Managers Vs Leaders: Blurring lines or sharpening chasms?

The old and hackneyed topic had been reiterated by our worthy MBA professors all across India numerous times. But still, I haven’t to date found a perfect, or even close to perfectly logical definitions of the two in the context of present changing business environment.
MBA’s are typically trained to be managers. Managers are people who judiciously allocate meager resources (human, financial, marketing, raw material etc) for better productivity and hence profitability (text book definition from 1st trimester!). On the other hand, leaders are people providing a guiding light to the organization as a whole. I had once a lively discussion with one of my professors regarding this only. While I was arguing that Winston Churchill was a leader and Chamberlain a manager, he refused to put the things down in such stark black and white contexts. Me, with my I-am-in-first year MBA-trimester brashness, just nodded my head in disapproval and settled with a self satisfied grin of having stirred a debate among the class.
But today, I think the prof to be right. Things can’t be put in such stark binary figures. Look at today’s corporate culture. Leaders like Mr. Ratan Tata, Mr. Steve Jobs, Mr. Carlos Ghoshn and countless other Indian business Maharajas, prove time and again their visionary leadership and guts to achieve the impossible. But they have been managers at some point of their lives. So does that means that they cease to be managers now, with the ‘post’ of a Leader being bestowed upon them? I offer my logic against it and try to forge a hypothesis of my own (blame it on my MBA degree, but I have developed a habit to standardize things!!).
The view I prefer is of a change in roles rather than positions which define a manager and a leader in corporate terms. In today’s changing and fast moving economy, leadership is exemplified in various strata’s of the corporate hierarchy. What do we call a Product Manager of a growing FMCG MNC in India who takes entrepreneurial decisions to fend off competitions by engaging in price wars all by himself for a quarter or two? Or how do we define the ‘managerial’ role of a HR manager of a Pharma company in India, who takes her employees on a ‘motivational’ and ‘team building’ exercise to Shivpuri (a famous adventure getaway of Uttrakhand all by herself and informing her superiors later on? Such cases of Intrapreneurial ventures are being recognized by Top Shots of corporate world as essential to survive in an increasingly uncertain global economy.
I take a third example of IBM. We all know how the Big Blue of the past had managed to regain its once lost status as a Global Behemoth. Without getting into much detail, it is a classic story of hiving off noon core businesses and thinking as a Global company, rather than an American MNC. An important credit of its revival goes to its captive unit in India and its second largest R&D unit in Bangalore outside US. IBM nurtured its human resources and talent right from the start. I have read about the legendary freedom and innovative latitude allowed to the employees at its Bangalore center. The cases of individual leadership displayed by the employees are nothing short of Jack Welch or Lee Iacocca may be only lesser in magnitude.
Indian corporate houses too seem to have identified this culture. What with Marico and MindTree making headlines as one of the most coveted employers. MindTree is especially famous for giving freedom to an employee and display leadership in various domains. No one can afford to lag behind in these times of quality management talent crunch. And it seems to have become a common interview question of various corporate coming for B school Campus Recruitments al across the premier and respected B schools of India. Moreover, many companies management trainee program has begun to be called as Young Leader program (eg Bharti’s).
So, manager vs leader is no longer a debate, according to me. Both are desired traits for corporate success. While managing things is a perennially desired trait from executive level onwards in the corporate world, leadership is what required from managers who are getting more and more positions of responsibility in their respective verticals. Leadership grooming the managers has become the primary pitch of leading Business schools of the world like Harvard and Wharton for their Executive MBA programs. As complexity increase around the globe, the traditional typical organization structure of an American CEO commanding its Asia Pacific and Mediterranean divisions with panache will soon become a thing of past, if not already at many corporations!
My advice to young managers is to develop a leadership trait on their own. Many are born with it, but it can also be acquired through conscious effort. Unlike in past, there is no lack of information or equal opportunity playing fields for you. Try to inculcate risk taking appetite in your activities, however small they may be in magnitude (like organizing class party or taking the lead in coordinating with your case study group to make a presentation on Sales Management). More on this part later on sometime.
To sum it up, Indian corporate sector is moving towards fully professional setups and in the wake of a strong competition from MNC’s trying to capitalize on the Indian growth story and smaller local players cutting teeth and growing confidence to take on the world, it is becoming increasingly necessary for overall corporate sector to retain best talent. My OB (Organization Behavior) Prof of first trimester often used to say that next corporate battlefield will not be technology, best practices or finances, but over Talent acquisition. And this is very evident in today’s world. With leadership roles and freedom being provided at one organization, quality talent will certainly like to flee the archaic culture of his/her present work environment. But sadly, present MBA education, though doing a good job at imparting the best practices and other functional domain expertise, is severely lacking in inculcating leadership as an institutionalized effort. I strongly hope that things get better sooner for seeing my country on the development path rising and fulfilling of Indian 2020 vision of rev. A P J Kalam fulfilled at least from the Corporate India side!

Preparing for the CAT verbal section: An Intuitive approach

I had long thought of writing this article. But in wake of very good and useful sites like Pagalguy.com around, I always dithered. Today, as some of the days when my internal writes wakes up from the deep slumber, I felt an urge to share some of my thoughts with the CAT aspirants pertaining to the verbal section.
During my preparation stage for the CAT at South Delhi PT center, I came across many fellow aspirants who used to fear the verbal section. Being good at verbal made me wonder (and sometimes sadistically happy) at their position. But one day while analyzing a mock CAT paper with a close friend, I came to know how deep the fear of verbal ability runs in them. Though not a very proud thing to say, but yes, I must admit that I was never really great in the quants section. But I never used to be afraid of it. DI was ok with me. But I have seen people who don’t understand the fundamentals of the CAT verbal section, live in a paranoid state of mind up until the CAT!
First and foremost, I will like to dispel a few myths about the CAT Verbal section that are being propagated by some of the CAT-coaching machinery complex:
Myth 1: you can clear verbal section, esp reading comprehension only by daily reading news paper for 3-5 months, esp. The Hindu!
Give me a break here! Is verbal ability some kind of basic linguistic aptitude test being done for low skilled workers from poor country? It is a very special test comprising the use of both our right and left brain faculties. It is not a simple comprehension test, but a test of your appreciation of the theme, spirit and logic of the article in the reading comprehension. So reading an undoubtedly great English daily like The Hindu will not be a sufficient condition to clear the ever toughening levels of CAT. I suggest you to first start off by reading comics like Tintin and Asterix (for the uninitiated in the reading world only though). For otherwise initiated, it would be good to augment the articles read by discussing the finer points of that article with your peers, or to yourself in thought. Imagine the article like being a slush of words and sentences in the Mixer of your brain. Imagine it being tossed up and down in the literal sense. Once you start focusing on the intent of the article, the theme and the basic punch that it carries, you will slowly start realizing that you have actually to feel intuitively, rather than merely applying a typical schoolboy learn-by-rote, think-by-steps approach! This should be taught at the coaching institutes in more simplified forms. Also make a habit of reading and appreciating great books by great authors. Those are the means of communicating their thoughts to you via a medium- the book. Don’t treat reading a load of books like a necessary evil kind of thing.
In essence: Cat is more about your ability to unlearn our faulty learning and thinking process acquired during the archaic schooling system which doesn’t takes into account the creativity and original thinking of the mind!

Myth 2: Apply speed reading techniques and skim/skip the lines and focus on the key words of the reading comprehension
Hmm….well…can there be a greater heresy being promoted in order to satiate the aspirants in a short amount of time by our so familiar and ubiquitous CAT-coaching machinery complex!
Speed reading is good when you read newspapers and have to skim through the columns to retain only the key words. But CAT comprehension needs you to literally get in the writer’s shoes and think from his/her perspective. And this cant be done by skimming/skipping the paragraphs for answers. This only promotes the bad habit of reverse engineering of answers by the test takers, who keep hunting the paragraphs for the key words asked in the question. But the CAT verbal questions are increasingly getting analytical and intuitive in nature, as I had gauged from the recent trends of CAT papers. And this faulty approach won’t help my dear aspirants.
So my advice is: make it a habit to be patient while reading and don’t lose focus of the bigger picture. As you keep on reading the passage, imagine yourself getting higher in the air and seeing the bird’s eye view of the things….this will surely help. But you have to develop a love of good quality reading stuff. The coaching institutes are more than happy to refer you a number of good books.
It is said that it takes about 21 days of sustained activity for our mind to convert that into a habit. And when the stakes are so high, it is worth coming out of our comfort zone. Also, a well read person reflects an aura of his/her own, and is respected everywhere.
Myth 3: good vocab is very essential for success in CAT
No…this is a totally false statement. Tell me, how many new words can be learnt by cramming word lists alone. And also, are they really worth the effort in CAT verbal? Is it a GRE or a Scripps Spell bee contest where the knowledge of obscurely tough words a differentiating point for success? A decent vocab is built by enough reading good books. And people often complain about having to refer to a dictionary every time they encounter an unknown word (this is perhaps one of the top reasons for people to start reading, since they detest referring dictionaries every time they come across a difficult word).
My advice is: don’t refer to dictionary often while encountering tough/unknown/alien sounding words. In fact, don’t refer to a dictionary for 90% of the times. In stead, try guessing the meaning of the word intuitively from the theme and genre of the passage, and especially the sentence containing the word. If you cant think of a meaning, fair enough. You will eventually come to know of it. But yes, 10% of the words are really exotic and ungues sable by many. For that, you can refer dictionaries and that should also add to the joy of discovering new and exotic words.
I urge the CAT 2008 aspirants to seriously start building there literature repertoire. It is very easy than it sounds. But since this is an open secret, and a simple key to success, people often try to take the harder, winding path (as with most of good things in life being free and simple, good books and coaching practice material may not be free, but yes, the technique can be simple)

Best wishes to all. For any type of query, post it as comment or mail me at ramandeep.sallaria@gmail.com. I promise to reply ASAP, my job and other trifly simple pursuits permitting!

MBA and the elephant theory

I came across an HBR article on the way MBA’s of the world are being churned out and the way in which a fundamental problem solving technique is lacking in them.
The article related the lack of a structured and wholesome approach towards the problem solving, to the fable of the blind men and the elephant. All of them treated different parts of the elephant as a direct result of their perceptions. One of them treated leg as tree, and other treated trunk as a big snake.
Is not we ‘specialized’ MBA’s more often than not acting like thee blind men. We take pride in being a specialist Marketing MBA or a Finance MBA. I have seen , and have got confirmed from my counterparts in some other B schools, that batch mates in different streams of MBA (read specializations) don’t see an eye to eye for matters they treat as their home turf. That is perfectly right, but the real problem creeps in when they refuse to take a holistic view of the problem being offered to them. I take my example as well. Being a Marketing specialization, I always gave step brotherly treatment to finance issues in the case study solutions. And vice versa happened with my Fin major roomie!
That brings me back to the blind men and the elephant theory. During my summers in Becton Dickinson, my mentor Mr. Probir Das often pointed towards this inconsistency that we displayed during mid term and end term presentations. We as specialized MBA’s do need sensitization to other verticals as well. I don’t see a purpose of creating a specialized MBA, when we, as Managers, have to tackle a diverse set of issues related to different domains. Don’t we have to handle our sales team in the role of an ASM? Or don’t the Corp fin guy need to be sensitized to the supply chain bottlenecks facing the logistic company s/he is working in to design new cost structures?
With all due respect to the course curriculum designers, I want to emphasize upon this issue which is not an anomaly arising due to lack of proper foresight on the part of administrators per se. It is more due to a lack of Kaizen approach in the curriculum design. Though there is a wide choice of electives during the second year of Indian MBA (well almost all B schools have it), there is an inexplicable lack of motivation on behalf of system to encourage the future managers to tackle the case studies and other simulated class discussions in a holistic manner. It is something that we all budding corporate managers detest, not overtly but covertly.
We all want to see ourselves in a specialized position, but yes, I suppose many of us in due course of time get to realize the gravity of our narrow thinking horizon. And I am very hopeful that most of us do rectify that anomaly in due course of time.

A Modern Yogic school for a Modern India?

The incident that inspired this debate in my mind was in the mid of 2007, last year. There was shooting in a up market school of Gurgaon by a schoolboy! Whenever there used to be such incidents at the American universities, we pooh-poohed the topic by our ‘we-are-Indian-rich in culture- and –tradition’ high nosed attitude towards lack of morality in the western nations. But seeing the sorry state of present day schools (esp. in Metros and upcoming metros) we should realize that something has gone wrong somewhere for sure. What values are being taught to our younger generation in schools, apart from violence, modern fads (tattoos, mobiles, Play station 3, drugs, cigarettes, unhealthy viewpoints for the opposite sex and so on…) I am not being paranoid, but am telling from my first hand experiences with various cousins and neighborhood children of the age group. Are our youngsters standing at the crossroads of the socio-cultural transition? Are thy not confused enough? Do they really know what does being an Indian means, apart from the obviously hyped Cricket and Bollywood potpourris?
After discussing innumerably times the sorry state of the educational institutes of all levels in India presently with my lobby mates at IMT Ghaziabad, I think that establishing a modern Indian school with one foot in the future and one foot firmly rooted in the our traditions. And by that, I don’t mean countless ‘International’ schools that have cropped up in the suburbs of metros and other tier1-2 cities of India. And certainly not to talk of the elitist Doon valley schools which command their prestige on the basis of being exclusive and out of reach to most Indians! I am talking of a well planned methodology driven school that creates a child imbibed with our values and bestowed with the rich wisdom of our culture. India is perhaps one of the only countries in the world where own tradition and values are looked down upon and ‘western’ type behavior is considered High class! What hypocrite of a country having much wisdom and knowledge in its 5000 years old scriptures.
The modern yogic school should combine the attributes of the gurukul system of education. We should not forget that even foreigners from far away used to come and study the 64 arts taught at many of the Himalayan foothill ashrams in the ancient times.
The well rounded development of the child is essential, and this was taken care in our ancient education system by sensitizing the child to both sciences, arts, dramatic and music at the same time. What do we see today when we look at the countless young faces carrying bags heavier than them going to schools, only to learn by rote?
At the same time, the modern schools will teach Yoga and meditation techniques to the children. Yoga is the technique of controlling ones emotions and getting in touch with the sub conscious mind of your. It helps a person develop a positive outlook toward life and tackle the problems efficiently without getting emotionally overwhelmed. Isn’t that a desirable trait for success and overall development of the society? Didn’t we have lost the touch of creativity and innovation which was displayed by the ilk of Ramanujam, C V Raman, Sarabhai, Tagores etc?
Combined with these, the study of science and other social subjects and languages will also be taught at this type of school. Problem solving by original thinking will be given importance there. Also, an in house and wise child psychologist is essential at schools. s/he will help growing children with a lot of issues (family tensions, teen worries and blues, other anxieties etc) which is not taken care of, gets them imbibed in the subconscious of the child and later affects his/her decisions in life, thus shaping his/her destiny.
Also, there needs to be a special section for ‘gifted’ children. These are the special children having enhanced level of IQ levels and can prove out to be tremendous asset for a nation. All developed/forward looking countries like USA, Israel, Germany, Scandinavia, Canada etc have these type of schools for the gifted children, where they are trained to hone their skills in advanced forms. These can turn out to be prodigies for our country.
Phew….I keep ranting on topics like these. But how can that a school be feasible financially? Why not, weren’t the IIT’s and IIM’s established in India at the time when funding was a big issue? A political will and vision is more necessary. Funds will follow suit!
A PPP model can be viable here. Roping in the intelligencia of the country who can actually put their visions into actions, rather than attending Page 3 parties and filling the sleepy Op-Ed columns of leading dailies and magazines will provide much needed administration guidance for such type of school.
This can be good entrepreneurial venture idea for budding young entrepreneurs. And it can well create wealth for all, be it investors, country, students, society et al.
Interesting and like minded people are invited for further talks. My email id is er.raman@gmail.com

CAT Crackers....series 1

Well... the right way to utilize coming six months for the prep for cat for the uninitiated...

I will broadly divide the english improvement into 3 categories:1. vocab building :: to have an impeccable vocab, u should start learning new words everyday...i may suggest that the right way is to use some coaching insti's material..which will be containing the word list...these types of word lists are competitively made and provide u with the right amount of word ammunitions to crack mba entrance..but rem that vocab building is a life long process and goes on throughout life..secondly start reading THE HINDU, for the hostelers, it may be a bit difficult to get latest copy in the library ( advantage gurdaspur !!!)..but still read it online or even read previous day's copy....but try to read it..it is VERY VERY good..trust me..u wont regret its quality and english level..it is not for nothing that IAS ASPIRANTS prefer this...2. sentence structure improvement :: for this, try solving the various types of questions given in the coaching material's books...refer to the WREN AND MARTIN grammar book and go to basic sentence structures. grammar level in the cat is very tough and only way to improve is via practice.3. reading speed and comprehension:: thsi again forms avery important part of the test. a whole section in the exam is of RC,and it is very very scoring also...if u have sufficient practice at it. again, HINDU will come handy..its editorial and opinion pages are of mind blowing quality and sufficient to prepare for the exam. but u shud not only stop at this only. start reading a lot of novels...these wil make u retain long para of literature for long

The second part of the ongoing series of cat prep pertains to the data interpretation. this is a very scoring section of the exam, only if u understand how this stuff basically works.data interprtn is basically a test of ur managerial potential, the abbility to act fast under pressure and most importantly..how u can visulaize problems in ur mind and then go on solving them rationally. DI comprises frerquent use of smart guesses.one has to be clever to not fal into the emotional trap of satisfying ones ego if a question is not solved.DI prep doesnt needs anything except hardcore practice and ur will to go on solving different type of questions despite temporaray setbacks.now, the most important part of how to go on for DI prep? well, u can refer to the notes from some coaching insti(mentioned in previous topic). this is, well..necessary..'coz u have to be professional in ur approach, and coaching insti's material is tailor made for this.

always rem while solving DI problems, that the exam is going to test u for ur managerial potential by indirectly subjecting u to these type of twisted and intricate questions. always keep in mind this hidden agenda of paper setter in mind..that what is he really looking for ?? is he looking for how difficult a question u can solve( by devoting most of ur time to that question and solving it in the end!!) or is he looking for ur ability to solve max amt of questions in the given time (which shows how adept u r at handling ur emotions and leveraging ur strengths to ur max..!!)DI comprises of tables, data given in various forms and graphs, caselets etc. there will be a lot of data in the tables and graphs , and u will be required to grasp the extent of data in the least amount of time , without getting surprised!! then there will be various questions on that data given..and u will be required to answer those questions.most effective step to crack data interprtn problems is to PLAY WITH NUMBERS!! yeah, that is the way u can get familiar with numbers..try to use max of ur mind..since we engineers are prone to use calculators, our mind power for numbers becomes latent...try solving sudoku frequently and gradually remove the inertia in ur mind towards numbers.data interpretation is very vry scoring, once u get the knack of solving the DI problems. more on other sections later....

India’s youth-The career options one can make in the context of social, economic and personal preferences

“So Beta, what have you decided to be after XIIth standard?”, a typical question that I am sure many young people (age bracket 17-21) will find difficult to answer. On same lines, “Yaar, what now!” a typical question of one of your friend from your engineering, commerce or any other graduation college in India.
This article is something that I would have loved to read when I was deciding about what exactly to do with my life. It was way back in year 1999, the year I passed class Xth. The question became of paramount importance in the class XIIth, when there were a lot of pressures, including the teenage adrenaline pumped thoughts combined with strange changes happening around (read IT boom and Web 1.0 bubble). I was very perplexed at the rapidly changing environment. Like the baby boomers of the west of the 70’s, my generation (those born between 1981-86 roughly), can be safely called as the revolution witnesses in the true sense. Apart from witnessing two millennia, we witnessed a sudden and momentous transformation in many fields. Coming back to the career options, at that time, there was not much awareness around, and traditional advisors of most Indian Middle class families (as in uncles, aunts, well-wishers, teachers, neighbours etc) were mostly at loss when guiding us (me and my millions of teeming brothers and sisters in India).
Today, as things have settled down and there has begun advanced phases of development in the growing economy, career choices today are far more numerous than ever. These are the best of the times, as some may like to point out. Youth can’t just let this beaming time slip from their hands and choose traditional “ever green” careers like engineering and medicine. All said and done, when it comes to real decision making, many middle and upper middle class families will still persuade their off springs to persuade relatively safe careers. The mindset might have changed, but not with fast moving times. From my personal example, when I started preparing for CAT, my parents wanted me to take IAS instead and settle for a “traditionally esteemed” option. Same was the case when I tried not to sit for my medical entrance, as parents and family wanted a very own doctor of the family. This is not to undermine the wellbeing and noble intentions of our parents. But sometimes in life, there has to be informed decision making. Making a bad career choice is like a merchant ship, travelling slowly from Rotterdam to New Jersey making only a 3 degree change in it course by mistake and instead ending up at Barbados!
The psychology and underlying factors involved in teens making their career choices:
I have listed following factors which influence the decision making: (in no way an exhaustive list)
· Societal pressure
· Peer pressure
· Choices made subconsciously from a host of environmental factors, including media
· Access (or lack of it) to relevant and unbiased information (most important to according to me)
· Parents’ mindset and their reference group
· Personal preferences and understanding of one’s strength and weaknesses (the most ignored factor according to me)
· Economic condition of the family
Explaining all these factors in some detail below, I will also mention some of the guidelines on which young people can act and take the rudders of their lives in their own hands. I will try to put my views on some of the important issues which affect our personalities, which in turn impact our career choices, which eventually decide our destinies. I am not a professional career counselor though, and won’t be able to put detailed options in front of you. That will be like giving a fish to you. Instead, I want you to learn how to get ready to learn expert fishing.
Societal pressure is one which forces a lot of pre conceived notions in our minds. IAS, Medical, MBA, Engineering, Law, Commerce is the typical ranking of many sub cultures of India. In today’s environment, where such different fields are open, these archetypes still rule the roost. One may become an environmental engineer and further his/her career prospects by specializing in Carbon Credit markets and alternative fuels. A lawyer may open a taxation consultancy as easily as an AFMC passed army doctor may opt for tele medicine specialization. But this is to talk of specialization. We are talking of primary colours of career rainbow.
Don’t ever form your opinions by the way society wants you to think. It will require courage to look beyond the easy options. But a trail blazer in truest sense will be able to capitalize upon the growing economic prosperity. Your decisions at the same time have to be made on well informed opinions. Develop original thinking and a tendency to gather as much information as possible. The youth in Metros and some semi Metro cities have a relative advantage over their tier2 and 3 city counterparts in this case. But this apparent information asymmetry need not keep you back from deciding about your life. Study the attend various career conferences held in your city/nearby cities. Good colleges of India organize career counseling. Try to take part in them. Ask your friends in metros to help you out with current trends. But that is not going to be of much help though. You will have to find out reliable sources. They may be some informed and intellectual neighborhood uncle/aunt or websites/blogs having discussion forums. Pagalguy, rediff.com and other good content websites offer this today, which wasn’t available earlier.
Always remember, that before seeking the specific information, you have made up your mind on a general area you want to focus upon. Now, here is what we can safely call a catch 22 situation for many young people. But don’t worry. If you keep your mind open and try to gauge yourself from an unbiased angle, you may get an inkling of the career you want to specialize in 5-6 years down the line. But his introspection calls for a very important thing:
Self belief and confidence
When I was in my engineering college sophomore year, I was driven by what many may call adrenaline rush. And I am sure males will identify with me when I mention of some crushes, which at that time seemed very serious to us! Only things that revolve around a young male/female of 18-22 years of age are his/her self image, construed largely as s/he compares with the reference groups. These may be seniors in the college, relatively older neighbours, Film and sport stars etc. An uncle elder son went to merchant navy, and that will be a good enough reason for you to pursue the same, not to think of the implications of choosing that career (both positives and negatives).
What is lacking especially at that point of time in most of us is self belief. It is true, and don’t try to run away from it. We may seem sure of ourselves on the surface, but on the inside, a demon of unceratinity haunts many of us. And that is a normal thing. Nature didn’t want all of us to be child prodigies. But with self enlightening, one can make a more mature decision.
I reiterate the point that you are very special and very very unique. Don’t get carried away by the peers and relatives want to see you as. Just think what type of role in your later life you will be more comfortable. Don’t think absolute long term; just think for coming 5-8 yrs. You can always change your choice from generalization to specialization later on. Don’t worry, booming economy wont let you get off track for long. But it is important to form at least a primary domain of choice.
Don’t feel trapped at all. Choose wisely where you want to go. Finance and opportunity will follow your desires, and won’t be a barrier when you truly desire something from the bottom of your hearts.
The major part of decision making is again the basic one, believing in oneself. There happen instances in one’s post teenage years when one feel it to be end of road. It may be anything, from “betray in love” to passing away of your loved ones. Or it may be some instance where you fail in life to live up to the expectations of your parents and carry a guilt feeling around your neck for a major part of your life.
Learn to let go. Learn to forgive yourself and remember one thing. These things one will realize sometimes later in life anyway, but by then, your prime age of career choice might have passed away.
Read the biographies of great men and women of science, medical, commerce, industrialists and rags to riches success stories. That will inspire you the will to fight in the adverse circumstances and also make you appreciate the most opportune times that you are in presently. History is replete with example of these famous men and women, who eventually blazed trails in their respective fields, had to make many tough and life changing choices at many times. They were opportunistic and inherently motivated to make most of their lives’.
Tackling parental pressure:
First things first: your parents are your well wishers. They want you to succeed in life. But this is where the problem creeps in. In the western countries, children are forced to do part time jobs and they leave their parents by the time they are around 20. They have to choose their life partners themselves (mostly), so have to remain in good physical shape also. Here in oriental cultures, parents take care of their children for the major part of their maturing to adulthood.
But why do your parents force things on you? Simple, they don’t assume that you are mature enough to make your own career choices. They may be right many times though, but many times, they turn out to be wrong. Forcing an artistically and creatively conscious child to army may mean dissatisfaction and possible grudges in his/her mind for many years in life. The way out is simple. Make your parents see your level of maturity in simple day to day handling of things. Your posture, way of talking, daily dealings with your friends and relatives are the involuntary signals you give to your parents. Try changing these. Shun some bad habits that your parents think you have. Engage in meaningful and healthy discussions with them, instead of ME versus THEM fights.
Once your parents see positive change inside you, they will be forced to change their point of view too.
A final word:
My friendly advice to you is this; always gauge your position in the life path. A life path is your life chart, with its time periods divided in 4-5 years time periods. Each period encompasses a major change and a couple of minor changes that shaped the life which you presently are having/forced to have.
Just take a break from everything and be as impartial as you can to yourself. Never lie to yourself. Think over your actions and their validity in your and your family’s current economic condition. It is never too late to correct yourself. And think big. Think pragmatically and imaginatively at the same time. Build castles in air, but at the same time, put bricks under them. For example, it may be fine to become an aeronautical engineer from a good US university after your B tech. But for that, you will need good scholarship, requiring a good GRE score. That will require a very good verbal and analytical skills and your parents’ confidence.

India vs. Bharat- a real life example

Yeah yeah….we all have read heard and discussed about it with our peers endlessly about it. We have been bombarded with the prestigious news magazines ranging from The Economist to The India Today about it. No brownie points for guessing……the Great India vs. Rural divide…..or the Great rift between haves and have nots….or simply put….The Great Indian dream vs the Nightmare!
Travelling to my ancestral village Madinpur yesterday, I came across a family which is quite close to us, more in a family friend kind of way to my forefathers. Madinpur was still a good hour drive away (travelling in an overloaded bus, which has service only once a day from nearest rail head- Pathankot, my native place)and we needed to rest a bit after a rickety ride. After the formalities, the usual chat session began, and I couldn’t help notice a girl around 12 yrs age doing most of the household chores. I casually asked the mother about her schooling, and her face stooped lower than current sensex levels. She told me in a part complaining, part dejected tone that getting a quality education for child is getting prohibitively expensive. They were actually thinking of getting her married in a couple of years, and so have to teach her household chores. I was perhaps prepared for such kind of reply after reading about the plight of rural and deprived Indian hinterland. But actually witnessing is really different from reading and forgetting from the B school books.
We left their house and boarded a shared auto rickshaw en route to Madinpur. The road started getting bumpier, dustier and narrower. On my way, I saw a number of small farms and yes, the ubiquitous Mobile towers on the roofs of many a villagers. With whole nation getting younger and more mouths to feed being born, will these fragmented farms sustain? We too have some land in Madinpur and I asked the caretaker about state of the affairs. His look told more than he chose to say. Dejected at the rapidly falling water levels and bureaucratic inefficiencies pertaining to elimination of middle men from the Grain Mandis has caused the persisting poverty amongst the farmers (usually small ones). Minimum Support price is all fine, but what about the filtering down of the benefits being announced in form of incentives to the production. The infrastructure too is pathetic, and makes it a nightmare for most farmers to transport their produce to the markets. A totally different view from the swanky SEZ/NEPZ of Noida or the IT parks in Delhi! How can a government ignore agriculture so much in favour of another sector? After all, this is our basic requirement. Reading about the rotting grains in the FCI godowns and food grain inflation, coupled with government mulling over buying the food grains at $ 500 from foreign markets when the MSP for wheat is Rs 1000, there seems to be something wrong somewhere! I mean, this is common sense dude! Doesn’t need a rocket science!
Finally we reached Madinpur after 55 mins of backbone breaking ride. I visited my uncle who happens to be a sarpanch there. I asked him about the role of the collector (IAS officer of the district) in development, and got the expected reply- Neglect. But he doesn’t out rightly blasted the system. He told me that the Collector of the region has been over burdened with work. And we all know of the “Well oiled machinery” that our Indian bureaucracy is! So I needed no answers from him. I just rambled off towards the village school to get my cousin, studying in standard 9th. I expected to see a bunch of children clad in shabby dresses, squatting in front of an equally uninspired teacher under a tree and cramming some inaudible words. But it was worse than that. There was no teacher on that day. He was on election duty, so the senior section of the school was closed. I asked my cousin about the internet facility in Madinpur, and got an alien expression in return. He doesn’t know what an e mail is. He is content to play the Chinese hand held bricks game which was presented to him some time back by some relative from Jalandhar. I compared it to my cousin in Mumbai, who chats on Skype to his sister in US, and plays game on PS-3!
That very moment, I witnessed the great Indian Nightmare in the making. Who wont predict a deep resentment in the have nots of the society towards the haves (us!). And this chasm is widening. Government is not putting in enough for the betterment of grass roots education. The fancy numbers ranted off during the pre election pitches are just an eye wash.
And then I wondered about my hypocrisy! It is so much easy for us to publish blogs and articles on the topic we feel strongly about. But what are we doing for the betterment. But hey! Can we really make a big difference? Can we actually go out of our ways, chuck our jobs, and form political parties and work for the grass roots. Can we actually bye pass the golden years of our careers towards the long and tiresome journey. Can we stand being outcaste from our families and society for being lone warrior? Can we imagine our peers getting ahead from us in the Hamster race (some people object to my using Rat race too often!!) Can we expect that political system will change one day from being a union of states to the federal system? Will there be any negative voting to oust the corrupt politicians?
And then I feel…..why not? I sometimes dream of an Indian form of V for Vendetta. But then I ask myself…..do I have the courage to make a difference to my surroundings? Do I have the moral courage to not give in to corruption when there are enticements galore?
India continues to prosper only externally. The country where people don’t get the desired justice for years together, where the naxalism and extremism is rising at the same rate as the increase in FIIs, where instead of abolishing the middlemen and corrupt public distribution system and malpractices in the agriculture marketing initiatives, the ilk of Mayawatis and other cry foul against organized retail, and where we talk of IIMs, IITs and the great demographic dividend at our disposal, but fail to look at the unskilled, unimaginative and pseudo literates being churned out by no other than the National Capital of India’s public schools. Where the basic amenities like healthcare is an elusive dream for millions and where for sure, the next civil war will be over water and/or food grains (the example of farmers near Gurgaon siphoning off the main water canal to their villages on account of Govt apathy seems to be lost on us recently)!
Sometimes I really wonder about this country…..my country…my motherland…India!
Is this why they say in the west that to truly see God in action, see India…coz there is no other way a country of this magnitude of paradoxes might be adding millions of mobile connections each month!

Amarchitrakatha and my younger cousin

“Bhaiya, who was this hero named Karan who fought so well. And who was Vikram and what was the vampire named Betaal doing to him all the time?” these and many other volleys of queries were fired on me by my 9 yr old cousin from US. I had to diligently explain to her the complex yet uplifting tales of Hindu mythology and our very own superheroes and heroines. This made me take into cognizance a laudable attempt by a group of business savvy consultants’ plan to revitalize the Amarchitrakatha and Tinkle comics’ brand. The move is a welcome one, more so in the face of the assault of Pokémon, Harry Potter and Spiderman fed younger generation of ours. I also happened to read about Richard Branson’s Virgin comics having lately launched Indian superhero and heroine themed comics named Saadhu and Devi.
This is a great way to make the coming generation aware of our rich and awe inspiring literary heritage, with its larger than life heroes and role models. I remember the times when I read Nandan and Chandamama very fondly. Geodesic group owned Chandamama may be in for a cool makeover, but Champak, Nandan and many other magazines have simple vanished into the thin air. Looking at my younger cousin, and taking my other cousins of the same age group as a sample size, I wonder what a divide is there between us and them in form of sensitization to the cultural diversity. As far I remember, there used to be serials like Alif Laila and Chandrakanta in our growing up years. Though related to mystery, they were much better than today’s’ mind numbing array of Song Talent hunts and the ubiquitous K factor drilling poison in the fertile minds of younger generation, who have no choice but to watch them at the prime time hours (and thus gets to like them too!)
Reading the Upanishads and Jatka tales make us wise in more than one way. The morals in the Panchtantra are engraved in our hearts till this day. I wonder why no corporate house has gone for making it big in infotainment domain such as this one, where one gets satisfaction of recreating cultural icons and hero/heroines and present them to the youth, who will need them more than ever as they move from the present cross roads and confused identities of Indian or Hindu to a next, more mature level. After all, Vikram Baital is an old, and thoroughly hindu legend composed in Sanskrit, and is the germ which culminated in the Arabian Nights, and which inspired the "Golden Ass" of Apuleius, Boccacio's "Decamerone," the "Pentamerone," and all that class of facetious fictitious literature