Egypt Luxor Cruise - worth doing it again?

So many places to see in this world and so little time and money - is it worth repeating places that you had  already visited?

There are a few historical destinations that are worth a repeat visit.  The Taj Mahal in Agra is definitely one such destination - every visit exposes you to a different facet of the magnificent mausoleum.  The other historical destinations worth re-visiting are the ancient temples of Egypt in Aswan and Luxor.

We are just back from such a visit - our previous visit was 7 years ago. This time we did this during peak summer - and got virtually baked under the 45 degree heat.

I am glad on hind-sight that we did this again - everytime I see these magnificient temples (most of which are more than 4000 years old), I am amazed at what this ancient civilization achieved - and about how mortal even the most powerful civilization is.  As usual we ended up taking a lot of photographs - but unfortunately photos do not do any justice to the scale and grandeaur of these temples.

So to all those who have already made the Aswan-Luxor trip once: please do it again.  You will pick up details which you had completely missed out in your 1st visit - and your appreciation for this culture - even if you are not a history buff - would go up manifold. And of course if you combine it with a Nile Cruise, then you could also chill out taking in the beautiful Nile scenery.

However, please do it between October-March - pleasant weather does indeed enable one to study the details better.

Et tu - Standard Chartered?

The news that Standard Chartered Bank allegedly has violated US laws caused me a bit of distress.  My links with this bank go deep : my father spent his entire career with this bank, and such was his passion for the bank, that the whole family developed a lot of very happy associations with the bank.

The pride was for its then caring nature - and for its reputation for integrity and fairness - both to its employees and to its customers (It never sold anything to customers if it was not good for the customer).

It was a conservative British bank, and my father proudly used to say that the bank will never ever violate laws, and has entrenched value systems unlike the "cheeky smart-alecs" - a reference to the aggressive American banks.

A lot began to change in the bank towards the end of my father's retirement in the late '80s as it started imitating the American banks.  However, when Standard Chartered came out relatively unscathed from the financial scandals of the recent years, it seemed to reinforce - much to my pride - what my father used to say about the deeply embedded values of Standard Chartered bank.  It was almost as if this bank was immune to the big G (greed).

Until now, of course ....

For me, growing up as a kid - this always remained the aspirational employer (though I landed up in a different career).  I hope that this pride will return, and children of existing employees of Standard Chartered would feel the same pride that I once used to feel.   

Whither Sarcasm

"Apologies - there will be no further delays.  My cable technician has neared your home, and will be at your home in precisely 7 minutes" said the clipped military voice from the cable shop.  And typical of a person who values and measures time precisely, he hung up before I could ask him anything else.

I can understand if a person says "5 minutes" or "10 minutes" - it typically means in Egypt (as in India) anywhere from 30 minutes to 4 hours.  But the "7 minutes" had a ring of authenticity to it - nobody can be so precise unless they know for a fact that it is indeed going to happen in 7 minutes.

I waited.  And waited.  Finally he turned up almost an hour later.

After the repair man left, I called up the cable shop owner to give him a piece of my mind.

I (in my most sarcastic tone) : "Your cable guy finally came to my house in PRECISELY 52 minutes 37 seconds after your phone call".

Cable shop owner : "He came, did he?  Good.  Good night" and then he hung-up before I could slip in another word edgewise.

I am losing my faith in sarcasm.

Precision

There is something formidable about precision.  We all love Swiss watches, and we all love precision in our Market Research data.

I was visiting Muscat and was having dinner with a client, and another person called CS whose agency conducted the fieldwork for us in Oman.

During the course of the dinner, the client - who had a reputation for being a stickler for accuracy - said:

John (the client) : "it is unfortunate that none of you Market research agencies seem to be able to give me precise market shares of the leading lube brands ...."

I : "Yes, it is difficult to assess that unless we carry out a large quantitative study"

CS (field supplier): "Your market share is 93.56%"

Stunned silence at the table.  The client's mouth was agape.

The client : "From where did you get this figure, CS?".

CS : "I know that for a fact".

I : "John, there is some soup on your collar".

The change of topic helped.  But the client was silent for the rest of the dinner, raising his head from the plate only to dart quick suspicious glances at CS.

After the dinner I took CS aside.

I : "Where did you get that number from?"

CS : "The client's brand is everywhere - it is obviously the leader"

I : "Yes, we all know it is the leader, but where did you get that number of 93.56% from?"

CS : "What is the problem? That is just a number to indicate that the client brand is the market leader.  I have seen lots of you researchers presenting such kind of numbers to clients in their presentations, and clients don't question those numbers"

I : "You cannot make up a random number like that.  We researchers present such kind of numbers only after we carry out fieldwork".

CS  : "Yes, and it is I who carries out all your fieldwork".

The conversation was getting into dangerous territory, and I thought it is better to beat a hasty retreat than probe into the implications of that statement.

There was one client though who seemed to have forever lost his taste for precision.

Egypt Elections - Tail Piece

Tail Piece 1

I love pulling my driver Mehmood's  leg - and knowing that Mehmood is quite religious, I put on a straight face and told him that I am ordering him to vote for Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood candidate.  He reluctantly refused, and said that he will be voting for Fatouh - an independent candidate who is slightly more liberal compared to the orthodox and bearded Morsi.

He then turns to me, and tells me with a straight face : "If Morsi comes to power, all of us will have to take on 4 wives".

And after a very pregnant pause he adds: "I don't think I can afford 4 wives."

1st class Egyptian humour.

Tail Piece 2

I went to the hair cutting saloon today to trim my hair.  After he finished cutting my hair, the barber politely asked me whether I would like a shave (I had a 3 day stubble owing to the long Election weekend).

I thought I will practice my Egyptian humour on him, and told him "No thanks - I am now following in the footsteps of Morsi and am growing a beard", and expected him to smile.

Too late - I realised I had put both feet into my mouth. The room suddenly turned very quiet, and all the 4 barbers looked at me with a very somber expression.

Oh oh - with Morsi topping the 1st round elections, the fear that Egypt might soon turn into a country of bearded men must be causing deep agony in all the hair cutting saloons in the country.

Egypt Elections & After

So the results of the 1st round of the Egypt Presidential elections are out.  The 2 final contestants for the final run-off round are Ahmad Shafiq and Mohamed Morsy.  Many Egyptians perceive Shafik as linked to the old regime - he has been campaigning on the platform of order and stability. The other candidate Morsi - a Muslim Brotherhood candidate - is expected by many secular minded Egyptians to bring about a religious flavour to the government - thereby possibly putting at risk the secular nature of Egyptian society.

Hence for that reason I could not see too much of happiness on display on Cairo streets - Egyptians will now be forced to choose between the 2 extremes, a situation that could only favour Morsi who has a strong party machine working for him.

For a person coming from a chaotic democracy like India, this still seems like a good situation to be in.  Unlike in India, the Egypt Presidential system will not bring about the kind of paralysis and logjam that characterises Indian democracy.  I am sure whoever wins the elections will follow pragmatic policies and work towards strengthening law and order, and putting Egypt economy back into the growth path.

Fingering Techniques for playing Harmonium

Have uploaded a video on Youtube which is my perspective on how to practise the right fingering technique for playing the harmonium.

This is purely an Amateur's perspective on how to add beauty to the playing of the harmonium by using the correct fingering technique. Beauty can be added by using adjacent keys/tones that are not part of the original Raag - but the fingering has to be light and subtle, otherwise it risks ruining the Raag. 

Needless to say it requires lots of practice before it can be used in front of an audience

Palitana Reeds for my Harmonium

I bought my harmonium a few years ago off-the-shelf  from a music store in Bangalore. I was in a hurry, and selected my harmonium in a matter of 10 minutes.  All I checked was whether the harmonium had a good finish, the wood looked good, the sound came out loud and clear, and the keys worked smoothly.

Later I realised that I had not checked the critical component of a harmonium - the brass reeds.  The reeds in my harmonium were "Punjabi" reeds - and because they were of inferior quality, they started going off-tune quickly, and therefore required frequent tuning.  Tuning harmonium reeds is a specialised skill, and done best by a skilled artisan using his ears as the guide (rather than any instrument) - so this became a problem to me as I had to lug my harmonium to India every time any of the reeds went off-tune.

I later found that the best quality reeds were made in Germany - but that German reeds are no longer available since a few decades as harmoniums have gone out of fashion in the West.  To understand how German reeds sound like, and why German reeds are the best, read these posts Why every Harmonium sounds different - C Sharp Tuning and Custom-Made Triple Reed Harmonium.

Among Indian makes, the reeds made in Palitana - a small town in Gujarat - were supposed to be the best.  I wanted to replace the reeds with Palitana reeds - but the problem is that Palitana reeds are in limited supply, and there is a long waiting list. After a great deal of follow-ups (thanks to my dear wife) the reeds were finally procured from the MohanLal company and installed into my harmonium at the Bombay Harmonium Works, Mangalore.

The results are fantastic - the sound is much more mellow and beautiful, and it is a real pleasure playing it and listening to the sound.  The sound will become even better over time as the new reeds gradually "open up" and lose their stiffness with the frequent playing of the instrument.  And because the reeds are made of better quality material, hopefully the reeds will require less frequent tuning.

To hear how my harmonium sounds like now, watch this
.

I am sure this harmonium now will serve me in good stead for a long time to come

The Challenging 40's

One of the most difficult life-stages is when a person gets into his 40s. Even if that person has maintained himself well, the body starts to creak reminding him that he is a mortal.

On the career front he is typically at the top-most layer that he will ever rise up to - any further rise in the organisational hierarchy will be marginal and merely designation adjustments or role swaps, rather than substantive responsibility changes.

He also realises that he has put behind him more years in his career than he will in the future.

And around him he might also see quite a few fallen heroes within the organisation - heroes he may have worshipped and role-modelled a decade ago, but who suddenly seem to have stagnated and gone to pieces.  These ex-heroes would typically be in their late 40s or 50s - these would have been the high-fliers a few years ago, guys with a lot of promise and possible CEO material - but who mysteriously seem to have lost their way.

And our man will start wondering what went wrong with these ex-heroes, and will dread whether a similar fate will befell him too some day.

In today's fast-track growth era it is very easy for a bright ambitious person to learn all that is there to learn in his industry by the time he is in his 30s.  He then starts picking up various fine-tuning soft-skills - but these skills are acquired gradually.  No measurable step changes - which is pretty disconcerting for our ambitious go-getter.  Since his whole life revolves around this particular industry or skill area he starts feeling a distinct sense of what the French very elegantly call ennui - the result is he loses his sense of purpose.  At this stage that person either takes premature retirement, becomes an entrepreneur and gets into something totally new.  Or he starts going to pieces by passively trying to hold on to his job, and passing his time = fallen hero.

Which is why it is critical that every individual entering this life phase to parallely takes up a "second" passion or career which is totally unrelated to what he does in office.  This could be learning to paint, helping out an NGO over weekends, teaching, learning golf or to play a musical instrument - anything that has a bigger purpose and will challenge the individual to once again exercise his learning skills in a totally new arena.  Most of the best brains in any sphere continued to be productive and useful in their main career, because they consciously developed a 2nd passion which added the required zest and more enduring purpose to their life.

Luck

Very long weekend.  Lots of time to read.  And mull over life.

Nassim Taleb in his book "Fooled By Randomness" talks about the human tendency to credit our own talent and hard-work for our Success, and the tendency to blame the external environment (school/unfairness/ parents/bosses etc) for our Failures. He believes the role of luck is not given due importance by most of us - in fact he goes on to prove that Luck (rather than mere talent) is one of the critical ingredients that shapes a person's destiny - the right turning taken purely by chance in a small fork in the road can be a turning point in one's life.

Luck is never given its due. My 9th standard English teacher (Mrs. Rukmani who alas is no more) used to dwell on it at length while discussing the famous "Elegy written in a country churchyard" written by the poet Thomas Gray where he says:

Full many a gem of the purest ray serene
the dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear.
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
and waste its sweetness on the desert air.

That poem had a marked impact on me - which is why decades later I can still recollect every word of that poem.

I think we should be all thankful to God for whatever luck he has put in our paths in order to make us the people we are today - whether it be in our families, relationships and careers.  I for one fully acknowledge the role Luck has played in my life, and am really grateful for it.  And for the lots of very talented individuals who believe that they have not had the luck breaks yet : I hope and pray that very soon they will get the lucky breaks they deserve. 

The Ingredients For Career Success

Currently I am reading some HBR articles on Emotional Intelligence and Value systems.  Both these are very current - and relevant -  topics in a world where leaders are increasingly failing due an absence particularly of the latter (Values).

However, the over-riding importance given to Emotional Intelligence and Values in current Management thinking cannot reduce the importance of the 3 BASIC ingredients for career success:

1. Luck - the role played by Luck can never be under-estimated.  Everybody has their share of good and bad luck which tends to impact their career.It could be anything from joining the right organisation at the right time, finding a good mentor early in one's career, and having the luck to be associated with high profile & successful projects.

2. Brilliance - the innate intelligence, also called Talent.  Brilliance tends to be especially important at the beginning of the career in terms of getting noticed, and being fast-tracked by the organisation.

3. Discipline - this is basically a mix of resilience, persistence, ability to face both victory and defeat with equanimity, and systematic application of past learnings.  This of course requires substantial emotional intelligence.

Luck is God given - it is not within the control of the individual.

Brilliance (Talent) is also God given and partly influenced by the environment in which one grew up in one's childhood.  It can be developed to a certain extent over time by  conscious training. But Brilliance is also subject to the environment - a brilliant person in one office environment can turn out to be quite ordinary when he is surrounded by other brilliant individuals.

Luck and Brilliance can never by itself help build a successful, long-sustaining career.  It can take a person up to a certain level, but whether he/she will remain there for long is not certain.

Of the three, Discipline is the only aspect that is within the control of the individual, and the only ingredient that can help sustain an individual over the long term. If you look at all the successful CEOs whether Steve Jobs or Narayana Murthy, it was Discipline which enabled them to remain at the top for a long, long time.  

Fathers & Sons

A posting by my brother on Facebook of some old snaps of my father re-triggered a wave of nostalgia and introspection.

The snaps were of my dad as a young father.  The snaps captured him well.  He had what is called style - his dress style would put James Bond (whose keen fan he was) to shame. And everything about him spelt under-stated elegance.

There is much to admire in my father - his courage, the way he organised his career and life, his focus, his self-confidence, his razor sharp sense of humour, and the young age at which he achieved success .....

I still remember the bed-time stories he used to narrate, and the extremely animated discussions about anything under the sun, we used to have around the dinner table.  The real life lessons that he passed on to me had immense use to me in my own life and career.

Often when I think back about him I get a deep complex - will I ever be as good and as successful as my dad?  Will I be as good a father as he has been to me?

I think deep within, every son carries a certain awe about his father.  This awe only becomes stronger as the son becomes older and approaches different life stages that his father too must have gone through.  All the questions on life's trade-offs and the kinds of compromises he might have had to make for the sake of his family - all this makes better sense to me now.

I am deeply grateful to my father, and I hope I will someday have the same courage and wisdom he showed in the way he lived.

Aarti Nayak - the rising talent on the Indian classical music scene

Thanks to the live web-cast of the Music event coinciding with the Punar Prathista in Mangalore, a lot of us got exposed to the rising talents in the musical field within the community.

What amazed me was the huge number of high quality music talent that was on display - the GSB community is indeed highly gifted in the performing arts.

One talent indeed stood out - and this was Aarti Nayak, the daughter of Pundit Ramrao Nayak  Despite her youth she showed amazing control over her voice, and sang some very difficult compositions such as the opening "Srinivasa.." in Raag Hamsadhwani.  Here is the link to the recording of the program - definitely worth a watch.




She was ably supported on the harmonium by Sudhir Nayak who played some difficult pieces exceptionally well, and on the Tabla by the renowned Pundit Omkar Gulwadi.

I predict Aarti will go a long way. 

The GSB Community

For the past decade the GSB (Gowd Saraswath Brahmin) community has been in a stage of siege and decline. The community (which has Konkani as its mother tongue) is tiny - just about 400,000 - and scattered all over pockets of western and southern India.  So there is no single geography cluster where the community is concentrated - which makes unifying the community - and sustaining its language and unique traditions - very difficult.

Historically, any community which is less than a million strong and is not geographically concentrated tends to gradually lose its identity and gets absorbed into the local dominant mainstream - so there is a real threat of that "Indian homogenisation" happening to the GSBs within this century. Moreover, the turbulence witnessed at the spiritual leadership level in the last decade did not help matters - it sowed dis-harmony, and many GSBs lived up to their (dis)repute of being "Kokkes" or those who cannot bear to see others within the community prosper.

Which is why the recently concluded 16 day Punar Prathistha of the Sri Venkatramana temple in Mangalore was a water-shed event for the community.  It was extremely well-organised - and the unity and the spirit shown by the community was remarkable.  Many of the youth were also involved, and it was wonderful to see some of the youth taking the initiative to do live web-cast of the event for all the 16 days on the GSB community portal - enabling many GSBs from all over the world to participate in the function, and hence witnessing the possible revival of the community feeling.

I for one am now quite happy and optimistic - I feel the negativity that had engulfed the community will disappear, and the community will start displaying the vibrancy, pride and spirit that had always characterised the GSB community.  And it gives me the hope that the GSB community will continue to survive and prosper for many more centuries to come.

On Becoming A Good Manager

It was disaster waiting to happen.  I got over-ambitious and tried to prepare 4 dishes simultaneously today.  Trying to juggle the brinjal subji and the broccoli saute that was on fire, I dropped the mustard seed bottle and spent half an hour cleaning up the kitchen floor.

No doubt cooking teaches best the skill of multi-tasking under severe time pressure - and also helps understand one's own strengths and limits.  Not surprisingly, in my experience, women usually tend to be better managers - their multi-tasking skills tend to be fine-honed due to their greater exposure to cooking at home.  And I mean no disrespect to male managers, some of whom are also very good at cooking.

Which brings me to the other point - it suddenly dawned on me today as to why the worst couple of managers I have ever encountered also happened - paradoxically enough - to be women.  On hind-sight it is easy to explain - I know for a fact that both of them hated cooking.