I'm just going to scribble in some stuff I heard at the Induction yesterday and found pretty clever:
1. 30,000 days - thats the capital God gives you when you're born.
2. You are extraordinary people born to invent, make and run the world
3. An MBA is about learning the vocabulary to tell a good story
4. When you come out of the course, if your comprehension, perception and vision for the world has not changed, then the MBA has clearly failed.
5. About faculty: You might not enjoy or agree with them, but always remember that they will write your references later
6. The dynamics of existence in this school is the fact that EVERYBODY is important to you
7. If you don't make a good impression, you won't succeed
8. If you feel you are the only one who's got here by mistake, then you aren't the only one
9. Ideas don't get created by passive absorption. They get created by skeptical enquiry
10. I can't give you the statistics for an average Said Business School student because I don't think there exists an average student. I would like to believe that we are all, above average
11. If you think you have invested in faith and finance joining Oxford, then think again. Oxford takes it's ambition very seriously and our manifestation of our ambition will now be you
12. We'd love for you to not believe a word we say, but in a well behaved restrained manner
13. At any point of time the only question that matter is: Does your CV represent money?
14. This is not an MBA school. Its an exclusive private members club with extremely difficult entry rules
15. Somebody might be able to steal your idea. But they will never be able to implement it with your vision
16. I was then unemployed, or a Consultant, as we call it in Oxford
17. If you think your CEO is an idiot, it might be a good idea to not say that to his face in a board meeting. He might not like it, especially if you're right
18. No one can make you feel inferior without your consent
19. There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women
20. The only thing you get without asking is an infectious disease
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Monday, August 17, 2009
Religious profiling, but not quite
A few days ago, around the beginning of August 2009, Indian actor Emraan Hashmi filed an FIR against Pali Hill Society, Mumbai claming that he was denied the right to invest in an apartment in the residential complex due to religious profiling. Refer to the article at http://www.khaleejtimes.com/
The first was this: “They virtually had no argument, no facts to prove their so-called grievances, yet tried to humiliate and belittle a majority that has been so supportive of their careers and given them unlimited love without considering which religion they belong to.” Excuse my partiality but I have no respect or time for arguments that are based on the context of density or distribution. Culturally India does NOT belong to a majority of any sort – whichever that might be. The only time we consider a majority is when we’re practising our elective rights – which is hardly relevant in Mr. Hashmi’s case. And therefore no Indian needs to be grateful for being accepted into the community or for being treated as an equal. And the proposal to do so is absolutely unbelievable! It is for men such as Mr. Vijay that Muslims in India, no matter how simple and ordinary we try to be – are made to realise just how different we are from the masses that encircle the cocoon of our lives. We celebrated 62 years of independence this year and yet it remains difficult for the masses to comprehend that neither Mr. Vijay nor any other entity has the right to demand gratefulness from so-called minority groups in the country.
Next came, “In any case, every house owner and a community-based society reserves the right to decide whom to sell or rent out property it owns.” It surprises me that a blogger on a nationally acclaimed media vehicle is unaware of the parameters of choice that are acceptable for eliminating possible members of any residential community. He honestly believes that religion can form a logical and appropriate method of gauging the suitability of a possible tenant or even a neighbour! I think Mr. Vijay might do good to run his eye through an interesting volume called the Constitution of India.
Finally “Every Khan in Bollywood lives on the money and popularity earned from non-discriminatory Indian people that goes beyond religious fault lines but not a single Khan has ever raised his voice in favor of justice to Hindus in any incident that involved their brutalization by jihadis or like-minded extremist elements.” Probably in subconscious retaliation we witnessed the two most outspoken Khans in the industry – Mr. Shah Rukh Khan and Mr. Salman Khan issue public statements following Emraan’s FIR rubbishing his reports and boldly claiming the absolute lack of personal experiences in religious profiling. (http://indiatoday.intoday.in/
But like they say – Sabka katega. Less than a fortnight later – in an ambience where his star status was reduced to that of a common man – Shah Rukh Khan underwent security surveillance or what he terms as religious profiling – because of the Khan in his name, or so he claims. ( http://www.nytimes.com/
Maybe its time people took some notice. Religious profiling is as rampant as AIDS – and probably a lot less seriously treated. And it isn't even restricted to one specific religion. There are millions of people living their lives everyday and every moment – forced to stay aware of their faith, their minority status and simply the fact that they’re different. And they’re easier ignored than attended to. But the point here isn’t ease at all.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Of Size and Significance
Every time I would hear of a baby being born there would be all these people romancing the miracle of birth. And quite frankly I found the lines quite corny. I wouldn’t understand why anybody would click fifty pictures of their baby (who by the way looks the same in each one of them) and post them on social networking sites. And I’d categorise it as post-natal hormone overdrive and keep it at that.
But there was something different about this one. I’ve been friends with her for a couple of years now. I knew her when she was single, I knew her the day she wondered what love was, I knew her when she cried in love, I knew her the day she got married, I knew her the day she announced she was pregnant and I think that’s why when I found out a little girl was born, it was like a rush of warmth through my entire body. This baby here wasn’t just another little person, it was blood flesh and emotions of a person I’d met and lived with for years. She isn’t just a beautiful pink chubby angel – she’s my personal little cherub of insight. I haven’t held her in my hands yet. And I’m still waiting only to get a good glance at her. But I know what she means to me and what she always will.
You are and will always be my little princess. Your tiny palm and little fingers with soft pink nails etched out my destiny for me. And thank you for telling me what it is.
Dedicated in love, soul, spirit and essence to baby Rianna.The Case of the Missing Plane
Recently I read an article about the much-discussed Air France flight leading to an intricate debate on whether or not the brand Air France will now survive. This probably poses the most confused conclusion to a strained mish-mash of two unrelated arguments I’ve ever come across.
To begin with, let’s deal with the concept of air crashes. I agree that there is a large group of people worried about flying – but the reasons are mostly to do with the over-imaginative concept of hanging mid-air, the concept of loss of power/ inability to control the vehicle, air sickness, etc. I don’t think that the news of air crashes (which by the way come once in about 5 years) can lead to serious paranoia among prospective flyers, under normal circumstances. Let’s look at a couple of examples. Remember American Airlines Flight 11? Or United Airlines Flight 175? Maybe American Airlines Flight 77? Or United Airlines Flight 93? Maybe they’ll come into perspective if I mention 9/11. Yes we know terrorist attacks, biggest media overdrive ever, etc etc. But essentially, 1 accidental and 3 carefully orchestrated aeroplane crashes. Following the hypothesis above, American Airlines and United Airlines should both be bedtime stories now – not only did were these incidents ‘crashes’ in themselves, but they were also classic cases of hijacking and low levels of security. Not a very endearing combination, I’d say, the brands should be finished by now. But are they? Here are some stats:
- American Airlines is the United State’s leading airline by revenue-passenger-miles, followed by United Airlines*
- American Airlines is the United State’s second largest airline by operating revenue, followed by United Airlines
- American Airlines is the United State’s leading airlines by total passengers transported followed by United Airlines in the fourth place.
*Even though United Airlines is going through a painful bankruptcy – a combined result of 9/11, aftermath of the Gulf War and increasing competition from budget airlines – they also have a very successful merger discussion with US Airways and Continental Airlines.
Moving on now to the effect of bad news on brand images. The concept of news now is not restricted to a late night TV session during dinner or an early morning run through of the local newspapers any longer. Every passing moment, most of the world is constantly updated on activities around the world – giving birth to real-time reporting. Assembly elections to stray bullocks, anyone and everything have a high probability of television coverage these days. Without blaming the media for sensationalism or over exposure I would say it’s like any other normal market situation of a healthy demand and supply process. Therefore I take it, ceteris paribus, customers want to know EVERYTHING happening around them – which causes two primary effects:
(1) Clearly this is an overload of information and unable to control quantity of content registered, the process restricts the duration of recall. People read about incidents, discuss and debate over it for as long as media does and forgets it as soon as media does
(2) The overload of information climatises the human brain – so that a bomb blast or an aeroplane crash doesn’t affect it as strongly as it would have a decade ago. Therefore a terrorist attack in a top hotel doesn’t stop tourists from visiting Mumbai or an air crash doesn’t change all holiday plans to railways or ship travels
The concept is simple – there is more to a brand that meets the eye. And the Death of a Brand is probably a little less predictable than suggested above.Media and Governments
Apart from the emotional effect of the incident, from a completely technical point of view, I have noticed various positives and negatives in the battle of national diplomacy that followed the massacre on November 2008, which has left me with an interest in developing better media relations and crisis communication management in the Indian Subcontinent.
The incident began on November 26 across more than 9 locations in Mumbai, popularly called the commercial capital of India, and ended on November 29, 2008, injuring over 300 people and killing almost 200. The terrorists involved are apparently from an international terrorist outfit and the only terrorist captured alive is now under the custody of Mumbai Police, while most others were killed in encounter, and/while some more escaped. The incident covers bomb blasts in couple of areas, while gunmen randomly gunned down pedestrians at Leopold Café and Chatrapati Shivaji Train Terminus and hostages were held at the Oberoi Trident, Taj Mahal Palace & Hotel and the orthodox Jewish-owned Nariman House.
A couple of things brought the lack of CorpComm to my notice. The first instance would be the live coverage of the incident. Through the 72 hours of the attacks, the Indian media and later the international media openly relayed live coverage of the incident, including combats. There were even shots of police officers and the general public narrating personal stories of bravery on national television without any supervision of communication from the Police Headquarters even while the combats were still in process. While I’m happy for the media to share the coverage with millions of viewers around the world I shuddered to think that the crowd of viewers probably also included the very people responsible for the attacks – getting a real time update on their plan unfolding. It took them a while but soon the Indian Government comprehended the threat and chose to intervene – ordering all media to pull in controversial clips and suggestions. However as soon as certain websites and links were made inactive, the public translated this as an urge to hide vital information from them and this led to a new found hatred for the Government and media – which led to the hugely publicised Mumbai protests on December 10. I seriously believe that even today, with the advent of Public Relations into industry and Government, media and law are considered to be warring entities. I would consider controlling media as one of the primary tasks for the Special Force while combating the attacks. The reaction from the rest of an extremely vociferous country should have been foreseen and therefore media should have been treated as an ally rather than an opponent. In that case media could assist in the army and police activities by transmitting information in line with the bigger security plan instead of providing a minute-by-minute update to masterminds of the attacks sitting miles away. This would also spare the Government the hatred of the citizens which might in turn end up affecting the Central elections scheduled for early 2009.
The situation was worsened to a large extent by the communication of politicians on television. Even while the operation was still in progress, the Indian Prime Minister recorded his message to all citizens asking for peace and patience while clearly hinting at the neighbouring country’s involvement in the attack. Soon afterwards the Indian Minister of Foreign Affairs was seen violently suggesting ‘strong actions’ against the country in language hardly suitable for a man in his stature. At this stage these comments only created more havoc among public and gave way to rumours of imminent war which created further fear and apprehension. Worsening the effect was the visit of the Chief Minister of the affected Indian state to the Oberoi Trident and Taj Mahal Palace & Hotel after the attack with an entourage of his friends including his son and a noted Bollywood Director. The media reacted to the inclusion of non-political/ unauthorised personnel in the entourage negatively and soon this had escalated to a nation-wide agitation against the politician to the extent that the Central Government was forced to ask the Minister to resign from his position. It is still widely believed that the Central Government forced his resignation as a show of apology to abate media and public reactions as an act of Crisis Management. I feel this instance is a classic example of the misuse of power by media. Instead of the Government bending down to accommodate unfair demands by the media, they should have encouraged open discussions on the matter – to answer the public as well as give the media the TRP they were vying for. The entire incident was the media’s response to the banning of certain websites, links, news stories and images published during the attacks. Maybe if the Government had been more careful with the media and asked them for aid earlier, this very embarrassing incident could have been avoided.
The only incident which was used in its positive sense was the image of the captured perpetrator – Ajmal Amir Kasab. During the entire process of live coverage, strangely enough, the face of only one terrorist was clearly visible through all the images captured by CCTV cameras – that of Kasab. Even though Kasab was a part of the team firing at innocent passengers at the Chatrapati Shivaji Railway Station, within an hour, his image was flashed as a representative of the entire operation. Kasab had in fact become the icon of terrorism in India. It has now been disclosed by the Mumbai Police Headquarters that it was this fact that encouraged all army and police members to determine capture of this one man alive, irrespective of the fate of the others. This intelligent play of logic insured that the capture of Kasab infused hope and admiration in the people of the country and overall the army operation was considered successful by Indian public and media. This capture helped the army and the Government refurbish their tarnished images and I think this is a brilliant example of how the media and Government can prove to be very beneficial to each other.
As I have also mentioned earlier, regrettably the Government of India has not yet recognised the effect of including Communications in all law enforcement programs. Unfortunately the understanding between media and the Government is on an extremely biased platform where we live on two extremes. Either certain political parties in India have media supporters who blindly promote them or they get unbound negative publicity from media supported by opponent parties. I strongly believe that it is important to clear the air with honest communication, but at the right time – so that the general public of the country can reinforce their faith in the media and Government alike.Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Victims or Propagators?
I am an Indian Muslim. For years now I’ve been discriminated against first because of my religion (since everybody Muslim is a terrorist) and second because I’m not white (since we’re from a ‘third world’ country). For jobs, classes, or even cricket matches, knowingly or not strangers classify us into insinuating categories and we just live with it. I and I’d say almost another half a million people from my country.
And I’m surprised how even after that we’re probably the first to categorise other people. Sonia Gandhi cannot be Prime Minister since she’s Italian born. So what if we gave her an Indian citizenship? We never really meant it. It was only paperwork done for the Government to earn some Rs 250 extra.
Even today, the British are bad bad people because their forefathers ruled over us. Wow, now that’s true patriotism. Yet we need a Channel [V] and a Tata Tea to force us to go vote. So much for National Welfare. And I’m still not sure if the corporate biggies really mean it or if they’re just making some money in the name of CSR.
This isn’t a little complaint blog. We all move places, meet new people, get discriminated against some time or the other and in our own ways stand up against it. But as a community that has been suffering racism since our forefathers established their identity, we need to know better than be racist ourselves. Let’s not just be sensitive when we’re hurt – let’s learn to be sensitive when we hurt someone else as well. Let us not turn ourselves into the ghosts of those we loathe the most.
And I’m surprised how even after that we’re probably the first to categorise other people. Sonia Gandhi cannot be Prime Minister since she’s Italian born. So what if we gave her an Indian citizenship? We never really meant it. It was only paperwork done for the Government to earn some Rs 250 extra.
Even today, the British are bad bad people because their forefathers ruled over us. Wow, now that’s true patriotism. Yet we need a Channel [V] and a Tata Tea to force us to go vote. So much for National Welfare. And I’m still not sure if the corporate biggies really mean it or if they’re just making some money in the name of CSR.
This isn’t a little complaint blog. We all move places, meet new people, get discriminated against some time or the other and in our own ways stand up against it. But as a community that has been suffering racism since our forefathers established their identity, we need to know better than be racist ourselves. Let’s not just be sensitive when we’re hurt – let’s learn to be sensitive when we hurt someone else as well. Let us not turn ourselves into the ghosts of those we loathe the most.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Jai Ho
Flitting through channels this weekend, I stumbled across a familiar tune in a somewhat unfamiliar packaging. Unsure of what just happened,I decided to give it more than the second I’d decided to spend on it earlier.
Onscreen was a woman in what I would call a choli, hunter trousers, boots and a bindi gyrating seductively to the popular Oscar-winning track Jai Ho. Admitted, I am not the biggest fan of the track or the feature film itself and neither am I an avid member of the very many culture-bachao clubs in our country, but I was appalled at what the song had turned into. It was a series of lines on how the woman gets ‘shivers’ thanks to a someone who, she in turn, could turn ‘hot’. Heart-warming as those lyrics were, they weren’t the reason for the state of disbelief I was in. What really was the icing to the cake was Rahman walking through what appeared to be a make-believe Matrix-ish neighbourhood shouting the occasional ‘Jai Ho’ cutting through half-pornographic sentences.
Jai Ho! – or ‘Long Live’ - the more popular chant identical to political bigwigs ‘Zindabad’ and distant relative ‘Murdabad’ has now come of age. Not only would dhoti and sari clad Indians lounging for parliamentary tickets be scorching their vocal chords with the term but now we will also have people use it to wish each other a lifetime of sexual convulsions. It was a simultaneous gang-rape of twocultures and genres in one effortless shot. Like it if you want, but I hate it.
(Jai Ho)
(Jai Ho)
I got (I got) shivers (shivers),
When you touch away,
I'll make you hot,
Get all you got,
I'll make you wanna say
(Jai Ho)
(Jai Ho)
I got (I got) fever (fever),
Running like a fire,
For you I will go all the way,
I wanna take you higher (Jai Ho)
I keep it steady
Cuz steady is how I feel it.
This beat is heavy, so heavy,You gon feel it.
(Jai Ho)You are the reason that I breathe,
(Jai Ho)You are the reason that I still believe,
(Jai Ho)You are my destiny,
Jai Ho! Uh-uh-uh-oh!(Jai Ho)
No there is nothing that can stop us
(Jai Ho) Nothing can ever come between us,
(Jai Ho)So come and dance with me,
Jai Ho! (oohh)
Catch me, catch me, catch me, come and catch me,
I want you now,
I know you can save me,
come and save me,
I need you now.
I am yours forever, yes, forever,
I will follow,
Anywhere in anyway,
Never gonna let go.
(Incomplete. And no I won’t bother completing it).
Onscreen was a woman in what I would call a choli, hunter trousers, boots and a bindi gyrating seductively to the popular Oscar-winning track Jai Ho. Admitted, I am not the biggest fan of the track or the feature film itself and neither am I an avid member of the very many culture-bachao clubs in our country, but I was appalled at what the song had turned into. It was a series of lines on how the woman gets ‘shivers’ thanks to a someone who, she in turn, could turn ‘hot’. Heart-warming as those lyrics were, they weren’t the reason for the state of disbelief I was in. What really was the icing to the cake was Rahman walking through what appeared to be a make-believe Matrix-ish neighbourhood shouting the occasional ‘Jai Ho’ cutting through half-pornographic sentences.
Jai Ho! – or ‘Long Live’ - the more popular chant identical to political bigwigs ‘Zindabad’ and distant relative ‘Murdabad’ has now come of age. Not only would dhoti and sari clad Indians lounging for parliamentary tickets be scorching their vocal chords with the term but now we will also have people use it to wish each other a lifetime of sexual convulsions. It was a simultaneous gang-rape of twocultures and genres in one effortless shot. Like it if you want, but I hate it.
(Jai Ho)
(Jai Ho)
I got (I got) shivers (shivers),
When you touch away,
I'll make you hot,
Get all you got,
I'll make you wanna say
(Jai Ho)
(Jai Ho)
I got (I got) fever (fever),
Running like a fire,
For you I will go all the way,
I wanna take you higher (Jai Ho)
I keep it steady
Cuz steady is how I feel it.
This beat is heavy, so heavy,You gon feel it.
(Jai Ho)You are the reason that I breathe,
(Jai Ho)You are the reason that I still believe,
(Jai Ho)You are my destiny,
Jai Ho! Uh-uh-uh-oh!(Jai Ho)
No there is nothing that can stop us
(Jai Ho) Nothing can ever come between us,
(Jai Ho)So come and dance with me,
Jai Ho! (oohh)
Catch me, catch me, catch me, come and catch me,
I want you now,
I know you can save me,
come and save me,
I need you now.
I am yours forever, yes, forever,
I will follow,
Anywhere in anyway,
Never gonna let go.
(Incomplete. And no I won’t bother completing it).
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