Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine. But am I?

When I saw the book titled 'Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine' in the top 10 in the Goodreads ranking, I realised that I hadn’t read fiction in a long while, and I almost always read mysteries and adventures. This particular day, when I bought this book, I was bored, waiting for my flight. This book would be a welcome change.

The back of the book said something about loneliness. I figured that the book would make me feel sorry for the character and grieve for her. I figured that if she was real, I would have adopted her and looked after her. But what a pleasant surprise! She made me relook at my life, about the things I do to myself and for myself. For instance, in my not-so-lonely life, I rarely find time to look after my needs. Eleanor made me crave for some things like makeup, and buying an outfit for myself. Eleanor has a structured life, with routine and clarity of purpose. Eleanor reminded me that I am kind, but that I should be outwardly kind more often. She is teaching me a few things. In fact, if she was real, she would perhaps feel sorry for me.
Things do get a bit dark towards the end of the book, but even there, through her friend, kindness prevails. It made me realize that we definitely need more kindness in this world. I really want to be more kind, since I read this book.

I think the author meant for this book to be about a woman embracing her fears and getting out of a rut through the kindness of friends and, in some instances, strangers. Based on my understanding, however, in spite of the agony, Eleanor is a role model for a busy person like me. It might be unkind of me to say it, because one may say that I am ignoring her problems. But hey, she's a fictional character. So, maybe I can be a bit unkind. Also, it's high time we stopped looking at people with certain behaviours as needing kindness. Everyone needs kindness. 
Eleanor Oliphant is quite fine, if you ask me. She actually is.

The World According to Garp: According to Me

John Irving, in the author’s afterword of 'The World According to Garp', writes that he debated a lot on what the book was really about. As I read the book (very slowly, I must admit), I was also constantly and consciously trying to find out what the book’s purpose really was. Until the end of the book, it never really came to me. And that partly became my motivation to read on.

In the afterword, John mentions that he initially, and to his own shock, thought that the book was about the temptations of lust. He goes on to reject the idea later, and I agree completely. The book definitely talks about it, but that’s just one of many aspects dealt with.

He goes on to talk about polarization of sexes as a dominant theme. This theme is definitely prominent in the book, with numerous strong feminist characters and the interaction of the protagonist, Garp’s and other men’s characters with these and other women. But again, that theme somehow didn’t appeal to me as the single most outstanding theme of this book.

Finally, John Irving is convinced that 'The World According to Garp' is about a father’s fears. That is perhaps a very accurate description of this book, and coming from the author himself, I am in no place to question that.

Let's just focus on a set of characters in this book. The Ellen Jamesians are a group of women who cut their tongues, to show their support towards Ellen James, a 11-year old rape victim whose tongue was cut so that she couldn't describe the rapist. Some Ellen Jamesians are rape victims themselves, whereas others just want to show their support. Some others cut their tongues to make their voices heard. But, Ellen James hates Ellen Jamesians. To her, they were a shallow political imitiation of a very private trauma. They were prolonging her anguish. And these women were trying to help? What a pity!

This instance in mind, and based on many more characters, what I took out of this book is a lesson that I hope to carry with me through life. And that simple lesson is that each individual is different. Time and various experiences constantly gave me reason to think that people have a lot in common, which is true. My human resources background compel me to group people into sets and pools. And so does my profession as a lecturer. These theories became so much a part of my life, that somewhere down the road, I convinced myself that people have more commonalities, than dissimilarities. This book reminded me otherwise.

Each person has a very different history that he/she comes from, takes very different paths from other individuals and will have different futures ahead of them. In these differences, individuals might cross paths; for example: attend the same school, like the same celebrities on Facebook, join the same terrorist organization or use the same train to move from one place to another. But that’s where the similarities end.

People have different reasons for being at a particular place, or believing in a particular principle. And each person deserves the right to have different reasons. It would be wrong and completely unfair to think that all or even a majority of a group are doing the same thing for the same reasons. Hence, going forward, I would endeavor to constantly remind myself to accept people in their differences and to learn about these differences when given an opportunity to do so. Because that’s the appeal that we have to ourselves. That’s why the purpose of this book according to me is different to the purpose of this book according to John Irving. That’s what makes us interesting to us.

Thank you, Raghav, for gifting me this book.

The Strength of a Woman

I was sitting on the train to Victoria Terminus. As the train started moving from Kurla station, a woman came and sat next to me. She was wearing a black purdah, but her face was not covered. I could not help but look at her. She was tall and healthy, very much like me. She had a beautiful face. Her smile was so pleasant that you would want to smile back at her. And underneath the purdah, she was wearing a colorful salwar kameez, which somehow made me feel that this girl has a colorful personality herself.

After a while, she takes out an ultramodern phone, dials a number and starts speaking. In perfect English! I was completely taken aback. She talked for about a minute or two, and then hung up silently. As her station approached, she adjusted her purdah, took out a black scarf and tied it across her face. Now the only parts of her that were visible were her eyes, her hands and her feet.

This particular incident made me think in 2 ways. The first thought might have struck you as well. Here’s a woman, young, spirited, educated and beautiful who may have all the same habits that I have. But only because of her religion, the world cannot see her smile. Only because of her religion, she is not allowed the freedom that the girl seated next to her, dressed in a colorful shirt and a pair of jeans, enjoys lavishly. But the second thought was very positive. Here’s a woman, young and spirited, who did not allow religion and the dogma attached with it, affect her life. She’s living just like other women except that it is beneath the blackness. She is the best that she could be, even under the restrictions imposed on her. That’s strength… that’s energy and that’s what all women should be able to replicate.

With this somewhere in the back of my mind, I set out to work today. On my way to office, I caught today’s newspaper headlines. A bridegroom in Delhi was arrested for raping his ex-girlfriend. The ex-girlfriend claims that she had consented to sex because he promised that he would marry her. And then a hundred other articles about the rape incidents that have happened this year (including the recent one where 2 shopkeepers raped a women in a busy Delhi market) and the legal and social aspects of rape.

There was another article about girls in a slum in Malwani; some had gone missing and some were found dead after being raped brutally. There was also an article about a court order banning women to work on night shifts. All this made me start wondering: When will the woman’s agony cease to be?

Being an Orthodox Christian, I grew up learning that Eve was made out of a rib bone of Adam. And from young times, I have been seeing women as subordinate to men. I have seen women being treated brutally by their husbands just because there wasn’t enough salt in the food. Even working women are expected to prepare food and wash clothes even if she comes in along with her husband, as tired as he is.

Over time, I started respecting the things that women do. My mother herself is a shining example of a woman who had to face both sides of the coin. She initially was the working woman that I mentioned above. She had to come back home after work and cook and look after two extremely notorious kids. That was the time when we were all together as a family in Kuwait.

As time passed by, my father moved to Dubai and my mother, my sister and I moved to Kerala, where we built our house. Since then, my mother has been proving herself. She proved it not to herself but also to the whole world. She managed an entire household herself. She brought up 2 girls, giving us the best facilities and sacrificing a lot of her own joys to ensure that we had it all. She took care of, at different times, almost 16 dogs, 45 puppies, 2 cows, a goat, some cats. She even had a broiler farm. When I was in high school, she saw a great opportunity in anthurium and orchid farming. Our backyard was soon full of beautiful flowers and she made a decent fortune out of the business. My mother got herself involved in a lot of businesses and in my dad’s absence, was a great source of support for me and my sister. My father of course used to visit once in a while and was a significant contributor in our lives. But our mom is the one who inculcated in us a sense of pride in being a woman. She is the one who made us realize that by no means is housework subordinate to any other work. She is the one who told us through her life that you don’t have to restrict yourself to housework thinking that’s your destiny. In fact, I sometimes feel that housework and rearing up children is a huger responsibility than anything else. You have to take care of so many things and bringing up children is no mean job.

What I am trying to say by all this is that women need to be proud about the achievements that we make in our fields. Mothers have brought up amazing men and women, daughters have taken care of their parents and finally wives, their husbands. If it weren’t for the women in their lives, men may have managed, but I don’t think we as mankind would have reached where we are.

Feminism and all the crap – its just like reservation in education – If equality is the target, it’s never going to happen. Feminism in a way is just like socialism. Equality is a great concept, but practically, I have my doubts. All the rules haven’t helped in liberating women, have they? Now the law itself is curbing women from being equal to men by preventing night shifts. How is this helping in equality?

Women should be proud and happy about their contribution to the society. There are a large number of activities towards women’s education and women’s societal upgradation. That’s definitely good. Let that go on. But that shouldn’t be seen as a fight against men. Women need men as much men need women in their lives. Its all a matter of self esteem. It’s a matter of satisfaction. I mean, there are certain things that women do well. Be it cooking or research, women are equal to men. But there are certain physiological and psychological differences between men and women. We were not born equal that way. Just like men are good at certain things, women are good at certain other things. It’s just that over the years, the male ego has titled women’s work as inferior. If we women realize that the work we do is equally important and that it has its place in this world, we would be a better lot. Forget the men who are always waiting to exploit us… let’s not let them win. We can win on other racecourses!

Ta Ra Rum Pum Pum Dum DUMB!

Last night, I had the 'pleasant' experience of watching Ta Ra Rum Pum. Well, to be real honest, it's a decent watch.. for someone who has never watched English movies, who doesn't know what the American life is all about, and also for someone who has no intentions of saving.
I might be highly sarcastic and rude here, but that is NOT coincidental or unintentional.
In short, the movie is about a degree-less racer, who falls in love with a degree-less pianist, and at the same time, becomes the no:1 racer in New York (or wait! is it the entire US of A? You never know!). Anyway, they get married without her pa's permission, but live happily and have two kids. They have a great car, a beautiful house in Manhattan and she wears a huge diamond ring, which have all been purchased on loans.But their happiness is short-lived as the racer meets with an accident and can't get back to form because of the trauma that he faced during and after the accident. They go broke and have to move into a single room apartment. But they don't want their children to be sad. They therefore lie to their children that all this is part of a reality show. The 'greatest' racer and the 'greatest' pianist now have to drive a taxi and play in hotels and restaurants to make money so that their children can go to school. The children who come to know of the hardships their parents are going through forsake their lunch to save money. But the boy can't stand the hunger, due to which he eats food thrown into the waste bin. He accidentally swallows a glass piece because of which he is admitted in the hospital and needs to be operated immediately. A sudden need for money causes the racer to go back to his ex-boss who humiliates him. All this causes our hero to suddenly gather courage and fight back only to win the race and his life back. WOWWWW!!!
The movie attempts to portray family values. It tells you the story of a youngster who loses all that he has because of a sudden tragic turn in his life. It shows how the family sticks together through thick and thin. It shows the importance of saving. But most importantly, it shows you the importance of saying the truth. Because if you don't say the truth, your wife will beat you up and tell your kids the truth (to whom both you and your wife have been lying).. and also claim that you will now commit murders also because you lied once..What the hell??
There are so many aspects of the movie that make it lose its authenticity. The bankrupt father takes his family to celebrate in a toy shop in the middle of the night. The mother wears designer clothes and shoes even while her kids are eating out of the waste bin. She stuffs food into her designer bag because she can't afford the food otherwise. And after all this, she has the nerve to fight with her husband just because he lied to get some money that they desperately needed. Man, her tolerance levels are amazing.
Poor comedy by Jaaved Jaaferi adds so much life to the movie. And the heroine's pathetic hairstyle. Guess they spent the money that they were supposed to spend on mirrors on the permits to vacate the streets of New York for the song scenes. Not to mention the same old streets that we have seen in Kal Ho Na Ho and Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna. The racing scenes are ok; but it's disappointing that they still have to have scenes where the hero is sitting on the steering wheel of a fake car and there is some artificial scenery going on behind. Reality bites? I guess the producer got bitten more than enough that he decided not to include reality at all in his movie.
It's one of those movies that is definitely not a reflection of real life. This is an argument that I have with my friend all the time. He always states that movies are a reflection of real life. And I always say that reflections don't give you 100% of the actual light. In this case, this is not even close to reflection. It's like a black hole that absorbs all the light possible. Complete emptiness!
I couldn't wait for the movie to end, honestly. Someone mentioned to me that the movie was a tearjerker. The only thing it jerked out of me was pure irritation and frustration.. since I was waiting for the tears all through the movie.
Altogether, a below average movie. They tried to make it colorful and sweet and nice. But at the end of it all, you wonder whether you learnt anything from it, except for, how not to make a movie!

A Li'l Bit of This, A Li'l Bit of That!

When we read Shakespeare during school, what struck most people were the famous speech of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice and the monologue of Hamlet in The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. These struck me as well. But there was one more dialogue that struck me hard and it’s something I have found to be true as I traveled the way of life. This dialogue is given below:

The Merchant of Venice

SCENE 2.

Belmont.
A room in PORTIA’S house

[Enter PORTIA and NERISSA.]

PORTIA.

By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of this great world.

NERISSA.

You would be, sweet madam, if your miseries were in the same abundance as your good fortunes are; and yet, for aught I see, they are as sick that surfeit with too much as they that starve with nothing. It is no mean happiness, therefore, to be seated in the mean: superfluity come sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer.

PORTIA.

Good sentences, and well pronounced.

NERISSA.

They would be better, if well followed.

PORTIA.

If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottages princes’ palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own instructions; I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done than to be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching. The brain may devise laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps o’er a cold decree; such a hare is madness the youth, to skip o’er the meshes of good counsel the cripple.

If you have read The Merchant of Venice before, I am sure that you remember this conversation. I still recall my dear English teacher explaining these lines. She did this with so much clarity and impact that the lessons still remain etched in my mind. I never would have thought at that point of time that English lessons would become something I would fall back on to answer some difficult questions in life. Nerissa says (and I have marked it in bold): It is no mean happiness, therefore, to be seated in the mean. When our teacher explained this in class, she said that the word ‘mean’ can have three meanings: 1. Offensive, selfish, unaccommodating, nasty, or malicious (You are so mean!) 2. In the middle (The mean of a set of numbers) 3. Of low quality or inferior. (I paid no mean amount for those shoes). Keeping this in mind, what Nerissa says is that “It is not inferior happiness to be seated in the middle”. Which is what I would like to discuss here. The beauty of being in the middle. And using the same, I would also like to discuss another principle that I hold very close to my heart: “Everything is relative.”

Whatever we may discuss here, I am sure that I can prove to you that it’s best to be in the middle. Let’s take happiness, for instance. That’s something you’ll always want. But what’s happiness without sorrow? If you have not experienced sorrow, how can you measure the true value of happiness? You experience the beauty of happiness because of the sorrow that you may have undergone at another point of time. And therefore, a fulfilling life would be one in which you have a good mix of happiness and sorrow. A person who has reasons to be happy always may not be able to value it as much as someone who has saddening experiences as well.

The principle of relativity also comes up here. The definition of happiness will be different for different people, simply because of the limits to which people experience happiness and sorrow. Something that makes one person excessively happy may generate a muted response from another. This difference comes only because of the experiences that they may have gone through.I have always noticed that people have a tendency to crave for something that they don’t have. For example, there are some people who, having parents who love them to the core, wish that their parents left them alone. And then there are people with busy parents who wish they had some time for them. When you have something, you often, if not always, want something else.

But what people should realize that being in between is best. You get a bit of both the worlds, making you enjoy both of it. You access all the ‘good’s and the ‘bad’s of both sides.
The best instance is that of wealth. A person who is poor knows the value of having a place to live, good health, food, clothes, etc. A person who is very rich doesn’t have any value for all these things. And a third person who is somewhere in middle knows those times when he had a little and he also knows of times when he had a lot. Just think who’s life is actually the richest.
It’s no mean thing to be in the mean!

Deafening Silence!

The auto left me at the lobby at the Powai office of Lehman Brothers. My summer internship at Lehman Brothers was something I was looking forward to for quite some time now. I took a deep breath, entered the lobby, gave my name at the security desk and walked in. The receptionist pointed to a room and asked me to wait there.
As I walked into the room, I met with 17 pairs of hopeful eyes. As I looked back at them absolutely clueless, I guess they realized that I am not the one they were looking for. They went back to what they were doing, disappointed. There were around 17 young adults in there, and all of them were just looking at the floor, or playing with their cell phones. The complete silence was almost deafening. 17 people in a room and not even a single one talking.. Wow! Lehman Brothers is definitely a formal environment. Anyways, I managed to find a place to sit and placed myself there comfortably.
People were looking at their shoes, man… ‘Gimme a break!’ was the 1st thought that struck me. I am sure a lot of you may have gone through the same experience. You enter a room full of silent people or you sit next to a few strangers. You would like to start a conversation, because you don’t really like the silence. And even these people look uncomfortable about the silence. But in that case, how come these people are not talking to each other? And by the time you gather the guts to say something to the person next to you, she starts playing on her cell phone. Damn it!
You then look to your other side. This guy seems bored. Maybe he’s a good candidate. But wait a minute… Don’t you think you have been silent for too long? Wouldn’t it be awkward to start a conversation now? But you don’t want to be enslaved by the silence.
Finally, I managed to smile at a girl sitting opposite to me. She smiles back pleasantly. But then you realize that she’s too far for you to sit where you are and talk to her… you can’t break the silence with a big bang, can you? And she’s too close to get up from my seat and walk to her and talk… Ok! There goes my well thought out plan... Back to the awkward silence…
Now.. think! What can be done to break the silence? I was struck with a great idea.. I'll just keep looking at the person next to me.. When she realises that I am looking at her (you know, the sixth sense na!) she'll turn and look at me.. n then I can strike a conversation.
So, I started Operation SilenceBreaker. Stared and stared.. only to realise that I was not staring at her, but her cell phone. But how I realised it was when she looked back at me in a very offensive manner.. I took the opportunity..
"Oh! I'm so sorry! I didn't realise I was looking at your cell phone. I am so terribly sorry", I said with an apologetic smile. She smiled back, "Hey! That's ok! So, are you a new joinee?" "No." I replied. "I am a summer intern with the HR department." "Oh!" She exclaimed..
BINGO! I had successfuly broken the silence!

HR Issues in the IT Industry

The IT industry came into India with a mighty bang. IT becomes extremely relevant for HR professionals simply because the main knowledge “resource” of the IT industry is “human”. The initial big bang saw a large number of engineers moving into the IT industry. But now, the scenario has changed.
What used to be a top-notch career option for smart engineers has now become a backup plan. When I had passed out of college, IT jobs were a dream come true. People held it up proudly. Except for a few, this path was the future ahead for many. But when I went to my college a couple of days back, my juniors informed me that now IT jobs were a backup for almost all the students. Nearly all the final year students are either writing exams for higher studies or looking for technical jobs. What happened to the ‘dream companies’ that charmed youngsters? That made the youth of India proud to be associated with them? Let’s look into some of the characteristics of the IT industry and how things have changed with time.
Almost all the work in IT companies in India can be broadly divided into two sections: one involves developing new software technology depending on requirements of clients and the second deals with maintaining already existing software. To elaborate, the first form of work is extremely interesting: The client gives you certain requirements and demands and you have to develop new software for the client. The second type is a little less fascinating. Here, you work with already existing clients. If there are issues or problems with the software provided to the client, you work on them and solve them. As can be guessed, most of the work in IT companies is of the second type. Most of the software requirements of clients are related to maintenance.
And the problem arises here. Working in maintenance does not require too much of creativity. You are given a huge chunk of code, which you need to look through, debug and make necessary changes to. For a youngster, who is at the beginning of a ‘colorful career ahead’ as the advertisements offered, how attractive is this?
Perhaps, in a different market scenario, people would have been ready to work on these types of projects. But the opening up of the market and the large number of job opportunities change the equation altogether. An organization cannot retain an employee with false promises anymore. There are too many companies in the market, ready to pounce on that young man, who even shows the slightest interest in moving out of his job.
Also, the greater business opportunities have increased the demand for software engineers in the country. In the Indian ITES sector, as many as 200 personnel are hired every working day of the year. As per Nasscom’s annual market intelligence study—Strategic Review 2003, there would be a requirement of 1.1 million professionals in the ITES-BPO segment by the year 2008. There are a large number of projects which involve big-time money that need to be manned accordingly. Talent is in high demand, and organizations are running wild to get numbers.
The altered market scenario has not only brought in the kind of change mentioned above; it has also increased the ambitions of young minds. We know we are in demand; we know we have opportunities wherever we go. We can take risks; in the end, even if nothing else works, one just needs to float his CV on one of those websites and tada! there are hundreds of jobs waiting.
A news piece that I was reading a few days back states that the scenario has changed from just hiring anyone and everyone (due to shortage of manpower) and that the requirement presently is for professionals with more domain-specific skill sets and business analysts with programming skills. This trend clearly reflects that Indian ITES companies are tapping high-value service segments. Therefore, HR targets people with experience, in order to reduce training expenses and time spent on developmental activities.
At this juncture, I would like to mention some observations that I made while I was working with Infosys. Infosys recruits not only engineers, but people with basic degrees such as Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) and Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) as well. They then put them on projects that do not need technical expertise, for example, testing and service centers. After working with the company for a couple of years, by when they get a hang of things, they are provided with intense training and promoted to the cadre of software engineers, equivalent to a fresh entrant from an engineering college. The point that I would like to make here is that the big companies like Infosys are now looking beyond engineers. There are several advantages to this approach:
(a) More graduates are being given good job opportunities.
(b) Since the basic work is being done by other graduates, engineers can be given more attractive work and therefore, keeping them interested becomes easier.
(c) Graduates demand lesser salaries than professional engineers.
(d) As I mentioned earlier, the larger percentage of projects are maintenance projects which do not require great skill sets. By employing trained graduates to do this work, you can imagine the profits that can be generated, since they demand lesser salaries as well.
(e) Companies like Infosys can now target maintenance projects largely. The advantage is that this ensures larger number of projects and larger profits as well. It also ensures that the company can spread its grasp over a larger number of clients across various sectors and geographies.
But there is one problem that the industry still faces. This is the problem of training. There are a large number of issues related to training. Well, I myself am a perfect example to prove my point. I joined Infosys in a batch of 1000 odd fresh engineers from colleges across India. We were divided into 5 classes and were initially provided generic training. After a month or so of this generic training, we were given specializations randomly. We then studied these specializations and within a couple of months or so, were done with our training.
Before I go on, it would be wrong on my part not to mention some things. Infosys provides amazing training classes and facilities. The faculty is talented, the facilities provided are impeccable and the material is above par. All in all, the 1st impression that you have is: WOW! They are putting in a lot of efforts to make sure that we feel at home. But unfortunately, in most cases, these efforts bear no fruit.
First of all, training calls for heavy expenses. But people like me, who have no intentions of staying in the company for long, utilize these training facilities and then quit. For a company like Infosys, this is something they can bear with. But a more important fact is that smaller IT companies are taking advantage of the high quality training provided by the biggies. The model of companies like Infosys is high quality training, lower salaries. (This model is the only way companies can face attrition. They can’t fight attrition, so they work on a model that will cause them least harm.) The model of smaller IT companies is no training, higher salaries. So, a number of people after the high quality training and some experience move out to smaller companies which offer them better salaries.
A grave mistake that the HR in Infosys made is that trainees were given specializations randomly. They were given no preferences. This demotivates a large number of engineers who may have specific interests and perhaps even some form of previous training in certain specializations. What’s even worse is that after a few months’ of grueling training in a particular specialization, people are mostly put into projects on platforms other than those they are specialized in. People get frustrated at this point as all the training obtained so far has gone to waste and more training has to be undergone.
All these issues point to one fact: the role of HR in the IT industry cannot be ignored. The solution to a number of problems that are faced by the IT industry may lie in the hands of the HR of these companies. Let’s look into how HR can help:
1. Recruitment: The ability to identify the right talent is crucial. This is a basic feature of good recruitment. But now, attention may be shifted from fresh engineers to other graduates with basic aptitude and attitude.
2. Training: Employees’ preference may be considered before providing them specializations. As much as I do agree that business requirements are important, this is a good way to ensure that employees feel that their needs are being catered to.
3. Employee Development and Performance Management: It’s not only about identifying talent, it’s also about providing the right platforms for growth. Skilled youngsters know that they are in demand. They must be provided with what they want, at some point of time or the other. False promises don’t work anymore.
In the future, HR managers have to continuously evolve career paths, motivate their employees and create a culture of oneness, which will also act as retention tools. A lot lies in the efficiency of HR tools in an organization. This fact, if ignored, can cause the downfall of the organization even before it realizes it.