That thing called Mental Illness

About a couple of months back, I spent a week in a psychiatric hospital in NIMHANS in my capacity as a part of a patient’s family. This is not my first experience with psychiatrists, having stayed earlier in Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences for about 3 weeks in a similar capacity.

And it brought about the best as well as the worst in me. The feeling of frustration and anger was pretty obvious but the experience did open a window into another world – a world inhabited by people just like you and me, those who dream and those who just have lost the capacity to dream.

A hospital is not exactly a cheerful place of existence and a psychiatric centre can be even more difficult. All the patients in the ward are present there on account of some mental illness which cannot be understood by others.

So you see people there living in their own worlds disturbed by our actions and lives. Staying there in a timeless existence in the midst of people who are not in the same frame of mind as some of us can be a very reflective process.

The human mind is a complex animal and you’d be surprised by the thoughts and fears that plague many of us. But society ordains that we should not express our fears; after all, it makes us less manly.

Suppressing or controlling emotions is only an escapist action; we need to acknowledge them and it calls for a certain degree of change that we may not be willing to do at this point of time.

I am willing to spend money and refurbish my flat, service my car but I am not willing to rejuvenate myself; just too caught up with short term goals to be worried about long term ones.

It is the classic Chicken and the Egg Syndrome - Once I take care of my wants, I will look at myself but what if it is too late???

The difficulty of dealing with mental illness is in understanding and relating to the patient’s troubles. Unlike physical injuries that are pretty evident, mental injuries are too deep rooted to penetrate. Many of us have mental injuries which require attention but we refuse to acknowledge them.

Some of these injuries, if not attended to, manifest themselves in the form of major illnesses or at the least in various forms of unexplained irritation. Depression is a medical term, for God’s sake, and not merely an English word to signify a lack of cheerfulness. Definitions of beating the blues and down in the dumps may not be enough to explain the issue.

One of the biggest problems associated with mental illness is the stigma associated with it. People just do not want to discuss their illness with anyone. A mental illness is not perceived as just another disease that needs treatment. What cannot be seen cannot be understood and so the patient stands isolated and misunderstood.

The way people interact with people who suffer from these illnesses make you feel sad; it makes you ask why is it that we think that mocking at someone’s misery is the only contribution we can make. Jokes on the mental state of people no longer sound that funny. I guess seeing the problem from a close proximity gives a different perspective.

People who came to visit us at the hospital would wonder what the problem was. Was it actually a problem that required hospital treatment or was it just a state of mind that required cheering up? Some nice people did propose that maybe, just maybe the family is not doing enough to cheer up the poor man - clearly, easier said than done.

Living in a state of mind that looks at world in a state of void gives a sense of unexplained emptiness. Have we all not gone through situations in life when we suddenly go blank and think that the world is collapsing around us? What happens if this state of mind remains for a long time and occupies all our emotions?

People have called us up to understand what Depression actually means. Do people feel sad or anxious for no particular reason at all? It should come as no surprise that so many of us go through these phases but are unaware of them. Medical science and society have not enlightened us enough to understand the problem and acknowledge it.

Please understand that the problem of depression is not something that you can just “snap out of” as most people would like you to believe. Like any other serious medical condition, it needs to be treated.

As family members or friends, it is very important for us to be supportive of the patient’s predicament. All is not lost and it is important that we stand by the man. He needs all the help that he needs; please do not abandon him and call him mad or lunatic.

Medical care works only if there is a genuine concern attached, otherwise, all you can come up is with a short term solution. The feeling of being unwanted is quite painful and you may feel it one day, without ever being ready for it.

Anyone, just anyone, can suffer from depression, and it should come as no surprise that one of you who is reading this suffers from it. But are we ready to understand that there could be a problem and we may have to consult a psychiatrist? I know it could be potentially embarrassing to be known as someone who has a problem and needs psychiatric attention.

But then is the embarrassment (if any, mind you) so high that you are willing to subject yourself to hours, days and weeks of mental misery for reasons unknown. And then, most importantly, it’s your life; why should you allow someone to dictate what you need to do in your life?

I am not too sure of the statistics involved but it seemed pretty tragic to me most of the inmates in the hospital were youngsters – people in the age group of less than 30. Is this an ominous sign of the mental state of the people of our generation who are cramped mentally and do not have sufficient support structures to help themselves out.

We are moving ahead in life but the progress that we make is at a velocity that can be dangerous. The people who are not able to handle this momentum are at a danger of finding themselves discarded. Most of us are actually in favour of this survival of the fittest theory except when it comes to our people. And then the reality hurts and it hurts bad.

It is not totally unimaginable that one day we find ourselves suffering from this problem but are not willing to accept it. After all, how can I suffer from depression? Isn’t it one of those elitist ailments that calls for meaningless therapies? There are many of us who are in this state of perennial rejection who would eventually wonder "Why Me".

We need to be constantly aware of our state of mind and emotions to ensure that we do not slip into a depressive state. Of course, this requires those rare moments of introspection that we don't have time for. We need to value or lives much more, don't we?

Born Into Brothels

Amidst all the euphoria of the stock market striking the magical 20,000 figure, all thoughts of dark India recede to the background. It is buried deep inside conveniently forgotten because we just cannot face the reality that we are a part of a world where the Pareto principle reigns supreme.

As I walk around the streets of Mumbai, there are so many maimed beggars that I see but I find it difficult to look into their eyes. Wonder if it is a sense of disgust at the thought of Shining India or a guilt that comes to the fore when I stare at these half naked bodies crying out for help.

Born into Brothels is in many ways a rude reminder to the fact that these wretched poor exist in a separate and parallel universe, without an exit, while far away from all this is the prosperous booming India where we find ourselves. It is a 2004 American documentary film about the children of prostitutes in Sonagachi, Calcutta's red light district, who continue to live on the fringes, neglected and unkempt.

While the state of prostitutes in this part of the world is quite pathetic, the condition in which they bring up their children ensures that the next generation also ends up no better. The mostly illegitimate children of these sex workers are also expected to "join the line” when they reach a certain age (or does age even matter?).

Minor girls are highly sought after in brothels (read virgins needed) and secure good prices, making it very difficult for the parents to let them leave, especially when they represent the only source of income in the entire family.

Zana Briski, an American photographer, visited India in the late 1990s, taking pictures of women's issues in India and at a certain point, was invited to go to Kolkatta to become part of a photography show. She somehow traced her steps to Sonagachi, one of the oldest red light areas in India where approximately 7,000 women and girls work as prostitutes, and that was where her journey started.

Ross Kauffman, her collaborator, joined her later and they ended up making this acclaimed documentary film which won a string of accolades including the Academy Award for the Best Documentary Feature in 2005.

While the women were reluctant to let Zana peep into their lives, the children responded very spontaneously to her efforts. In order to understand them better, Zana lived with them, provided the children with 35mm cameras and taught them how to use them.

It is from the images the children captured and their experiences they had while doing so, that the film's script unfolds. The result is a film that takes us inside squalid brothels and allows us to see the world through the eyes of some of its most vulnerable residents. Shot using a digital camera, we get to know the children through their photos.

Opening with an introduction of its kids and the harsh reality of their lives, the movie follows the children as they wander, cameras in hand, through the streets of Kolkatta. The film also documents Briski's uphill efforts in trying to rescue these youngsters from a seemingly morbid future, and seeks some educational facility that will accept them.

But clearly this is so much easier said than done, as one nun tells Briski when the filmmaker seeks her help in locating a school for the children, "Nobody will take them" because they are the offspring of prostitutes. Some manage to find places in special schools despite these issues but the biggest obstacle remain the children's own mothers and guardians, often protective out of the sheer necessity for survival.

Clearly, the fathers do not even exist in many of these places and even if they do, they remain nothing but faceless pimps, wallowing in their own world of drugs.

Zana also experiences the pleasures of dealing with the Indian bureaucracy while trying to secure a passport for one of her students, who is selected to travel to Amsterdam to be part of a children's jury at a World Press Photo Foundation photo exhibit in Amsterdam in 2002. She moves pillar to post trying to get the relevant documents and after great effort, finally manages to send Avijit, one of the kids, to Amsterdam.

Will the boys also be used as prostitutes in future? The movie is silent about this. There is no scene that is sexually explicit or anything that suggests any form of titillation because of the filmmakers' intent in not wanting to exploit their subjects, which is such a welcome relief. After all, a voyeuristic peep into the world of sex with liberal doses of titillation would sell just as well, would'nt it? And of course, you could justify it in the name of art.

Briski says there is no logical or rational reason she invests herself so completely in this endeavour. She admits in the film that she is no social worker, but wanted very much to help the kids, for otherwise their future was a dismal one lacking hope beyond a world of prostitution, drugs and crime.

Through the ups and downs of this journey of her spirit as she wades through the various aspects of India (alien to her), she learns that there is a limit to which she can make a difference. The problem is much more chronic and providing cameras to a bunch of individuals will not resolve the larger menace.

The credits at the end tell us about the future of the kids taken to a boarding school. Only a couple of them continue to stay in their boarding schools while the majority is taken out by their parents, drop out, or is asked to leave.

I guess the solution is not so simple after all; the red light district has existed for centuries and will exist for centuries more. Is art and education enough to empower these children? Quite possibly no but these are steps nevertheless. Moreover, as a society, we have a role in treating these individuals with respect and not just treat them as scum which needs to be cleaned.

Zana allows us to peep into the world of children, caught in this web where hope is the only way to survive; is it not just so unfair that some people have a natural advantage over the others merely because of their place of birth? Aren’t we so lucky to escape from all this and be able to read this while many thousands are resigned to lives of eternal misery???

Zana and Ross have started an organization called Kids with Cameras and funds donated to them are used to teach photography and educate children across. Even if we are indifferent towards the under privileged classes, let us atleast support such attempts. The audience along with me in the theatre certainly felt a sense of empathy as they applauded generously; hope everyone else feels the same…

Taare Zameen Par

Tears welling up and weeping is not the easiest emotion that a man can express and when the raison d’etre for the tears is a movie, it becomes even more difficult to justify (if there was ever a need to). Aamir Khan’s directorial debut Taare Zameen Par accomplishes this rather effortlessly without too much of a melodrama but with a kind of sensitivity not seen in the recent past.

The movie takes us through the heart of a child suffering from dyslexia and succeeds where Monsieur Bhansali fails. It creates a world familiar to us, which we can relate to unlike Black which exists in its own self-indulgent vacuum. The images of a paint drop falling on Ishaan’s face, the dogs sleeping on his lap and the everyday sights of the world look so beautiful through the eyes of the young boy.

TZP deals with the life and tribulations of Ishaan Awasthi, fondly called Eno by his family. He’s a dreamer, with no sense of time, who lives in his own world inhabited by nature and its glorious manifestations. He is a regular kid who fights off bullies; bunks school and spends a great deal of his time day-dreaming.

Initially, we do not realize that anything is amiss and relate his behaviour to his age and innocence. He’s sent to a boarding school where he goes into his shell further till his disability is finally discovered by an Art teacher in his school, Ramkumar Nikumbh, played by Aamir Khan. The teacher then works to put him back on track.

The movie practically lives through the child’s eyes as he struggles to find meaning in the numbers and syllables drilled through his mind. He needs to not only satisfy his parental aspirations but also work around with his disability. Parental obsession with their children’s performance is only a symptom of this larger malice- where result is the only thing that matters. Only the exceptional ones are required, the rest of us remain people on the fringe without any voice.

The kid Darsheel Safarey is absolutely wonderful as he portrays the everyday kid we are familiar with and not the irritatingly cute kid in movies who tries his best to get on our nerves. His name appears first when the credits start rolling and his performance justifies that.

Aamir as Nikumbh Sir sports a spunky hairstyle and performs admirably, with just the right amount of restraint.(Let me concede that when I saw the Khan in the movie, I wondered how much we was being paid for such a job; shit, he can’t live so comfortably in Mumbai working only as an Arts School. Agreed that’s a cruel thought in the midst of all this but I could not stop myself!!!). The father remains a bit of a stereotype but Tisca Chopra as the mother fits the bill pleasantly well only to be ignored in the second half.

TZP sees Aamir as a very sensitive person; his tears well up just a bit too frequently in the movie. Is it because society has taught us that it’s not manliness to shed tears that many in the theatre felt disconcerting to see Aamir’s tears?

His characterization was a revelation; the protagonist is shown as a very soft-natured guy whose heart pains to see the struggles of a child and who has less control over his emotions when compared to the average hero. I always did think of Aamir as a Method Actor who thinks primarily from his brain; but this movie comes straight from the heart, not just the head and you actually feel for it.

A special mention about the music. Shankar, Ehsaan, Loy and Prasoon Joshi have done a wonderful job in delivering compositions that go along with the feel of the movie. The music has a soft, lilting presence which gives it a beautiful feel. Music has been used liberally in the movie but in no way does it manage to slow down the proceedings.

But there are areas that you wish Aamir could have plugged in, so that the movie could have been even better. The parental interactions in the second half are strangely muted. Ishaan’s mother has sacrificed her career to take care of her kids and is shown to be very sensitive to her children’s needs but even after realizing that her son has a learning disorder, all she manages to do is a Google search on dyslexia.

Was it the Actor Vs the Director clash that caused Aamir Khan to take over the role of the parents too and reduce their role to mere bystanders whose only involvement with their son is to collect his progress report?

Would it not have been better if Aamir had also tried to put in a parental point of view and not paint them in black and put all the blame squarely on them. Yes, they play a pivotal role in shaping the future of their children but trying to understand them would also have helped.

For all the pains that Aamir takes to showcase Ishaan’s difficulties, his progress takes place just a bit too fast, all in the pace of a song. Even the ending has its share of melodrama but even if it were only melodrama I would not have an issue. Instead, it requires Ishaan to take part in a competition and win the first prize to regain his esteem.

After all the bravado about parental mentality and rat-race, it is a bit unfair that Ishaan has to succeed in another rat race to redeem himself. Every child is special, so any need to actually outdo others and prove his specialty?

Most characters in TZP act as caricatures but I’m willing to buy that illustration. Maybe that’s how little Ishaan looks at the world. His perception about himself drives others to look at him similarly. At the end, Ishaan stumbles as he walks to receive the prize; does this suggest that he still is dependent on Aamir?

Nevertheless, the movie worked for me at different levels and not just the parental-child angle. It also talked about listening to one’s dreams as well as one’s inner feelings. The movie is not just for kids and carries a message for all of us.

We have forgotten to admire the small beauties that nature showers us daily with but take it for granted. The fluttering of a butterfly, the rhythm of a fish, the gentle waft of the breeze and its goose pimples are no longer important to us. What is important to us is our obsession with targets and timelines; so much so that we do not have even the time to feel happy about completing our targets.

Every child is indeed special!!! Thanks, Aamir for displaying the guts to break all conventions and make such a beautifully sensitive movie…………

Wooing the Go Slow Movement

As I stand on the edge of a road watching the population hurtling across at an uncontrollable pace, it seems so uneasy watching the faces of people as they grimace and scream at everyone else and move ahead on the wild roads governing our country.

These small journeys can lead to a great road rage but at the same time can also be a lesson in building patience- after all, you realize after sometime that you cannot overcome this ocean of humanity and you have to give in. Both the Merc and the Maruti meet their destinies here and both are equal here.

Speed is a very relative concept and it gets so much more accentuated as you travel across destinations, each location in its own time clock. As I traverse from Mumbai to Hyderabad and swoop down to Kerala, I realize how painfully slow the passage of time can be.

Living and travelling in the din of the Mumbai metropolis acts as such a marked contrast to the lazy life of my town. As I sit in front of my house in Palakkad and watch the cattle grazing and clouds ambling by, I wonder when I last sat down and saw nature taking its own course.

Speed is not always a virtue and is primarily a function of our need to compress our lives into compartments of milliseconds which we cannot live without. Are we genetically programmed to want to do things faster than they should be? Is the Olympic motto of Citius, Altius, Fortius relevant in our lives at all junctures? Maybe no but we do find it difficult to decelerate and go along with the flow of life.

Life has a certain flow but we always want to go faster; we do not have the time or patience or slow down and enjoy its small beauties- a case of missing the woods for the forest. Trying always to look at the larger picture has numbed our sensibilities and I can no longer strive to be the God of Small things because Size Does Matter.

As you sit in a vehicle or try to cross the road, you see this urge across to push faster and faster. People glaring and screaming at each other and trying to move swiftly but there is no smile on anyone’s face and no one willing to slow down and allow the other person to go ahead.

We have been brought up to believe that the world is always trying to move ahead and conspiring against us and we must not allow that to happen. So, we trust and care for no one; the only thing that matters is what we have done or where we go.

Try this experiment one day- Stand on the edge of a busy traffic junction and observe people moving about. But observe this as an outsider with absolutely zero involvement with the proceedings. You are merely a passive observer and looking at the scene standing outside it.

You observe the flow of life; everything is perfect just as it should be, just as life has willed it to be. It can be a meditative experience to stand outside and observe the world without being a part of it.

I am told that if we were to slow down, we will not reach our destination. But what is our destination? In this race for speed, we have no permanent destinations. Every halt is a mere pit stop in our relentless urge to cross the 100m line but then we do forget that life does not stop at the 100m finish; there are scores of marathons to go and here we are obsessed with a few 100 metres. What we are doing in the process is settling down for the smaller things in life at the cost of the larger, natural and more beautiful things in life.

Our culture puts a premium on speed and the techno world that we live in actively allows and encourages us to keep buzzing 24/7. Blackberry may be a technological marvel to keep you connected every time but the end result is that you remain connected and vulnerable to office pressures more than ever.

Multi-tasking has been thrust upon us and marketed to us as a virtue but think of it and you realize that it is such a misnomer; it is the same as zero tasking. You are there everywhere but in no single place at any time. Technology has reduced barriers and ensured that there is a greater ability to interact with people but willingness to do so is not a function of technology.

“Slow” is therefore, a dirty word and we need to do things fast just because everything else around us is going fast, without even considering whether or not it makes sense. Ever thought how difficult is to sit silently in a meditative state for a few minutes; the body starts twitching uneasily because it has never known what it is to be doing nothing. Inactivity is also required at times if we think about it. You feel like you're chasing something, but you never quite catch up with that something.

This fast obsession manifests even in the food that we have – Fast Food is something we have started living in. There’s no time for proper organic living and so we need synthetic substitutes pumping higher calories in a faster amount of time. As we click and punch keys in an attempt to connect to the world faster, it seems a small mercy that the sun still rises and rises as per its nature and not by the whims and fancies of engineers trying to screw up nature in the name of breakthrough innovations.

Slowly but steadily we may just be close to reach that Tipping point after which it may just be too late to slow down and start living all over again. If we haven't already reached a breaking point, we're close.

In this hyped-up world, we need to keep an eye on our personal speedometers- it's very easy to do things fast just because everything else around you is going fast, without even considering whether or not it makes sense- courtesy slowmovement.com

This thought primarily struck me thanks to this beautiful forward sent by Simrat; I personally would not like to do a copy-paste but I do think that this forward is quite meaningful now.

It's been 18 years since I joined Volvo, a Swedish company. Working for them has proven to be an interesting experience. Any project here takes 2 years to be finalized, even if the idea is simple and brilliant. It's a rule.

Globalized processes have caused in us (all over the world) a general sense of searching for immediate results. Therefore, we have come to possess a need to see immediate results. This contrasts greatly with the slow movements of the Swedish. They, on the other hand, debate, debate, debate, hold x number of meetings and work with a slowdown scheme. At the end, this always yields better results.

Said in other words:
1. Sweden is about the size of San Pablo, a state in Brazil.
2. Sweden has 2 million inhabitants.
3. Stockholm has 500,000 people.
4. Volvo, Escania, Ericsson, Electrolux, Nokia are some of its renowned companies. Volvo supplies the NASA.

The first time I was in Sweden, one of my colleagues picked me up at the hotel every morning. It was September, bit cold and snowy. We would arrive early at the company and he would park far away from the entrance (2000 employees drive their car to work). The first day, I didn't say anything, either the second or third. One morning I asked, "Do you have a fixed parking space? I've noticed we park far from the entrance even when there are no other cars in the lot." To which he replied, "Since we're here early we'll have time to walk, and whoever gets in late will be late and need a place closer to the door. Don't you think? Imagine my face.

Nowadays, there's a movement in Europe named Slow Food. This movement establishes that people should eat and drink slowly, with enough time to taste their food, spend time with the family, friends, without rushing. Slow Food is against its counterpart: the spirit of Fast Food and what it stands for as a lifestyle. Slow Food is the basis for a bigger movement called Slow Europe, as mentioned by Business Week.

Basically, the movement questions the sense of "hurry" and "craziness" generated by globalization, fueled by the desire of "having in quantity" (life status) versus "having with quality", "life quality" or the "quality of being". French people, even though they work 35 hours per week, are more productive than Americans or British. Germans have established 28.8 hour workweeks and have seen their productivity been driven up by 20%. This slow attitude has brought forth the US’s attention, pupils of the fast and the "do it now!".

This no-rush attitude doesn't represent doing less or having a lower productivity. It means working and doing things with greater quality, productivity, perfection, with attention to detail and less stress. It means reestablishing family values, friends, free and leisure time. Taking the "now", present and concrete, versus the "global", undefined and anonymous. It means taking humans' essential values, the simplicity of living.

It stands for a less coercive work environment, more happy, lighter and more productive where humans enjoy doing what they know best how to do. It's time to stop and think on how companies need to develop serious quality with no-rush that will increase productivity and the quality of products and services, without losing the essence of spirit.

In the movie, Scent of a Woman, there's a scene where Al Pacino asks a girl to dance and she replies, "I can't, my boyfriend will be here any minute now". To which Al responds, "A life is lived in an instant". Then they dance to a tango.

Many of us live our lives running behind time, but we only reach it when we die of a heart attack or in a car accident rushing to be on time. Others are so anxious of living the future that they forget to live the present, which is the only time that truly exists. We all have equal time. No one has more or less. The difference lies in how each one of us does with our time.

As John Lennon said, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans".

Om Shanti Om

OSO is a Farah Khan movie – if you do not keep that in mind and condition yourself accordingly, you’d miss the point of the movie. Ms. Khan and party are out to have a ball and whether you like it or not, it does not matter or as SRK says, in the movie, in his tribute to Gone With the Wind - Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. There is a scene in OSO when a wannabe Bengali director says that the cameras are ready from the Satyajit Ray angle and the Bimal Roy angle but the producer asks him to focus on the Manmohan Desai angle kyonki wahin kaam ayega.

This philosophy exactly reflects Farah Khan’s mind as she sets out to make a pot boiler with no arty pretensions. For a lover of serious cinema, this can be a difficult experience – akin to a true blooded South Indian reading the Times of India after years of digesting The Hindu. But after the initial period of indigestion, it can also spell fun in a different form of way; of course, this feeling has to be a more conditioned one rather than natural.

Comedies/spoofs suffer when they start taking themselves seriously; and then you wish they’d stick to the comic plot instead of weaving silly melodrama- Check any Priyadarshan’s movie for that. Farah’s Main Hoon Na was a pain whenever the story tried to take upper hand over plots like the Sush-SRK romance; OSO also charters into such a terrain occasionally but for some reason the seriousness never sinks in.

There is not much of a story to mention, except that boy loves girl but girl loves someone, that someone kills her and boy and girl die in the process. They are reborn and the hero takes revenge with a little help from the girl’s ghost – a Karz meets Madhumati and then The End, finally!!! The story of re-incarnation and revenge is old enough and there is no real intent to recreate with a different perspective (we’ll leave that to RGV).

The pre-incarnation story of the 1st half is set in the 1970s while the second half moves into the current world of cinema. So, you have spoofing right from the days of Rajesh Khanna to Abhishek Bachchan. The movie meanders into seriousness occasionally but Farah Khan does not intend to continue the serious element for long. So, the seriousness stays put for a brief period before things again become hunky dory.

The good part about such movies is that they ask you to sit back and just watch, with a sense of abandon - keep your cerebral part out of it. Let’s not discuss the plot and the futility of it in the entire scheme of things because that is not relevant – Damn, we have a topless SRK emerging from the waters and bringing forth the quintessential metrosexual male (he could try the Daniel Craig style next time), a beautiful Deepika Padukone who manages to keep our attention on her face throughout and a whole lot of actors gyrating to foot tapping music!!! And you dare to ask for more????

OSO mocks at many in the industry- Sooraj Barjatya, the Kapoor family (Overacting hamari khandani beemari hai), Manoj Kumar (wonder what was there to be upset over his depiction here???) and many others but it is all in good fun. The clichéd dialogues and the performances (especially in the first half)) are clearly over the top but that is partly Farah’s tribute to the good old world of Hindi cinema.

Only the villain played by Arjun Rampal is underplayed; Baradwaj Rangan has a point when he says- an “unabashedly old-fashioned, over-the-top approach would have been more appropriate” for the antagonist of a self-respecting masala movie.

The songs are good, pleasantly hummable but for some reason they fall short when you watch it on screen. Where is the “Aankhon Mein Teri Ajab si” song; slicing and serving it in parts destroys Vishal-Shekhar’s wonderful score. And the title song is an HAHK type family get-together song- where the idea is “I scratch your back and you scratch mine” (Witness Govinda and SRK scratching each other’s back literally in the song).

The song went on for too long and I was waiting for the song to complete. But the songs still remain a plus point in the movie- Maybe Farah should try her hand at a musical where she can take more liberties with the script.

The best part of the movie is actually the rolling of the credits. It is done pretty innovatively and everyone gets a part in the credits, including the spot boys- Now that is good work and I’m sure that it would have pleased the entire team to no end. Moreover, Farah Khan entering the final stage of the credits and being welcomed to no applause is pretty symbolic of the hold that directors have on audience – none at all!!!

At the end, the movie remains just an occasional spoof – an attempt at parody with a story thrown in bits and pieces occasionally for the discerning guy in the audience to pickup if he wishes to. Too many wisecracks can make a half an hour serial but a 3 hour movie can be a bit of a stretch and that’s where Farah Khan stumbles.

Honestly, I don’t think there is anything much in the movie but if you want to while away a couple of hours and more and you have nothing much to do, go for it. Either way, there is nothing to lose….

My Farewell Mail

I had no intention to post my farewell mail to my company on this blog. However, looking at the overwhelming response that I have received from colleagues and several others who have read it, I have posted it here. The idea is not to sound very pompous about the entire thing but to share my feelings with a larger audience. It was Sudarshan's idea to post it here, though intended half in jest but I decided to take his point seriously!!!

I have always hated reading exit mails since most of them go overboard praising and thanking everyone-working in a dream company and the greatest set of colleagues etc. Why can't people just be honest atleast while moving out?

The idea was to be honest but at the same time not sound very bitter while leaving - after all that's the easiest thing to do, rail against everyone while leaving. Joining a company is a conscious decision that we have made and need to take responsibility for our actions instead of blaming the rest of the world for any misfortune that we may have faced.

Just to clarify, I have not faced any such issues and I'm leaving the company without carrying any baggage from the past. Of course, it is ironic that more people know me now that I have left the company than while working there.

Dear team,

After a brief stint of 17 months through the corridors of *******, I am moving out of the company today and going ahead in life to pursue my career in another company, infact another industry. It's been a bit of a mixed bag, with much more time at my personal disposal than in my previous job. Except for a few hectic months when in Kuala Lumpur , it's been a slow drive on an empty road.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the Facilities, Canteen, Travel and Transport departments for the excellent support that I have received during this period. People may inundate the BB with complaints on these aspects but trust me, there are not too many companies who provide these kind of facilities. Laterals like me may understand this point but freshers and those born and brought up in ******* may not appreciate it.

I'd like to offer a special thanks to the entire *** team with which I have been associated during the entire period of my stay here. And a special word for my ex-PM, RC, who's been a wonderful support and guide throughout this period. One of the better aspects of my life here was the ****** pre-sales trip; it was a difficult phase but worth remembering, especially for the friends that I made in those few months in Kuala Lumpur .

Job satisfaction is not a company perk; it comes from doing quality work and with due respect to everyone, I do a feel a tinge of regret that this did not necessarily happen. This is no reflection on the company but on many other factors, both external and internal. There comes a time when you realize that there is a mismatch between your vision and that of the company, and then it is time to move on. Living in one’s comfort zone for the sake of stability may not be the best way to live, at least during early years of one’s career.

There are no regrets or sadness in leaving the company, however, at the same time, it is not exactly a gung-ho feeling. I realize that there is no dream company or dream job; we work because we need to do something and the month end SMS sent by ICICI justifies our efforts. My regards to everyone here; best of luck in the successful completion of all your endeavours. Also, there may be people whom I have consciously or sub-consciously hurt/disappointed during my interactions; my apologies to all of them.

I am available at my personal id - ********@yahoo.co.in - and also blog at http://epradeep98.blogspot.com/ - one of the legacies of bench management in *******.

Regards
Pradeep

P.S: The sentence in bold is not an original thought; that was taken from an ad released by Microsoft as part of its recruitment campaign. I have masked a few names for the sake of confidentiality.

GoodBye, IT

Oct 10th-Wednesday will be my last day in my current job. After 17 months of spending my work life in a premier IT company, it is time to bid adieu to it and move to the industry of my birth-banking. Well, the industry and company shift has been a relatively easy decision but not the change in location. Moving from Hyderabad back to Mumbai needs a certain mental preparation and I still need to prepare for it.

These 17 months have been a mixed bag, really, as it probably happens for most people. It gave me an opportunity to travel abroad (referring to 'abroad' as 'onsite' is a feel food factor and another exercise in branding) and work at unknown areas like pre-sales and direct client interaction.

It has given me enough time in hand to rethink my priorities both at the career and personal front. Now time is not something that was available to me in my previous job but it was plenty here except for a few hectic months in Kuala Lumpur.

I must thank my company for the excellent infrastructure and facilities provided. The canteen, transportation and other miscellaneous facilities (gym, swimming pool, book stall among others) are something that went beyond what the company promised to deliver to its employees. There may be a second opinion about this amongst many but I don't have any complaint at all about it.

But then there are things that go beyond all this, don't they? What about your nature of work? Considering the fact that most of us spend close to 10-12 hours daily at work, it is imperative that we feel good about our work. The remaining time is anyway spent in gossiping, entertainment and sleeping.

The inherent nature of the IT industry facilitates the creation of a large bench strength (something the Indian cricket team badly needs) but then bench management is no joke. This problem is more acute for laterals who keep comparing their nature of work with their previous job.

Having the fastest growing bench strength may sound good on paper but not necessarily so in real life. With a growing emphasis on global offshore model and a rising rupee, onsite opportunities may also be shrinking, adding to the chagrin of employees.

Most IT companies recruit en masse from colleges and have a huge fresher strength. It brings in a certain sense of camaraderie amongst them but this is not the case with laterals. With due respect to the freshers, I have felt that many of them are pampered (atleast in my company) and so, they have so many unreasonable expectations from the company. Look at the complaint boxes in these companies and you'd realise what I'm talking about.

Anyway, I did feel like a fish out of water here. One reason could be my natural aversion towards technology; that clearly slackened my willingness to adapt to work in an IT company. For a functional person like me, technology was only an enabler, not the driver which was at odds with my company philosophy.

On many an occasion, the client and I were at sync with each other but to explain this to technical folks was always a headache-the kind of things that happens when you have scores of people who have never thought outside data tables, Java and codes. Again this is understandable; after all, that is why functional personnel are recruited.

Working on onsite projects also means working with different sets of people and probably never meeting your boss, except when you have a concall to discuss your appraisal; contrast this with my previous job where my boss and I spent more than a month preparing my appraisal form. But with due respect to the company, I do not hold anything against it. The reason for this amicable split is just that my vision and that of the company are different.

Whenever you leave a company, people keep congratulating you and for all such people, the only thing I have to say is there is no dream company. Maybe I'm just too cynical, but simple reasoning says that if I were to love my job, my company would not need to pay me. The pay is the reason we are all sticking to jobs we want to run away from. Knowing myself, it may not be long enough before I get tired even with that job and start cribbing. So, no false hopes for me.

Finally, moving out of Hyderabad and abandoning a life with zero costs currently (advantage of staying with parents) and throwing myself into the din of Mumbai life may not be everyone's idea of progress and I agree. Parents obviously do not understand but then we can't explain all decisons to them, right? After all, gut feeling decisions are best left unexplained.

Hoping that Mumbai will be kind enough to me to ensure that I have a decent piece of real estate for stay, at an affordable price, when I land there in less than 10 days time. And for my Mumbai friends, please open your doors and keep inviting me for dinners; my culinary skills are extremely suspect!!!