I have a friend who wants to change ‘the’ world. I have asked him to change ‘his’ world for starters. Many of us strive for change, and feel a need to initiate it, especially as youngsters. With time, and as practical realities dawn upon us, we often become cynical and soon a sense of apathy takes over. Walking a tightrope every single moment of our adult lives, we seldom have the privilege to extend our sights beyond our own narrow personal domain. While a majority of us settle down to languid domesticity, a rare few manage to rise above all, to initiate and spearhead change that each generation experiences in some form or the other.
I feel lucky in many ways to have witnessed many changes that others fail to see in eons: from the fall of the Berlin wall to the break up of the Soviet Union, the changing of the millennium to the very recent change of guard in Nepal. I have seen more than a normal share of change, but I am still to see my kind of it. I understand when my friend gets frustrated at the pace of change, and the way the masses do not react, as he would have liked them to. He wants to change the world, but he often feels helpless and lonely when faced with the reality of things.
My friend wants to change the world, and he wants the world to change with him. There are the rare few who successfully move the masses, but just how many manage to reach such a position? Does change always come in groups? Does ‘one’ really make a difference? I have discussed in length with many people about this, but have failed to come up with any concrete answers.
A few months back on a trip to Bangkok, I refused to have shark fin soup. I felt it a very harmful indulgence, and though a few detractors scoffed at my stance, I was able to wean the other members of my family away from the delicacy. One person staying away from shark fin soup will do no good for the world shark population, but if every person who says ‘no’ to it convinces at least one other person to do so, it will definitely make an impact.
Change does require the masses, but it starts with one. We can wait for change to come: an end to poaching, an end to CFCs, an end to discrimination, and end to… Or we can start with one.
Friday, May 26, 2006
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Return to innocence: sweet nothings
The best thing about growing up has been taking stock of things and taking responsibility. I often look back and wonder at the pace at which time has moved on. Things have changed for the better or for worse, but I do not have any major regrets as such. There are moments though, when I long for the days of old, the moments of innocent bliss. I had a lot of time to kill then, and I still have quite a bit of time to kill now, but when was the last time I sent a mail to a friend or a loved one, just because I wanted to? Mention my name, and many may talk of detailed and very regular emails. My habits haven’t changed much: my mails drop into inboxes as often as they did in the past. I have changed though, and so my mails.
I remember remembering to remember uttering pleasantries for every little thing, from a smile to a swagger. Sweet nothings were everything, and everything else did not mean very much. I did not need a reason to smile or a purpose to utter endearments. Some called me romantic, others genial and friendly, and yet some others, a treat to know. I may have been all that, but I was just me, and innocent.
I am still the same me, though more mature and sadly less innocent. I smile still, I mail as much, but I have forgotten the art of sweet nothings: I need a purpose now for every single gesture!
I remember remembering to remember uttering pleasantries for every little thing, from a smile to a swagger. Sweet nothings were everything, and everything else did not mean very much. I did not need a reason to smile or a purpose to utter endearments. Some called me romantic, others genial and friendly, and yet some others, a treat to know. I may have been all that, but I was just me, and innocent.
I am still the same me, though more mature and sadly less innocent. I smile still, I mail as much, but I have forgotten the art of sweet nothings: I need a purpose now for every single gesture!
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Right turn
A few months ago, a friend was planning a South Asian rock festival to be held in Kathmandu. Contacting the bands and getting them to agree to perform did not pose much of a problem, finding sponsors was quite a deal, but the biggest hurdle turned out to be finding a venue big enough to accommodate the crowd that we anticipated. Dasrath Rangashalla was an option, but, as we found out, it took much more than just the charges and the relevant no-objection-certificates to be able to stage an event there. It was more about ‘sources’ and ‘whoreses’ than about technical and financial formalities. Anyway, while we were pondering about the other options, a senior journalist gave us an interesting insight, “Just wait a while. A republic is on the cards – then you can have your concert in the palace grounds.”
People power in recent times has meant different things to different people. For some of our political leaders, it has meant a return to familiar grounds: even before the prime minister was sworn in, they were already squabbling over portfolios. Quotes and misquotes have blown huge gaps in the apparent show of strength and unity among the political parties. Those with portfolio are having their say, but others without are drowning their voices.
As many say, for Kantipur TV, as an outcome of the movement, and its role in relaying the administration’s high-handedness to the masses, it will be a positive nod finally to its satellite dreams. I have been told about some people making trips abroad, and that only means the opening up of floodgates to foreign funds. For me personally, with the heat on in full blast, it has meant a welcome end to load shedding.
The recent turn of events have indeed brought a world of change to this nation. Every individual may find his/her own meaning to the movement and its fallout. I have my own, though I wonder, has this been about being able to park in no-parking zones? Has this movement been about the right to openly flout existing rules and regulations? Has it been about the right to do wrong?
Do you turn right now, where turning right is disallowed?
People power in recent times has meant different things to different people. For some of our political leaders, it has meant a return to familiar grounds: even before the prime minister was sworn in, they were already squabbling over portfolios. Quotes and misquotes have blown huge gaps in the apparent show of strength and unity among the political parties. Those with portfolio are having their say, but others without are drowning their voices.
As many say, for Kantipur TV, as an outcome of the movement, and its role in relaying the administration’s high-handedness to the masses, it will be a positive nod finally to its satellite dreams. I have been told about some people making trips abroad, and that only means the opening up of floodgates to foreign funds. For me personally, with the heat on in full blast, it has meant a welcome end to load shedding.
The recent turn of events have indeed brought a world of change to this nation. Every individual may find his/her own meaning to the movement and its fallout. I have my own, though I wonder, has this been about being able to park in no-parking zones? Has this movement been about the right to openly flout existing rules and regulations? Has it been about the right to do wrong?
Do you turn right now, where turning right is disallowed?
Friday, May 12, 2006
Just thanks...
I remember joking with a friend about my mobile phone: ‘I rarely make calls from it, and I receive even less. Even among the rare few that come, most are wrong numbers’. Looking up my call records, I have found that I make the most calls to my ISP’s support centre. I take ‘customer is king’ literally and I have very itchy fingers when it comes to Internet service. The slightest of faults and I am all set to pour my ire on the support people. It may appear that my ISP’s service is appalling, but to be honest, I am quite happy with it. I just hate disruptions and I make it a point to make it known that I do.
Recently I made the switch to a Mac. I got myself an Airport Express Base Station and took my first step into the WiFi realm. Setup was a breeze, but I had to call my ISP yet again to have the base station’s MAC registered. I was expecting a long procedure, but to my surprise, it hardly took a minute to get it done and over with. In fact the person who took my call asked me to try my connection and to get back to him if I had any problems connecting. It was not much of a big deal, but I felt really special: the service was instant, and the person very helpful and polite. I ended up sending a thank you note to the support team.
Sending that note made me remember the words of my former Principal, Francis Fanthome, who is now a senior official of the I.C.S.E Board. One day, when I was in Class VII, Mr Fanthome asked everyone in school to submit to him in small slips of paper, what changes we thought were necessary in our school. As he told us during morning assembly a couple of days later, the list compiled from those slips ran long, but the most common entry was for a swimming pool, which was rumoured to be built the following year. After running through the most common entries, he ended his address by saying that he was disappointed in some ways not to have received a single note saying thanks - the school was just fine as it was. It was only natural for us to expect more from the school, but as he reminded us, there were so many things we had access to, which many others did not.
As a kid, Mr. Fanthome’s words did not strike home, but now it does, loud and clear. Just how many things we take for granted when they are okay. Why are we never grateful for things that work? Why do we only make calls to complain?
I take pride in not being too stingy a person, but why am I so miserly when it comes to ‘thank yous’? I have lost count of the complaints I have made this year: I have made just so many. I can neither count the thank yous I have said so far: there have been too few of them to keep a count of.
Thank Yous come for free – why am I so miserly with them?
Recently I made the switch to a Mac. I got myself an Airport Express Base Station and took my first step into the WiFi realm. Setup was a breeze, but I had to call my ISP yet again to have the base station’s MAC registered. I was expecting a long procedure, but to my surprise, it hardly took a minute to get it done and over with. In fact the person who took my call asked me to try my connection and to get back to him if I had any problems connecting. It was not much of a big deal, but I felt really special: the service was instant, and the person very helpful and polite. I ended up sending a thank you note to the support team.
Sending that note made me remember the words of my former Principal, Francis Fanthome, who is now a senior official of the I.C.S.E Board. One day, when I was in Class VII, Mr Fanthome asked everyone in school to submit to him in small slips of paper, what changes we thought were necessary in our school. As he told us during morning assembly a couple of days later, the list compiled from those slips ran long, but the most common entry was for a swimming pool, which was rumoured to be built the following year. After running through the most common entries, he ended his address by saying that he was disappointed in some ways not to have received a single note saying thanks - the school was just fine as it was. It was only natural for us to expect more from the school, but as he reminded us, there were so many things we had access to, which many others did not.
As a kid, Mr. Fanthome’s words did not strike home, but now it does, loud and clear. Just how many things we take for granted when they are okay. Why are we never grateful for things that work? Why do we only make calls to complain?
I take pride in not being too stingy a person, but why am I so miserly when it comes to ‘thank yous’? I have lost count of the complaints I have made this year: I have made just so many. I can neither count the thank yous I have said so far: there have been too few of them to keep a count of.
Thank Yous come for free – why am I so miserly with them?
Sunday, May 07, 2006
Sympathy for the devil
A couple of years ago, one of my friends was out in the streets shooting some footage of an ongoing political protest. He came back one evening rather distraught at the brick batting on the security personnel by a group of protesters. My friend, despite not being a big fan of the security forces, found them displaying restraint in their crowd control efforts, and found fault with the protesters. On my part, I sided with the protestors and explained that faced with 364 days of police and army high-handedness, if I was to get that single day to get back at them, to kick their butt, I would jump ahead. Even if I were not provoked directly, getting back would be sweet, and given the track record of our security personnel, justified.
Living in Kathmandu, I am familiar with the skirmishes on the street between protesters and the security forces. The recent flare up was unprecedented, and we saw police brutality escalate, as a result of which, the already tarnished image of the security forces plummeted to a new low. Thankfully, a semblance of order has returned to the Valley with the restoration of the House of Representatives. The general mood is upbeat and the sense of impending doom has been replaced with one of expectation. It is a big relief to see this city shed its image of being a virtual war zone: barbed wire fences, armed forces patrolling the streets and checkpoint and manifests in every nook and corner.
Recently on my way back from New Road, I passed by a group of Armed Police personnel. It was a hot day, and they were seeking shade in a narrow alley. Some of them were nibbling at biscuits, a few were drinking water from discarded Coke pet bottles, and many had earphones on and were listening probably to music on FM radio. All of them looked weather beaten – tanned faces, red eyes and taut, tired bodies. Apart from the uniform they wore, they looked exactly the same as the common person on the street, as vulnerable and as human. I was surprised. Was it these very people we saw as the devil’s reincarnate just a fortnight ago?
I have never felt any sympathy for security personnel, but looking at that group of ragged police people, I felt I had been unjust to some extent. Admitted that they do take their role of ‘maintaining order’ a bit too seriously at times, they are as human as each one of us. I guess they have the same aspirations as every other human and so the insecurities and worries. The people higher up the ranks maybe an entirely different breed, but the ones at the bottom, as I see it now, have to bear the worse of both worlds: they face orders, often against their own principles, that come from above, and then the wrath and disdain of the people in general they face in following those orders.
The pay packet to say the least is miserable and the uniform comes with an unenviable reputation and loads and loads of contempt and loathing. Putting things in perspective, for once, my sympathies are for the devil.
Living in Kathmandu, I am familiar with the skirmishes on the street between protesters and the security forces. The recent flare up was unprecedented, and we saw police brutality escalate, as a result of which, the already tarnished image of the security forces plummeted to a new low. Thankfully, a semblance of order has returned to the Valley with the restoration of the House of Representatives. The general mood is upbeat and the sense of impending doom has been replaced with one of expectation. It is a big relief to see this city shed its image of being a virtual war zone: barbed wire fences, armed forces patrolling the streets and checkpoint and manifests in every nook and corner.
Recently on my way back from New Road, I passed by a group of Armed Police personnel. It was a hot day, and they were seeking shade in a narrow alley. Some of them were nibbling at biscuits, a few were drinking water from discarded Coke pet bottles, and many had earphones on and were listening probably to music on FM radio. All of them looked weather beaten – tanned faces, red eyes and taut, tired bodies. Apart from the uniform they wore, they looked exactly the same as the common person on the street, as vulnerable and as human. I was surprised. Was it these very people we saw as the devil’s reincarnate just a fortnight ago?
I have never felt any sympathy for security personnel, but looking at that group of ragged police people, I felt I had been unjust to some extent. Admitted that they do take their role of ‘maintaining order’ a bit too seriously at times, they are as human as each one of us. I guess they have the same aspirations as every other human and so the insecurities and worries. The people higher up the ranks maybe an entirely different breed, but the ones at the bottom, as I see it now, have to bear the worse of both worlds: they face orders, often against their own principles, that come from above, and then the wrath and disdain of the people in general they face in following those orders.
The pay packet to say the least is miserable and the uniform comes with an unenviable reputation and loads and loads of contempt and loathing. Putting things in perspective, for once, my sympathies are for the devil.
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Ground Reality
As a freelancer, I have been involved with many different projects in the past. About a year ago, along with a couple of friends, I was assigned to create and launch an advertising portal. My main role was content creation, though, I took up anything that came up, from formulating concepts to site updating. It was a novel project, at least in the Nepali context, and we were quite pleased with the initial response that we received from our visitors and the advertising fraternity.
Being a close knit group, and involved with something new and interesting, we put in our efforts without a receiving a single paise in advance. Since we knew the people we were working for, it was granted that we would be paid for our services when the time was ripe. The arrangement went on from a month to two and then to four, at the end of which it finally dawned on us that our effort so far may have been in vain. Our employer did not have the best of reputations as a paymaster, but we were banking on his better side. Well as this story goes, it has been almost a year now and we have almost given up on our hopes of seeing even a fraction of our rightful remuneration in out hands. And, this was not a one-off incident. Sometime back I worked on creating brochures for a reputed software company just prior to CAN-Infotech 2005. It was not a big deal at all, and taking the size of the company, a miniscule expense, but it took me over a year and countless emails to finally get them to part with what was due to me. And then there was a school magazine I edited three years ago – I did my job well, the magazine came out good, but the director and the principal conveniently forgot about my remuneration.
Well, this has started as a crib, but that is not really the point I am making. I am regularly in touch with youngsters who have big and blown out aspirations. I wish I could tell them how different the ground realities are from what they study or think it to be. I especially hate reading the Wednesday supplement of a popular English daily that comes out in Nepal. Yes, they do fill it with a lot of strategic stuff, debates and profiles that would do any business and management book proud, but putting them into perspective, they are nothing but bloated and hollow ego-boosters implying that Nepali business and industry is ‘professional’.
Our industry leaders can make bold and moving statements, but ask them to make something as simple as on-time payments and they will buckle. Our articles and quotes are liberally sprinkled with theories and ideas from luminaries like Peter Drucker, but the only theory that really works here is, ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’. Delaying payments is the corporate pastime, and ‘relativity’, the hiring principle (if you are a relative, you’re in).
Salaries are abysmally low, not that living costs and standards are cheap, but the employers just refuse to let go of the lot they make. Beware ‘internship offers’ and shun all pep talk. Interns are basically ‘free’ workers and a very good cost cutting measure. Pep talks, well, I have had first hand experience with it – in fact I sustained on it alone for over four years in a company I worked for before finally coming to my senses and quitting. There is an inverse relationship between the money you get and the pep talk that you have to bear with.
Infidelity is in – not in marital terms, but in employment. If you think of ‘lifelong-relationships’, get ready to be ground to the ground. ‘Hop, skip and jump’ is the best and the surest way of climbing up corporate ladder in Nepal. Dedication is essential where you are, and in what you are doing, but don’t get tied up and attached to your work or company – you lose if you do.
It is wrong to generalize, and there are many organizations where things run differently, but I think a lot of people will agree to what I say.
We portray ourselves as a poor people belonging to a poor nation. I disagree – we are ordinary people impoverished by a few poor-at-heart.
Being a close knit group, and involved with something new and interesting, we put in our efforts without a receiving a single paise in advance. Since we knew the people we were working for, it was granted that we would be paid for our services when the time was ripe. The arrangement went on from a month to two and then to four, at the end of which it finally dawned on us that our effort so far may have been in vain. Our employer did not have the best of reputations as a paymaster, but we were banking on his better side. Well as this story goes, it has been almost a year now and we have almost given up on our hopes of seeing even a fraction of our rightful remuneration in out hands. And, this was not a one-off incident. Sometime back I worked on creating brochures for a reputed software company just prior to CAN-Infotech 2005. It was not a big deal at all, and taking the size of the company, a miniscule expense, but it took me over a year and countless emails to finally get them to part with what was due to me. And then there was a school magazine I edited three years ago – I did my job well, the magazine came out good, but the director and the principal conveniently forgot about my remuneration.
Well, this has started as a crib, but that is not really the point I am making. I am regularly in touch with youngsters who have big and blown out aspirations. I wish I could tell them how different the ground realities are from what they study or think it to be. I especially hate reading the Wednesday supplement of a popular English daily that comes out in Nepal. Yes, they do fill it with a lot of strategic stuff, debates and profiles that would do any business and management book proud, but putting them into perspective, they are nothing but bloated and hollow ego-boosters implying that Nepali business and industry is ‘professional’.
Our industry leaders can make bold and moving statements, but ask them to make something as simple as on-time payments and they will buckle. Our articles and quotes are liberally sprinkled with theories and ideas from luminaries like Peter Drucker, but the only theory that really works here is, ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’. Delaying payments is the corporate pastime, and ‘relativity’, the hiring principle (if you are a relative, you’re in).
Salaries are abysmally low, not that living costs and standards are cheap, but the employers just refuse to let go of the lot they make. Beware ‘internship offers’ and shun all pep talk. Interns are basically ‘free’ workers and a very good cost cutting measure. Pep talks, well, I have had first hand experience with it – in fact I sustained on it alone for over four years in a company I worked for before finally coming to my senses and quitting. There is an inverse relationship between the money you get and the pep talk that you have to bear with.
Infidelity is in – not in marital terms, but in employment. If you think of ‘lifelong-relationships’, get ready to be ground to the ground. ‘Hop, skip and jump’ is the best and the surest way of climbing up corporate ladder in Nepal. Dedication is essential where you are, and in what you are doing, but don’t get tied up and attached to your work or company – you lose if you do.
It is wrong to generalize, and there are many organizations where things run differently, but I think a lot of people will agree to what I say.
We portray ourselves as a poor people belonging to a poor nation. I disagree – we are ordinary people impoverished by a few poor-at-heart.
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