I seldom saw her lose her cool with anyone. In spite of her frail health she tended to her family of seven and kept herself busy concocting pickles and chutneys that we used to pinch from the storeroom and relish during long summer afternoons. She always used to smile and say that these tit bits were meant to be pinched and eaten by children as it assuaged a child’s heart’s desire for adventure and fun – imagining ourselves as treasure hunters while creeping into the store room to unearth the booty she had stowed away for us!
She had a terrace garden and she used to tend to the plants like her own children. She used to narrate the progress made by each and every plant and flower from the time of my last visit to her house. She had even named some of the plants and herbs in her garden. I used to stand with her in the balcony of her house in Calcutta and admire the different kinds of vehicles plying on the road in front of her house and it is through them and their license plates she taught me to recognize colours, also English alphabets and numbers. She was a chronic asthma patient and this physical indisposition made her sombrely identify herself with the caged parrots in her house. She used to treat them with love and care and taught them to say “Ram, Ram”. She was from Keshab Chandra Sen’s family and in her childhood her Mother tutored her on meaningful and melodious religious songs and she used to often quote them to help one wisely analyse a difficult situation.
During my Higher Secondary Exams, which I preferred to appear from her home, she used to bathe and offer daily morning prayers and then perform a small prayer to bless me to successfully appear in the tests. On the eve of my Botany test, she suffered from a terrible bout of asthma and in spite of her ill health she got up the in the morning, bathed herself and offered prayer for me. I was so moved by her sincerity in my wellbeing that it built up my confidence to appear for the practical exams on that day.

ÿ My paternal Grand Aunt (My Father’s Paternal Aunt): She was a pragmatist and a rationalist. She always preferred to call a spade a spade, however much it may disturb the other person. She single-handedly managed the household due to my Late Grand Uncle’s ill health. She introduced me to the rural life of Bengal and its unique pristine beauty both before and during our visit to my Father’s ancestral village. She acquainted me to the simplicities of village life and showed me how vegetables were cultivated in the fields. She was a knowledgeable and well read woman who introduced me to the Bengali idioms and folk tales. I used to enjoy her tongue-in-cheek humour and the way she used to dole out the slap-sticks on the idiosyncrasies of Bengali men and women. She had good knowledge of herbal remedies too.
One day, during my visit to her house in Salt Lake (Calcutta, West Bengal), she made me sit beside her in the balcony overlooking a square. She winked at me and said, “Today is Sunday and during the day you will see this square bustling with life. You will see the Bengali gentry visit the fish mongers and the vegetable vendors positioned on either sides of the square. Just sit back and relax and enjoy their conversation with each other and the vendors, that will give you the glimpse of the Sunday life in Bengali household and the Bengali housewives, who staunchly believe that the way to their husband’s heart is through his stomach and the poor husband weighing his pocket to find his way to his wife’s heart! After the colourful sights and sounds, you can enjoy the delicious smells wafting from the locality, all from this very place! Just wait and watch....”

ÿ T. K. Bose Uncle’s Mother (I called her my Paternal Grandmother): Mr. T.K. Bose was my Father’s colleague in Titagarh Paper Mills and we were neighbours too in Paper Mill’s Staff Colony. Grandma used to live in Calcutta while we resided in its suburbs. I remember her as a petite woman dressed in white with a string of beads around her neck. She had serene countenance and very mild demeanour. The first time I met her was when I was collecting flowers from the ground. She approached me and asked me “Maa (In Bengali culture, a young girl is lovingly addressed as “Maa, meaning ‘Mother’), can you too give me some flowers for worship the way you collect for your Grandma”. I happily agreed to comply with her wish and we became good friends. One evening I introduced her to my friends, the other children of my age group, from other households in the staff colony. We all sat beside her and she narrated an experience Ananda Mayee Maa’s Ashram: “Ananda Mayee Maa used to have an orange every day and one day, to test her credibility and her faith in herself and God, more than twenty of her disciples visited her one by one and asked her for one section of the orange and she did not refuse anyone of them. No sooner had we heard the narration, we fired our fusillade of questions to find out whether Ananda Mayee Maa was a magician, whether she used a knife to cut the orange into small pieces and used whatever reasoning we could garner to disprove the credibility of the noble soul she revered.
One evening, after the story telling session, she said that she wanted us to join her in singing session but before that we wanted us to collect Mexican Oleander, Plumeria and Crape Jasmine flowers lying on the ground of the common garden area of the staff colony. We collected the flowers and washed them with care; and then we pranced behind her to the small temple beside the Main gate of the staff colony. The small temple had three gray and black stones in the name of Shiva Linga. We all got along with our Grandmother to clean the otherwise deserted Shiva temple which stood guard at the Watch post (A small shelter for the Security Guard) and decorated it with the flowers allowing our aesthetic sense run riot in decorating the temple as well as the Shiva Lingas. She then asked us to fold our hands and sing the three hymns she then taught us to sing:

1. “Raghu Pati Raghav Raja Ram Patit Pavan Sita Ram. Ishwar Allah tero naam Sabko Sammati De Bhagwan” (This means: Lord you go by many forms and names but please bestow wisdom on everyone.)
2. “Vaishnav jan ko Tene sey Kahiye ne Pir Parai Janey rey” (This means: Please tell even those who think they are wise to empathise and feel the pain of others too.)
3. “Ho oe koromeytey bir, ho oe dhoromey te dhir, ho oe unnotoshil nahi bhoyey...” (This means: Be bold in your action, be patient and steadfast in your faith, and be progressive and fearless...)
Now I realise how true and meaningful these hymns are.

ÿ Ananda Da’s Maternal Grandmother (Called her my Paternal Grandmother): Ananda Da is more my brother than he is the son of my Father’s colleague in Titagarh Paper Mills. The first time I met her was in her house in Calcutta and I found her to be a soft spoken and caring Mother as well as Grandmother. No sooner had she welcomed us in her house, she got busy trying to prepare eatables that she could serves us during our visit and very interestingly portrayed her mundane existence to us. I used to make it a point to meet her whenever she visited Ananda Da’s house because, I used to enjoy her fussing over me and treating me with all the eatables and food she cooked for Ananda Da. She appeared quite fragile, always worried about her Grandson but never did she fuss over him. She was full of stories and anecdotes and I enjoyed listening to her. She lived her dreams and life through her Grandson without imposing her hopes and aspirations on him. She preferred herbal remedies to medicines prescribed by the doctors.
The day Ananda Da’s school Final Results were announced and I learnt of his brilliant results. Out of sheer joy I rushed to his house and hugged him with a big yell of congratulations only to realise that Grand Ma was looking at us and would disapprove of such blatant demonstration of joy. To my sheer amazement, she came and patted on my head and said that I had truly exhibited my euphoria as a blood sister would. True, relationship of heart is greater than blood relationship.

With all of the five of them, it has been a relationship of heart and their love has flowed as freely as any of the five rivers of Punjab. White was the colour of their life but they did teach me the colours of life and explained to me what life really means. All of them used to advise me on herbal remedies for any ailment therefore the following write-up is dedicated to them.

2009-03-26T22:50:00.000-07:00

Earliest Memory of my Chilhood

Yesterday (March 25, 2009), while returning home at night after seeing off my cousin at the Airforce base, My Aunt asked me to recall my earliest memory of childhood; and promptly I replied to her that it was of dusk or twilight in Choudwar (oldest town and former capital of Orissa). She asked me to describe the sight and sound, to which I replied that I hazily recalled the pastel colours of blue and pink in the sky and cluster of green trees and bushes gradually merging into the black of the night and the vesper songs of the birds returning to their nests gradually replaced by the onerous distant howl of the invisible jackels.

On studiously listenening to my narration my brother remaked, "Didi, you sound so ghoulish!!"

To which I smiled and remarked, are we all not humans in the present and ghosts reliving our past. Little did I realise that it was the eve of Ugadi, the festival of new life and promise.

Friends, I recalled all this on the eve of Ugadi that we are celebrating today (March 27, 2009)

Happy Ugadi

2009-03-26T21:03:00.000-07:00

Happy Ugadi !

Ugadi, a festival of life which marks the completion of a lifecycle in the form of seasons and renewal or rebirth marked by the spring season. It reflects the joy of the sons of the soil: "The cultivators" better known as the "Farmers". The use of Mango and Neem leaves is to purify the homestead of germs and virus active during this time causing pox, cholera and many such diseases.

Ugadi marks the beginning of the New Year in the state of Karnataka in India. It transends all boundaries of religion, caste and creed and ties everyone by the common thread of love and harmony like a bouquet of flowers of myriad hues.

I wish my friends to shed more light on this festival, its origin and evolution to how it is celebrated today.