The Dream

When people tell you who they are, Maya Angelou famously advised, believe them. Just as importantly, however, when people try to tell you who you are, don’t believe them. You are the only custodian of your own integrity, and the assumptions made by those that misunderstand who you are and what you stand for reveal a great deal about them and absolutely nothing about you.

I met a 20 year old guy by way of an interview. I had asked him his weakness. He went on to narrate a story where one of his friends wanted money for something and this guy felt pity and lent him what he wanted after arranging for the same. It later turned out that his friend didn’t want money for that purpose at all. He was only cheating him. This guy hence concluded that he has to be more vigil in a world such as ours and that was his weakness. He couldn’t see through his friend’s intentions. This conversation got me thinking. To trust is our first instinct. We trust the lady or the guy who held us for the first time in the maternity ward and cajoled us to stop crying. From that point starts our journey in this world where we make most of our relations based purely on trust. When our mothers came and introduced themselves as our mothers we trusted them. Hence it is fundamental for a human being to trust another human being. We live in a difficult world one would argue. It i...

City are favorites to win this match. A 5 year old can tell you that. The way Man City have progressed in the league has made the entire world sit up and take notice and why shouldn’t the world? They seem to be playing some of the best attacking football and are known to demolish defenses worldwide. They have always had that reputation and seem to be doing just that. Sergio Aguero’s return to the starting lineup is a great boost to the team. It is unbelievable that a player with the talent of Edin Dzeko has to warm the bench and be the super sub. But such is the team. Nobody’s place is guaranteed unless your name ends with Toure. Man City did retain the right Toure after the very patchy brother of the ex-Barcelonan exited City to a much Redder pool. I wonder at Kolo’s life some times. I am sure Wenger doesn’t remorse that sale. So like I said, City are favorites. With Negredo, Silva and Fernandino combining with finesse it seems like a forlorn conclusion as to who is going to take t...

The biggest grouse of companies of today is the talent that comes out of institutes of great pedigree fall woefully short of vocational needs. The academically excellent candidates need a lot of time to transition from the desks of their classrooms to cubicles of workplace. In times like now startups are the order of the day and small and medium enterprises are looking for trained resources that can be deployed in the shortest time possible. The academia does not seem to be equipped to provide such talent. This is always going to be the case in a country where schools are run by academicians and companies are run by corporates. I will limit the scope of this discussion to technical schools and the talent that come out of it. Technical schools today provide talent that have academic highfliers. But these astute students do not always translate into becoming great employees. They may become great employees eventually but when a company is looking for readily deployable resources then ...

Cricket commentary is an art. We have seen some practice this art quite wonderfully. Even though we do not live during the radio days where every ball had to be visualized through a throaty commentator emoting it over AM, we still love our commentary just as much as the game. It is the essential background music and only with appropriate commentary does a good cricket match become a great symphony. In our eyes the Ravi Shastris, Harsha Bhogles and arguably Navjot Singh Sidhus are just as big as the super stars that don white or colors of the country and walk out on a green landscape with a solitary brown strip right in the middle. We have woken up and some of us continue to wake up at wee hours not just to catch great cricketing action around the world but also some sublime commentary that makes the match watching worthwhile even to the annoyance of the non-cricket watching family members. Recent times have seen the launch of a flurry of sports channels. I was wondering if there i...

I met a guy in the gym a couple of days ago. I knew him as one of the regular gymmers and nothing else. He came to me and said, “Bal Thackerey passed away!”. I am in Hyderabad and so is that guy who has if not much only heard stories of the great BT. I grinned at him to which he said “The man passed away and you are laughing, yaar.” To which my only reply was that not much changes in my life and went on with my routine. Today comes the news of a key figure exiting a club I love. There are comments all over twitter and it has become an altogether familiar story at Chelsea that a manager doesn’t perform and he is shown the door before he knows how to recover. Such is the life of a manager in the club. It is demanding and sometimes cruel. One of the tweets contained this stat. I quote, “262 - Roberto Di Matteo lasted 262 days as Chelsea manager, longer than Villas-Boas (256), Grant (247) & Scolari (223). Fired.” All names to reckon but faced the wrath of a very ambitious owner wh...

Do you take bigger risks when you're happy or unhappy? Logically, you should take bigger risks when you're unhappy. There's less to lose, since you're already unhappy, and the thrill of the risk might be enough to snap you out of your funk. The common view of people who continuously make dangerous choices is that they are reckless idiots. If that's true, nothing can be done to fix the situation. But suppose the problem is that risk-takers are simply less happy than people who are cautious. Does that give you a tool to work with? Maybe. My hypothesis is that you can reduce risky behavior by increasing a person's happiness. The basic tools of happiness are diet, exercise, social support, and optimism about the future. Interestingly, none of those things need to be expensive. Here's a simple test to see the link between happiness and risky behavior. When you're in a bad mood, do you drive faster or slower?