Fate’s Angels

(Author’s Note: This is my second short story. Needless to say it is a piece of fiction, but this time have tried to put the story in a fantasy world. Reviews are most welcome)

 

It was a chilly misty day. The sun had risen over Dnyankhand but day or night, this place was always illuminated by a soft yellow glow. The place had no walls. Only a see through floor woven of water droplets which could be transformed into mist at The young man’s wish. From their vantage point The young man and his fellow companions could see all four islands as they swam in the ocean below. Today Dnyankhand,  was towards the east followed by Krishikhand, Yodakshetra and Arthasthan in the west.  The four islands swam in the ocean in random a random pattern over the months. The young man neither controlled it nor was he responsible for the movement of the islands. His only care was his many children who lived on the four islands. “The child is too innocent for the new world he is stepping into. He will need help or he will lose himself within an year” exclaimed the short fair maiden in white. “The four lands were never meant to be perfect. Asmis will find the help he requires” said The young man.

Asmis stepped off the ship and for the first time in his life set foot on Dnyankhand. He had seen 20 years of the sun rising and setting over the island of Krishikhand ever since he had been born. This was the first time he was visiting another island. His father, the great Asmiraichand had earned great renown in their village. Asmiraichand, like his father and grandfather had been born on the island of Krishikhand which was the largest of the four islands. He had carried on with the family tradition of growing wheat and had over the years quadrupled the yield in his village. In Krishikhand, wheat was the standard against which anything and everything could be bought. Hence it was no surprise that he was the most respected person within the village and a role model for the younger generation of the village. A role model for everyone except his own son, Asmis. Asmis was born with all of his parents’ abilities and he knew everything there was about wheat by the age of 15. But Asmis was not interested in following in his father’s footsteps. He wanted to explore lands outside his own village. Within his village his father was greatly respected but outside it was always the people who stayed at Dnyankhand and discovered new things far beyond the imagination of his fellow villagers who had the greatest respect on any of the islands. After spending 20 years on Krishikhand he finally boarded a trader’s vessel for Dnyankhand. Before departing, his father had gifted him with a bushel of wheat, the most powerful currency in Krishikhand so that he could make the journey.

 

Of all the four islands, Dnyankhand was the smallest but also the most active. Dnyankhand had twenty ports of varying sizes and the vessel carrying Amis docked at the smallest port which was on the western side today. The journey had taken two weeks and making it to Dnyankhand without once falling sick despite the choppy seas was by itself an achievement. Asmis had always wanted to come to Dnyankhand to gain the respect of the four islands by inventing something new. After stepping out of the port, he headed off towards the largest building he could see. It was a brown dome shaped structure surrounded by several other smaller buildings of diminishing size as far as the eye could see. On the dome was engraved a picture of the sun rising over the four lands. A portly man in a black gown stood outside. “And who may this young traveler be?” asked the man catching sight of Asmis coming towards him.

“I am Asmis and I have come from Krishikhand. I have braved the choppy seas to come here and have not fallen sick once. I want to learn how to invent things so that I can earn the respect of the four islands.” replied Asmis

“Everyone who comes to Dnyankhand braves the choppy seas, Asmis. Everybody wants to earn the respect of the four islands. What do you bring for Dnyankhand?”

 

“I have a bushel of wheat, enough to feed a man for two months and the strongest currency in Krishikhand”

 

The portly man smiled at Asmis, dug his hand into his pocket and fished out one silver coin. “This is more than what you will get on the open market for a bushel of wheat, Asmis. It will keep you alive for two weeks in Dnyankhand if you live frugally. That is all I can do for you. Take my advice and use it to purchase a return fare to Krishikhand” said the man.

Asmis took the coin for the bushel of wheat but did not return to Krishikhand. He continued walking deeper into the island of Dnyankhand. As he walked he came across many other such buildings and other men in similar black gowns. He asked them how he could earn the respect of the four islands. The responses he got ranged from “Go back home” to open laughter and in one case nothing more than a stern glance. Asmis skipped lunch and continued searching for his destiny as he called it. By the time evening fell, all he had was a heavy heart, a single silver coin in his pocket and nowhere to stay for the night.

Asmis had a queer feeling that he was being watched. He turned around and came face to face with a young man no older than 25 with a round clean shaven face and a short crop of curly black hair on his head. “Hi. New to Dnyankhand?” he asked.

“Yes” replied Asmis. “I am Asmis. I have braved the choppy seas to reach Dnyankhand and want to earn the respect of the four islands.”

 

“You may call me Yoginder. What do you bring with you?” asked the curly haired boy

“I have a single silver coin which should last me for one week’s worth of living expenses in Dnyankhand. I took it as my price for a bushel of wheat which my father gave me.”

“Poor men in Dnyankhand need five silver coins to survive for a day, the boy has been duped” thought Yoginder. “I will give you a shelter for tonight and my friend will help you tomorrow so that some day you may find your destiny. But in return what will you give us?”

 

“I have but one silver coin with me” said Asmis “but I can work and know everything about growing wheat. I can learn anything that is required to live in Dnyankhand.”

 

Yoginder took Asmis to his house. A short fair maiden of about the same age as Yoginder greeted them at the entrance. Over dinner, Asmis narrated his story to Yoginder and Sheetal. Although Yoginder never really introduced her, she could only be his wife. After dinner, Yoginder took Asmis aside and said, “You already have the respect of the four islands. You have the knowledge of wheat.”

 

The next day Yoginder was nowhere to be seen. Sheetal said that he had left for work. As soon as Asmis was ready Sheetal took him to visit another one of the brown coloured dome shaped buildings. It was a very long walk and by the time they reached the building, it was already evening. Like all the other such buildings he had visited the previous day, this one too had a picture adorning the dome. It was a picture unlike any other he had seen. In the center was a flame, on the left side of the flame was a jagged semi circular arc and on the right side a single stalk of food grain. “Good Luck, Asmis” whispered Sheetal “I must return to Yoginder. See you later”. The thin tall old man in the black gown who stood in front of the building was getting ready to leave, but catching sight of Asmis he stopped. This time however when he asked Asmis why he had come to Dnyankhand and what he brought with him, Asmis replied “I am Asmis and I bring with me the knowledge of wheat. The knowledge I carry has the respect of the four islands. May I stay with you at Dnyankhand and help spread this knowledge?”

The thin lips of the old man curved upwards into a smile.

 

By the time Asmis arrived at Yoginder’s house it was already midnight. He had run as fast as he could to give them the good news. The house was dark and thinking it improper to disturb them at that late hour, Asmis slept on the porch. The next morning he knocked, but received no response. He pushed the door and it gave way. The house was deserted. The house looked as though nobody had ever lived there. Yet it was the same place. Asmis asked the neighbours is they had seen either Yoginder or Sheetal. One of the neighbours said they had shifted out to another island while another said they had moved further inland into Dnyankhand.

 

Asmis searched everywhere he could but could not find either of them. They had fulfilled their purpose and moved on. But he continued searching, hoping that one day he could repay their debt. Asmis had now taken up residence with the thin old man at the place where Sheetal had taken him. For the first few weeks Asmis would regularly visit the house hoping to find the two of them there, but the house was as empty as always. The weeks changed into months and the months into years.

 

Asmis had many interesting incidents in his life over the course of the years but could never forget the two people who had helped him when he was all alone and helpless in a new land. He visited the other islands and earned great fame and respect just like he wanted to. Asmis made it a point to visit his father whenever he was in Krishikhand and continued sending letters to the empty house in Dnyankhand hoping that some day he may get some response.

Ten years to that fateful day, Asmis was in Krishikhand when a letter arrived for him. When he saw the name of the sender, his joy knew no bounds. He opened the letter and read, …

 

Predicting the next big thing in technology

The sun had set over Joka and the IIM C campus was shrouded in darkness except for the street lights along the campus roads. As I made my way to Mohan da’s outlet for my frugal dinner, I saw a bunch of PGP1s coming in from the library. It was exam time and undoubtedly they had been sweating it out for the impending exams. They held no books in their hands though. No notebooks nor any textbooks. All they had was a tablet with a leather cover.

Having already taken a course on High Tech Innovations in Marketing, this got me curious. Five years ago, in early 2008 where was I? I was an engineering student at VJTI working on outdated processors and CRT monitors. I did not own a laptop and the iPhone which was the latest gadget from the Apple studio was only an object of dreams. To those who are familiar with the technology adoption curve, I was certainly somewhere in the late majority back then. The first tech gadget I purchased was in late 2010 – an Android smart phone which I still own (and have no end of problems with). However that was a time when things began to change in terms of adoption of tech products. This was the time when the iPad was launched and although initially too expensive for most users in India, it established itself as the first usable tablet computer. If we fast forward to early 2013, we see a much different technology scenario. A large number of Indian manufacturers have launched a series of mini tablet computers at dirt cheap prices. Smart phones running android systems can be obtained at less than half the cost of what far inferior phones could be bought at 2 years ago. Suddenly the market place has become a techie’s delight.

If we were to ask the academics among us, they would say that nothing has really changed. It is Moore’s law in action as always. So if we were to extend Moore’s law and predict technology five years hence, where will it take us? Five years ago, the tablets did not exist except as failed experiments. So we can be sure that five years hence, we will have some other technology product which does not exist today. The Samsung flexible phone prototype at CES could just be one of several such technologies. If we were to talk about technology adoption, tablets will probably replace paper notebooks and probably even textbooks. While bibliophiles such as myself may feel like mourning the impending demise of the physical paper books, it may not be all bad news.

Among the many things which I miss at home is the lack of a good library to sate my appetite for reading and finding new books. Running a library is extremely difficult especially when the objective is to make profits. You need a large room which means huge rental costs. You need a good location which further increases the costs and you need a huge collection of books of every kind and genre many of which are very expensive to procure and are scarcely rented out. Hence running a library fails on every financial ratio imaginable. It is hardly surprising then that there are so few libraries to be found in our cities and those which do exist have a limited collection of books. Now take away the huge rentals, the books and the space requirements and you have whittled down the costs to nothing. Digital libraries are by no means a new concept. However it has never really found main stream acceptance. Largely this has been due to lack of a good enough medium to read books. Computers and laptops as reading devices have always been a pain, but with the adoption of tablets this could change. (There will still remain the issue of how to introduce differential pricing across countries).

This is just one of several disruptions which can happen over the next five years given that technology changes very rapidly. Now think of the kind of tablets we have. None of them are comparable in terms of performance to our laptops. Maybe the performance will improve in 5 years and they may become the ultra portable usable laptops we all dream of. However if you cannot store 1 TB of data on a paper thin machine, where will it go, into the skies? And why not into the skies? Microsoft, Google and Dropbox among many others are already offering cloud based services. Who is to say that the sky won’t be your hard drive 5 years from now? That brings us to yet another technology disruption. If usage of cloud storage increases, so will the number of uploads and downloads which leads us to network service providers.

In the past I remember that some politicians in India had opposed the usage of computers and digitization on the grounds that it would lead to job loss. However if we look at disruptive technology innovation (and in my opinion innovation is always disruptive) it leads to creation of more jobs than the number of jobs which are lost. This brings us to another topic – the rapid pace of change and the impact it will have on industry. But more on that later. Till my next post then…

The drink or the woman?

Nikita stepped off the Indigo flight and immediately felt the humidity of Mumbai. Being a resident of Delhi, she was used to the heat but the pre monsoon Mumbai humidity was suffocating her. The airport terminal brought some respite and she immediately whipped out her blackberry. “In Mumbai”, she typed updating her status on facebook. Nikita loved her blackberry and five hours was the maximum time she could live without it, which was only when she was asleep in the wee hours of morning. Twenty miles away, a depressed Amol saw the status update on his laptop.
Amol had just finished his internship with McKinsey, the world famous consulting firm. Although tagged as a high flyer by all his friends at IIM Bangalore, McKinsey had failed to recognize his abilities and curtly showed him the door without offering him a permanent job. Now he had four more days to kill in Mumbai with few friends in the city for company except the old lady at whose home he was staying as a paying guest. Only the previous night he and his friend Amit had gone for a walk along marine drive where they met with Vinita, a co-intern from IIM Lucknow. Amol, an eternal failure in the ladies department, though never tired of trying bought her an ice cream, but with Amit around, there was little he could do to try and turn on his charm. Then this morning, Amit and Vinita were offered a job at the firm and they happily took the first flight out to their respective homes (the steep price of airline tickets was no longer an issue with a high paycheck assured) so that they could meet their parents before term started. Amol, the ice cream boy was barely given a second glance, let alone a good bye. After all, for the high fliers about to join the firm, he was nobody.
A depressed Amol had toyed with the idea of languishing at one of the city’s bars or pubs, but most decent ones would not allow him in, at least not unless he had a girl with him. Moreover he had little money to spend on booze, most of it already being spent on purchasing the latest iPhone, Macbook Air, kindle, X Box and a dozen other electronic gadgets to entertain himself. And then there came the status update from Nikita.
Amol knew Nikita from his under graduate days at IIT Kanpur. Although they were not particularly great friends, facebook had ensured that the two of them like so many others across the world were aware of each others’ activities. Amol had always been a lanky and geeky person and hence had never been able to get a second glance from any girl in either IIT or IIM, both of which were forests in which the fairer sex was an endangered species lingering on the verge of extinction. Nikita on the other hand while not exactly Cleopatra was definitely in the top quadrant with respect to looks among the women of IIT Kanpur. Many a teenage boys’ raging hormones had led them to break their hearts on this pretty girl from Delhi. Lean, smart, witty and to some extent haughty, she was just the kind of girl teenage boys found most attractive.
As Nikita stepped into the metallic green Meru cab, her blackberry beeped. It was a comment from Amol asking what her plans were for the day. Of the 1500 odd friends on her facebook list she tried to remember who this Amol was. Not finding much success with her own memory she decided to check what facebook had to offer. Apparently Amol was in the same batch as her in IIT. Then she remembered the thin nerdy looking idiot who she had never considered worthy of a second glance. Facebook said that he was now studying at IIM B and had just interned at McKinsey in Mumbai. Nikita was visiting Mumbai for the first time and did not know anybody in Mumbai. She had an appointment with the manager of Palladium mall at 4 pm after which she was free to explore the city. Considering that she was on a tight budget, the prospect of Amol’s company seemed just about bearable.
Amol stared at the phone vibrating on his table. Phone calls from the fairer sex were few and far in between. He picked up the suddenly very precious instrument
‘Hello?’
‘Hi Amol, it’s Nikita. How are you?’
‘Fine’, lied Amol. ‘Long time, no see’
‘Yes, busy job you know. What’s up with you? Bigshot at McKinsey, huh?’
Amol winced at the reference to the raw wound. ‘Oh well, no big deal yaar. So, you in Bombay?’
‘Yaa, my first time in Bombay, you know. Just have to meet some manager for afternoon tea. Uske baad I am totally free.’
‘Well I am free for the next four days too. Wanna catch up?’
‘Sure. Where?’
‘Marine Drive, 6pm? Opposite the Trident?’
‘Will do. Milte hain’ replied a satisfied Nikita as she hung off. Well, that was her evening entertainment assured.

Amol arrived on the footpath opposite the Trident just after 6 pm to find Nikita already there, clicking pictures of the famous queen’s necklace as the street lights gradually lit it up. She looked at him and had to suppress a giggle. The thin frame of a bespectacled Amol wearing a shocking pink round neck t-shirt was definitely a comical sight.
‘Hi’, said Nikita, trying to keep her face straight.
‘Hi’ replied Amol. ‘Wanna walk?’
‘Sure’
For the next few minutes the two of them chatted about what they had been up to after graduating from IIT. Nikita had joined the retail arm of Tata while Amol had chosen to work with a technology firm before joining IIM B. They chatted and ratted about their mutual acquaintances from the IIT days as they walked, not thinking how far their feet were taking them until they reached Chowpatty beach.
‘So what does this city offer in the form of night life?’ asked Nikita
‘Where do u want to go? Clubbing, pubbing or just dining?’
‘Hmm. Bade Miyas aur Lemon grass ka naam suna hai. Have also heard of HRC. Know any other places?’
‘Well, big nasty, wtf and hawaaian shack are pretty good too agar peena hai. Tell you what, wtf chalte hain. All the young public comes there.’
Wtf, one of the many watering holes in Mumbai is located off the main road and is very near to the railway station. While most of the clientele is teenagers and twenty somethings, there are also the rare thirty year olds to be found here. Into this place, stepped Amol and Nikita as the clock in the pub struck 9. They started with the breezers and as the hour changed, graduated to vodka. The tables around them began to fill up to the point that there was no place to sit and most of the clientele was on its feet swaying slowly to the music and then faster as the music increased in volume and intensity.
The faint display on the pub clock showed that the time was now past 11 pm. Amol excused himself to go to the washroom. Nikita, whose spirits were quite high by now started dancing quite suggestively among the many other youngsters in the pub. At 1 am, the pub closed and the clientele left slowly. The staff handed over the table bill to Nikita. She looked around. Amol was nowhere to be seen.
Back in his room, Amol checked his watch. It was almost 1 am. He checked his facebook profile. A message from Divya, an acquaintance from his days in Calcutta caught his eye. “Coming to Bombay for first time. Sooo excited!”

A.N.: This is my first attempt at fiction. The places are real, the people are not.

Shores of the past and some strange tales…

The sea is calm under the deep blue evening sky. The sea stretches on until it is interrupted by the bridge linking Bandra to Worli. Tiny looking yellow lights shine in the distance across the sea face of Bandra and the sea link. Many have been the times spent walking the paths of this garden. Times of emotional distress, times of happiness, times with friends and times of emotionless aimless wandering. Yet, always the tides of time are never the same on these shores.

 

Four young men, friends from their junior college days ambled around Shivaji park as they often did on week ends when they met. It was the only good hang out zone in the neighborhood. The Dadar beach, just a road crossing away from Shivaji park had long since lost its once enchanting beauty, but there had always been a couple of gardens near the beach which had been well maintained. As our four friends took their customary evening walk around the large Shivaji park, they noticed a strange green light shining from across the sea. The darkness of the night prevented them from getting a glimpse of the source of that light. Curious to find out more, they crossed the road and stepped into the dark lane which led to the beach. The beach was usually quite desolate after dark, except for the occasional couple whom you would rather not want to run into especially in the dark. To their surprise, where the opening to the beach once was, there was now a yellow coloured gate, and beyond the gate a beautiful garden unlike any other they had seen in the city.

 

The four friends returned to the garden often. It was the newest and coolest hang out place in the locality. Children came to play on the swings and see saws. Grandparents came for their morning walk, the popular gym trainer in the locality started conducting his open air gym training there and couples found a shady corner to cuddle up during the late evening hours. Our four friends came often, though rarely with their girlfriends (in fact only one of them actually had a girlfriend, but they liked to pretend otherwise). There were many others like them who came to spend a good evening in the beautiful garden overlooking the sea. Of our four friends, there was one who loved the garden more than the others. I would love to tell you his name, but try as hard as I may neither I nor any of his other three friends can remember his first name. Well, let’s just call him the Friend.

 

The Friend came to this garden a lot more than his three other companions. Often he would come alone and together with the garden and the tides he would share tales of all that happened in his world. There were tales of his college, stories of his ambitions, secrets of the one girl whom he so deeply desired and banter regarding his friends. The garden and the sea were always a good audience and sometimes the wind would join them. Only the rain was a prankster, scaring off the Friend and many other visitors with sheets of cold water. For his part, the Friend narrated the time when he and his college friends mass bunked their classes only to appear together in Essel World. What a shock it was for the professors and such a delight it was for all the students, away from studies and instead enjoyment in an amusement park. Then there was the double birthday bash when half the college gang spent their time in the garden, clicking photographs with the craziest poses imaginable. But after that, neither the garden nor the sea saw Friend for more than a month.

 

He appeared one morning, solemn faced and not saying a word. His eyes were downcast as though everything he held dear was lost. Looking at his utter helplessness even the playful brown sea turned blue and became as still as a lake. After a few quiet minutes, he left. There was no story this time. A month passed by, then two and then two more. There was no sign of Friend. The garden grew quite worried and asked the sea to check where Friend had disappeared. Sea searched all he could until he met the Ocean, but there was no sight of Friend. He asked the Ocean to look for friend and the Ocean told his brothers and his daughter the Bay to look for Friend. Two years passed, but neither of them saw any sign of Friend. Sea even asked Wind, but even the mighty Wind could not see him.

 

Friend returned to meet Garden and Sea after a gap of two years and a month. He now had flecks of grey in his hair and his cheeks were a lot more rounded than what they had last been. Unlike the last time, he now had lots of stories to tell. Tales of lands far away which even the mighty sea had not seen and strange people and their stranger habits. As he settled down to begin his tales, the garden around him grew quiet.

 

The sea is calm under the deep blue evening sky. The sea stretches on until it is interrupted by the bridge linking Bandra to Worli. Tiny looking yellow lights shine in the distance across the sea face of Bandra and the sea link. Just then, Friend feels a tap on the back and turning around he finds himself face to face with a heavily mustached watchman. “Closing Time” says the watchman.

 

“Very well. I shall return tomorrow. Good night.”

Blogging for Blogging

Time is scarce and in the rush of activities there is scarce time for even a tweet, but time enough to blog for blogging. So where did this extra time spring up from, or are there some pay offs which reduce the “cognitive dissonance”

1. Short story teller: Say goodbye to publishing and marketing costs and tell your story to all the old and the young of the world. But where is the money, honey? Ever heard of ads on blogs? Play your cards (or rather designing abilities) well and you can earn as well as have a neat blog – not all ads are messy.

2. Economy watch: “I am an expert at analyzing company balance sheets and I can tell you we are heading for a double dip. I have been saying it since 2008.” Dear Numbskull, were you unaware of the power of blogging? A blog post a day could have kept many uncertainties at bay.

3. News 24X7: No, this is not an NDTV promotion campaign, but the home made news channel. Camera and a computer is enough to broadcast aaj ki taaza khabar

Blogs are for the bold and subtle.

Sounds like an antithesis? Bold or Subtle? This or that???????

????????

???????

Silence…

  She says not a word, no matter how desperately he pleads. She just stands where she is, as she has for all these years. “Please, Mother! Call us back home. Let us be what we were before. I promise you I will never make the same mistakes again.” He cries and he pleads but the Mother does not relent.

This article is an extract from the life of a young boy and the years he spent with his mother. He was neither the first nor the last child of his mother, but like every one of his mother’s children, he too was special. She did for him all that she had done for the rest of her children, and more than what she had done for some because he was a very special boy. When he was little she cared for him and gave him the comforts he so desperately needed, yet did not hesitate to use the stick when he got too comfortable. When he grew a little older, she taught him to believe in himself and imparted to him a strong value set which would be with him for a long time to come. As he morphed into a young man she taught him to test his strength in waters outside her and in most cases he succeeded with flying colours. When the time came for him to leave, she sent to him the most precious gifts she possessed – gifts which would keep his feet from faltering on the road. She did for him all that was in her power, while at the same time ensuring that her genius boy did not go overboard.
But one thing she could not cure him of, was his growing jealousy for her daughter. Like a poisonous rose it bloomed and pitched him into a stormy sea of infatuation. But the rose did not wilt nor did the poison lose its potency nor did the sea its storminess. The chains of time bound them together – the son, the daughter, the rose, the poison and the storm. Until that day when the storm reached its highest pitch and his ship broke into a thousand pieces all of them scattered by the stormy waters. Then just as he was about to drown, the mother pleaded with the sea to send him to the beautiful island she had prepared especially for her son and accordingly the sea washed the half dead boy ashore. By then the daughter’s ship had already reached the home of their mother’s sister. But the boy was sick for many days and could not stop vomiting the poison of love nor could he see much in the bright light on the island. Months passed and the poor boy could only plead to his mother, that she call him back, but mother would not say a word. But mother heard him and she dimmed the intense sunlight until her boy could look around him and he beheld the beauty of the island around. The storm was gone and so was the poison. The daughter’s ship could not be seen anywhere on the horizon, but the fragrance of crushed roses lingered.
Soaking himself in that fragrance, the boy now a man thanked the mother for all that she had done for him. The island was beautiful and he made many friends on that blessed piece of land. Until one day out of the blue there emerged the daughter’s ship on the horizon as it made its way back towards the land of the mother. The man looked towards the land of his mother and finally the soul mother spoke “…

Multiple universes

          The richest man in the world in the year 2030 is a Harvard alumunus. He made it to the hallowed institute on his first attempt and has as his wife a pretty, intelligent and powerful woman. The two of them constitute a twin success story on the corporate front and taken together are the most successful corporate couple in the world to date.

But he never made it to any top MBA institute on his first attempt, yet he is the most successful entrepreneur the world has seen not because he is excessively intelligent but because he persevered. He attributes his success to his mother and his wife both of whom have been very supportive of his ambitions. It was a close college friend, turned wife, turned main bread winner of the house for a while which enabled him to scale the peaks he has reached today. Today in the year 2030, they are widely believed to be one of the happiest couples in the world and he is the second richest man in the world.

But he is not happily married. He divorced his wife within three years of their marriage because she stood in the way of his career. He has often been called a hard nosed entrepreneur and his alma mater is IIM-A. He is widely considered as a knowldege expert on the subject of intelligent environments, one of the biggest money spinners of our time understanding of which defies majority of the population. He is the fifth richest in the world in 2030 according to the Forbes rich list.

But he is not anywhere in the rich list. He is no businessman either, not because he did not dream of it but because his family did not believe it was pragmatic. He is the MD of a multi national company’s India operations and draws a nine figure annual salary in the year 2030. He drives the same car as the richest man in the world while the second richest man in the world lives in an apartment the same size as his.

But they are all the same person. According to the thoery of multiple universes, all these men exist simultaneously in multiple universes. Merge the multiple universes into a single universe and what emerges is the power of choice.The same person 20 years ago could have chosen either of a million possibilities in front of him. But why would anyone chose anything less than being the richest man in the world? Because beyond a certain amount, the money is little more than a number on the bank statement which increases every month. A mere paper toy when a person desires the things which money cannot buy.

Nature – the great leveller

In Mumbai when the heavens decide to open up, it does not just rain – it pours in torrents. Every year there is at least one day when the schools and colleges of the city are closed (but not the offices) due to intense rains. Today seems to be just another such day, but as an office employee my viewpoint is much different than what it would have been as a school boy or a college student.

In school heavy rains meant a holiday – time to be spent at home playing with toys or watching television. In college heavy rains meant playing cards on the back benches since most of the class would be absent, or splashing through the water along with friends on the way home. Office is slightly different. We have the luxury of arriving late thanks to the heavy rains only unlike school or college the experience is not quite enjoyable – worry eats away at the mind. Will I be late? Will the boss be angry? In this respect I am glad that I was in a bus which drops me directly near my workplace because on the way I could see a huge load of people waiting for a BEST bus to arrive, almost all of which would be crowded to bursting point even more so during such a rainy day. However as always Nature acts as a great teacher – especially on a day like this.

Lesson no. 1 Extreme forces of Nature are probably the best wreckers of ambition and the best laid plains (though can the plans be called ‘best laid’ if the forces of nature have not been accounted for?) 

Lesson no. 2 Make the best of the time you have. Unlike school or college when these were days of merriment, now these become days of problems and they can never be predicted

and most important of all, Lesson no. 3: If you have enough free time then enjoy the rains (and waterfalls too), there is no telling when and if such an opportunity will present itself again.

When your world changes…

In many ways a first job is the exact opposite of a paid education. Transitioning from being a student to being an employee certainly appears to be a huge change for the better, at least for now. The years of our continuous education are spent gaining a small amount of knowledge for a fairly hefty price, almost all of which is borrowed from someone else. As an employee the knowledge we gain is lot more and guess what! We actually get paid for it!!!! (Either I am a crazy optimist or my company is really good)

I cannot recollect if I have ever said it in any of my previous blog posts but for people living in the information age, the only way to be a winner is to have more knowledge, mined from the mountains of information lying around. Knowledge is power. But to be powerful in the information age also requires planning – not merely a greedy cramming of information. I cannot say how exactly one becomes successful and powerful and builds empires for the simple reason that I am not there yet. (I say ‘Yet’ because I hope that one day I will be able to build my own IT empire – megalomania) In fact I have been strangely fortunate, fortunate that I have lost the sprint but realized that I am in a marathon and not a 100 m dash. Had I won the sprint (yes, I certainly tried very hard to get into the nation’s top B-schools) I would almost certainly have lost the marathon and the realization has come only now – a few days into a first job. An exposure to the industry has opened up a field of unbounded space where first there were only walls. Perhaps for this very reason it is really very important to do an internship – to gain insights into the industry and expand horizons. (I regret not having done one myself)

A senior person who may happen to read this may merely smile as they watch a younger person unraveling the thread of wisdom. People of my age may probably be excited as they too may be having similar experiences, and as for juniors, I wish someone had told me two years ago that career is a marathon and the success formula is not the same as that for a sprint (but then would I ever have listened?)

I am a hat

Did I just say I am a hat? Correct that to “I am the hat” or rather the most talked of head gear in circles around me today. I was born in a far off village in the southern parts of India and with many others like me I waited patiently at the roadside hat vendor’s shop waiting for some one to pick me up. When I say shop, I mean the small stand on which we were all lined up for the pleasure of tourists. It was from here that I was picked up by a tourist along with two others just like me. From there on began my journey to the city that every human will one day end up in.

The bus journey to the city called Bengaluru was not comfortable and the plane journey even more so. But when I was taken out of the bag I found that I had reached the hot and humid city called Mumbai safe and sound and in one piece. The city which people all across the country are trying to get into, or so I have been told by other caps in the city. The next day I was taken to the home of the young master whose head I was going to adorn. My first glimpse of the home made me stare around in amazement. It was a home unlike any other I had ever see. Despite the sweltering heat outside, it was quite cool inside – the perfect temperature neither too hot nor too cold. In fact just the kind of temperature we coir hats love. My master looked quizzically at me. I was something new in the way of caps and hats for him. He immediately tried me on and I covered his head quite nicely. I was put to use immediately and over the next three days I protected his head better than any of the other flimsy cloth caps of this city could ever do. In return he protected me well in the crowded public transport of the city and I also enjoyed being noticed widely by everyone around him. Some called me a mexican hat (which was ridiculous) while others recognized my true origins and sang my virtues.

Today he wore me to his college. I could feel the admiration, awe and in some cases humour of all his friends as they feasted their eyes on me – an unusual sight in this big city. I also faced some ridicule from a tubby girl (who looked like she had been basking in the sun too much) and a skinny feminine figure who looked like she had never eaten a single morsel of food. I am sure I will never be able to remember their names, though my master seemed to be on excellent terms with these feminine of the species. He even doffed me lovingly over their heads but it did nothing to lessen their revulsion for me. The high point of the day came when one of his friends described me as an umpire’s hat – a rare honour for any hat. I am sorry to say that I cannot recall his name at present, something starting with an ‘M’ but he made a young hat feel proud. As I sit in the living room of my master’s home I am all eager for the next day and the next adventure in this city of dreams.