Speaking Up, Again

This is a short piece I wrote for the Women's Network at work, recycled from an eight year old post.

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I confess I'm at a loss when asked to write or talk about diversity in the workplace. I'm no program leader, neither am I an expert on the topic. There's realms of research done by professionals which prove out the benefits of having a diverse workforce, all just a Google search away. 

One topic that's close to my heart though, is about speaking up. We don't do it often enough, irrespective of gender. This could be due to cultural and social reasons with us living in an hierarchical society, but the impact remains the same. We don't really raise our hand and contribute our ideas when faced with challenges. Our solutions to problems tend to be one sided and linear, as the problem solvers wind up being the same kind of people most of the time. On the other hand, if we were to encourage diverse views from a heterogenous mix of contributors, the solutions turn out to be richer and long lasting. 

Speaking up is also about getting involved. Having the courage to challenge existing authority, or as you will see in the story below, standing up for what's right. What follows is a true story about someone who displayed a lot of courage and did the right thing. I've always found this inspirational, hope you will too.

There was this private bus which ferries doctors to and fro from their college in Hoskote. It stops near the Hope Farm in Whitefield, cuts through ITPL and then hits the Outer Ring Road. This bus was blocked by two drunks one evening near the Hope Farm junction. One of them got on board and started abusing the driver for driving through that area. Apparently, the drunk mistook the bus for a public transport vehicle.

The abuse turned violent when the drunk pushed the driver out of the bus and started hitting him with a thick, flat stone. Blood started pouring from the driver's head. The people in the bus looked on, unsure of what to do, not wanting to get involved. People on the road stood and stared, as they always do. 

A woman stepped out of the bus and ran towards the fight. She positioned herself between the drunk and the driver, stretched out an arm and said,"You will not touch him again". 

The drunk tightened his grip on the stone, said "I don't care for ladies. Step aside or I'll hit you too". The lady didn't reply, but kept her arm outstretched. The drunk moved around in a circle, trying to see if he could get closer. The woman moved with him, making sure the driver was protected. The drunk stopped short of hitting her, but tried a few lunges from time to time. The woman maintained her position, not saying a word, not budging an inch. 

This was the tableau when the cops arrived, ten minutes after the lady had intervened. The drunk tried to run away, but couldn't go far. The cops caught him, brought him close to the lady and asked her to identify him. She did. The cops hauled the drunk away and took the driver to a nearby hospital. The lady took her cellphone, called her husband and asked him to come get her home. 

Which is what I did.

Meatspace

I have been doing a lot of traveling the past few weeks. Several train journeys, a couple of flights, long drives by car and a bus or two in between. As a result, I have also met a wide variety of people. For a person whose social life has been almost entirely on Twitter and Facebook lately, this was a refreshing change. 

 

The Twitterati are usually sarcastic, smart, clever with words and quick to take pot shots at all and sundry. Most of them work in IT or IT related industries. They usually think and tweet alike, most of the time anyway.  

 

My Facebook friends are mostly people I know in real life. We share family pictures, links to interesting websites and comment how much we have changed since we last met, which is usually a good twenty years back.

 

The people I met in meatspace the past few weeks came from all walks of life. An architect. A retired military man. An accountant. A business man who used to be a manual laborer. And I learnt something from each one of them.

 

The accountant taught me to smile at strangers, offer them food if you have some, share a joke with them and help them be comfortable during the journey. 

 

The retired military man showed me the value of being neat and tidy. Of holding your ground and getting people to do what's right. Helping your spouse and making her feel loved and cared for. Of enjoying life post retirement. 

 

The architect gave me tips on how to plan for the future. The laborer turned businessman helped me understand the power of determination, hard work and humility. 

 

I would not have learnt any of these online. The value of going out and meeting people, interacting with them, understanding them and ultimately learning from them, is immense. Even though the travel tired me out, I don't regret a minute of it. 

 

This is not to say there isn't value in being connected and active on the social networking sites. I enjoy that immensely. I have met some awesome people online, some of whom have turned into friends I will cherish for a lifetime. However, I do want to spend more time out in the sun talking to people who are from different walks of life, with different mindsets, different points of view. I am sure I will be richer by the experience. 

Posted via email from Mostly Charmless

Back to school

Rachu started 'proper' school today. She's done with the Montessori levels and has entered Std I. I dropped her off to school in the morning; she was dressed in her new uniform, complete with a school belt and tie. Damn, she's growing up faster than I'd want her to.

Bugged

I took the easy way out the other day at lunch. The easy way out was to pretend the cockroach in my food didn't exist and get back to work without barfing my guts out. I also resolved never to order food from that stall in the food court again. This resolution should last till end of the week. Hopefully.

It's been worrying me, though. Why didn't I create a fuss and demand to see the manager? Why didn't I demand a full month's lunch, free? Maybe because the cockroach was so tiny, it really wasn't their fault it had sneaked into my plate. Or maybe because the first thing that came to my mind was the old scene in movies where the hero tries to weasel out of paying for lunch by inserting a roach into his plate at the end of the meal. Balachandra Menon in Chiryo Chiri and Jayaram in Nagarangalil Chennu Raapparrkkam, if I remember correctly.

Which reminds me, it's time for lunch.

Karan

So, I became a dad all over again last Monday. Thanks to technological marvels such as Blackberry, Facebook and Twitter, I could take pics and let people know within minutes of my son's birth. Felt weird, felt good too. Feb 23 was an amazing day for a lot of happy Indians, it became even more special for me.

The baby is doing just great. He keeps us awake most nights as any newborn worth his salt would. His mom is also fine and well, recuperating faster than most, thanks to an excellent gynaec whose only advice after the Caesarian was to run up and down four flights of steps. My wife being who she is, loved the advice and proceeded to do exactly that. She's almost fully back to normal now, within just a few days of the operation.

The big sister went through a mild patch of severe stomach ache and vomiting, which started curiously enough the day the baby reached home. She got a lot of extra attention the next couple of days and is back to normal now, thankfully.

We have named him Karan. Karan Madhav. You know he's going to steal your daughter's heart one day, don't you?

Our first choice of name was Kabir, though. It's sad that we live in times when we had to rule out a child's name, for fear of giving him an unnecessary handicap when he grows up. Kabir, you see, is perceived as a Muslim name in the south, especially in Kerala. Sindha and I thought of conversations which would go:

- "What's your name, smartass?"
- "Kabir"
- "A-ha! What's your father's name?"
- "Madhav"
- "Oh! We have a live one here. What's your mother's name?"
- "Thomas"

This would ensure him getting beaten up by all three communities. The Sikhs might also join in, given the importance they give to Kabir's poems. As much as we both loved the name Kabir, we just didn't want to setup our son for trouble later on in his life. The above scenario could very well turn out true, the way things are going these days, especially in Karnataka. I'm not very proud of it, but we chickened out finally.

At any rate, the baby is here and all of us are happy and well. We are four now.

Couple of movies, couple of books

Don't get me wrong, I thought Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Hey-nonny-no was watchable. I did laugh at times, especially when Ratna Pathak Shah was around. The cameos were well done and some of the one-liners had zing. That said, I found the gang of friends quite insipid. Everyone in that group save Jai (Imran Khan) was one dimensional. I couldn't really figure out what made the group tick. Why was Aditi popular? What do the others do apart from hanging around the leads and singing chorus? Hmm. Pass, could do better is my verdict, Mr Tyrewala*.

Aamir, now. The movie, not the director/actor/producer/blogger. A bit fantastic, the way the protagonist gets into terrible trouble a few minutes into the film. However, the excellent direction, sets and acting make up for some of the harder to digest moments. The lead actor, Rajeev Khandelwal, seems to have had a blast.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Christian reading two books, each of which have the word 'God' in their titles, must be very devout and will pull you into church and get you baptised at the drop of a hat. Even if the books were titled In Spite of the Gods and The God Delusion. No one is safe.

*Which reminds me, I need to go to the gym.

Going Legit

Like the Corleone family, I'm going legit. I've stopped my visits to National Market, avoided visiting torrent sites and have turned over a new byte.

Honest. All my recent movie acquisitions have been from stores. Spent money on the Final Cut edition of Blade Runner. Bought the 12 disc special edition of Lord of the Rings. Bought a bunch of games like Sid Meier's Railroads!, Shogun, F.E.A.R, Age of Mythology, etc. Downloaded a valid version of World of Warcraft and after some epic quests, managed to get a paid account that works from India*.

Why, you may ask. Because I can. So there.

* Thanks, and

Words

When I was reading books and growing up, both at the same time, I used to come across words and phrases that weren't used in regular conversation. Not in Thiruvananthapuram, at least. No, not the words you think, but stuff like "chuckle", "what the", "darn it to heck" and the like. Me and my cousin found out that "chuckle" meant smile or laugh. After that, we often chuckled at each other. Literally. For example, he'd say something funny and I'd say "Chuckle, chuckle".

"What the" came out of comic books, mainly the superhero variety. On a side note, it wasn't until I met the illustrious that I realized there could be other varieties. Anyway. I used to read a lot of Superman those days, which usually had characters like Jimmy Olsen or Clark Kent who, when confronted with a super villain, went "What the..!". I used to wonder, this time without my cousin, what this expression meant. I didn't really think I was missing a word, it seemed to be complete in itself. I finally figured it was an exclamation of surprise, but nothing much more. As a result, while playing cricket with the neighbourhood kids, I used to often cry out "What the!" when the ball I thought was a perfect yorker was launched right out of the park.

We now come to "Darn" and "Heck". I confess I went twenty seven years without knowing that these words were substitutes used by God-fearing folks when they wanted to curse. I realized this when I was on a chat site long back and I said "Heck" in conversation. One fellow chatter, from Canada if I remember right, immediately said "Oh, we have a devout Christian boy in our midst!". It was then that enlightenment dawned. Since then, I've always been fucking explicit when I chat.

Vuja-de and a compulsive confession

I experienced the opposite of deja-vu yesterday night. Rachu brought her toy phone to the dinner table and was carrying on an animated conversation with her best friend, Malavika. I had to yell at her to stop using her phone at dinner. I can clearly see myself repeating this in a few years.

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I have a confession to make. You've read the Rediff message boards, haven't you? Well, that's all me. Yup. The folks who commented on reservations yesterday, the Amitabh controversy, even the Valentine's day comments. All mine. Yeah, you knew those were too good to be true, right? Right.

Those-were-the-days dept

My first few entries on LJ. Nothing much has changed, really. It's still all about movies and beer.

Five of the best from my 2007

Movies: Taare Zameen Par, Ratatouille, The Rules of the Game, Knocked Up, Grindhouse

Books: We Need to Talk About Kevin, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, The Mahabharatha: A Modern Rendering, From Hell

Happy New Year, everyone.

The Last Leaf

The last leaf will always be there, buddy.

Movie Quiz

I'm conducting the annual Movie Quiz for the KQA, at the Daly Memorial Hall, Nrupathunga Road, Bangalore, on Sunday the 25th. Prelims at 3pm and finals at 4. Teams of 4. I'm thinking of burning a few movies as audience prizes, time permitting.

If you are bored and at a loose end on a Sunday afternoon, do hop over.

Fear

I am getting more and more scared these days, as I grow older. Scared of a lot of things, none of which go bump in the night.

Scared my dad is losing his energy, the tremendous joie de vivre he used to have. I just can't imagine him without that smile on his face, that interest in everything and everyone. This started a month ago, after his fall where he had a hairline fracture on his hand and cut his eyebrow. I think he suddenly realized that he is sixty-five. I did, too.

Scared when my daughter spends two whole days coughing every other minute. I know it's just a throat infection, it will pass soon. But I am scared she'll get up in the night and cough some more, cough out more than what she should. Scared that I'm not doing the best I can as a father, as a protector, as an adult.

I had a rather bad accident close to a year back, when my car overturned. The vehicle was almost totally wrecked, it spent five months in the body shop before coming back home. I escaped with a couple of scratches and a finger that refuses to bend all the way. I am not really affected by that accident, shit happens. But I'm scared I've used up all my lives, could be game over the next time.

Scared of the country I live in, scared of a society which doesn't give a flying fuck about individuals. Scared of a vapid culture, a fast growing generation who are taught not to think, taught totally different kind of values, made to believe in gods they themselves know not to exist.

Hell, I'm one cowardly custard.

Kiddie Tales Vol 4

It helps having your parents over to babysit your kid, especially during the long summer holidays. One problem though is that the kid gets influenced quite a bit by the grandparents. Having your child go through the usual Ramayana-as-told-by-grandma routine is to be expected, of course. What one doesn't expect though is to see the kid look at a spoonful of salt and go,"Oh, King Lear!". Not to mention said kid lifting left arm and pointing out,"Biceps, triceps and deltoid!".

Deltoid, indeed.

And then

And then you have a few friends who can cheer you up by just being there, talking about anything in the world, just being there with you and not judging you, not giving you advice, listening without prejudice.

You know who you are. Thanks, guys.

Rocky Revisited

I keep coming back to Rocky. When I get depressed, I turn to the Gonna Fly Now theme music, or the rejuvenating Eye of the Tiger. When I feel I need to exercise but just can't be bothered enough to go out and run, I watch the training montages and make myself believe I can do all that.

Saw Rocky Balboa the other day and just broke down, completely.


The guy is old, over the hill, there's no way in hell he can win. No way he can pull off a miracle, trying to compete with someone young.

He loses, of course.

Not without a fight, though. He did what he does best - continue fighting, last the distance. Because that's all he knows to do, that's all he can do. Keep fighting, knowing that he'll lose, not giving a damn.

Continue fighting, go the distance.

Gold access

For the first time, I'm thankful to the credit card marketeers who sold me a Gold Mastercard a couple of years back. It got me admission into a neat little lounge at the Chennai Airport, where I could get a glass of beer, some excellent Chicken Kabab and much needed peace and quiet.

This entry has cleverly been filtered to prevent the you-know-whos of the world from advising me about airports and lounges and credit cards.

Man, I can be mean.

Over the weekend

* We really should have taken Mohd. Kaif. At least his family has experience in dealing with goons pelting stones at one's house.

* Sachin Tendulkar to appear in a comic book. About time.

* Phir Hera Pheri wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. They did manage to Indianise Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels quite well.

* Don't go for long drives in a non a/c car. Or at least, not during afternoons in summer

Movie Quiz at the KQA

The KQA's Annual Movie Quiz will be held on Sunday 25 February 2007 at the Daly Memorial Hall, Nrupatunga Road, Bangalore. The details:

QM: Madhav Nair

Prelims: 1530hrs sharp
Finals: 1630hrs blunt

Open to teams of two members
Entry Fee: Rs. 50/-

Prizes

I: Rs. 2000/-
II: Rs. 1500/-
III: Rs. 1000/-

All other finalists will receive prizes. Several audience prizes are also being handed out.