Outside a dog, books are man’s best friend

Last couple of weeks it’s been tough for me to spend my time, which is relatively idle. Of course it is official time and let me mention, I can be found only in two places through the year, either race course or stable. Did I sound whinny? If I say, change in organization is the cause of the free time, I may not be wrong. I am in transient phase, trying to gain foothold at a new place. As I hardly have any control over the cause, I consciously decided to utilize the time to gather information. Gathering information (like policies, etc.) about the new place seemed to be the call of the hour. Hence I started my expedition.

Human resource department takes pride in claiming, that all related information is just a “click” (Mouse click) away rather than saying a building away or a location way (as in case of big manufacturing houses). But I have so much of free time that I will easily motivate myself to commute from building to building or location for the sake of information. Now, there’s a problem in “click methodology” (of extracting information), I need a system (desktop, aka computer). My boss told me I will have a system only when I have a project. And my experience says when I have project I will not have enough time to excavate information. Irony of the industry is the right tool is only procured, not at the right time but much later than that, saying “better late than never”. I want to thank the person who phrased the words, at least it provides an easy getaway.

Implementing “click methodology” was not feasible, thus resulting in my dependence on people whom I talked to in the organization. The only drawback of such practice - whatever is served, will look like Swiss cheese (which has more holes than cheese). It depended on an individual’s inventive mind on how to cement the holes and make it concrete. While such transfer of information continued thru such unscheduled on-call meetings, I used the rest of the time in library. No don’t get me wrong, I just comforted myself in the cozy sofa kept there. To hide the oddity of my relaxed posture on the sofa, I picked up a newspaper and buried my face behind the pages. This habit had a magnetic effect, now I happen to read the columns as well, even of financial news papers. Albeit, my resume projects my expertise in finance, my knowledge and pocket will disagree at will. I read such journals of compulsion as there are hardly any takers in the library who loves reading those pinky orange colored papers. The rest of the dailies are always on demand, predator outnumbering prey. To get my hand on to one, I depend on my scavenging and hopping skills of a frog. By the mid of my day I realize my hard work paid, I read 3 of those.

Passing the rest of the day is much easier because I do not have to imitate a frog and I can sit quiet especially after a sumptuous meal. It is important to relax after a hard day’s meal, so I browse the open shelf for small books which has 200 pages or less, than find a low profile corner of the library (where less people ventured) and unwind myself over a chair. People say, “Outside a dog, books are man’s best friend”, I whole heartedly agree to this. I remember, during my school days, I remained surrounded by books whenever I slept. Yes, that’s primarily because I used to fall asleep over an open book on the study table while studying. Who needs a sleeping pill when books are around? Physique of some book is meant to force people like me to sleep. Here in library, I get so engrossed in the book (read as sleep) that unconsciously my chin rests over the table, and my eyes almost closes, at a distance of a few millimeters of the page. I wish, I could even read the first chapter of the books completely that I picked relentlessly, post lunch after post lunch. Believe me, my intentions are always sincere, but the urge of a cat nap betrays my effort. All the books I tried reading after lunch can vouch on my claim. Darn me! Nevertheless I have an inference from this experiment, all the books smells the same.

Practice makes a man perfect but an imperfect practice seldom – Yours sincerely.

Arise, awake, and stop not ...

After all the hiatus, finally the country is coming to terms and is back to normalcy. No points for guessing, I am talking about “The Mumbai Carnage”. In my thoughtful subconscious mind, I asked myself why it happened in the first place. Was it just an intelligence failure or another failure at our end? Yes, “our”, of course including me, even if I am sitting long way from the financial capital of the country. Ask me the same question in public somewhere in Gateway of India, my answer will be different. Although I thoroughly understand “Security is personal”, I will blame everybody else except me, starting from police to politician, and how can I forget the neighboring country.
If you have ever commuted by public transportation, you may find writing on the wall, “you are responsible for your belongings”. Does that also include “Life”? May be, isn’t life my own belonging? I believe, I have to explain this one with simple examples relating to day to day life. Why do we wear helmet while driving? If we all follow the road rules properly without failure do you think we will ever have to wear helmet? I have another example for those who could not relate themselves from the previous example, do we leave our entry gates and doors of our houses unlocked, even if we have 24/7 security beside the gate? By saying all this I am not trying to save the public servants who are responsible for security of Republic of India and people residing within. More so, when I religiously pay my taxes year after year (which is used for country’s development including security). And at the same time, I notice poor police to public ratio, which stands at around 1000 persons/police. Since now I am sympathetic towards the police, let me pick the next one from my blame list, politicians. We are a democratic country, how does a politician comes to power? I presume the answer is hidden well within the question, irrelevant of the fact whether I practice my voting right.
I am stuck, the last and only option in my blame list is the neighboring country, where I have never been, neither am I aware of their culture. Population of India is 1,147,995,904 (more than 1.14 billion). Disclaimer: By the time you read, figures are bound to change. How is it possible that an alien intrudes our country without detection? There has to be at least one out of such a humongous count, who must have noticed anti social elements entering through, so called porous border. That suggest we are careless and not so cautious about unfamiliar events happening around us. Unfortunately we are surrounded by not so prosperous countries than us and such tales of horror will keep occurring till they follow the path to development (not only defense). Investigations have showed root cause of such crime, most of the time is meager sum of money. So, it is more important that we remain vigilant and bring out the little policeman within us and question things as and when it is happening, rather than sitting like a duck expecting we will not be harmed, whereas the fact is, someone from my own society, country will be harmed. Being a student of management (by virtue of my job) I have understood, this incidence has placed us in reactive mode (fire fighting) because we were not proactive in estimating the loss that will be caused if we do not plan properly.
With faith in almighty, I hope such gruesome incidence will not be repeated anywhere, anywhere in the world. Let us pledge to work towards a peaceful country and world.
Arise, awake, and stop not till your goal is reached! -- Swami Vivekananda