Moral dilemma

Now a days I am teaching "Corporate Social Responsibility" to MMS, DBM, Corporate Internship students of Indsearch; I teach on Saturdays between 18.00 hrs and 21.00 hrs. This will go on for another 10 weeks, excluding holidays. One of the subjects to be taught is "dilemmas". I was searching for good cases of such dilemmas...got quite a few. I never thought I would face one.

Zubeda dropped in, with appointment, to tell me about new investment opportunities. She was doing her job. Was I ? How could I entertain her during the office hours for my personal work ? Is this unethical ? But I said to myself: "as far as I do my job within the time period agreed, what I do otherwise is immaterial, provided what I do is not one of those NOs". I am a 24 hrs employee of the company. I should find some time for my personal work too and at the same time should be available to the company at any time. Do I meet this requirement ? Or was it wrong on my part to have called Zubeda for a discussion during the office hours ?

What is your view?

Slaves of Gadgets

As usual I started the day in the office by connecting my laptop to the "lan" chord. I waited for a few minutes....there was no connection. I prayed that the wireless connection worked...neither did the Wifi connection work....I was restless. I tried the usual trick...put off the laptop and started it again...praying that it would work (many times we do this...without understanding the problem, we presume that something would happen by any "solution" that we have on hand)...the result, however, was the same. My laptop refused to get connected to the LAN. I called the service engineer...he tried his best and told me to replace the laptop...that is easier said than done. Of course, I used IRAS to get connected to our server at Mumbai...but that means that I could not use the landline telephone when I am connected to IRAS...that introduced another stress. ....this is another example of how we have become slaves to gadgets...once the gadget does not work, you are stressed...be it a washing machine, refrigerator, TV, Radio, mobile, microwave, iron, AC, fan...once it is out of order, you can see the effect....the intensity of the discomfort differs from gadget to gadget...but to my understanding the maximum discomfort is seen when the TV is out of order....we spend a lot of time in front of the TV...if the TV is not working what do we do...how do we kill the time ?...the result is restlessness, frustration, anger....all symptoms of an addict ....when not allowed to use the "addictant". Hats off to the marketing guys for creating a generation of slaves !!!!!

Pongal "o" Pongal

As children we used to look forward to festivals like Pongal; we used to have four days holidays for Pongal, for Bhogi, Pongal, Mattu Pongal and Kanum Pongal. In these days of high speed internet, four days is like a month or more. Children are given hardly a day's holiday and people like me do not get any holiday (...or every day is a holiday if one is tuned to think that way). In these days for everything we look for "speedy" solutions. Instead of "Kolam", we have "Kolam Sticker". Instead of "oil and Sihaikai", we have "Shampoo", instead of "Paanai" we have "Cooker"...things move fast, instead of "Mattu Vandi" we have "car"...that explains why we have only one day holiday instead of four days. Cooking Pongal on a LPG stove increases the speed...imagine using a "veragu" aduppu for cooking Pongal the traditional way...it will take at least two hours or more...now it is almost one fourth of that time (it is possible that someone has come out with instant Pongal pack, including one for the diabetics, ...look for this from Annapoorna, Al Kabeer etc.).....by the way, is it safe to cook Pongal in a bronze vessel ? Is it safe to cook it in an Aluminium vessel (cooker) ? Which pongal did you take today, pongal with ...ppm copper or pongal with ....ppm aluminium ? I must admit "IGNORANCE IS BLISS"...I would then not bother about all these....and Pongal will bring in joy and prosperity not fear and helplessness....you belong to which category, the ignorant ? or the well informed ? Enjoy anyway, even if you are well informed......that helps us to move fast !!!!!

The old and the new

Today is Bhogi...the day for disposing off the old and receiving the new. If only we do this religiously...our house will be a heaven. I have been struggling for the last 15 days to dispose off old papers..always there is a lingering fear that I might dispose off some important papers in the process...of course I have not touched these papers for at least ten years...still the fear lingers. What do I do ? Simply "postpone" the decision. Whenever we cannot take a decision (or we have to take a decision) the simple solution is to Postpone....I wish I am ruthless as we were when we moved to Magnolia Annex from Malhar. We had "thrown" even a refrigerator !!!! OK....I may take sometime disposing off the unwanted junk from our house...but should I bring something new today. NO...unless there is a compelling reason for buying anything new, I would not like to go for it now....I am not going to sell my car and buy a new one either, even though the child in me tells me that I should still go for a Honda City...I should now start preparing for my "retirement", keep less luggage with me. The child in me tells me that I should buy a LCD TV at least..should I ? Why not invest that money in Reliance Power ? Aha !!! I am also talking about investments, about which I did not know anything a few months ago....everyone tells me that I should first throw my cell phone (Philips !!!) and buy a new one...should I do that on this Bhogi day. Probably I should throw my laptop too ....get a light weight laptop (is this responsible for my tennis elbow??)...At the end of the day, I did not throw anything and did not buy anything....the bonding with the old is so much that I decided to keep them for some more time....I did not CELEBRATE Bhogi!!!! My house is still a heaven...with old.........(fill up the blanks)

The Simplicity Challenge

I am appalled at the quality of the winning entry at the Philips Simplicity Challenge....broadcast by CNBC last Saturday and Sunday. It appears that either Indians, that is those who participated in this competition, are content with less than ordinary or the competition has not attracted real talent. The guy from NSD talked about some plastics attachment to syringes, explained that that would keep away fear from children about to be injected, and that there was a great market....all bullshit....and I cannot imagine that such a guy gets Rs.1500000 as prize money....I think (and stongly believe too) slowly substance is substituted by sound...people believe that having such shows of mediocrity can bring them the past glory, without really doing something pathbreaking at the operations level. A company known for its innovations could have said that none of the entries deserved a prize. Is this really a good trend ? I keep my fingures crossed; but I am quite upset....is this the quality you get out of 8000 entries !!!!!

Racist....

What is this controversy about the Racist comments by Harbajan Singh ? He called someone a "monkey"....I cannot understand how this is a Racist comment....all of us have, anyway, come from Monkeys.....



But we should accept the fact that differentiation based on colour, language, religion, wealth, features etc., is going to be there, whether one likes it or not, till the world exists. Are we not talking about "aravadu" and "golti"?, are we not differentiating the "north" Indian from the "south" Indian?. Many people have told me that I looked like a north Indian (that is, I am not dark skinned !!!)...I have faced racial discrimination when I was looking for an apartment in Detroit...."no apartment for rent" was a standard answer if the apartment owner was a "white". I was questioned for selling my flat to a muslim - how could I do that ? I was asked a question when I was in class 3 - how could I go to a class taught by a Parian ? All these because we belong to the Animal Kingdom...one of the characteristics of the Animal Kingdom is "dominance"...we try to dominate or try to show our dominance in our actions and thoughts. Racism, therefore, is natural...why do we make such a fuss...even jeopardizing the cricket tour of Australia (Advice to Harbajan: You should have called him "Kangaroo" instead of "Monkey"....for us a monkey is GOD....not a Kangaroo!!!)