The Hare & The Tortoise

Once upon a time a tortoise and a hare had an argument about who was faster. They decided to settle the argument with a race. They agreed on a route and started off the race. The hare shot ahead and ran briskly for some time. Then seeing that he was far ahead of the tortoise, he thought he'd sit under a tree for some time and relax before continuing the race. He sat under the tree and soon fell asleep. The tortoise plodding on overtook him and soon finished the race, emerging as the undisputed champ. The hare woke up and realized that he'd lost the race. The moral – “Slow and steady wins the race.” This is the version of the story that we've all grown up with.

 

THE STORY DOESN'T END HERE…

 

The hare was disappointed at losing the race and he did some soul searching. He realized that he'd lost the race only because he had been overconfident, careless and lax. If he had not taken things for granted, there's no way the tortoise could have beaten him. So he challenged the tortoise to another race. The tortoise agreed. This time, the hare went all out and ran without 
stopping from start to finish. He won by several miles. The moral – “Fast and consistent will always beat the slow and steady. It's good to be slow and steady; but it's better to be fast and reliable.”

THE STORY DOESN'T END HERE…

 

The tortoise did some thinking this time, and realized that there's no way it can beat the hare in a race the way it was currently formatted. It thought for a while, and then challenged the hare to another race, but on a slightly different route. The hare agreed. They started off. In keeping with his self-made commitment to be consistently fast, the hare took off and ran at top speed until he came to a broad river. The finishing line was a couple of kilometres on the other side of the river. The hare sat there wondering what to do. In the meantime the tortoise trundled along, got into the river, swam to the opposite bank, continued walking and finished the race. The moral – “First identify your core competency and then change the playing field to suit your core competency.”

THE STORY STILL HASN'T ENDED…

 

The hare and the tortoise, by this time, had become pretty good friends and they did some thinking together. Both realized that the last race could have been run much better. So they decided to do the last race again, but to run as a team this time. They started off, and this time the hare carried the tortoise till the riverbank. There, the tortoise took over and swam across with the hare on his back. On the opposite bank, the hare again carried the tortoise and they reached the finishing line together. They both felt a greater sense of satisfaction than they'd felt earlier. The moral – “It's good to be individually brilliant and to have strong core competencies; but unless you're able to work in a team and harness each other's core competencies, you'll always perform below par because there will always be situations at which you'll do poorly and someone else does well.”

 

Teamwork is mainly about situational leadership, letting the person 
with the relevant core competency for a situation take leadership. Note that neither the hare nor the tortoise gave up after failures. The hare decided to work harder and put in more effort after his failure. The tortoise changed his strategy because he was already working as hard as he could. In life, when faced with failure, sometimes it is appropriate to work harder and put in more effort. Sometimes it is appropriate to change strategy and try something different. And sometimes it is appropriate to do both. The hare and the tortoise also learnt another vital lesson. When we stop competing against a rival and instead start competing against the situation, we perform far better.

Reading inspires Kids

came across this commercial on youtube, on how a kid expresses himself while the teacher is busy teaching the basics of English grammar.

Ek chhoti si Naukri...

I came across this link as the status message of one of my friends here at XLRI. In these weird times of placements, I found the video to be so apt and so sweet that I could just not stop myself from putting it here :) I could relate to the lyrics so well...it was as if we (the ones who are still left) had composed it ourself. No hard feelings for anyone, but inviting smiles from you all. Enjoy!

Endurance

Endurance…how would one define it? Is it the ability to exert oneself for a long period of time? Is it the ability to keep fighting? Can it only surface in times of trouble?

It is known that humans have always had that quality in them – of not giving in, of not giving up, of keeping the battle going. I guess the one true reason why this virtue is omnipresent, is because of the uncertainty of the result. If you don’t already know that you are going to lose, you are very much in the game. You keep fighting; keep giving it your best shot…time and again.

One might easily confuse endurance with strength. Strength can be physical (i.e. the ability to exert force on physical objects using muscles) or mental (i.e. the ability to confront fear, pain, risk/danger, uncertainty, or intimidation…also known as Fortitude). But endurance, I believe, has more to do with external circumstances than with internal qualities. The critical factor to really ‘test your endurance’ is the presence of an opposing force, whose magnitude is such that it makes you leave your zone of comfort and surpass yourself. In such situations, one of three things might happen:

1.       You lose, but you realise that you didn’t give it your best

2.       You lose, but you realise that you gave it your best

3.       You win

Moving from point 1 to point 3, takes time and conscious effort in that direction. Learning to get up once you fall is the point I am trying to make here. And doing that time and again, builds endurance. The following words of Douglas Mallock have always inspired me:

The tree that never had to fight,

For sun and sky and air and light,

But stood out on the open plain,

And always got its share of rain,

Never became a forest king,

But lived and died a scrawny thing.

 

The man who never had to toil,

To gain and farm his patch of soil,

Who never had to win his share,

Of sun and sky and light and air,

Never became a manly man,

But lived and died as he began.

 

Good timber does not grow in ease,

The stronger the wind, the stronger trees

The farther sky, the greater the length

The more the storm, the more the strength,

By sun and cold, by rain and snow,

In tree and men good timbers grow.

 

Where thickest lies the forest growth

We find the patriarchs of both.

And they hold counsel with the stars

Whose broken branches show the scars

This is the common law of life.

 

Optical Illusions

Some cool images I came across. All of these are static images, but appear to be moving.

Competition & Globalization

August, 2008

“Good Morning everyone! We are group 11, here to present our COG project on the Aluminium and Copper Industry, with special emphasis on India and China.” After giving the industry overview, naming key players and doing a Porter’s analysis on the Copper industry in India, we all knew what the next slide would be – uses of copper. In comes Mr. Mayur Bhutani. After a lot of blah-blah-blah-blah, he finally says what we had thought our first six of the innings would be. “So we see that the uses of copper vary from Copper-T to Liberty!” (Please see below the actual slide used)

After his brief presentation (1 slide to be exact), he steps back and I return to carry the show further. Then, when we come to the slide titled “Sterlite Industries”, I pause and say, “Now Srinivas will take over.” Srini has absolutely no idea that he has to present. With an expression on his face saying “What the hell Gullu!” he comes over and starts speaking. Second six of the innings. By this time, our dear Prof. Sarin has already realized that the triple-sundae MayB-Gullu-Srini is far deadlier than the usual MayB-Gullu combo. After ‘strategically summarizing Sterlite’s competitive advantage’, we come to the slide titled “On the lighter side”. Now here is where we get an opportunity to compare India and China.

 

We then open the floor to questions. Obviously, people are laughing their hearts out and are least bothered about asking questions. So, Dr. Sarin takes the onus upon him and asks, “Why are your per capita figures of copper consumption in India so different from those of the other group?” We obviously don’t know the answer (may be the group copied the numbers from some other source). Time for the third six. In a very composed manner, I say, “Sir, the population of India changes very fast! And hence, there is a difference in the per capita consumption figures.” Everyone, including Dr. Sarin, starts laughing and our group bows before exiting the stage. Funny thing, none of us got an A in that subject, even though we were quite sure that we would be the best as far as peer-evaluation component was concerned. But who cares, I thoroughly enjoyed the session and the course. I took all the electives floated by Sarin sir, and have had great fun in every one of them.

XL Dream Run

I guess it was the night of November 12, 2008 when Mayur and I were sitting in his room, working on a B-school competition on marketing. It was titled “Concept-2-Creative” and we were searching our brains and Google for some insights on an ‘Ethanol powered car’. The submission was due next morning 4:00 a.m. At around 7:30 in the evening, we decide to take a break. Mayur tells me about the Delhi Marathon ad on YouTube. We watch it. Then, out of nowhere, both of us get an idea. “MayB and Gullu @ Work” J We decide to make a curtain raiser video for the upcoming XL-Dream Run on November 16, 2008. Organizing the Dream Run was a joint effort of CII, Sportscom (Sports Committee of XLRI) and XLANC (XLRI Adventure & Nature Club). The cause – XLRI Social Entrepreneurship Trust, which was established (and was legally registered in July, 2008) to encourage and support “entrepreneurship with a social cause” among the XLRI students, alumni and community; and to provide a channel to XLRI alumni and others who have means and motivation to support social development in a sustainable manner.

So we start…we decided that we will keep the Delhi Marathon ad as our base, and will adapt to people and places here at XLRI. We searched our laptops for the relevant photos, and made a script. We recorded our project and showed it to some of our friends for initial critique. After making some changes here and there, we forwarded the video to the concerned student and faculty members. They really liked it! We put it up over the internet, and within minutes, we were witnessing large number of viewers.

On the day of the run, I was given the responsibility to record and take snaps, while pillion-riding the TSAF crew who were our guide for the day. (For those who might not know, TSAF stands for Tata Steel Adventure Foundation. It organizes a host of outdoor adventure activities for institutes and corporations all over the country.) The run was successful, with over 200 people participating – including students, faculty and staff. We all had a great time, and our effort was well-appreciated by all.

Don’t forget to see the video. Visit www.xldreamrun.com for more details.

Where the Hell is Matt

Matt Harding...now here's a weird guy for you. Professionally speaking, the Connecticut born is a video game designer. But many people don't know him that way. He is more popularly known as "Dancing Matt" for his viral videos that show him dancing in front of landmarks and street scenes in various locations around the globe. Hit "Matt Dancing" on YouTube, and you will get a list of videos showing a guy dancing: a big, doughy-looking fellow in shorts and hiking boots performing an arm-swinging, knee-pumping step that could charitably be called goofy. It’s the kind of semi-ironic dance that school boys do by themselves when they are sure that no one is looking.

He started doing it at work, years ago, when he was living in Brisbane, Australia. Now he’s on the streets in Mumbai one minute, balanced on the Giant’s Causeway rock formation in Northern Ireland the next, and then he’s in a tulip field in the Netherlands or in front of a geyser in Iceland. Sometimes Mr. Harding dances alone. On a Christmas Island beach he has an audience of crabs, and on Madagascar he performs for lemurs. But more often — and this accounts for much of the video’s appeal — he’s in the company of others: South African street children in Soweto, bushmen in New Guinea, Bollywood-style dancers in India, some oddly costumed waitresses in Tokyo, crowds of free spirits in Paris, Madrid and rainy Montreal, all copying, or trying to, his flailing chicken-step. Mr. Harding even dances for a lone military policeman (unmoved to join him) in the Korean demilitarized zone.

What is Love?

Wikipedia:

“Love is any of a number of emotions and experiences related to a sense of strong affection and attachment. The word love can refer to a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes, ranging from generic pleasure to intense interpersonal attraction. The word love is both a verb and a noun. This diversity of uses and meanings, combined with the complexity of the feelings involved, makes love unusually difficult to consistently define, even compared to other emotional states.

As an abstract concept, love usually refers to a deep, ineffable feeling of tenderly caring for another person. Even this limited conception of love, however, encompasses a wealth of different feelings, from the passionate desire and intimacy of romantic love to the nonsexual emotional closeness of familial and platonic love to the profound oneness or devotion of religious love. Love in its various forms acts as a major facilitator of interpersonal relationships and, owing to its central psychological importance, is one of the most common themes in the creative arts.”

Being an engineer, I shall define Love as a vector: having a magnitude and a direction. It has been commonly observed that love is directed towards family, friends, God, nature, one’s ‘beloved’, work, money, possessions, power…the list is endless. Some of the common determinants of magnitude are type of relationship (blood, friendship etc.), degree of devotion (towards God, work etc.), extent of happiness and satisfaction felt. Its intensity increases when one promises to give everything: heart, mind, and soul – while keeping one’s expectations real. It is one of the world’s biggest motivators, giving you the vision to see beyond horizons, the strength to overcome all obstacles, and the will to just keep going! It is a good teacher, for it teaches by experience and not merely by words or actions. It makes you smile during sunshine, and it keeps you company during rain. It guides you through life…

ॐ गणेशाय नमः

Dedicated to God, my parents, and to everyone who has made life worthwhile..