For long long time I have not enjoyed the test cricket, the way I enjoyed recently concluded five tests Ashes series. The way Australia won the first two matches and the manner in which England fought back in the last three matches was an ample demonstration of the fierce rivalry the two teams have! There were so many ups and downs, swings in favour of one team or the other, long partnerships and collapses and some spectacular individualistic performances that all added up to a great potpourri of sporting spectacle.

The crowd participation was enthusiastic and all days were almost houseful with the knowledgeable spectators cheering every good moment. Weather was perfect, but for an occasional rain ( actually during the third test rain played spoilsport) and pitches supported both – batters as well as bowlers!

Australia might have retained the urn containing the Ashes, but the closing moment went to England. A veteran of 167 tests with a haul of 605 wickets in a career spanning over more than 17 years, 37 years old maverick Stuart Broad called it a day, retiring from all forms of cricket. And his retirement was something that he as well as cricket lovers would cherish for long long time. Not only did he score a six of the last ball he faced as a batter, he also took wicket on the last bowl he bowled, ending his long glorious career on a high note, winning the test for England.

And though I knew Broad as a great bowler, watching him bowl in this Ashes series, has made him my all time favourite. Every time his captain called upon him, he didn’t disappoint. His attitude, gait, body language had the effect of recharging the team spirit. His aging legs seemed to be untiring and feet having springs. And what a gracious manner in which he bade adieu to the great game of cricket! What made the event even more gracious was the honour given by him to fellow player Moin Ali, who also played his last game.

His fitness, unbridled enthusiasm, deep knowledge of the rivals’ weaknesses all added up to make Broad one of the “All time greats.”Jimmy Anderson may play more cricket at 41 and take his tally past the magical figure of 700 wickets, but his long time colleague Broad will always be remembered as an enigma that only Broad could have been!

Let’s wish Broad all the best for his next innings – a slight misnomer for a retired cricketer who has already played so many innings, but a befitting sobriquet nevertheless!

My previous blog on Syed Mohd Irfan received widespread and rave reviews and this encouraged me to write a follow up blog on him.

As I explore more episodes of Guftagu on YouTube, more enamoured I get of his suave manner, polished language and searching yet non intrusive style of interviewing his guests. And whether such guests are big time celebrities or not so well known TV and Bollywood actors and directors, his interest in his subjects and intensity in his manners remain unaffected. The questions are never frivolous or meant to evoke sensationalism of any sort. He just explores the life’s milestones of the interviewee in a chronological and logical manner. In fact, I get a feeling that Wikipedia on popular celebrities could have been an outcome of their interviews by Irfan and once you watch a few episodes, you will realise what I mean!

He takes you back to the times of unhurried, sensible, heart to heart conversations, a genre that’s non existent in today’s times of everything hurried. My only worry or should I say regret is that Irfan’s very presence and possible availability is not being put to use by popular commercial media. Though google tells me that he has revived his popular series in the same name, albeit slightly different spelling “Guftugu” on YouTube channel of Rekhta foundation ( I am yet to see any episode of his this innings), a person of his caliber and impeccability definitely needs a more popular and widely watched platform to create a bigger impact.

Please join me in wishing all the best to Syed Mohd Irfan or as simply known by his single name Irfan.

मै लाल सिंह साहब को बहुत वर्षों से जानता। उनका कोमल हदय, मधुर वाणी, ऊँचे विचारों ने सदैव सबका दिल जीता है। उनकी यात्रा आसान नहीं थी। हम सब निजी क्षेत्र में कार्यरत लोगों का यही अनुभव है । ऐसे मे हमेशा अपना दिमाग़ ठंडा रखना, बड़ों का सदैव सम्मान करना, छोटों को प्यार से समझाना और हर समस्या का सही निवारण करना लाल सिंह जी की ताक़त रही हैं । एक बार मेंने उन्हें हंस कर कहा था- “ आप में इतनी करुणा, प्रेम भाव, समानूभूति, सेवा भाव इत्यादि गुण है- आप को तो राजनीति में जाना चाहिए, क्योंकि इस देश को ऐसे लोगों की ज़रूरत है ।” सौभाग्य से मेरी भविष्यवाणी सच हो गई है और लाल सिंह जी का राजनीति के क्षेत्र में पदार्पण हो गया है । जैसा की ऊपर लिखा है, उनमें एक सक्षम राजनीतिज्ञ के गुण मौजूद हैं। सच तो यह है कि वह एक जन्मजात नेता (born leader)है । मेरी ये कामना है और ईश्वर से प्रार्थना है कि लाल सिंह जी ने जो बीड़ा उठाया है उसमें भरपूर सफलता मिले और इस देश को जनकलयाण हेतु एक अच्छा नेता मिले!

आएँ हम सब मिलकर उनकी सफलता की कामना करें ।

Read a beautiful article about male friendship. It says that the problem of men having either very few or absolutely no friends at all has become very severe post Covid.

In an office situation, the men would bond over lunch at office and occasional post office hours binge comprising drinks and dinner. Covid, however, forced everyone to work from home, making offices unoccupied and forlorn places. Even though Covid has subsided, return to office is only partial, and offices are nowhere booming with people like in the past.

However, the main focus of the article is sustainability of the male friendship especially in the old age, when office colleagues are no longer at hand and old friends are either incapacitated or no longer existent! The article has a beautifully nuanced anecdote, where two lonely men in immediate neighbourhood would sit idly and look at each other, without caring to make an effort to know each other, leave apart forging a friendship. The anecdote ends on a tragic note with the surviving neighbour looking at the ambulance carrying the dead body of the other, leaving him worried about his own fate!

The author of the article suggests that middle and old aged men need to avoid loneliness by pursuing hobbies and hanging out with buddies for occasional game of poker ( just quoting the author; it could be anything from cards to Ludo to golf to table tennis) and drinks that would provide a person a happy diversion from solitude, loneliness and inactivity. The article specifically stresses about the need for men to socialise as women are inherently more outgoing type, prone to networking. Women also bare their hearts more readily to fellow women, whereas men hate to be seen as emotionally fragile even amongst best of buddies.

The article also touches upon cross sexual friendship, which is not quite relevant in our milieu, as even in western society, the issue of sexual relation in such friendships is quite pronounced.

The article fascinated me deeply as I related to it almost in totality. A bit of solitude has indeed set in post retirement though I must confess that I have traveled quite a bit, have a like minded spouse who shares quite a few common interests and have many friends – my erstwhile colleagues and others! I am also a member of two groups – one comprising my school mates and other my batchmates who joined my previous organisation along with me and with whom I bonded during extended training programmes. However, both these groups are virtual in nature, with interactions limited to social media and occasional phone call as members are spread all over. But with advancing age, interactions on such group are only likely to come down and engagements fewer. My wife has her own company and engagements and cannot be always available to cut my solitude. The need, therefore, is to bond more with a group having similar interests, hobbies, passions and compassion for one another. Solitude can lead to accelerated aging and depression that could ultimately cause other age related ailments.

I treat this article as a wake up call for all those who are just lazing out after their active professional life and that too all by themselves. Let’s reach out, meet people, enjoy occasional binge, travel , pursue a passion and avoid solitude and depression.

I am lucky to be receiving the thoughts expressed by the great Mahatria every morning, courtesy an old friend, who’s an ardent follower of the great man. What makes Mahatria stand out among the hordes of godmen all over the place is precisely this fact that he neither claims himself to be a godman, nor does he promise any miracles to his followers. He works for the betterment of our lives based on the knowledge vested in our scriptures that he interprets in easy to follow manner. His latest thought has touched my heart that says-

In the entirety of Universe, there is nobody like you. You are the only one of your kind. You are uniquely different. You are unique, you are rare, you are original, you are masterpiece – Master’s piece.

I found this thought’s immediate relevance to my current area of interest that’s centred around management practices. This reaffirms what I have been arguing in series of my earlier posts- not everyone is equally brilliant, efficient, intelligent, sharp or hardworking. Each one of us is unique and we bring to table certain strengths that only we can bring. The onus is on the organisation and its decision makers to assess that particular feature of one’s personality and deploy him or her in an appropriate role accordingly. This can to a large extent settle the issue of employee dissatisfaction and in turn, the problem of attrition that’s currently assuming humongous proportions, at least in certain organisations.

I have in the past shared gems of wisdom from Mahatria’s discourses as shared by my above mentioned friend and observed the relevance of his thoughts in our day to day lives.

Let’s not get overawed and overwhelmed by the success stories of others, which can be constructively used to draw inspiration at best. Each one is unique, capable of making our own story that can inspire others, because each one of us is uniquely crafted masterpiece – Master’s piece!

An organisation that I served for years and that continues to be very close to my heart, saw a jump in its attrition in FY23, with the employee turnover rate rising to 34.8 per cent in FY23 from 31.6 per cent in FY22 and 19.1 per cent in FY21. 34.8% by any standards is worrisome, signifying churning of more than 1/3rd employees! I don’t think any organisation can afford such high rates of attrition.

This is not all and there’s worse. The report further says that bulk of the turnover was seen in the bank’s organic employee base. The turnover rate for female employees was 35.9 per cent and for male employees at 34.4 per cent in FY23, in spite of this organisation’s special focus on improving male female employees ratio!

It is most unfortunate that under the pretext of acquiring the best talent from market, some organisations give a short shrift to their existing employees, who then feel neglected and lost and start looking out. In fact, such employees become “market talent” for other organisations. But constant churning helps an organisation the least! New employees are generally more expensive and less productive, at least in the initial period of 3-6 months. Further, as they come with huge expectations (meteoric career rise, high in incentives, cream posting), they can soon become disenchanted, leading to their attrition, implying they may be less stable than those who had chosen to make career in that organisation by spending years.

This issue should not be swept under the carpet but given top priority to ensure that attrition comes down to an acceptable level of 10-12%.

Parents are first gurus and we emulate them. School exposes us to our teachers who teach us basics of education that helps us seeing through the challenges of life. College professors give us specialised education that transforms us into professionals. At work place, we encounter bosses, colleagues, juniors and learn throughout our careers by imbibing new skills and honing the existing through experience. And as we grow old, we form new relationships- spouse , in laws, children, their spouses, grandchildren etc and each of these helps us evolve as a person and a human being.

Therefore, the scope of guru is not limited to only to parents and teachers, but anyone whom we come across during this journey called life and from whom we learn anything, becomes eligible to be our Guru, worthy of our respect and obeisance.

But I am also wary of not getting carried over by the sobriquet of Guru being bestowed upon by me by some of my colleagues and their resultant devotion to me. It’s not attributable to modesty in any form, but a genuine conviction that they got my support, guidance and appreciation for they thoroughly deserved it. Good begets good and this has been my lifelong experience of both sides – being a giver as well as receiver.

True celebration of Guru Purnima would be our overall appreciation of all the good, irrespective of the person’s nature or scope of work! Didn’t we all learn during the Covid pandemic who the real heroes were? Apart from medical fraternity, the municipal employees who provided cleanliness, public transport employees, postal employees, security personnel etc all emerged as heroes, earning our heartfelt gratitude. Therefore, respecting all good around us and learning something new from everyone around is each day, will describe the essence of Guru Purnima in real sense.

Parents, teachers, elders are all our Gurus,

But they are not the only ones;

From whomsoever we learn anything in life,

Are worthy of our gratitude in tons!

My readers would recall my earlier post on IDFC Bank, celebrating their great initiative in abolishing all the charges relating to saving bank account. 

They must have felt buoyed by encouraging response to their above initiative to go a step further as evidenced from full page ad that has appeared in leading dailies. They have introduced auto sweep in from SB account, unlimited withdrawal from CA as long as balance is there, no minimum balance requirement, no penalty on FD breakage and FD breakage allowed in units of Re1. While most of the banks offer these products and features, IDFC offering is more lucrative and customer friendly. 

We all talk about disruption, but here’s IDFC Bank causing a big disruption in the market that should ensure faster than normal growth of CASA franchise for them. I am sure that they must have done their proper homework to assess the loss of income due to abolition of charges to be offset by additional float and business volumes. 

My best wishes to the team IDFC for a great journey ahead. Although I have no relationship of any sort with IDFC Bank, their initiative is something that’s very close to my heart. As a banker, I have always felt that deposit customers should be encouraged to save and offered other products without the Damocles sword of charges hanging on their heads. But everything free also carries the risk of people just opening another account for the heck of it and such accounts with small balances would then lie dormant, causing unnecessary and loss making baggage for the bank to carry in its books. However, with proper monitoring, customer engagement and cross selling, this could be a winning proposition for IDFC and I wish them well.

Now that I have retired from active service and have time in hand to pursue things that I always wanted to, I am trying to catch up with things that I missed out on. This includes watching certain programmes that I had caught glimpses of earlier and liked, but couldn’t really maintain consistency. While surfing YouTube, I came across one such programme Guftagu that used to be telecast on now defunct Rajya Sabha TV. During my working days, once in a while channel surfing would take me to RSTV and I’d immensely enjoy programmes being telecast there, especially music and talk shows. Guftagu hosted by Syed Mohd Irfan was one such programme, of which I’d watch stray episodes, whenever I’d come across one during such surfings.

Luckily, now I discover that all the episodes are available on YouTube and I have been keenly watching them one by one.

What makes this show unique is its sincere and honest format bereft of any razzmatazz that is so typical of private channels, especially news channels. The tone is neither cacophonous nor scandalous. Conversations are heart to heart, move logically and give sufficient opportunity to interviewees to open out. And I have seen some of the celebrities openly confessing to mistakes made by them that eclipsed their success, a rarity in talk shows. Above all, it’s the very relaxed, polished and empathetic style of the host and presenter Syed Mohd Irfan that adds a great deal of sophistication to the proceedings. He comes well prepared, poses right questions and is very proficient in Hindi and Urdu. Another great thing about the programme is that it not only focuses on well established and reputed actors and film personalities, but also covers small time side actors. Recently I watched episodes on Lalit Tiwari ( who played the part of Sanjay in epic TV serial Mahabharat) and Birbal ( a small time comedian known for his buffoonery), which really warmed the cockles of my heart. Their struggle and all round talent was unbelievable, credit for which solely goes to Irfan for putting them at ease and then making them empty their hearts out.

I recently connected with the great man Irfan to check the possibility of revival of his top class show. He replied in negative. While his erstwhile channel RSTV might have ceased to exist having merged with LSTV to become Sansad TV, I plan to share this feedback blog on Guftagu and it’s host Irfan with Sony TV, who are open to promoting lots of newer concepts. I exhort my readers to watch a few episodes of Guftagu themselves and decide whether my impression of the programme and its presenter is exaggerated, idolatry or realistic?

I distinctly recall, it was 1973, when my grandfather had retired and he had to vacate company accommodation provided to him at a very prime locality in Karol Bagh. Of all the places, he chose to move to Krishna Nagar, a business-cum-residential hub in the trans Yamuna area. From the swanky markets of Karol Bagh to crowded narrow lanes of Krishna Nagar, it was a let down for me, who as a child would frequently go to my grandparents place whenever schools were closed.

However, while the main market of Lal Quarter was congested and roads were narrow, once you were off Lal Quarter, galis (as the residential streets were called) were relatively quiet, with beautiful independent houses lined up on both sides. Besides, it was cheaper than upmarket Karol Bagh and I along with my other cousins would binge on great street food!

And the kite flying festival in Delhi that peaks on 15th August, was a virtual celebration galore in Krishna Nagar with every terrace having kite flying experts and the sky filled with colourful kites! We would climb up the terrace after morning cuppa and all our meals be served there itself. We would come down only after darkness made it impossible to fly kite any longer.

And Lal Quarter would be decked up like a bride, days before a major festival – Rakshabandhan, Diwali, Holi, Navratri etc.

Of course, there were some very strong negatives associated with the Krishna Nagar. It’s open drainage and toilets with septic tanks were big show stoppers. Flies would not leave you in spite of all the effort spent on cleanliness. And power cuts were more frequent ( compared to south Delhi colonies), making peak summer days and nights very distressing! Yet there was something charming about Krishna Nagar- sort of an old world charm – shops selling traditional goods and food stuff, friendly neighbours, culturally alive etc. All these in a way made up for infrastructure bottlenecks.

As the family grew and older generation departed, Krishna Nagar house didn’t suffice the requirements and it was sold. I haven’t had the opportunity of going back there for more than last 20 years. I am told that while several infrastructural improvements have since happened, the place has become even more congested and commercialised and Lal Quarter is now virtually cut off for vehicular traffic.

It just stuck me yesterday that this is the golden jubilee year of all the memories associated with Krishna Nagar, all of which started in 1973. During one of my future visits, I would like to visit Krishna Nagar to relive some of my childhood memories.