Right now doing summers at Grasim Industries Ltd. Hope to return with some more updates on the blog…
Changing Times
India Today, in its latest issue has ranked 50 most powerful people of our country. If we go by the list which includes mostly the industrialist, rich and famous we can easily say that the most powerful people in the country are those people who have the money. The list is headed by Mr. Ratan Tata, he is followed by people like Mukesh Ambani, Anil Ambani, Amitabh Bachhan, Subrot Roy Sahara, Azeem Premji, Narayanmurti…… and so on. What does this indicate ? Money is the power.
The only noticeable exception in this list is Aruna Roy, the activist who raised her voice for the accountablility of governement departments and demanded accounts for every penny of public spend by the governement.
We are gradually entering into an era, where money is gaining importance. Its very difficult to find the academecians and intellectual in the list and those people who are there in the list, I doubt they have made it to the list on the basis of sheer academic, intellectual or other factors, the deciding factor is always, the money.
When this kind of the list is projected by the mass media, the younger generation are not to be blamed for hankering after money.The success means now money, if you are not earning much, you are not successful.
The reason that many people are looking for higher paying jobs or make-me-rich-quickly-businesses, is not that they need that a lot of money to sustain thier life or they need all kind of luxuries. They want to be recognised as successful. And money is now the only indicator of your success.
Our Fieldwork in South India
Our one-month fieldwork is coming to an end. But what a great month it was, though the killer tsunami wave made us cry for the departed soul and affected people. We were fortunate enough to be alright as that day, we were supposed to be at Kanyakumari, but our Guide/ Reporting officer (Conservator of Forest, Vellore) could not arrange the visit due to some administrative problems.
Right from learning eating manners to interacting with tribal people, it was a great experience. We got a taste of cultural differences in one of the restaurants, where we were having our lunch. We ordered our lunch, and they put a banana leave in front of us. We were waiting for the food to be served. Our waiter, an old man, who knew only Tamil, started shouting at one of our friends, we were astonished at what we have done that caused that old man to be angry (actually by the pitch and tone of his voice we guessed that he was upset with something. Then we called one of the staffs of the restaurant and he told us that first we have to put water on the banana leaves and wash it with hands, and we had not done that. Hence the old man was annoyed and was not serving us food. The amazing part of our stay, was interacting with waiters and local ppl, we were never sure what we will get in our lunch and we ordered something else it was completely different, from what was served. Being on official fieldwork, one or two forest department officials were always with us whenever we visited anywhere. Though they tried hard to answer our questions/queries, often failed. So we were depending heavily on our observations.
Luckily, we met five students from Chennai, pursuing Masters in Social Work and doing almost the same study we were doing. They proved to be of great help. Though, we could get them only in the last part of our stay. It also give us a unique opportunity to interact freely about several topics related or not related to our study/course and they eagerly satisfied our queries. Hope to explore South India a bit more once I get the opportunity. Thanks IIFM.. For giving us the opportunity to visit South India. Thanks, South India For Rasam, Sambhar, Uttapam, Dosai , Coffee, Sri rangam temple, Rockfort, Yallaneer and for wonderful hospitality ……
Vellore
Vellore, is the place, where we (me, Pushkar, Ruchi, and Jyoti) are right now, thanks to the IIFM fieldwork. Contrary to our all expectations, the journey was nice and hospitality given by the Tamilnadu Forest department is excellent, the only sad thing t, i lost my jacket (the recent gift by my mother, a cool Levi’s Red Tab) in the train (I thought such kind of incident happen only in my state or neighboring states). The language, is a major problem for us, most of the people are not at all comfortable with English and we do not know even A,B,C .. of Tamil. So giving order in the restaurant, interacting with taxi drivers, talking to forest department officials, is quite a task. But we are enjoying our stay….
nlp
Midterm over and now we have time, which can be utilized in something I always wanted. So I am back to reading. This time I want to explore this thing called NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming). I am intrigued by it as I found some books in IIFM library. I am sceptical about it but nonetheless curious about it.
If you are wondering , what NLP is, here is something a very brief intro of NLP. Neuro - Nervous system through which experience is received and processed through five senses. Linguistics – Language and non-verbal communication system through which neural representations and coded, ordered and given meaning. Programming – The ability to organize our neural and communication system to achieve desired results.
NLP is tauted as a tool of personal and profession growth which works on the basis of how humans think and experience the world. It uses certain presupposition, which ultimately help in creating the desired change. Some of the presuppositions are:
1.There is no such thing as failure, only feedback. 2.If someone can do something, it can be modeled and taught to anyone. 3.The map is not the territory. 4.The meaning of communication is the response you get. 5.If you are not getting the desired response, try something else.
It uses the potential of five senses, viz. Visual, Olfactory, Gustatory, Kinesthetic and Auditory.
Black Friday
We have got only 20 days of respite between two examinations. This is the common schedule here at IIFM, you are finishing your last question of last paper of the exam and in the examination hall itself you get a class schedule of next term. Come out from the exam and find that you have next examinatoin just 20 days away. So all the plans of post-examination reading spree and roaming around look very uncertain.
The last day of the examination was a nightmare, it was a Black Friday. The worst exam i have ever given in my life. Though i am not very studious type, but i hope to do well in most of the exams (my friends dont believe that i am not studious!!). The Communication Method paper was really fucking tough.
And then in the afternoon session of exam, i got a paper which was as easy as it can ever be, but i channelise all my resources to put my worst efforts in the paper, i did a blunder solving the question that i taught to most of my friends.
By the way, the memories of the nightmare are still haunting me, but now i am more focussed, at least for the time being.
All I am trying to point out is that all this knowledge you are so proud of flaunting isn’t worth a tinker’s damn. - UG Krishnamurti
Humility is an art that one practice. There is no such thing as humility. As long as you know, there is no humility. The known and humility cannot coexist. - UG Krishnamurti
Standing Alone
Well, so I am finished with my midterm exams and now I have time to do things which I had planned. But, the real crux is what to do first, go for a movie or finish the three novels I have left after 200 or 100 pages. Or should I just sleep in my room to compensate for all missed hours in order get B+ or A in the exams.
Finally I decided that I should finish the novels. I have always preferred the books to anything else, because they make you more imaginative and creative. When I read a book, I am free to create my own world, I can visualize the character with the features I like, and one is sensitive enough he can experience all the emotions with the characters, you relate with them you empathize with them and these are the things you cannot experience with movies, you have limitations, its the director’s vision, his way of portrayal of emotions, which you witness.
I am going to skip the movies and some friends are not going to like this. But let it be. I am comfortable standing alone or in this case sitting alone in my rooms with books.
Welcome Party
Today, we are going to have a gala party from the PFM cell. This is the official welcome party from the IIFM to the new batch, and this will be our second party within three weeks and next week our batch is going to throw a party for the seniors “The Thanksgiving Party”.
I am going to finish the book - A bend in the road - By Nicholas Sparks, and then have a look at the Statistics for Management (Levin & Rubin).
