The Yaxis Live by Rajesh Kumar

It is an exciting buildup at Chennai Open Tennis Open. The 2008 edition is in January and World No 2 Rafael Nadal has confirmed that he is looking forward to it. Infact he has nice words for the Tennis lovers of Chennai, who packed SDAT stadium last year to see him in the semis. In his own words,

“I like the crowd and their enthusiasm and support and they always push you to give your best”.

I could not see the last year event as tickets were all sold by the time I realized I would be in Chennai that time, I am moving for tickets rightway. However, I did see Nadal earlier, and also old legends such as Vijay Amritraj and others.

This is my 100th post. It has taken me 2 years to reach to this milestone. I started blogging as an item to satisfy my curiosity (Let me be honest -my mean interest was to get a Gmail account – I had heard they were offering Gmail accounts to select bloggers with 1 GM space. My hope was to be one of them. I did not get a Gmail account this way but got sort of fascinated by this media). And by the way another blogger obliged me by sending a Gmail invite.

Interestingly, this is not my first experiment with web content.Way back in 1999 I had created a website which though not updated since 2000, to my utter surprise, still exists and can be accessed. I don’t have the password to the update the contents to have to let it R.I.P.

In two years of blogging, my blogposts have wandered from what’s happening in Chennai (the city I live in), business books that I liked, to marketing, and even an occasional bit of technology. The posts that have got me the highest visitor response have been those on former President of India, yes you guessed it, Dr A.P.J Kalam. Those on cricket have caused good number of foot falls too. Of late I have attempted humour too. In short the only ‘unifying theme’ I could think of describing my blog as having is variety.

When I started blogging, I had the easy choice of taking the route that several others have taken, that is, to start reacting to daily happenings with three to four posts per day- or wait for something to really provoke me into writing. I choose the later, trying to balance time from work, a kid daughter who really needs my time, and my wife, who is a PhD researcher in Biotechnology and a perfectionist. Hence the title of this post- More is not always beautiful.

My blogging journey continues unabated and I thank all readers for bearing with my shameless, opinionated views! I shall carry on, with your due permission!!

Dear Vishy,

We learnt about your win in World Chess Championship in Mexico. Infact I read about it two days after you won. No, I was not in the crowd that went to welcome the Indian Twenty20 cricket team in Mumbai.Nor did I feel that all that Indian sportsmen could won has been won.

To be truthful, I was just not aware that there is any such tournament such as the aforesaid World Chess Championship happening around this time. No, I am not such horrible in following sports. I mean I did come to know when Indian boys won the Asian Hockey Championship recently. I mean, didn’t they slam Srilanka or someone down by nearly or approximately 20 goals to nil. Every time the goal hit the net, the crowd was reportedly up on the toes,yelling, jumping, and laughing.Bound to happen in a spectator sport. Coming to that later.

Now,when it comes to sports, we Indians also only know two emotions, extreme happiness and horrible disappointment. You play a wonderful game called Chess. We have heard this game originated in India, and there are terms such as bisaat etc in ancient Indian literature. This game was played in the courts of the kings of yore.

That is my point. The game of chess was adopted and loved by royalty, but not really by the common man. Same now too. I mean it was supposed to distinguish the sporty orientations of the royalty and the common folks.Same continues in modern times. Folks like me do not understand the game man. Besides, cricket is the national religion, never mind if the constitution calls us secular. And just by the way I am sure you noted the chief priest of the religion has changed too, I mean, I am sure you heard or read of saw that Mahendra Singh Dhoni is the new Indian ODI captain. And religion, as you know nowadays dominates lots of things…

Vishy, your wonderful wins give us lot of delight. More so when I read that you belong to Namma Chennai. However, your sport, does not give us extreme happiness or horrible disappointment. I mean, we Indians have a sort of mob mentality.I mean not so much as George Bush’s US, but still quite a bit. We want to be happy in a mob. And we don’t know how to watch chess in a mob. Or better still, we don’t know how to read about your Chess win in a newspaper and feel happy about it on the streets. I mean we just don’t.

And sorry we don’t know how to clap. It is just too tough, impacting your palms against one another to collectively generate a sound, something called applause. Not in that sophisticated fashion. And certainly not as long as it is not cricket.

I read your comment on whether we would accord you the same reception as the Indian cricket team in Mumbai. Frankly, I am completely perplexed. Why on earth would you want a welcome such as that? Suppose we receive you at the airport in Chennai, take you in a Chariot to the Marina Beach, you get up on the giant stage, only to find you have a second row seat??

Congrats on a being the World Chess Champion. You are the Raja.

Regards and best wishes.

Rajesh

I am breaking by blogging silence (hiatius, perhaps?) by doing what all sane minded folks should do. Let’s begin by saying that the Saturday blasts in Hyderabad and reported discovery of other terror devices out to be condemned in the highest terms. You do not get a good feel when anyone dies or gets hurt, least of all, when you learn that innocent folks who are enjoying an outdoor evening, including kids, failed to return home, because someone blasted a bomb.

The bombs would certainly not asked for anyone’s religion, ideology, age or profession before hitting them and that is the whole tragedy. While law enforcement is surely going to nail these faceless terrorists in due course, it is only a resolute public opinion that would perhaps deter such attacks.

My humble homage to all those who left us on Saturday, and remembrance to all those who have elsewhere died in terror violence in the past, either as innocent victims, or those who died fighting the terrorists, such as the security personnel on duty who defended the Indian Parliament House from the terrorist attack.

Let me begin with a confession. I have not been a great fan of the idiot box for last fifteen years. My viewing is limited to 10 PM show on Discovery where I have followed the episodes on the latest defence aircraft(They even showed a C130 landing on an aircraft carrier once – it was a one way ticket, the plane had to be dismantled to be taken ashore!) to the giant dams being built. The 9 PM stories of family politics, so keenly followed across India, unfortunately have never caught mine or my wife’s attention. In that sense, the prime time in my house is reserved for TV to be left in power off mode.
A little tough nowadays though.“Indian Idol” has begun to govern the dinner timings in my home. Initially one felt Anu Malik was a little brusque with the II wannabes but the dynamics between the judges and the show hosts Mini Mathur and Hussain have become quite smooth and the entire production is quite, quite slick. The show has reached its peak. Like possibly lakhs of homes across India, names such as Emon, Deepali, Meiyang, Prashant, Ankita Mishra have come to be talked about in my house as if we know them so well.
Interestingly, the programme is in Hindi but has several participants who would perhaps count another great language as their mother tongue.

It was 6:30 PM IST, which was 9 AM EST.

Kalam: Good morning Your Excellency.

Musharraf: Good morning President (Musharraf forgot the time difference). Kashmir…..(cut short by Kalam)

Kalam: Yes, Kashmir. Few minutes back I was in the herbal garden of Rashtrapati Bhawan, where we have some of the herbs especially brought from Kashmir. The ancient science of Ayurveda, emphasized a lot on the importance of herbs in our life. They give you vitality(pauses and sips something, which he emphasizes is Kashmiri drink Kehwa, organically grown). Infact, you must take a pledge that you would only consume herbal products. I have a pledge for you(picks up a card next to him but is cut short by Musharraf)

Musharraf: Mr. President, my entire country right upto every single child wants….

Kalam: Ah, children. In my last five years, I have met two lakh children every year and conveyed the value of science, human values and hard work. Infact, hard work can shape up your destiny. A girl from Meghalaya asked me recently…

Musharraf: Your Excellency it would be better if we…

Kalam: Yes, agreed. Telemedicine is better. In my country, there are 250 districts and 4679 blocks and 8374529 villages. Not every village has a primary health centre. So, we have positioned telemedicine vans which travel the interiors and through remote telemetry via low orbit satellites connects the patients to the best of the specialists operating out of any part of the world. This way mankind can tremendously leverage science and….

Musharraf: Your Excellency, small request.

Kalam: I was coming to all things small. Infact, in the times to come, Nanotechnology would play such a vital role in what we do, even the ordinary cars would have lot of nanoscale parts. The applications of nanoscale are diverse. In my country, we have set up four advanced centers to research on nanoscale applications. Not just nanotechnology, but biotechnology….

Musharraf: For strategic reasons, I…

Kalam: Infact strategy, vision & core competence and have to be interlinked. I have visited all the states of India. Few days back, talking to students at an IIM I came across a physically challenged student who had topped the class. Can you tell me why he succeeded?(Pauses and resumes) He succeeded because he had a vision from his childhood, had a strategy to get there using his core competence, which was quantitative techniques. Infact, in India, we have been blessed with a lot of ancient time mathematicians such as Aryabhatta, and in modern times such as Ramanujam who under the guidance of …..

(Musharraf forgets his agenda and realizes the knowledge overflow. He starts seeing lot of value in what Kalam is speaking and asks his ADC, “Have you taken notes properly?”)
Abdul Kalam gets up from his seat and bids goodbye to Musharraf. And adds, “No need for any notes. The entire conversation would be up on Rashtrapati Bhawan website in about 15 minutes. Infact, an MPEG file would be emailed to you in the next thirty minutes. Or would you prefer to have it on YouTube, Your Excellency?”

My friend Rajeev Singh sent me this beautiful parable from Durban.Cannot resist posting this, since this shows the true contrast between good communication and better communication. The beauty in the message is its sheer simplicity.Here it goes.

A blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet. He held up a sign which said: “I am blind, please help.” There were only a few coins in the hat.
A man was walking by. He took a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat. He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words. He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by would see the new words.

Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy. That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were. The boy recognized his footsteps and asked, “Were u the one who changed my sign this morning? What did u write?”

The man said, “I only wrote the truth. I said what u said but in a different way.”What he had written was: “Today is a beautiful day & I cannot see it.”

Do u think the first sign & the second sign were saying the same thing? Of course both signs told people the boy was blind. But the first sign simply said the boy was blind. The second sign told people they were so lucky that they were not blind. Should we be surprised that the second sign was more effective?
Moral of the Story:

Be thankful for what you have.

Be creative. Be innovative. Think differently and positively.

Like most of us who get unsolicited and unwanted telemarketing calls selling everything from a personal loan to credit card to a new telephone connection, I too get such calls everyday, whether I am in meeting, travelling, or working on document etc. Many such calls come from India’s leading banks.The interesting part is that, I have already registered for DNC on their website. While some of these companies give you a request number, others merely say thanks, and you get nothing, no email confirmation, no request number. These companies also helpfully add that it might take them 3 months to remove the number from their list.

The calls do not stop though. Consider this. At eleven AM I get a call from some telecaller, who wants to sell credit cards to me. First of all, they ask me if I hold a credit card from another bank. It really cheeses me off. Why should be I talking about my financial arrangements to any TDH who calls me without invitation.That’s when I ask them if they heard about DNC. They generally tell you no. Maybe feigning ignorance is part of their training. If you demand to speak to their managers, the call will me disconnected. You cannot reach them by calling back, because the line would be busy.

The very important point- these telecallers would not call you from BSNL lines where a directory is published and available online for anyone to track these calls back, as well as know the organisations that are behind the calls.

These calls come in from networks of private phone companies, who do not have online directories, and even if you call the phone company and ask for details of the subscriber, they would not give you the details, since client confidentiality is involved. I have tried all this and the arrangement is so wonderfully cosy.

So if I have time and in a good mood, I really make the best of these calls. I tell them I am a lawyer in need of some obscene amount of personal loan, and they look for escapes to close the call. Else, tell them I am a politician, and again my need for money is indeed very acute.Or that I am a second year engineering student.Wasting their minutes becomes my objective, even if that costs me time!

And suppose they want to offer a credit card, I pretend that I need six cards, without names, so that I can gift to my friends after ‘writing their names’, since it comes ‘free’. They quickly backtrack, saying the card is free but the bills would come for the purchases, but then in explaining this difference, they go into further mess. Trust me they do. Again I want to waste their minutes, and this works very well. They run off. The call lasts 3 1/2 mins or so and they get nothing.What a waste.

One organisation I have to give very high marks for DNC compliance is Citibank. I was a regular in their telecalling list and calls became absolutely zero after signing up with their DNC. I do not have such luck with organisations such as ICICI and ABN Amro.

The current pain comes from lack of a unified Do-Not-Call registry in India. Today I read about such a possibility. This is indeed very acutely needed in India. I would miss the fun on the calls though.

Closing now. My phone is ringing. Cannot wait for the fun.