Taare Zameen Par (movie review):

Cast: Amir Khan

Darsheel Safary
Tisca chopra

The movie that starts slowly, building the character of a young boy (ishan awasthi) who seems lost in his own world and is able to make little of the world around him. Some of the boy’s mischief and folly would remind you of your own, in the days of your childhood and bring a smile on to your face, while others would only make you think of him as a the little rascal, he was thought to be by his parents and teachers. The story progresses very slowly throughout the first half of the movie leaving you wondering if you were watching a TV serial about the a stubborn kid and the troubles he gives his parents without a glimpse of Amir Khan yet. Ishan is unable to perform on the regular yard-stick by which all children are measured and is unable to read and write like the other children of his age.

Whether it is the Kid’s anger, tears, laughter(very few moments), mischief, helplessness, anxiety, frustration, insecurity or the parent’s Tension, anger, feeling of helplessness, love, expectations from their child, the movie does connect in part or full with each one of our lives. A movie in its first half has no demarcation between the right and the wrong and would leave you sympathizing with the parents and the child equally and wondering what could be set right to help the child and the parents. The parents then unable to solve the problem themselves and fearing a bleak future for ishan in an uncompromisingly competitive world send him to a boarding school hoping that he would be straightened there. The moment when Ishan is sent to the boarding school is accompanied with a background score that is so touching and emotional, that it sure will bring tears in every eye.

For a star of the stature and alleged ego-centric attitude of Amir Khan I guess it was easy to make an entry in slow motion covering all of 75mm and pretending like he is on a ramp and rightly expect for the audience to cheer, scream and whistle, but a serious and a great story-teller that he proved to be pops in at the fag end of the first half with a gibberish rhyme and dressed as a clown leaving the children in his classroom and in the theatres absolutely amused. Ram Shankar Nikumbh [Aamir Khan] who comes to the boarding school as a temporary Art teacher infuses the atmosphere with enthusiasm, joy and fun and becomes an instant hit among the children who were hitherto in an environment of stiff competition, enormous work and strict discipline. Ram Shankar encourages children to think out of the box, set their minds and imaginations free and notices that while every child is excited about him and his methods, Ishan sits quit and refuses to respond or even paint when asked to do so. Ram Shankar spots a problem with the kid and enquires about him and having been a dyslexic himself, desperately wants to help out the kid before the kid breaks down. And then on it’s a movie about how Ram Shankar nurtures this naturally enthusiastic and interesting but now an indolent kid and puts the smile and confidence back on his face and also provides him with tailor-made mentoring with his innovative pedagogy. He not only identifies the child’s strengths and encourages him to further pursue them but also puts him on the track of success and makes him able of facing competition. The movie teaches a lesson or two to the parents of today who overburden their children with pressure of competition and want their children to go through a life of pre-determined patterns towards “success”. It urges the parents to identify the strengths and weaknesses of their child and to accordingly mentor and help them to become able grown-ups.
In all it is an outstanding movie and marks the birth of a great story teller: Amir Khan who yet again proves is mantle with his perfectionist attitude and an uncanny eye for stories with such substance and depth. Amir Khan I reckon may not go down in the history books as the biggest human brand or the actor with most movies or most crores for a movie, but is sure to go down the history books as one of the greatest and a very intellectual artist of our times.
Darsheel who plays Ishan has put up a brilliant performance and may very well pick up a few awards coming season and Amir too will surely be showered with immense appreciation for his directorial debut. This movie is a must watch for every kid, parent and every parent-to-be. It is not just entertaining but a very enlightening movie that will also help you realize how shallow and rubbish are the hundreds of mediocre movies we are so used to watching.

Ex-President TVS Motor Co. Capt Mohan Ram's Lecture at VGSOM-IIT Kharagpur

Sharing decades of diverse and rich experience with the budding managers was one of his ways of giving back to his Alma matter. Capt Mohan Ram, an ex-naval officer and a business veteran- the man behind the historic turnaround of TVS motor company Ltd, and an IIT-Kgpian of the batch of 1953 returned to deliver lectures on “structured Product Development” and “ Turnaround Management”. A man in his 70’s spoke at the three sessions with such passion, enthusiasm and energy that we 20-somethings were totally awe-struck. A series of power packed lectures infused with a healthy dose of wit and humour with the help of anecdotes was truly stimulating.

The first of the two lectures was on “Structured New Product Development – Key to Quality assurance and effectiveness” riding us through the journey right from customer-need recognition to customer feedback. He spoke of NDP as being a structured, cross functional and an organizational capability enhancement process that consisted of various elements such as concurrent engineering, measured introduction of new technologies, standardization, patent and IPR protection etc. He then elaborated on the various stages involved in the structured product development process with examples such as the much successful TVS scooty: the design, development and launch of which Captain was deeply involved in. He then spoke at length of the customer oriented attitude and culture corporations must adopt in today’s world in order to survive and thrive citing examples of companies that have perished because they were not able to evolve from a product oriented company to a customer oriented company. He then took us through Kano’s model of customer satisfaction before delving into the six trade-offs between product development objectives. He then narrated the genesis of the very successful scooty and the evolution it had gone through. He then walked us through concepts of QFD, house of Quality and FMEA with real life examples from his experience at TVS and other organizations he worked with. The veteran concluded the talk with this very important lesson in life: “Learn from Failures”.

The second of the veteran’s lecture was on “corporate turnaround” aided with the case study on the turnaround of TVS motor company which is a legendary feat in the Indian corporate world. The TVS story through crisis, Survival, Revival, Renewal, Results, challenges and Responses was nothing less than a Hollywood block buster that had the audience sitting at the edge of their seats. With the narration of each of the adversities and their management, the audience could see many B-School textbook lessons coming to life. He also shared with the students the lessons his experience had taught that cannot be taught out of books. Though he probably was thankful to god for providing him with the opportunity (disguised as adversity) to hone and show case his skills, he wished that none of us go through such stormy weather ever in our lives. He instead laid out in front of us every challenge thrown at him during the turnaround phase and every move he made to counter them, for us to learn from his invaluable experience. The journey from a market leader in mopeds to a factory lockout to the deming quality award to the present TVS motor company taught us- the budding managers memorable lessons that for sure will come handy in our long careers ahead. When the captain’s presentation and the Q&A session ended the audience couldn’t help but give him a standing ovation and hoped that he would return to deliver many more lectures.

Numero Uno 2007 - IIM Bangalore Vista (oct 12th to 14th)

"Numero Uno- the hunt for the next CEO” was the showcase and the biggest event at IIMB vista. It was an event spread over 3 days with one representative from every major B-school in the country and also from International B-schools from Places like Poland, Switzerland, Pakistan etc.

It had 6 phases that included activities testing creative problem solving, team building, leadership, communication skills, negotiation skills, business acumen, individual behaviour in groups, presentation skills, extempore, debating, case studies, analytical skills, logical reasoning, charisma, tenacity etc. The event also involved setting up an actual business within hours and earning profits. The competition was designed to eliminate the participants over the 6 phases and count down to the Top 5 for the Grand Finale, and then after the grand finale concluded the "Numero Uno" was chosen.

Phase 1: Teams were formed and were given a set of 3 activities to perform with a different team leader for each of the activities. The activities tested Team building skills, innovative thinking and execution. The activities included planning an innovative business model for an existing ailing paper company and representing the business model with whatever material was available in the immediate environment (a park and a stage). It then had an activity where the teams had to build a large catapult with the material given with as much innovation as one can bring in to the design and the judges looked for “out of the box” thinkers. It also had an outbound physical activity that would test the participant’s ability to come up with innovative strategy.

Phase 2: A video case study on an UNO program that was conducted in rural India to uplift the unorganised Brass industry. The participants were tested on their business acumen and their academic knowledge that they had gained from their respective B-schools. It also tested the general awareness of the participants as the potential CEOs of tomorrow are expected to know the happenings around them.

Phase 3: “Break through”- a company that trains and conducts out bound activities for corporate and B-schools had designed a set of six outbound activities at which the participants would be tested on their teaming skills, leadership skills, and group dynamics. Also each of the activities required immense collaboration and hence tested the participants’ human relation skills. Each of those activities involved creative problem solving, working with limited information and efficient execution. We were judged on our planning skills, communication skills, leadership skills, ability to take up responsibilities, ability to steer projects and also the team’s ability to achieve its goals.

Phase 4: The participants were provided with a capital of Rs.3000, a car for travel and were asked to do real business in Bangalore and maximise the shareholder’s wealth in about 5 hours. The participants were accompanied by 2 judges and a video cameraman. My team that consisted of three other participants from IIM-I, IIM-K and IIM-L chose to sell T-shirts, but not just any T-shirt used for daily wear. A lot of Business happens around customization and personalization of T-shirts, Our team took a step further, we asked ourselves- what is most personal and unique? Perhaps finger prints, hand prints. We convinced our customers to get their hand prints on our IIMB-vista T-shirt and buy them as souvenirs/gifts for loved ones and not as daily wear T-shirts. We basically targeted parents of small children and convinced them to get their child’s handprint on the T-shirt and gift it to them years later when they will look at it and feel good about it. We also targeted couples outside a busy mall and convinced them to get his handprint on her T-shirt and her handprint on his. Our business plan also allowed us to cut down our procurement time to almost nothing as the T-shirts were available stone’s throw away and the ink-pad for handprints was also easy to procure. Our team did exceptionally well and earned about 50% profit apart from getting appreciated for the novel idea.

Phase 5: This phase and the next were on day three and were in from of an audience, media and the judges. The judges on day three were:

Mr. Ravishankar, Accenture
Prof. Sourav Mukherji, IIM Bangalore
Mr. Jaishankar, Catalyst ConsultingMr. Pankaj Bagri, Genpact
Mr. Satya Mckinsey

The teams were asked to make presentations about the business they had undertaken and the various aspects of it- Ideation, execution, trouble shooting and results. The judges and the audience then asked participants many questions about strategy, ethics, business model, financial performance, leadership, different functions of the business (marketing, finance, operations).

Phase 6: This was a phase that would start off with the naming of the top 5 for the grand finale. The number of participants at this point had already boiled down to 21 from about 40 when the competition had started through eliminations at various stages. The top 5 were named and I, H.R.Sampreet of VGSOM had successfully made it to the list while none of the IIMs and many other top B-schools of the country could make it to the grand finale. Also it may be worth mentioning that I was the only participant from the first year of MBA from the entire lot of 40 participants. The top five contestants represented:
1) Vinod Gupta School of Management – IIT Kharagpur
2) Warsaw School of economics –Poland
3) Lahore University of Management Sciences.
4) Indian institute of Foreign Trade
5) Management Development Institute.
Phase 6 six then began with a video display of each of the top 5 contestants which had clips from the activities from the previous days. The contestants were grilled with questions at length about leadership, business, and about their actions over the past days. It was then the turn of the audience to ask the contestants some questions for them to judge their choice for Numero Uno. This phase went on for almost two hours and ended with another Q&A session with all the 5 contestants on stage at once.
Depending upon the performance of the contestants over the three days including the Grand Finale and judgement was made and the title of “Numero Uno” was awarded to the contestant from Warsaw School of economics-Poland.

THE ENGINEER'S IDENTITY CRISIS

The 18th and the 19th centuries can be identified as the English era and the early 20th century as the German era and the late 20th century as we all know belonged to the USA. And now we are at the advent of the Indian era. Today India has become a prominent player in the world economy and the world is sitting up and taking notice. We as Indians have earned a respectable position in the world, our companies are competing globally and many have become MNCs. India has produced many globally respected leaders like L.N.MITTAL, N.R.NARAYANAMURTHY, AZIM PREMJI and many more. Indian shores are awash with jobs, while the western world accuses us of taking away their jobs. Though this is mainly because of the availability of cheap skilled labor, there are other reasons that can be attributed to these favorable winds. For one- post-independence India, though slowly, got more and more literate and was well equipped to take full advantage of the advent of the IT/BPO revolution. India had missed the industrial revolution but dint miss the computer revolution as a result today we have built companies like Infosys, Wipro and TCS which are today capable of competing with the bigies like IBM, Accenture etc. Having said that, i now want to bring to your kind attention the often underplayed potentials of the other industry sectors. One should not forget that we also have companies like TATA,BIRLA, L&T, RELIANCE etc. which have stood the test of time and made progress for decades. IT alone cannot pillar the entire economy of this huge nation, if these companies can match the growth rate that the IT companies have achieved, our economic position can only be further strengthened. God forbid, but if some day the tables turn and we lose the advantage that the IT sector has today, we should have something to fall back upon. The IT and the BPO industry today employs thousands of employees helping the vast pool of the unemployed earn a living which in turn promoted consumerism in india, consequently uplifting the overall economy of the country. It would be wrong to give all the credit to these sectors but nonetheless their contribution is greater and today India is looked at as more of a services destination than anything else. Another important reason is the availability of a vast talent pool, for example Bangalore boasts of having the largest number of engineering colleges in the world. India being a developing and a poor country, this huge talent pool was available at a low costs. And in India the demand for jobs was always higher than the supply, consequently the educated almost had no choice but to take up these jobs in order to earn bread. Hence we saw an exodus of engineers from all branches into the IT/BPO sector in search of lucrative careers caring little for the field of their expertise. For example I have met architects from IIT working as software engineers in a leading IT firm on a banking software. I call it betrayal. They have deprived this country of potential renowned architects, considering the opportunities and the facilities they had as IITians. This is more prevalent outside the IITs. The IT sector has recruited about 700000 engineers so far and the figure is expected to reach 1.5 million in another 5 years. If this is the rate at which the engineers are getting absorbed in this sector, one can imagine how much of a loss the other sectors are suffering in terms of intellectual capital. Now let us delve into the ramifications of this phenomenon. Indian engineers have ended up becoming work horses and not creators or inventors or designers. We have all become easily replaceable clones. As a result we do not have Einsteins , Edisons, Newtons coming out of India. We do not have many patents or inventions from our country. There can be multiple reasons to this as well- for one, a majority of the population is still poor and the standard of living is still very low and therefore the priority is to earn a living, support self and kin and not to indulge in often expensive higher education (post graduation, research etc) or take up initiatives to actually create and invent. Engineers from all fields of study are aborting the specialization they acquired over 4 years. This will stymie the growth and development of the other industry sectors as a result we may never be able to over take china in the manufacturing sector or other countries in other sectors. It is very imperative that we start thinking along the lines of the overall development of ‘corporate India’ and not just IT. One of the ways that this can be done is that the larger organizations (both private and public) encourage research and development in their respective fields of operation and make sure that substantial technological breakthroughs happen on Indian soil which may lead to potential revolutions in their respective fields. It is also important for them to take necessary measures to attract and retain talent and not lose them to the IT sector. Also I urge the student community to indulge in esoteric issues of long term enlightenment and not just mere money making ones. I also want to remind them that the very narayana murthys we admire today are the ones who chose to take the less trodden path and stayed loyal to their fields of expertise. I urge them to aim higher and try to immortalize their names in their respective fields of study as it is the only way they can truly honor the subject they chose to study. let us put in combined and concentrated efforts towards a holistic development of the indian industries and not just the IT industry. It is time we uphold the "diversity" we have always been associated with.

C-DRIVE

If you are in a place like Bangalore or any other metro in the country, the chances are that you are complaining about the heavy traffic and the uncontrollable pollution. The city is growing at a far greater pace than the infrastructure can cope up with, population inflow is greater than ever imagined, every "wide" road has been narrowed by the enormous traffic. Growth is something we must be proud of and continue to achieve and one would be a fool to blame the unprecedented growth for our problems not realizing that it is in fact our "unwillingness" to do something about our problems, that is to be blamed. It is very irresponsible and shameful on our part to be pointing figures at others including the government and not actually trying to do something about the problem ourselves. It is perhaps easier to drive out a car all alone and curse the government while stuck in traffic jam than to feel responsible for our own misdeeds. A part of the blame has to be shared by the poor planners of the city who thought of and have put big IT companies right in the heart of the city and have allowed huge shopping malls with little or no parking space to setup right in the places that were already crowded. I however find it hard to imagine the government to solve all the problems of congestion, traffic, pollution etc completely even if it wished to. Flyovers can’t be made all over the place at the pace that is required to de-congest, new roads can’t be created easily with so much land acquiring that needs to be done for the purpose, and huge work places cannot be shifted over night to the out skirts of the city. However in the recent past, private-public ventures have been paying off, for example the elevated expressway on hossur road that is actually being constructed at high speed should ease out the situation to an extent. It is now imperative that we find newer ways of solving these problems. We need to start thinking of Private-Public-Jantha partnerships. Now, allow me to address one of the many problems at hand: traffic and pollution. It is understandable to have passed out from the top B-schools or Engineering colleges and while earning a handsome salary, being unable to NOT buy a luxury car or treat yourself with comfort; after all you have worked hard for it. If Campaigning against buying/selling of vehicles is the obvious revolutionary idea you thought i would suggest, let me surprise you: Traveling the way we do is almost indispensable, at least while the zero emission vehicles are still in the labs, which may take years to hit the road and become easily available and popularly accepted. I, am about to suggest solutions at a micro level, which are small on individual effort and cost but cumulatively can make a huge contribution. I work for a leading IT company in Bangalore and I too am a victim of the much talked about traffic and pollution. Somehow when we refer to “traffic” we tend to believe that we are talking about “them” and not “us” failing to see the fact that you are never stuck in a traffic jam, you are the traffic jam. If we are unable to reduce the production and purchase of smoke emitting vehicles, how about reducing the usage to a degree suitable to our convenience and drawing a fine balance between our environmental responsibilities and personal luxury. For example, I use a bicycle at least three days a week if not four and also to cover shorter distances. I do not use my bike or car and instead use my bicycle when I am not in a hurry to reach office or anywhere else for that matter, this way I save on expensive fuel, contribute towards a cleaner environment, and also can snake my way out of the traffic jams and It also helps me keep fit. There is also a relatively less significant advantage: when you can afford a luxury car but are spotted riding a bicycle, it’s seen as a style statement. A bicycle costs between Rs 1000 and 5000, which in my opinion is an outstanding deal considering the numerous benefits to self and the environment. Using a bicycle for 3-4 days a week is as good as reducing the number of vehicles on road by half which otherwise is impossible, this in turn means reduction of fuel consumption by half and also reduction of pollution due to vehicular emissions by half. For many of us, it is almost impossible to pull out an hour or two to work-out at the gym/home, but if we could convert our travel time into exercise time we shall achieve a twin advantage. Cycling is considered one of the most effective and healthy exercises. Having laid out the benefits and the need for the above-mentioned micro level solution and other such solutions that you yourself could come out with, I now urge you to “ACT”. Go to that store and bring the beautiful bicycle home, ride her and feel the air through your hair and see the road slip by fast underneath by the sheer strength of the muscle in your thigh, breathe the fresher air and keep it fresh for posterity. Watch your tummy lose substance by the day as you cycle your way into a healthier and a stronger individual and above all a socially responsible individual. Come along and join the C-Drive- a drive towards a cleaner and greener environment. If my little write-up here still hasn’t motivated you enough to act, please watch the academy award winning movie called “an inconvenient truth” by Al gore (former Vice president of USA) and you will be moved.

LESSONS FROM A WISE MAN


How often does one get to meet or see a Nobel laureate, I am guessing not too often as, I have had the opportunity only once in my entire life so far. It was 16th of January on a pleasant Tuesday morning in the jam packed J N TATA auditorium at the lush green campus of the Indian Institute of Science where the august personality of Robert Aumann had descended to speak on game theory and war and peace. The occasion ofcorse was organized and coordinated by the Innovator’s innovator IBM along with IIMB and IISc keeping up its long tradition of collaborating with leading universities, individuals and teams across the world to stimulate, initiate and innovate.

Robert Aumann was among the founders of the center for rationality at the hebrew university, an interdisciplinary research center, centered on Game Theory. Aumann is the author of well over eighty research papers and six books and has held visiting positions at Princeton, Yale, Berkeley, louvain, Stanford, Stony, Brook, and NYU. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (USA), The British Academy of Arts and Sciences, The national Academy of Sciences(USA), The British Academy , and the Israel Academy of Sciences: he holds Honorary doctorates from the Universities of Chicago, Bonn, Louvain, City college and Bar-llan University: and has received numerous prizes, including the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for 2005.

While driving to the auditorium one question that inevitably crosses most minds crossed mine too- "he is a Nobel laureate, what will his talk be like? Will it all be over my head? However fearing that he could turn out to be like my mathematics teacher at school who could make you stand up any moment and throw a question at you, I did my Homework before the talk and had spent two days googling out information about game theory and also reading up the engineering book that I had not studied. It was at 10:30am when Prof. Aumann took stage and left me surprised when he started with the basic definition of a "game" only to teach the virtue of "humility" to us mere mortals who wouldn’t ever miss an opportunity to use jargon to confuse and impress others. Hence I had already got my first lesson from the distinguished professor.

He then strode into the depth and intricacies of the subject with much enthusiasm and passion with the aid of Overhead projectors and simple hand written transparencies. In a world where audio visuals, lasers, PowerPoint are used to dazzle people with information resulting in entertainment rather than education, our deferential professor preferred the old tools of pedagogy only to reiterate the fact that the good old "class room" type of teaching is still the most effective. And ofcorse it reflected simplicity on his part, which was the second virtue I got to learn.

We were then taken through an enlightening tour of the core of the talk, which was mentally stimulating and very thought-provoking. He enthralled the audience with the application of game theory across fields including politics, war, economics, genetics or even a conversation between two individuals, also consciously or unconsciously displaying his gift for humor and wit while making the entire audience laugh at his satire, witty allusions or funny anecdotes. He then expounded on the work that earned him the coveted Nobel Prize and ended the introduction to his work with these words- " and for this, your humble servant was awarded the Nobel Prize" mesmerizing the audience that was already swept by the magic of his charm.

Robert Aumann was the first to make a comprehensive formal analysis of so-called infinitely repeated games to strategic thinking about "conflict and cooperation" emphasizing on what types of outcomes can be upheld over time in the context of long-run economic relations. Using logic and mathematics to parse the options for co-operation available to people who face the same conflicts over and over again, he showed that cooperation increases when strategic situation are repeated. Even when there are immediate and pressing conflicts of interest, individuals have more opportunities to build co-operation if they expect to be dealing with the other side repeatedly in the future.

He then took questions from the audience and answered every question to the satisfaction of the questioner, dealing with the most stupid and the most intelligent question with equal reverence reminding us of words from a wise man-" there is no stupid question”. There was an incident which is worth a mention here, when a gentleman from the audience asked a question to the professor that was quite esoteric in nature and out of the professor’s knowledge or fields of study, to which the humble genius replied - " when a wise man doesn’t know he says… 'I don’t know’. " teaching a lesson to all of us who at some time or the other in our lives have tried to cook up an answer just to look smart.

The professor then handed out awards to PHd students form IITs and IISc instituted by IBM for excellence in the field of research in science and technology in India. And when the professor left the stage we couldn’t help but give him a standing ovation.