A Management Talk...

"I cannot do this job. These guys, you know, never obeys what I say. And at the end of shift, our boss call me and fire like anything for not getting production as per target. I feel like running away from here." K was disparate. (No, he is not Joseph K and I am not a Kafka wannabe. His name starts with K and as I respect his privacy, I am reluctant to reveal the full name. Which is again absurd because any of my company employee reading this Blog will id him and others, I am sure won't care a hoot).

This guy used to work under me and as his performance was quite good, he was promoted to another department, handled by my boss, as a foreman when there was a vacancy. He was finding it difficult to cope with additional responsibilities and was ready to come back to the former position. But our boss was not agreeing.

The time was evening, and our cab was about to move out. If I am going to miss it, I will have to hitch a ride with any of the big shots in their comfortable air conditioned cars, which sounds a pretty good proposition, but is not the case, as my previous experiences had taught me. Lending ear to more office talk or gossip, as these talks eventually turn into, is harrowing. But as is my inherent style, I decided to hand him some pearls of wisdom quickly so that I won't miss my cab. (The best things about giving advise according to me, is that it does not cost you anything and can generate enormous goodwill. So I never misses a chance.)

I will not check your patience by giving all the personal things that we discussed. In short, I gave him some tips on dealing with workers and our boss from my experience, as my relation with both parties had been quite stable till now. I concluded by telling him a story that I read in an article sometime back, which I feel may be of interest to my readers.

Once a manager approached his mentor who is in the top management of another firm. He was totally let down by his team and was blamed on a daily basis by top management for the failures. He was frustrated of dealing with his subordinates, who hated him, and with his superiors who simply blamed him for any and every trivial matters.

His mentor asked him, "How much salary you draw every month?"

"Rs 60000."

"Ok. Just think that for the actual work that you do in office, you are paid Rs 20000. Rest of the payment is for getting hated and blamed. You don't have any physical work like an operator or your juniors. Your actual job is getting hated and blamed. Now if you have this attitude and you work for reducing the hate and blame targeted at you, you will be in profit. Always remember, for the actual work that you do, you get only 40% of your salary. 60% of salary is for getting blamed and hated by others and for absorbing the pressure."

Is There A Happy Death?...

A happy death is the first novel by Albert Camus. After writing it, the acclaimed writer decided not to publish it and went on to write other novels like The Outsider and The Plague which were deemed classics by critics. After his death the manuscript of A happy death was discovered and going by the well known tradition of cashing in the death of famous writers by publishing every crap written by them, it was published.

It is not surprising that Camus decided not to publish this novel as it is terribly lacking in plot and character development. It is obvious that this novel developed ultimately into The outsider, a classic, though they are poles apart in the underlying philosophy. The plot of a guy, even the name is similar, remorselessly murdering another man is the common factor.

A Happy Death is the story of Patrice Mersault, a poor Algerian clerk leading a boring work life and an aimless relationship. He happens to meet his lover's ex-love, a rich cripple. He convinces Mersault that to be happy, it is essential to have time and time can be bought by money. So only way to be happy in life is to become rich. Mersault kills the guy, take all his money and abscond, probably by the invalid's consent. There ends the first part of the novel named as Natural death.

In the second part, titled Happy Death, we see Mersault travelling from city to city in train. But travel makes his condition more miserable. Then he starts living with three of his lady friends, all of whom are in pursuit of happiness. When this also does not serve the purpose, Mersault decides to stay alone in country side buying a huge house with the money that he stole. He starts feeling happy but gets a fatal disease and dies, a happy death.

The novel is ambiguous. It does not reveal much about the relationship between characters or the reason they act the way they do. But it is worth reading for its strong, underlying philosophy.

Janasheen: Music review

When Stella send me an email appreciating the blog and asking about the possibility to review the album Janasheen by Nickk, which they are publicizing currently, I was a bit worried. I like hearing music and even passing comments on songs. But to review songs... it is out of my forte. So to keep the authenticity of the site intact (I admit that was a trumpet blowing..) I approached my good friend Andrews Lijoy, a wonderful singer and composer with a great music sense, who readily agreed to help this friend in distress and make a guest post on Conscientious Reflections for reviewing Janasheen by Nickk... On to Lijoy.... 

Nickk is the latest musician to hit the already populated Indian pop music field. A singer, composer and lyricist, he has just released his debut album- Janasheen released by Beatfactory music. 

The album has five tracks, if the remix version is considered as a separate track. The first one is Janasheen, the song with a video. Janasheen has a very feel good effect to it, but I don't think it will linger in the mind for long. The song is devoid of any special magic to it. The strength of the song lies in the soothing voice of Nickk. The strings and beats at the start reminds me of a slower version of Ashlee Simpson's "I am me", but it still gives an "ear candy" effect.

The second song, Guzaarish Rock is actually not a rock version. Any song won't fall into a rock song category by having some heavy string portion added to it. An attempt to modify it to a rock version actually kind of disturbed the feel of the song. 

The melody of the pack is the track called Jaane Kyun. Here the singer takes advantage of his voice and the orchestra backs it up very well. A slow and smooth song which is easy on ears. 

Iqteza is a typical club song. It has nothing special that can throw you on the dance floor right away. 

Guzaarish Dance version- Only adding certain extra beat does not make a dance version of a song. 

Overall Janasheen is not a ground breaking pop album, but not a bad one either. Songs are quite okay, but treads the usual path of pop songs that are being released now a days. With a voice like that he could have surely done a much better work. 

How to be a successful blogger a la Govind Tiwari...

I was checking news today when I came upon this Indian blog that hit the bull's eye by becoming an overnight sensation on Twitter and Facebook. He is even featured on leading newspapers as a human interest story. So how did Govind Tiwari managed to be a mini celebrity? What are the techniques adopted by this blogger to get an enormous traffic hike in just days?

For answers have a look at his blog govindtiwari.blogspot.com and you will come to know that for getting attention in today's world you need not do any hard work. What you need is a blog with a really freaky template, some of your crazy, in literal sense, photos, basic knowledge in photoshop to screw them up, a demo version video making software, an absence of imagination or a sense of aesthetics and lot of love, for yourself...!

I have been wasting my time, thinking of interesting topics to write in this space, of new words and of making situations just to show them off, of how to promote it so that some unsuspecting reader finds me and read what I have to say. This guy, like that Brahman, who challenged the circus performer, who jumped through a ring of fire, to jump without ring or even fire like he did, became the winning horse on whom no one cared to bet.

Wishing Govind Tiwari best of luck in future endeavors and a happy blogging life...

Treadmill: A Never Ending Run

Treadmill is a Hindi play written by Sandeep Shikhar and directed by Abhishek Majumdar.  It is a comedy about the futility and emptiness experienced on the run for survival in the modern world. Treadmill is a metaphor used throughout the play for depicting the never ending run without any aim. After a session on treadmill you realize that you have not reached any where, you are on the starting point itself. 

Four characters enact all the characters. The play starts with a couple deciding to part. Then the hero meets a guy to whom he tells his story. How he meets the girl, falls in love and manages to marry her. From then onwards it is a downward spiral. Days and months passes by when their life gets into the prison of routine, work, communication by SMS. Slowly different characters from different walks of life emerges on the stage. The common point that binds them all is their never ending search, one which does not get them any where unfortunately. Finally the guy who hears the story becomes a part of it. He claims that the story is his. In the end audience realizes that what they just saw was an episode from their life. 

Great acting and superb direction. The plot is a bit confusing initially, but slowly gets engaging. What would have been a monotonous grey depiction of a married couple's life gets its colors from many interesting sub characters coming on stage at various points of play with their existential burdens on the shoulders. All in all a good watch...