What I want to share is just a personal opinion, hoping to know what others think about it.

I was travelling in the U.S recently and had a chance to interact to few of my close friends from college.When we were discussing about our kids and how they have grown are interacting with us, this thought came across to me.

Is Indian culture about the way we talk, behave, dress or arts etc? I felt maybe it is something a little different.

There are two traits which is strong in the environment which makes the Indian culture Hierarchy and Resource Constraints.

 Hierarchy

Whether we like it hierarchy exists everywhere, but it is transforming. In my house even today I take permission( to be honest at least FYI my dad if I am going to be late in coming back). One thing this helps me in work it is much easier for me handle hierarchies than my counterparts in U.S. Interestingly they grew here but have spent close to 20 years there that their thinking has transformed. I am not judging that it is good or bad here. It is an observation. They find it difficult to comprehend this rules of hierarchy in functioning of systems at work or outside. I find U.S returned colleagues struggling to adapt this culture over here.

Resource Constraints

There are resource constraints every where in India. From roads to housing to things at work. Being in I.T I can comment on a few things. Product guys in U.S take RAM on computers for granted.In India it is a struggle to get 2GB machines but newer products expect 8GB to be a decent system requirement.The fact is this is a huge constraint. When I walk into our offices in U.S I find desktops with dual monitors that too 19 inch ones and individual rooms for developers to help them work productively.It is cool and nice. I love dual monitors and I ratify it does improve productivity. But in India dual monitors is unimaginable. Recently I saw LCD monitors fixed on the walls of developers and the developer’s desktop reduced to a foot in breadth. Gosh it causes a serious pain in the neck ( pun intended ). There is no way adjust the angle of those monitors also. Hey screw ergonomics, space matters and real estate is expensive.

But the beauty of Indian culture is to accept these attributes as a natural occurrencea and work with it. Imagine a society where all are equal, life will be quite boring actually. If all are intelligent then the word intelligent becomes “just about average”. In physics if there is now high/low how will the electricity flow. There will be have and have-nots. The challenge in life is to accept and work with it. But it is an interesting game we try to equalize it only to realise, we tipped the scale in another direction. Think about the U.S supporting the mujaheddin to balance out Russia, they ended up creating a different kind of imbalance. We will have resource constraints at all levels and in different contexts. Constraints helps us innovate, invent. This introduces newer constraints. Read this “Parable of Horseshit“  interestingly cars( fuel guzzlers and CO2 emitters) where a solution climatic problem at some point in history now we have it and that is a problem.  I think the nice thing about Indian culture helps you embrace these constraints in a positive manner and work with it. It helps us look at constraints with a more positive attitude at least for me. This culture helps accept a constraints without too much frustration. In India you always expect to have constraints and there is a dearth for resources. The environment helps us build this culture – “there are constraints and challenges learn to work with it to succeed.”. Sometimes I feel the western culture does not have as their environment does have a need for it. Which I think works in that environment.

Would love to hear other thoughts/views on this.

P.S : I have assumed readers are in India when I started writing this post, I realise that there are readers from outside India also. Please read it in this perspective.

Ahimsa seems to be cliched word nowadays or seems practically obsolete. But the philosophy of Ahimsa I feel, is relevant.

Ahmisa is the opposite of Himsa which means “Violence” this needs to be interpreted as not just physical violence but mental violence. I consider violence is an act performed to inflict PAIN be it physical or mental. So Ahimsa is the art of not causing pain to others in any form.

In this blog my quick thoughts at Ahmisa in the house and at work.
Himsa at home
* As children we talk back / defy parents.
* As spouses we scold / put down / insult / scorn our partners.
* As parents we do the same to our kids.

Himsa at Work
* Admonish subordinates when they make a mistake.
* Put down support staff.
* Launch verbal/non-verbal attacks on peers when in competition.

Somethings which come to my mind
* Never insult or scold loved ones.
* React in a delayed manner. Hold back instant reactions.
* Consciously make sure you do not hurt anyone with words. Pain caused by words never heal.
* NEVER EVER INSULT people. You can never win by insulting, maybe you can put them down for sometime. It is difference between capturing and winning over.
* Even though people around you don’t meet your standards in ethics/ hard work/ cleanliness/ sincerity whatever THEY STILL HAVE TO RESPECTED AS HUMANS. Having a bad habit is a criteria to treat another person as a lesser mortal ( being a smoker I personally know how this hurts). I guess that is also DISCRIMINATION. Discrimination in any form is bad.

I can hear people saying – “Dude, this is easier said than done , Thanks for the advice.”

Let me share some tips that I try to practice to achieve the above someday it will become a natural part of me I hope . It’s  all about mental conditioning and hard work.

* Never think low of another person just because the other does meet your expectations. He does deserve respect as a human being. For e.g. this could be your 3 year old kid who did not drink milk for the 100th time.
* There is no way you can expect to get respected by someone who you just insulted.
* More often than not the ones who are subdued momentarily look for a chance to rebel. A friend of mine after adjusting to his parents for 30 years refuse to come to India just his parents stay here.

If we make a conscious effort not to inflict pain even unintentionally to people around us , our lives will become better. I guess there is a “Selfish” motive of wanting to do this , that being, I having a peaceful and harmonious life with my surroundings.

Would love to hear from others if I am practical or too theoretical here.

P.S. This a repost from my personal blog.

I am not a religious person.But my family is and I go along with the motions on every festival day so they are happy. I don’t loose anything by playing along.

But as I go through the motions my mind keeps thinking “Is this all a farce or could there be something logical behind it?”.

Some of my hypothesis flowing below.

In olden days I don’t know if there was a concept of weekdays/weekends existed, I doubt it (my historical ignorance exists here). To me a farmer used to work all days to attend to his farm.He needed a rest day to sit back relax.He needed a day off to take care of tools, on a normal workday he never gets that chance ( ala take you time off to sharpen the axes ).

In today’s world I guess we don’t need a Vijaydasami from a practical perspective ( okay I this might start a religious war ). But as people around are doing it and we get a day-off.Maybe it is a good time to sit back and thank the tools we use and show our gratitude towards them. Being an IT guy I can think of operating systems,development languages and hardware which are tools to me. I could actually spend time on this to move those 100 unread mails and organize my inbox. I remove those bulky downloads which I had done to be read later but the later never came.Take backups of my data/emails. How many times have we rued the fact that we did not have backups.

Last but not the least , mentally thank all the people/companies which make software, those technical guys who spend hours writing blogs, pod-casts making our life simpler. A day to thank and show gratitude to all who help us provide for ourselves and family. ( Religious folks of course do thanks their favourite deity.)

Happy Vijayadasami.

What is bad?

This is first question I ask myself. I sincerely try to define why I call something bad. If we sit down to define the word bad it really becomes a difficult task.
1.Bad is something, which is not good for me.
2.Bad is an unexpected result.
3.Bad is an expected result, but I do not like the result.

Is it really so simple, may be there are other definitions also. I don’t think it is that simple. There are a lot of phrases, proverbs which come to my mind which help me define bad or – rather makes me understand that I cannot define what is bad.

Let us take some proverbs which are supposed to be good and guide us in life
Opposites attract – Birds of the same feather flock together.
Too many cooks spoil the broth. – Many hands make light work.

I see the proverbs that are opposite of each other. So which one of the proverbs is bad and which one is good. If I look at it closely both are good and bad depending on the perspective from which I am looking at them.

Not only with proverbs there has been instances in history, which intrigues me. There have been many instances which prove that what was good at one point of time proves to be bad at another point of time and vice-versa.

There have been many cases ranging from politics to science and technology where bad had become good and good has become bad.

Let us take politics to begin with.

Good becomes Bad
The Americans support the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan to fight the Russian oppressors. They felt they were helping democracy fight communism. They thought they were doing good. This happened in 1979-89. The Russians finally withdrew.13 years later the same Mujaheddin hit at the heart of Americas killing thousands.

Funny the good act of helping Mujahideen has turned into a bad act for the Americans in a period of 13 years.

Same is case for India under Indira Gandhi, nurtured LTTE for whatever reasons, but the same LTTE comes back to kill Rajiv Gandhi. India at one point thought they were helping Tamils in Srilanka survive.

Bad becomes Good
A simple case would be British occupation of India seems like a bad deal. But I think in the long run it is good. If India continued we would be having so many different countries in the place we call India now. Maybe Tamilnadu would have declared an armed war with Karnataka now.

But the British occupation is sole reason we are together. Only somebody really foolish can judge that being as a country together and using each strengths and weakness as complimentary to each other’s state as bad. Yes we have problems but being separate we will have bigger problems. It would be like the small countries in Africa like Namibia, Angola, Ghana which keep on fighting while people are starving to death.

Let us look at science/technology.

Good becomes Bad
The American inventor Oliver Evans designed the first refrigeration machine in 1805. He thought it was good, people will able to preserve food, hunger will be reduced etc.

In reality 1985, scientists discover the ozone, responsible for global warming, rising water, annihilation of coastal in the years to come, lesser rains. The cooling agents in the refrigerators have become unsuspecting weapons of mass destruction.

I am not advocating against technology or growth but it would have impossible at that point to judge that refrigeration can be so harmful. A blessing for mankind turned into a curse.

Bad becomes Good
Any scientist in history was termed either an anti-Christ or mad by the society till time proved otherwise. The examples are enormous. There have been cases in which the scientist had been put to death because he proposed the theory of the solar system and earth not being flat.

What seemed bad to society and people at that point have been accepted as good things that has happened in human history.

The concept of everything in this world is Maya or illusion according to Hindu philosophy.

BAD IS ABSOLUTELY RELATIVE

The statement by a westerner that ” The entire world is a stage and we are all actors doing our roles.”

Practically speaking, killing another human being is bad but not when he is an enemy soldier from across the border.

Driving slow is good but bad for a driver on the race track or driver of an ambulance taking a patient with heart attack to hospital.

So this where I end up. I find it difficult to define bad. So I question myself that “Can I judge something bad?”

Well it is a tough question. We can only judge something good or bad depending on the knowledge we have at that particular point of time.

Because as we all know the past is gone, no point in thinking or worrying about it, but it is a good teacher. History as I explained has taught us “What is good now will not always be good and what is bad will not always be bad”.

When I think through this I realize that I cannot really with full confidence judge something that has happened as bad.

When I cannot classify an event that happened as bad.The question “Why bad things happen to me?” changes to “Why things happen to me?”. Because I cannot call what had happened that day as bad anymore.

Once I stop calling that thing as bad. I don’t feel bad or sad about it. Please note I am not happy about it either. But I come to peace with myself and the world. I tell myself “Okay this happened this way it might have better if it had happened the way I expected it. But as history or time tells, you never know it is good or bad. So I will take this event a little easy and look forward to a better tomorrow.”

I feel relaxed after going through this thought process. I go and lie on my bed and close my eyes. More or less I am fast asleep in 5 minutes. During earlier times, I could not sleep at all.

Looks like it is the season for resurrecting old thoughts on this blog. It is Kumaran’s turn to write something that he wrote 10 years ago. While you enjoy the post, please check out my 8.5 minute crystal ball gazing presentation with audio from the ICT East event where i shared the stage with Infosys CEO & Wipro CFO. – Sukumar

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This is something which I wrote 10 years ago as a note to myself. Now that there is something called internet I thought will share it with other. It is a long one so breaking into 2 posts, so readers get a chance to read it. Read somewhere recently that internet users attention span is around 6 mins on a averrage nowadays. Was it Airtel which advertises – “Impateience is the new virtue”..my blood boils when I see that advertisement.

I have asked this questions to myself so many times. In fact as a child (when I was 8 years old), I had come to a conclusion that people are born to go from one form of suffering to another. Life is nothing but trouble, pain or a struggle.

There are a lot of things we aspire for in life and strive for it. Some things we get some we don’t. But always we feel that we have lost more than we gained. The losses seem to be always more than our gains.

We put so much effort into things we do to get the expected results. But when all the effort goes in vain it becomes very painful. It hurts even more when you see people less hardworking, less skilled achieving successes without any effort.

So do these bad things happen because

1. There is some big power plotting against our well-being ?
2. Is it our karma? (Fate)
3. Is it our previous birth’s sins?
4. Or am I not good enough? – Even this point can be proved as valid for all failures, I personally will accept it only in some cases. Because I feel that at hindsight after an incident it easy for people to judge that there is a better way of doing it. It is easy to say “Tendulkar should not have played that bad shot and got out, he should played it another way”. But if we can tell the same thing before he had played it , then there is some validity to that statement.

” Why? Why? Why? Why me? Why me? “.

Even after going through hours of personality development courses, self-confidence building measures we are still at the same stage. These questions eat into our peace of mind and take away our sleep. These thoughts take control over our lives that we cannot enjoy it any longer.

The Victim: For some reason we feel that we are being the victims of some cruel game that is happening. We feel helpless that we are unable to do anything about it.

The fear:A fear strikes deep into our heart. The fear that we will never be able to get what we want in life. There will be somebody or something around the corner waiting to take something that rightfully belongs to us.

Loss of hope :We start losing hope that something good will happen to us. When we lose hope of achieving success then the energy or the drive in us vanishes making us very weak and small in front of the world.

The above thoughts have troubled me so much during the past 25 years (It was 25 when I wrote it) . They trouble me today. They will trouble tomorrow also. But one good thing that has happened to me over a period of years is that how long they trouble me when something goes wrong has been reducing drastically. (Today as in 2009 I can say this statement written 10 years ago is becoming true, these things have a effect over me for a shorter period of time)

The reason that I have able to reduce the time these thoughts bother me is trying to understand some basic things which are there right before us. But in these days of run, run and run, we hardly get time to look at ourselves, forget looking at our thoughts.

What I basically do is go through a set of thoughts, which help me calm me down. I believe having peace of mind is achieved by a healthy mind.

What do I think?..in the next post.. ( hope I have the effect of mega serial episode closure when you see this..:-) then I know I have some impact with this post)(to be continued…)