EYE - April 24 - 2011
Only after copious analysis which led to choice of alternative solutions; critical hypotheses, on which the choice would be based, and treasure -hunt- like data searches through the case to validate those hypotheses, would the solution to the problem start to get discussed. In business meetings today, unfortunately, a lot of time gets spent on debating solutions and very little time on discussing or diagnosing the problem. In fact, it is deemed distinctly unfashionable in today’s fastpaced would, with a bias for action and quarterly results, to discuss a problem instead of leaping to instant action. A famous story on problem-solving is about the customer who reported to his car company (GM, I think) that there was something wrong with his car. The man said, “When I go to the ice cream shop to buy vanilla ice cream, my car always starts on my return with no fuss. But when […]
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EYE - March 27 - 2011
Of course, the husband, as usual, also has a meeting or is traveling. (I wonder, are things different for this generation of young mothers? Has the helpful, responsible, gender-roles-disregarding husband finally arrived?) You jump through hoops and manage to live to fight another day, but you just cut a few years off your life and permanently kill more brain cells than you need to and acquire more IOUs that will come back to haunt you. Sadly, such situations repeat in different way over the years- – I have been interrupted during a board meeting, in the midst of an impassioned speech, with desperate “mamma, please call it’s urgent” messages from my 16-year-old. The dog ran out and bit the courier man, who insisted that someone take him to the doctor and maybe the police station as well. The maid dissolved into tears, leaving my daughter at home on study leave […]
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EYE - March 13 - 2011
In the rest of our lives, I am the one with the religious compulsions and he is the agnostic. But in his cricket life, he is the fervent devotee, and I, the atheist. And so, just as I say a prayer on this behalf when he refuses to enter a temple because the floor is too dirty/ too hot/ cold/ crowded/ noisy, that day too, I said a prayer on his behalf at cricket aarti time, when they rolled the green in the evening with something resembling a road roller. I can tell the progress in my professional gender confidence from how I react to the ritual start of any meeting during cricket season- the detailed discussions on what happened, what should have happened and what will happen next. I have heard grown men take a pause from bashing each other to shed a collective tear over a missed catch. In my […]
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The Sunday Express - EYE - January 16, 2011
At boot camp, you woke up at 5 am and sat cross-legged on the floor, doing sums from a workbook. Break for breakfast, lunch and afternoon play to refresh your mind (what on earth did body have to do with anything?) and in the evening you did more sums, after which you gratefully crawled into bed. He then sat and erased all the answers that you wrote in the workbook, so that the sums could be recycled a few days later. My brother, who was a bit older, was also an inmate at the boot camp. I can’t remember what maths he did, but he has always maintained that he was burnt out at 10 because he was made to solve simultaneous equations at seven. After boot camp my mark soared, but that only egged my father on. We graduated to multiplication tables. You had to stand with your fingers […]
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The Sunday Express - EYE - December 26, 2010
The men decided that the only logical thing to do was to take a break and reassemble after dinner for a few more hours of work, before the scheduled early start the next day. The young lady also gamely agreed to this, thought she looked very unhappy and agitated. After some persuasion, she admitted that her one-year old son didn’t sleep until he saw “mommy”. So she had planned to leave after the meeting, drive two hours to her home and then leave again at the crack of dawn the next day to be back in time for the meeting. Motherhood guilt mingled with a desperate need not to appear unprofessional. As I looked at her stressed state, I thanked the lord that I had long passed her age, and had “been there, done that”. I thought with a heartfelt shudder, that I never wanted to be a young mother […]
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