Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Our Iceberg Is Melting!!!



Hi Guys :-)

"Our Iceberg Is Melting" is one of the most user-friendly change-management book ever and I highly recommend its reading for all those interested in the concept of Change Management. Following is a humble attempt at summarizing it -

Foreword by Spenser Johnson: One the surface, the story of this book appears to be a fable that is relatively easy to grasp, but it does subtly impart an invaluable lesson on change. The book covers John Kotter’s Eight Steps to bring about successful organizational change and can be equally useful for a high-school student as it is for a CEO of a multi-national organization.

Welcome Note by John Kotter: People do not often understand the need for change. Businesses, school systems and even nations do not know understand what to do, how to make it happen and how to make it stick. This book shows the traps in which people often fall while facing the challenge of change - using a fable. A fable is used in here because fables are so powerful tool of learning because they can turn a serious and threatening subject into something fun and easy to decipher and remember.

Summary

Once upon a time a colony of Emperor Penguins used to reside in the frozen Antarctic in on an iceberg near what we know today as Cape Washington. The penguins have always lived there and but of-course loved their home very much were assured of its being their home forever. Since they lived in a harsh cold environment they needed each other to huddle together and fight of the cold. Probably this need made them a big happy family. In this big happy family there were two hundred sixty-eight penguins and out of them all, was one Fred. Fred was a curious and observant penguin who spent more time observing sea and the iceberg than fishing like others. Though he was a social bird with a wife and a son, but unlike others he spent more time by himself. He used to take notes of his observations and had a briefcase stuffed full of observations, ideas and conclusions. All the stuff from his briefcase gave him disturbing information – The iceberg is melting and might break apart soon!!

Melting and breaking apart of the iceberg would spell death of his fellow penguins as the colony was not prepared to counter this eminent danger. Fred knew he should do something very quickly, but he could not dictate terms for what others should do. He was not an important penguin and had seen what happened of Harold when he tried to warn other penguins about the danger. His warnings were ignored and he was almost ostracized. With all this going in his mind, Fred started feeling lonely.

The colony was governed by a Leadership Council which had ten members led by a Head Penguin. Out of the ten members was Alice, who was a tough, go-getter but approachable to other penguins. Fred went to Alice and told her about the melting iceberg. On the first thought Alice thought he is having some personal problem with his wife or has eaten some mercury infected squid. Still partly because of curiosity and partly because of her open mind, Alice agreed to swims below the iceberg with Fred. Once under the water they saw fissures and a canal on the side wall of the iceberg which led to a cave filled with water. As the temperature falls, this water would freeze and thus dramatically increase in volume breaking the iceberg into pieces. Alice was shocked and told Fred that she’ll talk to fellow leaders and will find a way. She also warned Fred that some of the birds would not want to see any problem and will resent him. Fred was left with a mixed feeling of relief and sadness and the awful Antarctic winter was just two months away.

After realizing the danger, Alice somehow got a nod from Louis, the head Penguin, for having Fred present his finding to the leadership counsel. Fred chose a noble approach of explaining the issue with a real model of iceberg instead of presenting the stats and concluded that the iceberg is melting. As he presented his observations an old penguin from the leadership council called NoNo who was responsible for weather forecasting, interrupted and said “It is just a mere speculation. It may happen or it may not. Can you guarantee it to be 100% accurate Fred”. Fred was an unknown penguin and NoNo was a veteran, so some birds nodded in agreement. At this point Alice came in and asked the council “It might not be 100% accurate but God forbid if something bad happens and penguins die, what will we answer the orphaned kids? Will we answer that we knew and did not act?” She continued “We should let everyone know about it and arrive at a solution which everyone will agree with.” On this again a section of council led by NoNo said that it would create “unnecessary” panic and we should stick to creating a committee like we do in normal problems. Hearing this Fred came up with an idea and said while showing a glass bottle “This looks like ice, but is not ice. It does not melt and my father had found it near the shore. What we can do is to fill it with water and seal it with a fish bone. If on freezing during the night it explodes, we call an assembly or we go with business as usual.” Everyone agreed and the bottle was kept under supervision of a penguin called Buddy. Next morning the bottle was found broken and Louis ordered to call an assembly without letting the birds know why it is being called. The meeting began and Alice told abut her swim to the cave, Fred about his observation and Buddy about the bottle to all the penguins. Louis concluded by saying that they will find a way out of it – together. Penguins were shocked but aware and were all thinking. As leaders Alice and Louis had taken the first right step by “reducing complacency and increasing urgency”.

After the meeting, a lot of people gave all kinds of advice to Louis on who should be assigned to solve the problem. Louis however kept his head and called Alice, Fred, Buddy and Jordan aka Professor to form the core team for finding the solution to the problem. Louis had experience and commanded respect of others, Alice was aggressive and treated everybody as equal, Buddy was well-trusted and liked, Fred was curious and creative and Professor was well-read and fascinated by challenging questions. The team looked perfect but had their initial struggle because they were trying to contribute as individuals. At this time Louis took them out for a team building activity in form of hunting for squids. Louis had been successful in taking the second step of “pulling together a team to guide the needed change.”

Later in day Alice suggested that the core team should take suggestions from the rest of the population and the team agreed after a brief discussion. After a few well, weird suggestions from some birds one old penguin suggested that they should now try something new. Professor nodded and took the team westwards. Just then Fred spotted a seagull flying in the sky. Everyone was surprised because seagulls are not normally found in Antarctica. Fred said that seagulls do not have fixed houses and so can we and doubled the shock of the group. Regaining her composure Alice said “I guess we should find out some information about it first.” When they finally found the seagull again, Buddy approached him in a gentle manner and asked about him. Seagull now comfortable with their presence told “I am a scout and I go ahead of my group to find out where we go next. We are traveling nomads, you see.” Hearing this, everyone got thinking and could see it as a way of life for themselves. Of course, with some modifications. Even though Professor had a lot of questions in mind, he slept well that night. He knew that they have succeeded in creating a vision.

Next morning Louis called for an assembly of the entire colony again. He wanted to talk about what the core team saw yesterday and wanted to keep it simple for there were a lot of slower birds in the colony. He was very charismatic in his approach and asked the colony “Do we respect each other? Are e disciplined? Do we have a strong sense of responsibility? Do we all stand for brotherhood and love for our young?” Each question followed with an enthusiastic “Yes” from the audience. He then to make a point asked “Is this because of an iceberg? Are we an iceberg?” Many got his point and some were confused and after a lull, a big “No” came up. Louis then called Buddy to talk of the seagull story and penguins were mesmerized with his wonderful story-telling. After the assembly was over, Alice suggested that ice-posters should be placed all over the colony and even under the sea, to remind the birds of the vision which was communicated in the meeting.

A small group of thirty to forty birds started working on selection of scouts, mapping the trips and logistics of moving the colony. Louis was happy but then he received mixed set of news from various quarters of the colony. The enthusiasm in the birds was increasing and a lot of teenagers wanted to be scouts, less for the vision and more for the excitement. NoNo and his friends were trying to brain-wash the colony, and a few were listening. Young kids were getting nightmares because of the stories kindergarten teacher was telling, nobody knew why she was doing it. Some members of the Leadership Council wanted a committee to select scouts and were infighting for its chairmanship. Penguins needed to eat a lot of fish to build up the fat for fighting the winter and the scouts would not get enough time to fish. Moreover it was not a tradition in the colony that adults fish for other adults. All these factors led a lot of birds to give up the work they were doing to realize the vision. Concerned by all these events the core team met and got their heads together to fix the problems. To start with Louis got Professor to go wherever NoNo went and prevent birds from being brainwashed with his immaculate logic. He then addressed the infighting of the members of the leadership council with a firm “Enough”. Meanwhile Buddy met the teacher of kindergarten and removed her fear by telling her that she will still be needed to teach even more in a changing world. Inspired by this the teacher told encouraging stories to the children and inspired them to be a hero. Alice inspired a young chick called Sally Ann and with the help of the teacher she got the students to celebrate a “Tribute to Our Heroes Day” wherein the parents of the chicks would catch fish for the scouts. It was a new thing; everyone was feeling empowered, even the small children.

Looking ahead Louis told Fred that now they need to get some evidence that they are moving forward in the right direction. He asked him to dispatch a chosen group of scouts while ensuring they all return safely. While NoNo was spreading more and more fear, Sally Ann’s idea of “Tribute to Our Heroes Day” worked wonders to gather the fish for the scouts. This day was to include a raffle, performances, a band and a flea market and entry fee was two fishes per adult. Children ensured that both their parents attended it: awkwardness on the parents died a slow death. Eventually the scouts returned with a lot of information and some injuries. A quick response team set up by Alice tended to their injuries, but the scouts were beaming with joy of accomplishment. They feasted on the fishes from “Tribute to Our Heroes Day” and were given an ice-medal with hero written on it from the children. Sally Ann too received one of those. Colony had tasted what an MBA looking penguin called “short term win”.

Inspired by the work of the first wave of scouts a lot more birds volunteered for the next wave. Louis knew that it will be more crucial than the last wave, selected scouts for this trip himself. The scouts from this wave again returned with safety and were engaged in discussion by the Professor to filter the opinions from the facts. With what he gathered they had found a new iceberg which looked suitable. Under the able leadership of Louis the migration began. Problems arose but were addressed successfully by collective efforts of the core team. NoNo was still predicting doom. However the new home had lesser problems than some skeptic birds had anticipated. Next season the scouts found yet another iceberg which looked better – bigger and with better fishing grounds. The colony moved and the migration this season was easier. It was a critical step: not being complacent and “not letting up”.

The colony was happy and its then Alice convinced Louis that he should shake up the leadership council and let go of the stuck-up members. A tough selection process was put in place for scout selection and the scouts were fed extra fish with their status going up in the society. In the school “Scouting” was added as a required curriculum. Fred was made head of scouts, Professor was made the chief weather forecaster and Alice subsequently took over as the Head penguin from Louis. All this to ensure that the hard brought changes would not be overcome by “stubborn, hard-to-die traditions”.

Changing and Succeeding: Read and Reflect, this two point approach will do wonders.

The Eight Step Process to Successful Change:

  • Set the Stage

1. Create a Sense of Urgency

2. Pull Together the Guiding Team

  • Decide What to Do

3. Develop the Change Vision and Strategy

  • Make it Happen

4. Communicate for Understanding and Buy In

5. Empower Others to Act

6. Produce Short-Term Wins

7. Don’t Let Up

  • Make it Stick

8. Create a New Culture

Saturday, September 5, 2009

The chicken crossed the road because -


He smokes two joints in the morning and smokes two joints at night, he smokes two joints in the afternoon and crosses the road alright.
- Bob Marley

Daylight coma and it wanna go home
-Harry Belafonte

He had a home, the love of a hen, but chicken get lost sometimes, as years unfurl, one day he crossed some road, and he was too much in this world, but I guess it doesnt matter anymore.
- Don Henley (Eagles)

He never cared for what they say, never cared for games they play, never cared for what they do, never cared for what they know, and I know.
-James Hetfield (Metallica)

She's packin' up her stuff and talkin' like it's tough and tryin' to tell me that it's time to go, but I know this chick ain't wearin' nothin' underneath that overcoat.....I go crazy, crazy, baby, I go crazy.
-Steven Tyler (Aerosmith)

He was told "come as you are, as you were, as the hen wants you to be, as a friend, as a friend, as a known memory, take your time, hurry up, the choice is your, don't be late, take a rest, as a friend, as a known memory"
- Kurt Cobain (Nirvana)

It's a chicken who walks alone, and when he's walking a dark road, at night or strolling through the park, when the light begins to change, he sometimes feel a little strange, he's a little anxious when its dark, fear of the dark, fear of the dark, he has a constant fear that someones always near, fear of the dark, fear of the dark, he has a phobia that someones allways there
- Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden)

She's a chicken who's sure all that glitters is gold, and she's crossing the road to heaven, when she gets there she knows, if the stores are all closed, with a word she can get what she came for... Oohooh ...and she's crossing the road to heaven.
- Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin)

The reason is you.
- Douglas Rob (Hoobastank)

He dreams of Californication.
- Anthony Kiedis (Red Hot Chilli Peppers)

He crossed a lonely road on the boulevard of broken dreams, where the city sleeps
and he's the only one and he walks alone.
- Billy Joe Armstrong (Green Day)

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Disamusement Park Visit


Last Sunday I went to the place which I had pledged as a five year old to never visit again. I believe that this evil design was on the agenda of it's-complicated-duo for some time now. Zoozoo supposedly had this childhood dream of going to this place where children are supposed to 'enjoy'. She seemingly did that after some good 15 years of her no longer being a child. Gone Abraham didn't seem to enjoy the place though. He had to be all macho shit even though he was terrified of the 'attractions'. The it's-complicated-duo got sexually-frustrated-lads on board with the lure of some girl friends of Zoozoo who would be accompanying them. In turn they got me on board and since I am working on increasing my 'expressed inclusion' scores : I agreed. The place was an age old amusement park with lots of rides with all kind of rotations possible. Way back in time, as a five years old I had puked my heart out there. My father almost disowned me there because of that!

So here we were with the planners - its-complicated-duo and they had planned nothing. Gone-Abraham's GK of local trains' shit was horrible too. As an icing on the cake, they didn't bring any of Zoozoo's friends. Of course 'sexually frustrated lads'' were grossly demotivated. Meanwhile I was happy as my girlfriend (who is no less then Lara Dutta of No Entry) would not get another reason to torment me any further. She by the way had expressed her displeasure that I once vetoed her proposal of going to this childish amusement park and now I was going with my friends. She also made me promise that I would take her there next time she's in Bombay. But that day was very much dominated by Zoozoo. She was being the mother of us toddlers. I and 'Hairy' one of the two 'sexually frustrated lads' decided to put our foot down and say no to all rides with 'circular motion'. 'Stalker' the second of the two 'sexually frustrated lads' was almost matching Zoozoo's zest for these rides, and he was visibly sad as I and Hairy deserted him in one of the circular-rides. He did not take that ride and did not talk to us till we took the next water splashing ride with him. At the end of the day Gone Abraham was totally gone. He gave up his pretentious macho self and slept under a tree. Yes under a god damn dirty tree. We and Zoozoo meanwhile went to the mazes and a haunted house. Now it was the time to turn the tables. Suddenly we were the braver ones and Zoozoo was the chicken. This gave us a good opportunity to balance the power-equation and even Gone Abraham took his revenge from her. I named her Zoozoo, but she thought it was Hairy. In retaliation she named him zoozee which actually is neither funny nor intelligent. So we will stick to calling him Hairy. While coming back from that hellhole we all reached a secluded beach instead of the place we took our boats from, in the morning. Thanks to Zoozoo. There all five of us had to adjust in a three-seater auto-rickshaw. Zoozoo's over indulgence with the auto-guy's meter almost got us kicked out of it though. I have again taken a resolution that I will never go to this place again. I hope my Lara Dutta will let me keep it!

Anyway we are going to neo-family-guy's place this Saturday for dinner. His family had called us and re-extended the invitation. We are enjoying this motherly affection. I am also reading some stuff on 'behavioral economics' these days. I am sure I'll have some good stuff to post here in coming days.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

India: A Wounded Civilization


I have just finished reading ‘India: A Wounded Civilization” by V.S. Naipaul. It is second among the famous Indian trilogy of Naipaul. May seem insensitive and hurt “hurtable” sensitivities of a certain section of Indian population. It is actually good if they get hurt, for it may give them a chance to escape the clutches of their blindness towards India. If you think people pooping on the railway tracks are ‘just having their being’, you ought to be blind: blind to what India should be. In this case, stay warned from any further reading of this post and reading the book should be as bad as rape for you!

P.S.- The book was written during the emergency days. Please keep the circumstances and the context in mind.

I have put up my interpretation of the book and some 13 odd quotes from it. If you want to contest it, please feel free to contact me.

Summary

Part I - The rich cultural heritage and history of ancient India seems to just go on. The riches of the ancient world and the plunders of the medieval times do not seem to bury down with the burden of centuries which India has been through, since then. Indians, awed by their history, prefer to recreate it, rather than create a new future with some inspiration from the outside as well. Even the Vijayanagar capital, he says, was a recreation of past glory - built with ancient-looking monuments in medieval times. Looking at all the wrongs all around them the Indian attitudes inspired by the inertness of Hinduism’s concepts of whatever happens is god’s will do not let the average Indians act and make these wrongs right. They are so deep rooted that a “freedom fighter” refuses to pay sales tax, for he was never a ‘freedom fighter’ anyway. He was just following the Hindu tradition of following the sage, who happens to be Mahatma Gandhi.

Part II - The urban India of 1970s was represented by Bombay where Shiv Sena was assuming power on the streets and the chawls which were perennially ignored. At ground level, Shiv Sena’s inception was against the rejection the deprived class faced every day in Bombay. However looking at the chawls closely people lived among their own excrement because cleaning it was not their business – it was the sweepers’. Again the Indian attitude of inaction surfaces under the wraps of caste-system which Indians feel so secure in. This class divide is also present in the poorest and remotest of the villages. There are people who have land and people who do not have land. Amongst those who have land some are masters and some yet are not. The landless flee from the landlessness and the tyranny of the masters; the masters find solace in the feeling of being masters. They both still lead a pitiful life. In such a scenario came Naxalites who “knew solution better than the problem”. Suffering persists.

Part III - Looking at MK Gandhi the hero, the mahatma himself; he as a young man went to England and later to South Africa, to explore and returned with a reinforced conviction to focus inwards. This came from the ‘Hindu need’ to reassert, to protect its identity among hostility. It is often not the hostility but it is the Indian fear of being corrupted by the foreigners as expressed by his Gujrati merchant family for him. An Indian’s identity comprises of one’s surroundings. It is lost if the system, caste, background and relatives collapse. It took India a ‘foreign made Mahatma’ to assume independence. ‘Foreign made’ as it was only in England and South Africa’s unfamiliarity and hostility did Gandhi go through soul-searching and chose to become what he was.

Post independence for the benefit of masses the concept of ‘intermediate technology’ assumed shape. The concept seems good but the mix of imported science and Indian sensitivities are making ‘intermediate technology’ a hindrance rather than an enabler. In the ‘National Institute of Design’ which is an imported concept, students work on peasant’s equipments and the furniture is being repaired by somebody from the family of the wood smiths. A hotchpotch of two irreconcilable concepts indeed! To fulfill the needs of India the use of technology calls for the clearest vision and highest skills. Same is the situation with press, law and the administration. They have to match Indian needs with a very clear vision driven by the skills sets desired for the same. India has to break free from the past it has been clinging to, which probably has been given to Indians by the foreigners and which may not be true.

Post independence the Gandhian way has been talked a lot about. Gandhians hardly follow it in its true spirit though. They do of course practice the rediscovery of old ways – simplicity. It is exactly opposite of what India was committed to post independence. It was committed to glory. Only opposite of this simplicity is seen in the red-tapism and dirty politics. This sense of simplicity perhaps is the withdrawal from the challenges coming India’s way on road to development which seemed almost impossible. Same old Indian attitude of defeat and disconnecting from the external environment to preserve a false sense of calmness!

Gandhi was able to do what other leaders of that time could not because he was not representing a religion, caste or region. He was representing the Indian race. This concept was alien to Indians who always saw differences amongst each other. After Gandhi was long gone, his followers through their actions exhibited that they do not follow Gandhi’s version of Gandhism. Gandhism to them was a solace still of the conquered people. This happened because Gandhi though awakened India, he did not leave an ideology behind. Or probably his ideology got diluted when he practiced his Hindu version of nationalism and was declared a mahatma. His uniqueness of being the leader of Indian race was engulfed by the Hindu traditions which has been fostering Indian attitude of withdrawal. The bottom line is that the attitudes (religious and political) Indians have been sticking to are like the trap-doors to the bottomless past and Indians need to shut them for once and for all.

Quotable Quotes

1) “No civilization was so little equipped to cope with the outside world; no country was so easily raided and plundered, and leaned so little from its disasters.”

2) ‘India in the late twentieth century still seems so much itself, so rooted in its own civilization, it takes time to understand that its independence has meant more than the going away of the British; that the India to which Independence came was a land of far older defeat; that the purely Indian past died a long time ago.”

3) “It (non-violence) is only a means of securing an undisturbed calm; it is nondoing, noninterference, social indifference’.

4) “These modern-sounding words (non-violence), which reconcile Srinivas to the artist’s predicament, disguise an acceptance of karma, the Hindu killer, the Hindu calm, which tells us that we pay in this life for what we have done in past lives: so that everything we see is just and balanced, and the distress we see is to be relished as religious theatre, a reminder of our duty to ourselves, our future lives.”

5) “Hinduism hasn’t been good enough for the millions. It has exposed us to a thousand years of defeat and stagnation. It has enslaved one quarter of the population and always left the whole fragmented and vulnerable. Its philosophy of withdrawal has diminished men intellectually and not equipped them to respond to challenge; it has stifled growth. So that again and again in India history has repeated itself: vulnerability, defeat, withdrawal.”

6) “It was the business of the sweepers to remove excrement, and until the sweepers came, people were content to live in the midst of their own excrement.”

7) “Hindu India, decaying for centuries, constantly making itself archaic, had closed up; and the rules of Gandhi’s Gujrati merchant caste- at one time great travelers – now forbade travel to foreign countries. Foreign countries were polluting to pious Hindus; and no one of the caste had been to England before.”

8) “’We Indians’ Kakar (a psychiatrist) says, ‘use the outside reality to preserve the continuity o the self amidst an ever changing flux of outer events and things.’

9) “To match technology to the needs of a poor country calls for the highest skills, the clearest vision”.

10) “At its core were the old Indian attitudes of defeat, the idea of withdrawal, a turning away from the world, a sinking back into the past, the rediscovery of old ways, ‘simplicity’.

11) “But perhaps this idea of simplicity – though backed up in the Indian way by quotations from Western sources, and presented as a basis for political action – was something more debilitated, something older. Perhaps it was no ore than a turning away from the difficulties of a development that had been seen to be impossible, a consequent intellectual surrender, a religious giving up, a yielding to old Indian fantasy: the mythical sense of the Indian past, the idea of eternal Indian forever spontaneously having its rebirth and growth, the conversion of the destitution and serfdom of rural Indian (and the heavy-footed vultures squabbling in the rain over the bloated carcasses of dead animals) into a memory of pastoral: a memory of the time, so recent, just out of reach, when people knew the undefiled gods, and the gods gave Brahmins all the answers, and the bull drew the plough and the cow gave milk, and the manure of these animal enriched the fields, and the stalks of the harvest thatched the simple huts of the pure.”

12) “Gandhism to them was a solace still of the conquered people.”

13) “Gandhi swept through India, but he has left it without an ideology. He awakened the holy land; his mahatmahood returned it to archaism; he made his worshippers vain.”

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Shallow Hal


Last Sunday I was at this neighborhood mall. My friends were accompanying me. The neo-family-guy and the other two sexually-frustrated-lads. Now this mall is famous for the PYTs it attracts. These PYTs are not so visible in the other malls and regular places. It is like a babe-attack. They come. They conquer. They vanish. I mean as soon as you are out of the mall. Whoop and they are not there. They are not at the station. They are not in the car nearby. They are not on the road. They just dissolve in the thin air. NASA can actually look into it.

Speaking of the babe-attack. There is another attack - the 'chink-attack'. We witness it every now and then at the same blessed place. Now I am not racist. I am even for allowing business/romantic/business-o-romantic relations with the aliens. You go hump an alien me no give no fuck. My shotgun may. Anyway you can safely call me the most liberal dude who ever smoked weed under the dark perspiring sky. So coming back to the 'chink-attack'. They are chinks as we need to have chinks for a 'chink-attack'. So what's so great with it? Well they are all posh chinks. They stand out. No man all chinks do not look the same. There are some Indian chinks. Good chinks yet dirty chinks. Then we have some Japanese chinks. Posh chinks. Probably some extra dollars on the Indian side would have wiped out the difference. Anyway I could not figure out their 'town centre' as yet. Will let you horny bastards know as soon as my 'sexually-frustrated-lads discover their 'town centre' in one ot their voyages.

So, we were at this mall this Sunday. By devil's grace none of us are overweight despite of the gallons of beer running through our veins. So I was there to buy two chickens which I usually finish over a period of five days. Till the time we reached our usual supply centre in that mall, we encountered a lot of people - men and women. What was surprising that a majority of them were either very fat or very old. For a moment I was wondering if Baba Ramdev, the one eyed pirate was around or we were cursed with fat and old inhabitants of some alien land. Here we were and there was no babe-attack, no chink-attack and all the fatsos and oldies were looking down upon us, or only I felt so. A disappointing trip for my sexually -frustrated-lads. Me and the neo-family-guy were more bothered about our respective chicks. In my case I mean the chicken.

However we ended up buying two futons for us that day. We did not go there with an intension to buy anything that is not food or alcohol. That is the power of recommendation. Neo-family-guy's family gave some good review and highlighted all the plus points of a futon. If you do not know what a futon is, you should go and kill yourself. Yes I love saying this. 'If I were you, I would have killed myself' is something I have said to almost everyone I can. Anyway now we have a stinky flat we rented last year full of cigarette buds and beer cans with two futons trying to fix the haunted-house kind of look it has.

Monday, May 4, 2009

What is Hindutva

"Hindutva is the escape for some from the sense of violation, deprivation and above all weakness. It is the weakness of character and the bankruptcy of the civilization itself. It has been the same thousands of years ago when the same village idiots of the victims labeled their to be plunderers as 'malechas'. Some Hindus still choose to identify with them. They choose to be proud of the kingdom of Vijayanagar without knowing a shit about it, while hating the Mughals without knowing Akbar from Aurangzeb..

This escape is like the fate of Trishanku and the eternal fall and suffering of Lucifer. The remedy to that sense of weakness is not outside, but within.

I'll recommend cutting your own chicken to cook, for the Hindutwa brigade."

This excerpt from a random post of mine in a random forum is good enough for being the dictionary meaning of the term sanghis have created.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Pakistani Call Centre



"I was so depressed last night, and I called a counseling helpline. Incidentally my call got attended in a Pakistani call center. I told them that I was suicidal, and they excitedly asked me if I am comfortable wearing a wired vest!"