Posts

Milkha Singh's Run of Life!

I rarely relish Hindi movies. This is partly because of the fact that I find the story lines highly unbelievable. It’s great entertainment, but mainly unbelievable at any level. Unrealistic story lines, accentuated by actors exaggerating the persona’s; add to the overall um-believability element. It is common to see, military or police characters being portrayed caricaturishly; lack of attention to details (like ranks and insignias on uniforms; settings; unrealistic action sequences) etc.; all these factors over the years have kept me away from Hindi movies.   I’ve liked a few Bollywood movies; sometimes for the sheer entertainment factor and iconic dialogs; some for the individual acting talent in them; some have wonderful song sequences; but somehow I have rarely managed to enjoy Bollywood films as a whole package. However, Farhan Akhtar managed to convert me. With ‘Bhag Milkha Bhag’, he told an inspirational story, and portrayed the character in the most realistic way. His
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The Day Gandhi Lived

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It was time for Bapus Prayer. He told people not to fuss over him as he got up and moved ahead thru the crowed of his followers. Nathuram was waiting to shoot but he froze as the sight of so many people surrounding Gandhiji. He simply folded his hands meekly; looked at Gandhiji, turned and walked away. What our nation would be like, I wonder; had this sequence of events played out on 30 th Jan 1948. What sort of collective conscious, we as a people, would have achieved, had Gandhiji lived on. While the mahatma was known to have the steadfastness to fast & repent till masses saw the right way; would this have continued to hold good. Or we would have learned to squabble over petty gains of land, wealth irrespective of his presence & guidance for many more years. Would our political masters still be clamoring for houses in prime locations, red beacons satisfying their sense of egos, while the people they govern continue to suffer without clothes, shelter, food? Wou
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Bye-Bye Mr. Kasab

We Indians in general are known to be soft people. We are very unlike the Israelis (who obviously do not take kindly to being attacked and don’t mind bombing a country to oblivion ) , or the Americans (who don’t mind starting a full-fledged global war just because some building got bombed in their country). Despite of having the second largest standing army in the world we have never left our shores to attack another country and the only wars we’ve fought were the ones that were brought to our doorstep. We are known to be indecisive and soft when it comes to our own security and country! This may partially stem from the fact that India as a land always attracted varied people and races who started of by attacking us and then decided to settle down here when they realized that this was the Shangri-la they were searching for. We simply got used to being attacked in our own land and learned to live with the invaders as fellow countrymen. It may also have been perpetuated by the fact
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Live Long & Prosper in the Corporate Galaxy!

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For those of us who were born in the 70’s, the choice of programs on television was quite limited to say the least. I remember as a young boy, growing up in remote cantonments cities, eagerly looking forward to Sundays mornings as that was the only time in the week where we would get a bunch of English serials to watch on our black & white television set. To me, the most memorable of these was the Star Trek series; and I of course, like a lot of boys of my age then, was enamored with the strange alien characters that would appear on each episode and watch as the crew of star ship enterprise would tackle their mission with great aplomb and felicity. Though, that was probably one of the most exciting TV series for me (a distant second was Knight Rider), I never consciously thought about the lessons we learned from the adventures of USS Enterprise as Captain Kirk and his crew went where “no man had ever gone before”. As an adult I’ve come to understand the cult like fan fo
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Old Blood, Guts & Glorious Leadership: The Patton Way

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Leaders come in many hues and one of the most sensational of them was General George S Patton (aka Old Blood, Guts & Glory). I recently happened to watch an autobiographical movie on him and couldn’t help myself from admiring his unique personality & leadership style. This brilliant movie revolves around the life & experiences of Gen Patton during the peak of Second World War and went on to win seven academy awards including one for best picture. Gen. Patton was an impetuous army commander and self-admitted Prima Dona. He was loud in more than one way. His flashy uniforms (he made the standard issue, otherwise drab uniform , into a desirable piece of clothing), inscribed ivory handle sidearm , his jeep with loud sirens was indicative of his larger than life portrayal of himself as a field commander. While he was certainly impulsive (on one occasion he famously pipped himself with a 3rd star, without waiting for the formal announcement, saying that he has his own
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Playing Ball; Challenge the Status Quo!

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The best weekends for me are generally the ones that allow me to indulge in my passion; watching movies. This weekend I was truly refreshed to see a great movie that I would recommend to all those who manage people, are in situations where they have to think “out of the box” or have to make tough decisions with a lot of constraints. The movie 'moneyball' is a sports drama based on a real life event and takes place when Beane (played by Brad Pitt) who is the GM of Oakland’s Athletics seems to be running out of options on wanting to run a successful baseball team. He starts losing his star players Damon, Giambi & Isringhausen to competition and the owner of his team ( Stephen Schott) is not willing to lend additional funds to him to pick up fresh start talent from the market. As Beane is struggling to overcome this hopeless situation and work within the constraints he meets & decides to bring on board Peter Brand (played by Jonah Hill) who comes up with a statistic
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As The General Ordered

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Having spent a short while in the army and also by the virtue of managing people as a line manager for over 15 years now, I do pride myself in understanding the concept of leading from the front. Leading from the front has often been described as 'to show the way or to guide or direct the course'. It also means never asking someone to do any thing that you cannot do better (or yourself) and also willingness to being in the thick of things and leading the team by example. Recently , my father, who was a 3 star general (Lieutenant General) in the army, and held many command & staff positions in the army as well as went on to join the board of multi-billion dollar companies during his service &   post his retirement , explained a very interesting concept to me. Since he is one of those rare personalities who have proved his prowess, in both the fields that need high leadership skills to rise to the top (military & business), I found his concept extremely thought
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