Powetalk with Praksh Iyer

11.35pm ,15 October 2011

Today is the 2^nd day of the flagship event  of our college event Lakshaya. This year there is more addition to it and it is Power talks. Harsha bhogle and Prakash Iyer was invited for the talks.

I have already listened to the speech of both the dignitaries in TIE and Indian Institute of Mountaineering or something like that in words of Mr.Iyer. I was very crazy about the talks and went there 1 hr. before the scheduled time of the event. 

As the event take off, first of all was a speech by our director who announced that Harsha will not be able to make it to our college. The Nitie lawns, where the event was organized was jam packed and it is primarily due to the Harsha Bhogle, who is a successful cricket commentator and columnist in most esteemed sports magazine and newspaper, if he not be a successful commentator today would be a lousy engineer or a bad manager today. Everybody  was shocked and I thought it would be  disappointing for Mr. Iyer. But as he was invited to talk, He begun like that “if you are missing the Harsha, Count me in too.” There was a big round of applause and he seemed to make the presence felt already. He was junior to Harsha in IIM A and both shared some good old memories together. 

In the beginning, the speech was similar to what I had heard already but still listening it live and the author of “The Habit of Winning”, just a steps away was in itself an enthralling and mesmerizing experience. He shared some stories with us which I can think is the best way he can share his pearls of wisdom with us. Suddenly, he said, “Before ending I would like to share …..” It was bit shocking as the time went too quickly, perhaps he made it too engrossing and interesting. He shared his experience and observations from the time  when he was in HUL selling the soap, when he was in Pepsico selling the colas till today when he is the current MD of the Kimberly Clark selling the Kotex and Huggies. 

Questions and Answers session at the end also went quite well. Budding managers asked a lot of questions and he answered them very genuinely. His answers were also quite practical and not ideal. Later, One of our placement Dean in the speech at the very end mentioned perhaps the audiences will not be able to digest the both the talks. And yes, I think he is pretty correct. Like the name of the show, It was much more powerful than I had imagined. After that Signed copies of his book was sold at a discounted price. He was a very down to earth person with excellent sense of humour. He dined at VIP guest house of our college and fortunately, I was present there. Altogether, it was a good feeling with a sense of satisfaction. 

Note: Sharing the tit bits of the speech would not be appropriate as the use of camera/video recording was not advisable during the speech.

Just now, i checked the couple of tweets by Harsha Bhogle. I would like to share them with you.

• "sorry all you guys at nitie.was really looking forward to meeting you;two drafts of talk ready,all dressed up but pick up car far too late...Tweeted by Harsha Bhogle "

• "hope you enjoy the session with prakash iyer; he's a lovely man with a wealth of experience and a serious writer............Tweeted by Harsha Bhogle"

Tribute to Maestro of Ghazals: Jagjit Singh

Courtesy: Google images

Shaam Se aankh mein name si hai

Aaj phir aapki kami si hai

-By Jagjit Singh for Jagjit Singh as my homage

Jagjit Singh, whom I only saw on televisions and listened on my systems, passed away yesterday. This news was really shocking. As not only we lost a good human being but deprived ourselves from a lot of good music still unsung by this artist. 

As I get most of the taste for music by my mother and brother, I still remember in childhood when my brother brought a cassette of Saher: one of the most spectacular album in which he mesmerize and enchanted people with his blessed voice, I  listened to him first time consciously. Previously, I have listened to his old songs but didn’t know his name or identity. It was after I listened Saher, I explore his more numbers. When I went in college, I explored his complete music. He had sung music for all the moods. In lucknow, I was very passionate about visiting ghazal bars and particularly to listen the ghazals of Jagjit singh and Pankaj Udhas. 

I remember some of his best creations which make you nostalgic and which are evergreen songs. After I heard this bad news, I checked papers and facebook. Almost every passionate ghazal listener had uploaded a message on facebook or tweeted something about him to pay him the homage. The papers are filled with the columns by the people like Khayyam who had worked with him and many others. We have lost a great musician. May his soul rest in peace.

There are some moments which we cherished throughout our life and it was when I thought about those golden moments, I always able to associate song with it. Like when I was in love, I spend my days and nights listening to his number, “Hoshwalon ko khabar”, he sung in the movie Sarfarosh. During some sad days, I remember when my room partner was requesting me to change the song as I was playing his no. “Tere bare mein jab socha nahi tha” continuously for days and nights. I always want to give him the credit for my good results in exams because without his songs, night out had not been possible.

One of the Hotel in lucknow, I didn’t remember exactly his name perhaps it was Deep palace used to play the ghazals of Jagjit singh every day in their bar section. I am talking about 5,6 years back, it was used to be very expensive as we didn't have the money then . But we used to go there, never ate anything, just ordered cheapest drink and have compliments and sit there for long hours. Waiters asked many times but we didn’t have the money to order. Those were the nice days. It was our love for Jagjit Singh that we used to visit that place.

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

Courtesy: google images

I opted to read this novel as i found it very high in ratings. It was also among top 250 reads of the century. I like this novel but dont know why. Perhaps, i had already made my mind that this book is sort of classic as i have not seemed to enjoyed this book much. But when i watch the movie, it was awesome and quite emotional. I wasn't able to imagine emotions that far.

Let us come back to the topic. As soon as the book begun, the Protagonist woke up as a different creature, most probably, ant. It is not mentioned anywhere but he matches with the features of the creature author talked about. He was the traveling salesperson and was the only earning member in the family. After seeing his this position, family became disturbed about the expenses of the family.  But somehow all the other members, his mother, father and sister begun to work.

It was his sister who fed him and who taken the job to clean his room. She was quite understanding and never entered in the room if he was not hide under the couch or somewhere else. As she knew that if he watched her watching him, it will make him embarrassed, so she always took care. He also heard the family conservations and was hurt deeply once when his father said that they cannot change this big apartment due to him. He thought he can be transferred easily anywhere within box with hole in it. In order to earn the money, the family also let the apartment to be shared by the 3 other persons who upon finding this creature said against it to family members. Listening to all the problems that have been occurring in the family due to him, he decided to kill him. When his family found him dead, the 3 lodgers came and asked what had happened, the father simply asked him to leave the apartment. At this time, family felt relaxed and decided to take off a day from their work to went to a stroll.It was a long time as they cannot leave an apartment alone.

Later they found that this incident had really turned their animated daughter into the more real one and the time has come to look for the suitable groom for her. It was an Happy ending.

How the man turned into the ant overnight is beyond my imaginations but nonetheless it was a fictional novel and i enjoyed it. This novel changed my way i look towards the ants.

Corporate Atyaachaar by Abhay Nagarajan

This book was very easy and light  read but somehow under delivered what was expected from it by reading about the last page or Introduction. However, nonetheless, I would like to appreciate the Abhay Nagarajan for his debut novel. Let me share my observations and experiences about the book.

The story started with the placement time in B-schools and ends with the completion of 1 year journey of the newly recruit MBA guy. It started with very good pace and the scene of the interview was very nice as something similar had happened with me lot of times but gradually, i find it over descriptive and also there was similarity in various chapters as all the chapters consists of the meeting of the newly recruit with the clients. As presently, i am in B-school, i was able to connect myself well but in the end, i found it boring. I was expecting some more stuff like how recession effected their life and what happened when recession was in full boom but that was not covered in the novel. Scratching by the his Boss in his private parts amused you initially but its over description make you irritated.

Besides for those pursuing MBA in finance, it would be a good book and taught you something that finance is more than excel and numbers and how important is networking in this competitive era to get the new business. Also, his boss HBS (Human Ball Scratcher) was describe very autocratic and aggressive, which most of the bosses are and thus it prepare you for joining the corporate world.

This is a short book of 200 pages and will not take more than an evening. I would not say it is a must read but yes for those in B-schools, it would be a good read.

The works of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle: In short

Disclaimer: I am not sure how well i explained these theories. I only present themselves to the best of my understanding and comprehending of the resources. Sources are the novel “The Republic” and Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Courtesy: Google images

Socrates espoused that we possessed the whole knowledge from the time we were born and therefore he adopted the technique of questions to answer some very basic questions. He never revealed the answers. According to him, we did not learn by experience but we recall the things which we already know by our experience. He only advocate the people to ask question from themselves. He show the students how to extract the truth from their inner self. He was known for his art of asking questions and then reach to answer by reasoning. He never write anything about his philosophy and the reason we came to know about his ideas is due to the heavy published work by one of his student, Plato. Socrates was a man of independent ideas and a critic of democracy. He described philosophy as an activity and not theory and thus taught the  philosophical methods like clear thinking to arrive at the truth. He was found guilty for corrupting the minds of the young generation and therefore was impeached and killed by giving the drink containing poison in the prison. Plato  try to help him to escape from the prison but he simply refused as opposing the idea of the jury fall outside his philosophy. 

Courtesy: Google images

Plato published the “The Republic” which is about his dialogues with Socrates and demonstrated the ideas and the ways of Socrates about getting to conclusions by questioning and reasoning. Both were of independent ideas and not satisfied with the current society system and therefore give ideas to change the society. Although it is not clear yet whether Plato really explaining the philosophy of Socrates in “The Republic” or was using him to explain his own ideas. He described democracy as just “charming form of government” and also called it tyranny when Socrates was taken to prison. After absorbing the knowledge from Socrates for about 9 years, he was then forced  to leave the Athens for his good. Then begun his journey which continued for next 12 years. He roam around the world published many of his works. The central feature of his philosophy is his theory of ideas or forms which he continued to derive whole his life. According to him, the physical world we perceive is in continual phase of changes (and these moving images are what we call time) while what is perceived by mind is immutable and eternal. Everything we perceive around us like table, food, light are merely appearances, the true reality is the realm of ideas from which these forms are derived.  Everything, every form such as roundness, beauty, man are like patterns for the particular objects of the world and these particular objects are only imperfect and ever changing copies of these universal ideas. That means beauty is not limited to just objects, it also exists as some universal idea somewhere.With rational use of mind, we can refine our notion of these universal ideas and can apprehend them better. In this way we can approach the ultimate reality. This approach organized itself in hierarchical manner  with the most abstract idea like that of God at the top. His ideas were very much criticized. It was said that they were merely his imagination and of no use or understanding or little to do with real world. His death was quite a mystery.

Courtesy: Google images

Now comes  Aristotle, who was a student of Plato. He had published extensively on many subjects ranging from Maths, science to poetry and politics. He was the one who introduced the logic and reasoning. Later that was formalized to propositional logic. He was of the opinion that knowledge is not present by birth and can be learned with experience against what the Socrates believed.  He also rejected the Plato’s theory of forms and said forms are extrinsic to the objects and cannot exist apart from them while Plato had said that beauty and other properties are universal entities and exists independent of the objects.

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