In the world full of imperfections...

In the world full of imperfections, I strive to be a perfectionist but you know what, when I come closer to being a perfectionist I start feeling disconnected to the imperfect world. Then I strive to become a part of the world I stay in, and in process loose the endeavor to become perfectionist. The tussle goes on and on. Like many things in life that do not have one right approach, I wonder if I need to change or bring about a change around me! Till I find out, I have settled to be flexible with morality and what I expect from my surroundings….

Strategy in action

Strategy as a subject always appeared gaseous subject to me. It was always up there somewhere; I could see it but hardly absorb it! When I thought of strategy and management I always felt it is for top cream management of an organization or institute and folks at my level should make efforts to only understand it rather than creating it.

The classes were taken by two professors with quiet contrasting styles of imparting knowledge. One of the professors was exceptionally passionate about the subject and that made it always interesting to attend his class. He always insisted “to be successful you need to have a strategy”. Someone asked him “Does having a strategy guarantees a definite success?”. I clearly remember his answer. He said “Having a strategy does not guarantee success. On the other hand not having one does guarantee failure!”.

Then came exam time, the office work was too much to handle. I have worked on a product throughout the year, and close to the release it required many changes and updates. I just could not plan to study for four subjects, strategy being one of them. With 3 hours sleep each night I continued finishing office work, day after day and night after night. Those three hours of sleep each night were full of thoughts about my exams. I was pretty scared to face them without any preparation. Then one day I decided that it is impossible to pass in all 4 exams with no or very little preparation and that I should target preparing for 2 subjects and ensure I clear those two. That meant the remaining two would have to be taken later with downgraded score as a penalty for reappearing. That night I had a dream. My strategy professor, spoke to me in my dream. Yea he spoke his favorite lines: “Having a strategy does not guarantee success. On the other hand not having one does guarantee failure!” I realized that I planned for a sure shot failure, because I had NO strategy to pass in all 4 exams!!

Next couple of nights went in thoughts about how to pass exams. How about cheating in exams, after all these are for an executive program? To which my professor says: “honestly is the biggest bolster for any strategy”. Okay then what? I had no clue, though I was sure in my mind that I am not going to give up so soon. In between many thoughts, discussions, cursing my luck, pleading to God, and mood swings, I felt compelled to do something to improve my condition and I planned a strategy. Yes!

I car pool to office with two folks from my office who are at managerial position. I asked them I wanted their opinions on some of my strategy cases. We took one case study each day, discussed it, did a SWOT analysis and sometimes evaluated the case on Porters five forces model. My car pool folks were more than happy to indulge in these discussions, as per them it was food for thought and an active start of the day. For me it meant 80% of my course completed ensuring that I will pass. I started doing the same for Marketing subject (part 1&2) that is also case study based. In parallel I started eating lunch with my workplace HR. Yea you guessed it right, that’s the fourth subject. I started sleeping 2.5 hours instead of 3, to ensure I am ready to discuss next topic of HR at lunch time. Two weeks later I was prepared for my exams, decent enough to pass. Unbelievable but true.

My husband Aditya, is studying in IIMB, and helped me to cover theory and go through previous years’ question papers.

Post product release and exams, I was in bed, wanting to doze off for hours and hours, relieved of the tension. I heard my professor again… this time congratulating me on my decision and reemphasizing the importance of strategy…. Though this time his voice sounded more like Aditya’s!!! I was flabbergasted. The days I used to attend classes, I used to enact in front of mu husband my professor’s favorite lines. And Aditya used these lines on me, making me think I was dreaming of my professor!!! We both laughed, for a while on bed and later rolling on the floor!

With collaboration of IIMB & IIMC brains, I learned the biggest lesson of my life: “Reading books and listening to lectures is not learning till you put it to use”! …. And that is the strategy to succeed in life.

Feeling 'J' ...

Love is not the only thing that is blind, jealousy too is in the category. It does not differentiate or discriminate. Have you ever felt that the closest person to you turns jealous of you? Believe me it is an awful feeling. The reasons may be existence of a fear that you do not have value and others will be preferred and rewarded more than you.

I personally feel that in a relation whether it is friendship or just professional colleagues rapport, jealousy is like salt in food. A little jealousy is natural and like salt in food it can enhance the savor, but too much can spoil the comfort level between two individuals. Too much jealousy not only strains the relationships, it also turns people less tolerant in life.

With maturity we learn to accept different kind of people in life - as colleagues, batch mates, in society and so on. If you think about it, we hardly get to choose people around us. Out of these there may be many people who are more accomplished than us and if we can accept strangers as more accomplished than us, then why not our own friends!

Ambrose Bierce said “calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others”… and if these “others” are known people, it makes it for a bigger calamity!

In Between Meals

I am a person who loves to eat. I am sure many people will be able to relate to me and my love for food. By love I don’t mean eating endlessly anything and everything. In that aspect I am a restricted eater, but I really look forward to my meals in the day; from breakfast to lunch and from lunch to dinner. And what upsets me many times is when I have to stay hungry (past my usual meal time) due to meeting, phone calls, travel, etc. I try and completely avoid such a thing from happening.

Lately my love for food had to go through real hard and testing times. I used to get strange kind of mouth ulcers that replicate and cover the whole mouth including the palates, gums, cheeks every possible inch inside the mouth. Then they would itch and pain all through the day. First I could not eat anything hard, and then as they grew I could not eat anything at all. The pain and itch was immense. I felt as if I had mouth cancer. I started getting these ulcers every month for 5-6 days, and then twice a month. I visited many doctors from ENT, to dentist, to gastrology department head, to respiratory department head, but all in vain. Every doctoer gave medicines – mainly vitamins, but no one knew why it was happening. These medicines had absolutely no effect. The horrifying part was when even after a week, they did not reduce, and I lost the sense of taste completely! Not even salt. And drinking water was so painful that I preferred staying thirsty. After a few days of starving, one night I applied local anesthesia (used by dentists) all around in my mouth, and once everything went numb, I swallowed lots and lots of food. Tears rolled down my cheeks and my husband was crying even more than me. Eventually it got over on its own, but re-occurred again in a few days. I was helpless, and taking off from work did not sound like an idea, so days passed by from home to work to home, and I stopped looking forward to meal times. I survived on curd rice, and sometimes idli. I have gone through this for almost one year now. And though it hasn’t come up since almost a month now, I cross my fingers, and eat my meals. Now food is tastier and more precious than ever before. I like to enter kitchen just to smell masalas. I eat each meal, thinking I should enjoy it for as long as I can taste…….

Waiting for you!

I wish that I get back to health; that I gain health before I lose hope.
I wish I am able to recharge my life before the existing energy gets used up completely.
A dream is a wish that your heart makes when you are fast asleep. I wish I get enough sleep so that I can dream. Optimism, hope, positive thinking all work within limits. When there’s something that’s working against you and throws you out of action, clutching onto optimism will not help for long.
What do you tell your physician, when you yourself lose control over your own immune system?


………Even if all my senses and organs fail me, I pray to God that my heart does not.
I wish to preserve you in it forever!