The occasion was very special – golden anniversary of one of my Mamas. Lucky are those who enjoy companionship of their spouses for half a century and more. And this occasion was celebrated with glitz and glitter it deserved. The function was held at a very upmarket venue, highlighted by choicest drinks and gourmet food and above all facilitated reunion of the extended family’s members. It was all the more special for me as except for one uncle based in US along with his family, all other uncles, aunts, their children and next generation comprising their grandchildren and in case of my mother, now the eldest surviving member of the big clan, great grandchildren too, are based in Delhi and meet each other frequently. I met a few of them after ages.

My elder brother is the eldest amongst all 14 of us cousins born to seven brothers and sisters. I am the second eldest. The junior most is good 19 years younger to me, while the next eldest is only two years younger. Thus, while the next eldest has been one of the best friends of mine, with whom I shared some of the best moments of my childhood, from the next eldest onwards, they have been kid brothers and sisters, whom I cuddled and lapped in their infancy and childhood. Now they are all parents with grown up kids, with one having become a father in law too! But when we reunited, it was all nostalgia and sweet memories of our shared childhood and time.

As aforesaid, I, by virtue of having stayed most of the last 4 decades outside Delhi, haven’t been meeting any of them frequently, but their love and affection towards me overwhelmed me. It’s rightly said that blood is thicker than water. In our lifetime, we make many relationships but the bonds that we build in our childhood or early part of life are bonds that last forever whether we make any efforts to renew or nurture them or not.

I would thank two of my cousins, sons of my Mama and Mami, the golden couple, who arranged this magnificent get together that brought all the old memories back with utmost fondness!

Once again happy golden jubilee to my beloved Mama and mami and thanks to everyone else for making this special occasion memorable!

First thing that caught our fancy during the Ganpati festival in the very year of our arrival in Mumbai was the adoration and respect bestowed upon the elephant god by anointing him as king of the area where the community pandal was put up to celebrate the 10 days festival. Of course, thanks to Bollywood and Mumbai’s numero uno place among the cities in India, we had an inkling of the grandeur and scale of the festival and had also heard about the very special status enjoyed by Lalbaug cha Raja amongst all the deities. But to come across various Rajas – Andheri cha, Juhu cha, Malad cha, Fort cha etc was the most fascinating experience.

Our daughter, a denizen of Johannesburg, came to know through local Indian diaspora about Ganpati festival being celebrated at one of the local temples. Over the weekend, she along with her family joined the celebration that included exhibition and various other programmes, including rendition of bhajans, the devotional songs. The climax of this very enjoyable and pious evening was delicious Prasad, the theme for the day being Marwari food, including dal- baati, churma. She also came to know that previous day cuisine was Gujarati while for the subsequent day, Marathi food was planned. Over 10 days of festivities, Temple has been celebrating by serving cuisine of one of the Indian states as Prasad.

While all the above was a great experience for my daughter for reliving the Mumbai and India’s experience, my joy knew no bounds when she told me that Ganpati idol installed there is being named as Johannesburg cha Raja! Mumbai, Maharashtra and India are Lord Ganpati’s domain; but when this popular God reaches far flung geographies to spread happiness amongst his devotees, it’s simply ecstatic!

Ganpati Bappa Morya! Johannesburg Cha Raja ki Jai!

Came across a TED talk video that touched something that’s very close to my heart – incivility. As per the speaker, incivility is rude or impolite behaviour and could comprise any of the following- texting during the meeting, coming late or leaving early under any pretext, demeaning others, making mockery etc. The video goes on to analysing the reasons that lead to incivility, especially in an office scenario and steers clear of incivility in our outside office behaviour, which will include all that tantamounts to breach of social etiquette, a very large theme in itself. But most importantly the talk refers to studies and empirical data flowing out of such studies that clearly prove that incivility leads to a serious and significant erosion in productivity and bottom line. And the indirect outcomes include lack of involvement of employees, indifference towards corporate’s cause and ultimate attrition.

I am neither an advocate of complete democracy in an organisation nor do I support insubordination of any kind. But whether rudeness, hitting below the belt, mocking people, treating them with disdain are the only tools with the managers to deal with underperforming staff or are their more civilised tools available that help in conveying the message without hurting the ego or the sensibility of the guy being reprimanded.

To me this issue should not be swept under the carpet by any organisation on the grounds of “ this being any manager’s inherent nature or style of functioning”, but should be discussed threadbare in the overall interest of the organisation of the outcomes of incivility are so serious.

The importance, grandeur and devotion with which Ganpati festival is celebrated in this part of the country was alien to us when we came to Mumbai more than two decades ago. We couldn’t resist its charm, the way we couldn’t resist the charm of this great city and decided to make this city our home and the festival our own. Life, like always, is a roller coaster ride, highlighted by ups and downs, highs and lows and good and bad, but as the Chaturthi comes and Bappa arrives to bless our home, all negativity just vanishes, making way for delight, happiness and elation. Such is the power of this festival and its presiding deity! And while our Ganpati is consigned to the depths of sea the next day, the celebrations continue for the next ten days entailing visits to iconic pandals, including the most revered, “Lalbaug cha Raja”, who enjoys unparalleled adulation of his devotees.

And the prayers offered to the merciful lord are not only about self, family and other nears and dears. In fact, whatever concerns our city, nation and planet is also placed before Bappa in the form of prayers. Whether it’s erratic rain or havoc caused by floods, welfare of our brave hearts fighting enemy or terrorists, peace and prosperity in the parts of the country, especially Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Manipur, communal harmony, success of Chandrayan and Aditya and everything else for which we as human feel helpless, seeking salvation from Ganpati, get included in our prayers in the hope that, his immersion will herald the end of all the problems, bringing peace and prosperity for the entire mankind!

When faced with complex problems,

Only helplessness is felt inwards

The only hope then one gets is,

By looking nowhere else, but only skywards.

And our prayers to someone in the sky

Don’t go abegging or unheard;

On Ganesh Chaturthi comes visiting Ganpati

The sukh karta and dukh harta of this world!

Happy Ganesh Chaturthi to everyone! Ganpati Bappa Morya!

During a visit to a friend’s house, I saw a book on Satyajit Ray lying on his bookshelf. I couldn’t resist and borrowed the book as I had been contemplating knowing more about arguably the India’s best ever filmmaker.

The book was rather simple. Part 1 discussed all his 38 odd films and documentaries that the prolific maestro made over his film career spanning about four decades. Part 2 had interviews with all those who had the good fortune of working with the master and were alive on the date to reminisce about the great filmmaker.

It was most interesting to know how Ray chose his stories, locations, actors, technicians, music, locations etc, shoestring budget at his disposal and his deep commitment to realism.

My readers may recall that I read all the original James Bond books by Ian Fleming, watched Bond movies based thereon and arrived at certain very interesting conclusions.

I decided to do an encore with Ray’s work too. The problem I faced was that his movies were either not easily available, or had bad prints or didn’t have English subtitles. Notwithstanding these constraints, I watched seven movies – Jana Aranya, Shakha Proshakha, Seemabadha, Kapurush, Mahanagar, Ganashatru and Charulata.

It doesn’t befit me to pass any judgment on the master’s work, which is acknowledged worldwide as classic. The movies shook me to the core with their stark realism, problems of rural and urban India and human relationships. And while we outside of Bengal know Bengali actors such as Uttam Kumar, Sharmila Tagore, Suchitra Sen, Aparna Sen and Biswajit, Ray’s go to actors were Soumitra Chatterjee and Madhabi Mukherjee. It was a treat to watch these actors getting into the skin of the character that the situation demanded. It was no surprise that why these and several others (Haradhan Bandopadhyay, Deepankar Dey, Mamta Shankar, Utpal Dutt) were Ray’s go to actors.

Much before the so called “parallel cinema” or neo realist films started doing rounds in Hindi, Ray had already mastered the art of showing the best stories in the most realistic manner and enacted by some of the finest actors.

I salute the great master and body of his work, which must be preserved and popularised to reach out to more and more first time viewers of his classic work like me. Unless, I watched his movies, I didn’t realise what great stuff I had missed out in life.

I always thought that if Djokovic had not faced Alcaraz in Wimbledon Finals, he would have got his 24th grandslam title there itself and be striving for 25th at US Open thereby completing his silver of grandslam titles. But this feat had to wait for few months and happen at US open.

The things went right for the great Djokovic from the start itself. He got 2nd seeding to Alcaraz’s 1st, ensuring that the two would meet, if at all, only in the finals. While the things went on smoothly for the seeds, with the top 3 seeds reaching semis, only Ben Shelton being the dark horse, Djokovic’s chances became considerably bright as Alcaraz-Medvedev match was expected to be a tough encounter, tiring both the players for facing the great Joker in the finals. Djokovic had a relatively easier win over Shelton and Medvedev played game of his life to overcome Alcaraz. Djokovic played the sublime tennis to defeat Medvedev to claim the record 24th grandslam, a feat that brought him at par with Margaret Court and ahead of all his contemporaries, making him the undisputed GOAT ( Greatest of all time).

At 36, Djokovic only seems to be improving. Good service followed by volley at the net is the new weapon in his armoury making him even more lethal. His immediate rival, Alcaraz is already contemplating seeking help for temperament for big games. What a year this has been for the GOAT! Appearing in all four grandslam finals and winning three of them ( against Tsitsipas, Ruud and Medvedev), is a great feat in Modern day tennis. Will Djokovic be fit and motivated enough to have a calendar slam in 2024 is anybody’s guess, but that’s unrelated to his confirmed GOAT status.

Lucky are we to be witnessing great tennis rivalry amongst Federer, Nadal and Djokovic , with Djokovic ultimately outrunning others to emerge a GOAT.

On the occasion of Krishna Janmashtami, our building organised a programme that included a discourse by HG Ram Rup Prabhu from ISKCON, Juhu. Actually, I have heard Ram Prabhu on several occasions thanks to devout ISKCON devotee couple Vidhi and Sushil, who stay in our building and who used to regularly organise kirtan and katha by Ram Prabhu, a sequence that broke post Covid epidemic. I have always felt more at peace after listening to his explanation of the teachings of Krishna as interpreted by A C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.

Today Ram Prabhu narrated a very interesting story. There was a king who was so deeply entrenched into committing sins that he notoriously came to be known as Paapsingh. Once Narad Muni wanted to have a discussion, but he was avoiding the wandering saint. Narad Muni assured him that he’d give him no lengthy discourse but would tell him only one thing to ask Lord Yama during his final journey as to the merits of the company of a pure and godly soul. When Yama came to fetch Paapsingh after his death, he posed the same question to Lord Yama. Yama felt confounded, admitting that he didn’t know the answer, but would seek guidance from Lord Brahma. Two of them went to Lord Brahma, who also expressed his inability to answer the posed question, suggesting that they should go to Lord Shankar. As three of them went to Lord Shankar and sought enlightenment from him, he too expressed perplexity, proposing that they should go to Lord Vishnu. As four of them went to Vaikunth, Lord Vishnu smiled and told Paapsingh, “ Can’t yo see that company of good soul (Yama) brought you right into Vaikunth though you deserved Narak ( hell) and that too in the August company of Lord Brahma and Lord Shankar. A simple story highlighting the need of keeping good company made deep impression on the minds of people listening to the discourse.

An explanation of why Lord Krishna’s birth was very special and different from how ordinary mortals are born infused the spirit of Krishna Leela into the entire gathering.

Happy Janmashtami to each one of you.

Came across a beautiful thought this morning that read:

“What I get in achieving my goal is insignificant to what I become in achieving my goal”.

We all aspire for career growth, personal growth, prosperity, fame etc. As we gradually progress in life, we do achieve the most of our goals, if not all through sheer hard work and meticulous career planning. But isn’t it true that our focus is mainly on material gains that we get by achieving this goals? Every promotion  is celebrated in anticipation of the incremental financial and positional gains that we get as an outcome. But the truth is that along with positional elevation and financial gains, we also get higher responsibility and an opportunity to contribute more – to the organisational growth, development of team members, taking care of the career and growth aspirations of the team members, mentoring the bright youngsters, disseminating knowledge acquired over a period of time with others etc. Similarly, while sense of personal satisfaction, enhancement in social status, improvement in living standard are a few of the direct benefits of achieving personal goals, we could use this opportunity by undertaking some philanthropic activity like teaching street kids, sponsoring an orphan, donations to our alma maters  or institutions like Tata Cancer Hospital, undertaking a tree plantation or beach cleaning drives etc. 

Achievement of our goals gets us many things, but the important point is whether it also leads to any transformation or change to our personal and professional selves to become a better human and a citizen? 

These days all HR and management workshops exhort the participants about larger purpose, which the aforementioned thought enshrines beautifully in few words.

#careergrowth #success #personaldevelopment

ISRO has done it and Chandrayan 3’s lander Vikram made a soft landing on the moon’s South Pole, as planned and we are already witnessing some rare glimpses of this dark, unexplored part of the moon much to the world’s awe and delight.

While there’s so much on all forms of media regarding Chandrayan 3’s journey , it’s ultimate soft landing and relating technical details, I thought the best tribute that I can pay to our ISRO scientists will be by composing a few lines in their honour and in the honour of their mission. It reads:

When Armstrong landed on the moon, it was

One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” 

And the entire world celebrated the event

For it was one bright spot of its kind.

And the quest to know more about moon

Continues in our country too that adores “Chandamama”

 To see the unexplored terrains of

Children’s favourite uncle nee “ Mama”

Chandrayan 2 almost reached there but crashed

At the last moment just before reaching home

But Chandrayan 3 has landed in Lunar South Pole

Creating a bright spot by landing in dark zone

Congratulations to our scientists and entire countrymen on this defining moment for the country’s space quest.

From the beginning we were told that banking was part of the service sector. And it is also true that when we joined bank in early and mid 80s, service standards were pathetic to say the least. Passbooks would seldom get updated across the counter and simple banking transactions like withdrawal and deposit would take hours. However, with increase in customer awareness, proliferation of alternate banking channels and above all fierce competition, especially from new generation private sector banks, the customer service issues are now largely resolved and customer, in fact, is spoilt for choices

This has led to problem of a different sort. With customers using ATM, net banking and mobile app for routine transactions, they are not required to visit bank’s branch too often. However, for more unusual services such as address change, signatory change, change in mode of operation, re-KYC etc, visit to branch is usually not a fulfilling experience as most of these activities are moved to back offices and branches are not really aware of the requirements and procedures. When back offices find documents inadequate, there’s to and fro causing customer disenchantment.

Branches in fact have become more of sales outlets than service units. The branch staff carries target for selling bank’s own products as also third party products such as mutual funds and insurance. Transition to sales focus from service focus has, in a way, taken the customers back to pre technology and pre competition era of deficient service levels. But, as aforesaid, a customer being spoilt for choices changes his bank, leading to high customer attrition.

In a service industry, service must be the prime focus and cross selling a by product. A satisfied customer will shift all his business to a bank where he gets good service and in the process bank can meet its sale targets.