Wastage is Fun!!! ??? !!!

The other day I was having a shower. Now, a few of my friends who have had the misfortune of sharing a flat with me know how long do I take when I go for a shower instead of just a bath. I would say I spend more time in the shower than a normal girl takes to dress up. OK.. Cancel that... Not that long.. Hmm... Maybe half an hour to 45 minutes... OK.. An hour.. That's it...
But anyways during the shower I remembered a mandatory web based training in my company on ecology or something... I just remember some ISOs... 14001?? I guess... and few other things about the environment. One question in the quiz that followed the training was:
What wastes most water in a normal household:
Flushing Toilets
Washing Clothes
Bathing with a bucketful of water
Taking a 10-minute shower

Now the answer if you don't know is the last one which says that 10 minute shower wastes most water. And this started a long chain of thought... I hear some "as usual"?? Well Whatever!!!
If I fill up a bucket and bathe I don't enjoy as much as I enjoy a shower. I believe most people will agree. But the shower wastes much more water. So is my enjoyment worth wasting a precious resource??
Then the thought chain grew. And I remembered the wonderful event... the wonderful festival of colors... Holi... :) That's once a year... I know... But everyone on that day... wastes water and has fun... :)
Then again.. the festival of lights... Diwali... We waste electricity... we waste money on crackers... which infact are harmful to the environment.... and so on.. But we have fun...
Then again Lohri... Wastage of wood... Fuel...
Making paper airplanes... Paper boats during rainy season.... Wastage of paper....
And again... How many of us actually enjoy long drives... I for one love them... though I don't get many chances.... But that again is a wastage of fuel....
That day... the list seemed endless to me.
And I'm not even touching on wastage of money... :p
We can save all these things... But at the cost of the enjoyment they give to us. So are they actually worth saving?? I guess it's again a matter of perspectives. I for one would rather waste and enjoy and have fun because that's the only thing I find worth living for. :)

On Monkeys and so called Managers

I've been thinking on this since past few weeks but because of less availability of one kind of subjects namely monkeys in Mumbai I'm yet to arrive on a conclusion. What's the question you ask. Ah! It's a very simple one. One which most of you have asked yourself one way or other.
The question here is: Who has more brains? A monkey or a self styled manager?
If you ask me, I would say it would be a tie. Very closely contested. If you force me to choose one, I would give the monkeys some benefit of doubt.
Here's the breakup of my findings.
Everyone knows monkeys are copycats. Though I'm not sure how cats figure in the story. But I guess it would suffice to say that Monkeys readily imitate others. Managers somehow have a very strong gene which I believe directly descends from the Monkeys. They too love to copy.
In fact sometimes I feel they exceed the monkeys. There's a very well known management fact that almost every manager knows by heart. It is:
A certain airlines saved $40K/year by eliminating 1 olive from their salad.
The idea, you ask me, was brilliant. Most people wont notice that one olive is missing. I think very rare would.
But now comes the sad part. All over the world the managers saw this and started finding things where they can save. Even our own Indian Railways too. Everyone started removing one thing and another to achieve their yearly targets of growth and cost saving. They never thought of the impact. They just saw that the idea was successful for the airlines. Here are a few impacts. I could only see the things which affect me though.
Scenario 1: I travel in Rajdhani from Delhi to Mumbai. Earlier they used to provide two eclairs worth 2Rs. to everyone twice. A total of 4Rs.per head. Since a couple of journeys this has reduced to 1 eclair of local quality which I believe would be worth 50p. So a total expenditure of 1 Rs per head. A saving of 3 Rs. Wow... Seems so good on paper. Now welcome to the reality. How many people would not notice this change. You are reducing the quantity by 50% and the quality too. They don't say much because if you are travelling in Rajdhani in India it's assumed that you have a certain status and won't haggle over a couple of Rs.
Scenario 2: Since past 6 months or so, the administration has stopped keeping paper cups in my office. Paper cups, if you don't know, are a very important commodity in an IT company. They are used for coffee mainly, on which apparently the IT industry runs.
The reason they tell us: "Save Paper. We need to go green"
"Why don't you go for the plastic cups then??", I ask.
"Plastic is not good for environment. We need to go green."
I assume they've never heard of recyclable plastic.
Do you actually believe that the reason is "Go Green" as they say. Oh No!!! You are mistaken. The idea actually followed another idea when the electric shoe shiner was removed from the offices on the pretense of "Go Green"
If you ask me "Go Green" is just an excuse. Both of them are just a couple of Olives in the salad served to employees.
Similar stories are buried in various offices all over the world.
Let's move on to point two: Not understanding what's the limit of something.
Most managers are appointed because a company needs to grow by improving it's processes and by increasing the efficiency. This is the job of managers. But do they understand that everything has a limit. You can improve something up to a limit. After that there may be a need to revamp the process itself. But most managers don't understand this. They want to go on improving the process. And if you can't improve something that's already running fine and is perfectly optimized then it's your shortcoming on creativity. And if you suggest a new solution for an already optimized process, that won't be implemented, because you would be wasting time on something that is already done. What nonsense?? Do they know that a glass can contain only
limited quantity of water. After that either you get a new glass or you empty the existing one. Common sense?? Same is the case with improvements. They can be done till a point. After that you either change the process or start working on any other process. But somehow managers miss this point.
And of course!!! How can I forget. Appeasing the Boss by doing something which isn't productive.
Confidentiality Agreement stops me from saying more on this. But I believe everyone already knows what I would've written here.
Ah!!! I can go on and on, on this topic. But I can never get to the conclusion. Benefit of doubt goes to the Monkeys. What do you think??

This and That!!!

Well... Two totally unrelated topics in my mind today... Actually there are a lot(as usual) but putting down only two... One because it is a hot topic... and the other... hmm... because i want to...
First.. Sachin scored a double century in ODI's today... In process he became the first man on earth to do so in One-Day Internationals... Absolutely true and i'm happy for him... Infact I feel proud that it's Indian who did so... But News Channels once again have started touting him as God and are telling people that he's the first person on earth to do so... And I'm thinking... Why is it so...
Is it so because they dont research history properly... Or is it so because nobody follows Women's Cricket... Or is it that Women's ODIs are not actually counted as ODIs?? Dunno...
Somehow i still remember the couple of paragraphs of the Hindi newspaper when i was a mere 13 year old... But no one else seems to remember... In a very obscure corner of the newspaper it was written that Australian Women had defeated Denmark by a huge margin. The Australian Captain lead from the front scoring a double hundred (229*) off 155 balls... In process Australia became the first country to score a 400+ score in an ODI and an Australian slammed the first double ton in an ODI.. Today no one remembers her... Did anyone actually know that...
Her name is Belinda Clark... and her feat was no less... But when i think about both the feats....
She got a mere mention in one of the two paragraphs in which the news was covered. Sachin, on the other hand, would be on all newspapers' front pages tomorrow... and i'm not sure if even the newspapers would do the homework properly...
Why the difference?? Why the bias??
By the way another important part of the story is that Belinda slammed the double ton in Mumbai, India in a world cup match... still a mere two paragraphs... Sad!!! Somehow I feel sad... Even when I should feel happy because one of my countryman has created a world record...
Whatever!!!
The other topic needs to wait for now...

The big wide generation gap...

Got off a call just now with my parents. And i feel like there's huge gap between their and my understanding. I feel like there's a huge difference in their and my viewpoint. Even on the points on which we agree.
I never have understood why parents feel as if the children can never grow up. They can never take care of themselves. I'm lucky in the sense that atleast my parents do understand this to a larger extent than a lot of other people i've seen. But now as i've crossed adolescence and am into adulthood, though still being a child at heart, i'm beginning to understand the reason behind this. When i go to my elder bro or sis's and try to interact with my nieces and nephews or even younger cousins and sisters i feel as if i am out of place while talking to them. As if my world and their world is totally different. And amazingly it seems almost the same as when i talk to a very elderly person. Only the places change. In the latter case i feel as if the other person is ignorant of new things and in case of former i am the ignorant one. This I believe is what they call generation gap. And the way I understand why this happens is that whenever we talk to someone younger we remember ourselves at that age and try to talk about things we used to do at that age. And in all this we forget the most basic aspect of this world. CHANGE!!! As we grow up the world changes. As we grow up the circumstances surrounding a child changes. For me a mall or a fast food joint was ike a dreamland 10-12 years ago. But for the younger generation it's a frequent hangout. That's the difference. While we all are busy in our jobs the world outside our office changes a lot. A couple of years ago an iPod used to generate a lot of excitement. Now it's just another commodity. My grandpa used to tell me that when he was young he used to get 1 paisa as pocket money. Now it has changed to 100Rs. Similarly has the world changed. But if i look from my grandpa's perspective 100Rs. is still a very big amount. I'm not sure where this is leading to. I'm not even sure why i'm writing this down. Maybe because of the same reason i do everything else. Because i feel like it. And already i'm feeling better. Much better. Well I just hope that I dont forget when it's my turn to face the generation gap. Any comments are most welcome. Because i still am very confused on all this. :s

Happiness..??

Well, talking to one of my friends just started another thought chain on happiness. She is not very happy in her present condition and so i got thinking how much can the conditions affect us. No, i know that the environment around us, the people around us, have a bearing effect on us. But the question that crept into my mind was... Can they do that without our consent???
Yesterday i was reading The Gathering Storm by late Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson. It's Book 12 of the Wheel of Time Series by Robert Jordan. There RJ has described a whole world of his own. So a woman from one part of the world called Aviendha was wondering about the culture of another part of the world. Let me quote the line from the book: "After some contemplation she had determined that being a wetlander required one common attribute: A fondness for complaining." Wetlander in this case is a person from the continent Aviendha was visiting. But this line struck me. A fondness for complaining. And i remembered... For so long i have not seen a person who doesn't complain. And this includes me. I complain about not being with my family because of the job and so i hate the job. But i forget that the decision to join this job was taken by me. I complain about the company not giving enough compensation to me. And yet I forget that the decision was mine. I complain that my current project doesn't have much work. Yet the decision was mine to join the project. And so on... Similarly if someone complains that they don't get time from their jobs. I would like to remind them that the decision to complete their work by a specified deadline is their own. Or their superiors but if they blame their superiors then they should remember that they always have an option of telling the superiors that it would take more time than the time assigned. Most of this is true for the IT people only. Let me take it global. We complain about the heat. But what are we doing to reduce it. Now that electric cars are here. How many of us actually use them?? we still think about petrol/diesel vehicles when we go for buying one. I see a lot of public vehicles going empty and yet there would be a lot of personal vehicles on the road. Then again.... Car pooling... and yet when i try to flag down an absolutely empty car, it doesn't stop. No, I'm not blaming it on you. Maybe even i would do the same. But then again, saving electricity too helps reducing the global temperature. And yet my friends sleep with their AC turned on even in this month, when a fan seems more than enough. Then again we complain about poverty... we complain about less jobs, we complain about inflation. But that's due to us. When the government asks us to have no more than two kids. We laugh at them. Even though it's simple math. If a couple has 2 kids and so on, the population would remain the same. If a couple has only a single kid, the the population would reduce. I saw this movie "Idiocracy" a long time ago. The theme was that world's smartest people in order to control the population and due to other stress have lesser children than the dumbest of people. for eg. a couple whose average IQ is over 140 have only one kid because they care for the world while another couple with an average IQ of less than 80 have 10 children coz this way they get 10 more people to earn in family. It's true in current scenario. In the movie this led to a gradual decline in the average IQ of human population. Dunno if it's practical in the real world too. Nyways whatever!!! I'm diverging from the topic of happiness. That's fondness of complaining. Fondness for blaming others. Nyways basically i wanted to express that one can not be unhappy unless one wants to be. But I'll continue it some other day. Hopefully in near future. Till then... Idios.... :p

Pursuit of Happiness

No this is not about a movie with the same name. This entry is about the actual pursuit of Happiness.
Remember your childhood days. I believe everyone cherishes their childhood days. It would be a very rare grown up to find who doesn't speak about there childhood fondly. Or who doesn't reminisce about those days and say "Those were the days..."
Yes.. That is because that part of our life is one in which we remember ourselves to be genuinely happy.
Then again the college life too is remembered by most to be the golden days of their life. And once again we remember how we used to enjoy the college days.
But what happened after that.. We were happy in the college.. So that means something must have happened after that.. Yes, after that we went on to have a job.
After that we forgot how to make friends. After that we forgot how to enjoy life.
A 5Rs. ice cream was looked forward to in the childhood days. Having a party with all the money in pocket was enjoyed in the college days not even thinking what would happen the next day. But what happened now? Now of all the times. When we can have all the ice creams in the world to our heart's content. When we can have parties everyday. But they don't actually make us happy now. Even though we can very well afford them. But we don't have such friends anymore with whom we used to enjoy. Friends have parted ways. We meet them less and less. We talk to them even lesser. The same friend with whom you shared the class and yet you both had to talk in the evening. The same friend with whom you went to lectures, bunked classes, roamed around in the evening and yet still went on chatting in the night hours in college. Now you feel there's nothing to share with them?? Even though they now know nothing about your days now. Ever wondered why??
During all those years we used to be happy because we did what we wanted to do. While doing something we never paused a second to think on how others would feel like or how stupid would we look doing those things. We used to sing aloud in college irrespective of the people around. What happened now. Now we rarely sing to even ourselves. Leave aside singing aloud.
That, i say, was the key to happiness.No, I'm not talking about singing aloud. I'm talking about doing whatever our heart wants. People today have forgotten that true happiness is not through money. The lavish party we couldn't afford in college has led us to believe that money is needed for happiness. That 5 Rs. ice cream for which we had to ask their parents has also led to the same belief. And now we run after money trying to compensate for those waiting periods. But during this process we have forgotten that we had more fun in the small party held in a single hostel room than we have in the lavish parties we throw now. we forget that the 5 Rs. ice cream tasted a lot better and made us much happier than the few hundreds of rupees worth ice cream bowls we can have these days. While pursuing happiness, how and when the tracks changed and instead of happiness we started pursuing money, no one actually knows. We now spend late hours in the office trying to impress the boss and get a promotion so that we can get more money. But to spend these late hours we take away the time we earlier had for ourselves. For our loved ones. For our friends. For our family. Earlier we used to have a lot of ways to spend time. Now we don't even leave ourselves any time to spend. That on the whole is the difference why even after earning a lot of money and affording all the things the world could offer, we are not happy. And that is why we must change our tracks again and start looking for ways to make ourselves happier instead of richer. I have a lot more to write about, mostly about politics, and this makes me think that the next entry would soon follow. Till, then.. Keep smiling and be happy... :D

Misal Pao

Well... Here i go just to satisfy the strong feeling that has gripped me to write an entry on this.
After reading my previous entry a lot of people must think that i am insane... as in not in the right state of mind. Well.. you are not exactly wrong.... Even i sometimes feel the same.. :)
But as a few of you must have imagined me to be... Let me dispel their misconceptions. No... what you think is not true.... Even i sometimes do enjoy life.... Today was one of those evenings thanks to an awesome performance by Nitesh Pandey, Sudha Chandran, Pooja Ajinkya and a couple of other people to whom i owe a sincere apology because i am not able to remember their name. The play was named Misal Pao- after a famous dish in Mumbai which is like a mixture of a lot of things. The play however was not so.... It was heavily flavored with comedy. The anecdotes and one liners, though very common, were delivered very well to make the audience laugh. I do not think that anyone in audience could have kept a straight face for even a minute during the show. Except of course the ten minute break provided in between. The performance of the actors, except for a slur and a fumble at one occasion each was spotless.

I was especially awed by Sudha Chandran. I had read about her in a very old magazine when i was a kid. The magazine dated around 1986-87 i guess, and had an account and review of a movie "Naache Mayuri" which was inspired by her life in which she herself was in the lead role. The review was not very good though but the story truly was inspiring. What i read was that she lost a leg in an accident. Even after that setback she went on to pursue a career in acting and is also a great dancer. Even today she infact looked the most nimblefooted person on stage and depicted a character around 20 years younger than her perfectly.
All in all it was an awesome performance by everyone and an evening i would remember for long.