Strange Saturday

MORPHEUS: Do you believe in fate, Neo?

NEO: No.

MORPHEUS: Why not?

NEO: Because I don't like the idea that I'm not in control of my life.

-          From ‘The Matrix’ (1999)

Although the Indian Railways have earned a notorious status for trains never being on time, few ‘elite’ trains like Rajdhani, Duranto & Shatabdi are an exception; all other trains stop to let these trains pass through and stick to the schedule. So when the Shatabdi I was travelling from Hyderabad to Pune reached full 50 min late at midnight of Friday and Saturday, I should have guessed something was wrong. If not with the train, with me.

I walked out of the station booking a cab on Uber. I hardly get surge pricing in Pune, but that day I was forced to book at 2.2x! I went ahead consoling myself that at midnight even the auto rickshaws would charge a bomb.

Of late travelling had been hectic and so I had a packed weekend of household chores. I decided to start with getting my bike wheel checked; it was losing air every couple of days. I opened my gate and noticed that it had broken off its hinges! I had occupied the brand new house for not even 2 months! I went to the tyre service centre and was advised to  change the tyre as there were multiple punctures. I had not even run 3000 kms on it!

We decided to go to the movies. IMAX had recently opened in Pune and I was keen to check it out. So I convinced my daughter to watch “Doctor Strange” instead of her demand for “Trolls”. For the first time since I started booking tickets online couple of years ago, I got a 10% off “Visa Blockbuster Weekend Offer”! Unfortunately we could get only the front row. Although the IMAX experience was far better than the normal 3D or the 4DX, we had to literally look upward so as capture everything that was happening across the screen. Added to that strange things were happening on the screen like buildings tumbling, flipping over (a la Inception, but on a grander scale) depicting the parallel dimensions and time that the mind and matter can foray into.

After this mind-numbing experience, I decided to go and collect my cycle from Decathlon, Wagholi. I had given it for servicing last weekend & then I had gone on tour. Usually, I cycle to Decathlon give it for service, shop around for an hour & the cycle is ready to be delivered. But this time despite keeping it there for a week, I got a call couple of hours before I had decided to take delivery, that there is a major problem on rear hub & cassette. On arriving at the workshop, the specialist explained that he had to replace the entire rear rim & hub assembly. Now this double wall flex aluminium rim is supposed to last a life time! Also I had not been doing those fully day cycling expeditions ever since my family had shifted to Pune a year ago. Neither was I doing off-roading. I had gone off-roading only twice in my life: Once when I lost my way to Lavassa and forayed into the forests & hills and another when the Hotel in Italy was offering a cycle to go around & I deliberately rode into the forest cos they forbid me from riding into the snow-capped mountains.

So how on earth did this failure occur?! Apart from this he had replaced the rear tube and did a complete “14 point check-up”. He handed me a fancy bill of Rs.3,500! That’s the amount I generally shell out for getting my car serviced!

It was 8 in the evening & I was at the extreme east of Pune at  Wagholi. I had to cycle to the extreme west of Pune to Dehu road, a little over 37 kms. Not at all a demanding task with the cool night breeze and listening to the stand-up comedian Aditi Mittal that I had downloaded the previous day. Half an hour later, cycling by Phoenix Market City, I found the rear wheel punctured! That was strange, with a brand new tube put in an hour ago! I looked around for a puncture shop. There were none. I contemplated pushing the cycle back to Decathlon. I wouldn’t be able to make it before closing time. I decided to walk towards home. I found a few puncture shops for bikes and cars. But none of them were willing to mend it for me, despite me offering a higher price nor by listening to my plight of having to go quite a distance back home. I took a detour off the main road to try my luck in some local basti. I found a proper cycle shop with puncture mending facility. But the service guy had left for the day. It was close to 9.30. My chances of finding a shop open was slowing diminishing.

Finally, as I was walking by Yerawada jail, I found a shop! The young lad there quickly jumped into the job. There were 2 holes – both on the rim side and not on the tyre side! Was Decathlon using sub-standard stuff? I took a mental note of raising a complaint. I paid the guy, thanked him profusely and started. Within 2 minutes the front wheel started wobbling. Another flat tyre!

I rushed back to the shop. The guy was starting to close down for the day. But did the job for me.

I decided against cursing my cycle: It hadn’t cheated on me on more enduring journeys like Lonavala, Lavassa, Sinhagad… And I was determined to do a Pune-Mumbai-Pune soon.

It was 10.30pm. I had informed my wife about the delay. She insisted that she’d come pick me & the cycle. I wanted to enjoy the night ride. After a short debate, I told her to come halfway upto my office.

Finally we met up at the office. I dismantled my front wheel, shoved the cycle into the car and drove back home. After a cold shower, I collapsed on the couch with a bagful of junk food, and started watching ‘Evil Dead’ on television. It was midnight.

Me & Duke

Love wasn’t new to me. It had happened thrice before. And every time, like everybody else, I too believed that my love-story was unique. But the fourth love story was a tad different – it was with a beast. An Austrian beast of a machine.

I’m not among the lot who falls for worldly pleasures or materialistic gains. For me the definition of a vehicle is simply “something which displaces you from point A to point B.” No wonder my first bike was a Bajaj Discover chosen on the truly Indian “mileage kitna deti hai?” philosophy. So was my first car. A Daewoo Matiz, chosen just to take my then pregnant wife from home to office. Even now my car is a 2008 Fiat Palio, wiped out of the market for over half a decade. But then I’m like “The engine is smooth, the body is rock solid, it doesn’t require hospitalization, what’s the need to change the car?”

On the contrary, my wife is an enthusiast. My mother-in-law introduced me to my wife with an Outlook magazine supplement on biking clubs and the rise of women bikers; she was on the cover page. She began her riding stint with a RE Thunderbird. For her a bike is the second best thing to have between the legs.

My fourth love affair was actually a rejection of my wife’s. When she went back to biking clubs once our daughter was old enough, we got a Karizma ZMR from my cousin, which is still a great sports tourer – good looks, not too aggressive, comfortable riding position… But soon she got bored of the meagre 19 bhp motor. The black and orange Duke was getting popular those days. It was sheer coincidence that my brother-in-law’s friend wanted to dispose a 6 month old 2000 kms run KTM 390. Just for the records, my bro-in-law is a bigger biking enthusiast with another Karizma & a Kawasaki Ninja 650 in his stable. So it was but natural that my wife had to buy this KTM on offer.

This KTM went sight-seeing to most hill stations around Pune – Lonavala, Lavassa, Mahabaleshwar; courtesy my wife. It had packed weekends until it’s rider had a ligament reconstruction surgery and doctor forbid riding for 6 months.

That was when I started dating the KTM390. I just couldn’t let it rust in the parking. Grown on the strong foundation of engineering, economics and efficiency, I was not ready to burn fuel on jolly rides. So it became my office commuter. Once a week.

No. It was not love at first sight. There were too many cons: The seat was too hard. The engine would heat up a lot despite being oil cooled. The 44 bhp engine wouldn’t listen to me below 4000 rpm, always wanting to jump ahead. Slowly, once I learnt the tricks of the trade, I began taming the beast.

And love blossomed.

Initially, I started playing games with it. I would clock my rides to office. The 7.8 kms stretch would take me 10 min. And I haven’t gone beyond 113 kmph, cos I’m always riding in “office hours”. (My cousin borrowed the bike to ride to Mumbai and he claimed to have plateaued at 165!) That became a routine. I was deciphering the racing DNA of the bike. And more avenues were opening up.

Although the bike boasted of 0-100 in 5.4 seconds, I couldn’t do it before 11 seconds on the city rods I tested. The 375cc naked (no fins) engine was built to be in a hurry – the idle rpm is just under 2000! Put it on gear and it roars over to 4000 leaving the other gaping at the traffic signal.

With the shifting of house, I could get a 16.8 km stretch to office. I could play more games. By now I had mastered the logic behind providing twin Bybre disc brakes and Metzeler wheels. The rubber just bites the asphalt while cornering and the ABS sees to it that the wheels don’t lock up and avoid skidding. With this seated in mind, it became easier for me to needle my way between long container trucks and buses – it is cake walk when your bike is listening to you and there is sufficient reserve power. Also the bike has no bulky exhaust pipe – it is neatly concealed under the belly, so you have one less thing to worry while cornering. And humps and pot-holes? Not a hurdle. The mono-shock under my butt and the inverted forks under my hands are trained for off-roading too.

One of wicked games I have come to love playing is with the fellow bikers who modify the exhausts of their Yamahas and Pulsars to get a louder howl, and who feel godly by zipping through the traffic – all this without wearing a helmet. All I need to do is to give a gentle twist of the wrist and I accelerate ahead without batting an eyelid, silently conveying “You don’t play games with a Duke”.

So? Did the bike change my philosophy? Yes, to some extent. Now I enjoy the displacement from point A to point B. No. Cos I still don’t go on joy rides, barring a ride to Lavassa when the car got full with in-laws. I have got a spare set of off-roading wheels – but the time has not yet come to put it to use.

If I have to give a verdict like the ones published in the auto magazines, here’s what I’d say: If you think 44 hp is too tough to handle in the city, you are wrong. Although there is a perpetual sense of urgency, the beast is ready to listen with its ABS assisted brakes and exceptional tyres. Slowly you’ll love the way you can “sleep-walk” at 85-90 kmph. And all this happens at a moderate 5000 rpm. If you are planning to have some fun above that speed & rpm, then the primary task would be to look out for the empty or less populated lane. The bike would simple respond, “Master I’m game, just show me the freeway.” Coming to my foundations of economics: Yes, the hare is meant to burn more gas than the tortoise. But this doesn’t hurt at just over 30 km a litre. The clincher is that at around 250 grand, this is the cheapest monster your buck can fetch. And for that you get almost twice the power of the rage among bikers: the REs or almost as much power of the entry level Harley. But then cruisers are a different ball game – it’s fun can be experienced only on long unpopulated highways. KTM is at home with traffic as much as it is with the highway.

Will it be a lasting love affair? For now, yes. The KTM690 is far from coming to India. And I have to become an entrepreneur to afford the KTM1290.

Money & Mind Matters

Anything for money

Would lie for you

Would die for you

Even sell my soul to the devil

-          Michael Jackson in “Money” from HIStory: Past Present & Future

It’s a big bad world out there. And money is a big bad demon you got to befriend. The so called basic necessities for survival: Food, clothing & shelter… all need money to obtain.

Whatever means it is accumulated, the colour of money remains the same – black & white are just notions – both fetch you what you want. Moralities are just games people play in their minds. It gets side-lined: the bait varies from person to person; some would give in for millions, some would convince the mind that “it’s not that big a sin”, others would say “this much is allowed”.

There are those who slaughter, kidnap, hijack for money. And those who bend the rules, cook up scams, siphon off from development funds. There are also those who bear the brunt: someone sticking on to a disliking job for the sake of that much-needed pay packet. God can be a good cover-up. People are ready to spill out money for something as obscure as God, rather than to help the needy. It’s all about how one perceives things or manipulates their minds to accept their deeds as the right way; manipulating the law is just passé.

Speaking of needy, we are always flooded by people in distress: Traffic signals offer a variety of down trodden – kids selling trinkets for small change, Moms carrying infants, handicapped people, eunuchs etc… Our reaction may vary depending upon our moods.

I get struck by myriads of “needy” people. A taxi-operator in Bangalore, whom I was using regularly, borrowed Rs.24,000/- stating he was undergoing loses. That was 2 yrs ago, and he doesn’t seem to have recovered. A drill operator came to me looking for a job, stating reasons that the iron ore ban had eaten up his job. In the past 3 yrs, I have got him 4 jobs apart from lending Rs.25,000/- for his family needs. But till date he continues to remain jobless. Almost every week I get calls from some NGO stating a child is in need of a urgent surgery & the parents are not able to afford. I donated couple of times before wondering how do all the NGOs get my contact? There was one time when I was the needy: I had to shift my vehicles from Karnataka to Maharashtra and needed a NOC & Life time tax refund. I tried the straightway with the RTO, but realized it is going to take ages and I didn’t have time on me. I paid Rs.15,000/- to an agent. That was one year ago. I still don’t have NOC for my car, no refunds and I’m shelling out to the traffic police in Maharashtra whenever I get caught. Atleast a dozen times at Bus or Railway stations, I get approached by people asking, “Hindi maloom hai?” Earlier I used to listen to their dard bhari daastan where they had lost their money and had to go to a faraway place, but did have the means. Nowadays I just walk away saying “Hindi nahi maloom.” Yesterday, a young well-dressed lad came up to me as I was waiting for a train at Secunderabad railway station, reading Robin Sharma’s Family Wisdom from the Monk who Sold his Ferrari. “Someone has stolen my purse. I came to write NTSC exam, I have to return to Patna..” I assessed him top-to-bottom: Spectacles, branded T-shirt, jeans & Puma shoes, a backpack… and concluded this should be a genuine case before giving him Rs.400/- (he mentioned the ticket was Rs.390/-). He invited me to join him. My train was due anytime & I didn’t accept the invitation. He said he’ll buy the ticket & return to me in 5 min. My train got delayed I was standing at the same place for the next 75 min. But the young boy never returned!

Sometimes I wonder, am I being too kind? Have I forgotten the value of money? Have I lost my analytical abilities & become vulnerable? Or is it simply that I look like an easy target?

Fear is the key

….with due respect to Alistair Maclean and Iron Maiden for stealing their title.

Imagine living as a Jew in Germany 75 years ago. You’d sleep every night thanking God for not getting ambushed and landing in a Concentration camp.

Imagine living in present day Syria. You’d not know when someone would barge into your house and do unmentionable things.

Or perhaps waking up in the Guatanamo Bay.

Scary? Are your fears justified?

Cut to the present day corporate world. Swanky offices, flashy gadgets, polished language, impeccable attire, elaborate reports, sense of pride... very easy to miss out the underlying fear behind every action undertaken. Or rather fear is camouflaged well behind curtains of either arrogance, authority or obedience.

The ultimate goal in the corporate world is to keep the shareholders assured that their money is not sitting idle. When you go to the micro-level, it boils down to showing growth – year on year, quarter to quarter, month over month the graph should keep pointing north. Any other direction and the alarm starts ringing. The game is in convincing the stakeholders that the company is doing everything possible to multiply their wealth. Lest they face the same fate as Yahoo, whose value eroded from an all-time high of $125 bn to a tad short of $5 bn when it got gobbled by Verizon. And the only ways the shareholders decide on a company’s fate is through favourable news flashed in the media or the quarterly reports emphasizing growing numbers or rising graphs. If Microsoft had not gifted the Excel to the world – perhaps it would have been a much peaceful place…

So here they are: clear, more or less monotonous & clichéd, directives trickling from the top to the grass-root level: inflate the order books, increase the revenues, maximize profitability. Period. Shareholders are not bothered about other aspects of business like market share, employee satisfaction, healthy work environment, transparent operations… unless it is proudly announced and published by companies for whom people die to work for – Google for instance.

The grass-root level is in closest contact with reality – What’s happening in the  market? Who are the new players? How’s their killer instinct? Why they are sounding attractive? What customers want? What’s the ground reality? Where is the money lying? Perhaps such vital information was well received by the top bosses in Amazon and they transformed from an online book store to a full-fledged retailer on both web & mobile platform along with last mile connectivity. Full marks to them for listening.

What if the market place is changing and the feelers from the bottom of the hierarchy are ignored by the top – or maybe the top is too obsessed with the “We are indisputable?”, “We don’t change our rules?”, “How can the customer ignore us?”. Well, Nokia did just that before going down the bottomless pit.

Here’s the catch: The ground staff and sometimes middle management are in a dilemma. “Do we voice out our opinion on the changing rules of the game?” “Will management take it negatively?” “Will we be targeted?” “Will being honest cost me my job in the long run?”

Enter Fear. And Fear can change a person in multiple ways. It shuts up criticism – constructive or otherwise. It quashes new ideas – silly or earth-shattering. It compels a person to hide vital information – good or bad. It forces manipulated projections and market share figures. It over- shadows creativity. All of these and more because the top-management has extensively used tools of fear as motivators: “Perform or perish.” “Your bonus is at stake.” “Your presence is not making a difference, perhaps your absence won’t too.”

Rolf Dobelli in “The art of thinking clearly” gives ample examples on how our decision making gets distorted by the circumstances under which it is made. In a non-conducive environment, every action tends to influenced by fear. Voicing out opinions gets shadowed by speaking what others want to hear. Healthy communication gets affected. People tend to hide facts. Slowly fear makes way for sycophancy.  If none of these are identified on time, gradually the entire organization will be filled with pretentious relationship and superficial respect. More so in countries like India where respect is demanded by the title more often than  earned by their attitude.

Deepak Chopra says, “Fear does many things to a person, but fundamentally it makes us feel insecure. Feeling secure is a most basic necessity, because without a sense of safety, the mind is preoccupied with threats instead of possibilities. If you go to work worrying that your job is on the line, it's nearly impossible to look for ways to be better at your job and approach the future creatively.”

Does that mean once you are in the corporate world, you are stuck in the spider’s web till eternity?

Need not be. Think about it: Fear is YOUR response to the stimulus. Whether you want it to come up or not has to be totally under YOUR control. All it takes is to honestly tell yourself, “I’m doing my job to the best of my capability. Me succumbing to fear is not going to increase my efficiency by any means. What is at stake? They can, at the extreme, take away my job. Not my confidence.” APJ Abdul Kalam said, “Love your job; not your company, because you may not know when your company stops loving you.”

Picture this: You are toiling in the corporate world for the well-being of your family. On a certain day you get a threat from both from your spouse and your boss. Choose the one you would prefer to ignore.

Paradox!

Get real…

Open letter to AirIndia Staff

Dear Sir,

This is to bring to your notice the treatment of Air India passengers.

The AirIndia flight from Udaipur to Mumbai AI644 was delayed on 10th Feb'16, due to technical snag, this after the aircraft started moving towards the runway with passengers onboard. Instead of letting the passengers wait on board or just outside the aircraft, everyone of them was deplaned, made to exit the airport & then wait in a long queue for a new boarding pass.

When passengers questioned what happens to our connecting flights from Mumbai, we were told that if it is AirIndia, it will be rescheduled, but for other airliners they cannot help.

We had passengers hopping through AirIndia to Goa, Bangalore & Hyderabad via Mumbai. We were told that incase there is a long delay we would be provided hotel accommodation & transport to & from the hotel.

We finally landed at Mumbai at 22.30, delayed by 4 hrs. There were no connecting flights till the next morning. Flight attendants told that there will be AirIndia staff at the baggage claim who will guide you to hotels.

At the baggage claim, the staff re-directed us to a customer service desk.

Now, there were only 2 executives at the customer service desk trying to address about 40 passengers who were waiting for clarity on the next course of action - this included foreign nationals, mothers with infants and aged pleople among others. Next 1 hr was total chaos. After waiting at the counter for an hour, we were told that they were issuing only a food coupon and no accommodation can be arranged.

So all of us were stranded at the airport for the night. Some couldn't go out as their baggage was already checked in. They said there is a lounge beyond the security check which can be used on payment. I couldn't go through security check as my bag was not checked in & the check-in counter was closed till morning.

This is sheer indifference in attitude towards customers. If some facility cannot be given, it should be told beforehand, so that people can make their own arrangements. Making the people wait at the airport till midnight & then saying we are helpless is pure unprofessional.

I'm sure private airliners would have dealt with such contingency in a much better way.

Regards,

Sharath US