Sometimes a self-initiated ego trip can go awry. Had launched a “feedback” campaign on FB last week and had invited candid feedback from folks who had worked for me over the past decade and how they rated me as a boss. Pretty narcissistic and an ego-centric request indeed ! I am sure many would have sniggered on reading my somewhat odd request. Others might have secretly smiled and muttered silently, ”Ayon, wish you knew what my honest opinion about you is !”. Well I anticipated all that and yet ventured into this, knowing that this is a comparatively safe territory to tread , since my ex-colleague list on FB would anyway have folks who liked me (& vice versa). So the chances of a damaging 360-degrees was remote.
But truthfully speaking, it was not a compliment fishing expedition. Trust me ,I have been through enough appraisal forums that have provided me sufficient “feel good” feedback stuff(now neatly stacked in my personal folder on my desktop) which remind me anytime what a great guy I am (obviously, there’s also a large majority out there who rate me as a complete jerk. But I wouldn’t ,for the life of me, ask for ,or more importantly store their feedback!). So my purpose of this campaign was not just to hear nice stuff about myself. I generally do a real 360 with my direct reports every year and invite genuine course correcting feedback .I find it genuinely cleansing .Shows me a mirror on many occasions and I invariably emerge a lesser jerk than the year before. But this time around, I thought of extending the scope of the 360 from beyond my immediate team to my ex-teams ,who have worked for me in different situations and at varied maturity levels(of mine).Having worked in 3 different industries over the past decade, across geographies and having handled diverse teams, like anyone else, I have had my share of success stories. I have also seen some gross screw-ups, sometimes due to my teams, and at other times due to me. And I also understand that a manager’s learning curve is a constantly evolving one. I have devoured tons and tons of leadership literature over the past decade, have thrown myself at completely unknown territories, experimented with industries, product lines & functions - in anticipation of stumbling upon the perfect recipe for being a fool-proof leader. I also tried maintaining a steady “board” of role models, whom I kept observing and seeking their opinions at times and tried to emulate them during certain challenging crossroads. However, to be honest, more I dug, more muddled I was. So for the past few years, I have let go of fancy stuff and rely mostly on feedback. My boss never fails to give that to me(without asking, most of the time). I have some great peers who have taken out time on many occasions and politely pointed out development areas. But the most useful feedback I have received ,has been from my DRs, especially when they have been honest. Has helped me become more grounded, evened some of my rough edges and overall has helped me become a better manager of people than what I was, ten years back.
Coming back to this “campaign” of mine last week. I received, in all 53 responses, some of them openly (on my FB wall) and others confidentially, through emails. Luckily, most of them were generic feel-good nice stuff, from folks you stayed connected to, despite hopping organizations. However, there were two responses which I have set aside and these were the ones I had been looking for. They were criticisms. Real serious pointers to my defects and a call for action. Yes, one of them was from someone who worked under me way long back and as he himself had pointed out that my “Style might have changed over these years”. The other one was more an outcome of spite, but wonderfully articulated and also inadvertently slipped in a pearl of wisdom for me to absorb . Nevertheless, they have given me a job at hand and trust me, both of you – I will work on them.
Since I had an hour to spare, I thought of a tete-a-tete with one of them. Not that I owe him any explanation. But maybe to offer him my side of the story so that he doesn’t carry this grudge for the rest our association. See X (Let me call you X) – I fully appreciate your points and know fully (today) why you still hold them against me. However, this is not about today. This is about a 30 year old guy who is suddenly hurled to lead a team of 65 managers, many of them senior to him in terms of age, in a new city, in a new industry. At 30 you often fall for baits. So when Jim threw his “ I need no one but my best guy to go clean that place” line at me, I fell for it and left a role in strategic marketing and headed for an office rated at the bottom of the charts for the organization ,without the faintest of idea what I was letting myself for. Yes, I was “trained” for 2 months for my assignment ("which would take a maximum of 2-3 months" – I was told). Oh yes, did I mention that “Clean-up” meant “Lay-off”, because the average productivity of your office was below the dreaded red line on Jim’s PPT slide (which his crony No. 1 , Mr. Super Jerk , Mani had fed him) ?
SO this was the charter in front of me on the 7th of October(the anniversary of your office in case you remember),when I stood in front of the rowdy group of 65 guys and asked each of you for an introduction, in that stuffy 9th floor office meeting room. During the next 2 hours, as you guys went about your routine, telling me your backgrounds ,your aspirations, your weirdest fantasies (yes, I had asked you to tell me that), with half smiles on your faces (thinking what a clown I was), my mind was in a tizzy. All my grooming over the past 9 weeks evaporated somewhere. I suddenly felt very “alone”. I was seeing a group of guys who were very high on talent but with a severely dented self image. In fact some of you had started believing in your loser status seriously.
By the end of the meeting I had made my decision . I would put in my papers the next morning. There was no way that I would play an undertaker to this group. Let someone else get his hands dirty.
I sat late in office that evening ,drafting a long email to the CEO on why I needed to quit (I made up a story that I was being recalled to my earlier position in my previous company). At around 8PM, I walked down the stairs (There was a power cut and the lift was not working). I walked to the nearby tea stall ,asked for a cup of tea and lit a cigarette. It was then that I spotted a group of you guys near the next stall, some of you hiding your cigarettes & nodding at me. I walked up to the group and asked them if I could join them. That surprised most of them (my predecessors had been mostly middle aged ex-PSU, bureaucratic morons who would never have moved out of their cabins I presume). We chatted routine stuff for some time and even shared a couple of cigarettes, passing them around. One of you dropped me to my hotel in his motorbike (I did not yet have my car there). The next morning I informed my wife of my decision of quitting and that we would need to figure out how to get the packers and movers re-direct our furniture to Calcutta.
This was not to happen.
When I reached your office on the 8th of October, something looked different. Then I realized what it was. It was FULL. There was not one empty cubicle. And it was NOISY. In the “People” industry, this is a good omen, i.e. when you see that you have folks in at 8.30 AM , discussing work. Also, in the people industry, news travels fast. Somehow, over the past night, this news had travelled that there’s this new “ item” in town who behaves differently from his predecessors ,has bizarre habits & almost taboo traits what they have been made to understand as per the norms of this new industry. So everyone wanted to have a peek at me. I could also sense a positive vibe in the air. By afternoon I had started remembering the names of at least half of you (thanks to my “associative” introductory session the day before). Owing to the constant interruptions of people knocking for something or the other (pending expense claims, signatures, admin stuff), I couldn’t manage to send out my resignation that morning. Then 3 of you asked me if I would like to go for lunch. I said yes. We went to a nearby biryani joint, where I got some more insights into the psyche of the team. When we were finished and were washing our hands, one of the guys softly asked me, “Boss – when is the last day for our office ? We all have our resumes floating , but besides a couple of us, no one has an offer yet. Is it somehow possible that you can hold this for 4-5 months more ?” I had never felt so naked in my life before ! These guys knew why I had been sent ?! And they were still being nice to me ?! I asked him if he knew why this was happening. He patiently explained the background of that office to me. With 5 make shift bosses in 11 months and with 18 layoffs among their colleagues, not to mention the high handedness of the ex-PSU guys and the constancy of the Damocles sword over their heads, frankly they were a team resigned to their fate with zero morale or drive to go and get business. I don’t know why I was feeling so ashamed of myself though I had nothing to do with all of this.
The 8 min ride back to the office was one long one for me.
Back in my cabin, I made a difficult phone call. To my boss ,who incidentally happened to be a pansy and did not have the balls to convey my message above him, and tried to reason with me with some meaningless bullshit.. I had half expected this. So at 6 PM that evening, I sent out my email to the CEO. No, it was not the resignation. It was a proposal that I get 90 days to push up the average productivity of the team above the mean and in return I get to do the micro-managing, head counting etc.
When the email jumped from my lotus notes outbox to the “sent items”, I started praying.
And staring at the phone in front of me.
It finally rang at 7.25. Surprisingly, it was not as bad a conversation as I had imagined. I later came to know (through the CEO’s secy )that there had been a quick meeting that he had called with the Sales head ,after reading my mail . They accepted my proposal and gave me my rope. The condition was, if I was unable to keep my end of the bargain , it would not be good news, for this office, or even for me. I agreed (At 30, you can really be reckless!).
I picked up my phone and called for a late evening meeting if you recall. About 25 of you guys were still around. I cleared the air on the close-shop rumors and told the group that we are back against a wall and we need to push back(You were there in that meeting). I in turn promised that there would be ZERO layoffs (I kept the 3 month thing to myself).
Then magic happened !
If you recall, in November we became the No. 1 team, beating all odds and shaking up the entire organization. We went ahead and repeated it in December and again in January, by when people started believing that it was not a fluke. By the time when Sam took over, your office was rated among the top offices in the country and the whole story of closing it down had died a silent death. In fact we moved to a bigger, swankier office in February. While branches across the country got downsized and kept churning sales forces, our branches remained unscathed, untouched and largely stable. If you recall , one of your colleagues suffered from a near fatal accident in November and was in coma for a month and paralyzed and indisposed for another 4 months. Even HE was not let to go and remained on the rolls.
There were peak performers There were average Joes and there were complete duds in your group. However, this segregation never reflected in my weekly reports to my boss.
I understand your angst when you say I never differentiated between good guys and bad guys. I understood it back then too. But couldn’t bring myself to publish a segmented performance evaluation, lest it invites the ire of the management. So while I encouraged the top guys and treated them royally (Remember our Bacardi sessions in the parking lot after work ? And I was supposed to be your boss, right ?!!), I was also working on the laggards, trying to pick them up and celebrating with more vigor when one of them delivered a hit. For a good performer like you, it was like “Why is this joker treating those 40 idiots as nicely as he treats me ,and sometimes even better ?” Well , for me, those 40 “idiots” were providers for 40 families. To lay off someone is the easiest thing in the world. But to set right the self-image of a defeated person seemed more important to me. Incidentally, one of the “idiots” has also sent me a note last week. He is currently heading the west zone for one of the best FS companies ,based in Bombay. He drives a Skoda Superb and is looking at some property in Lokhandwala . Not bad ,eh ,for someone you felt deserved to be sacked so many years back ?
But yes,classically speaking I agree with you 100% that top performers need to be given daily reassurances that they are rock stars . I will keep this in mind.
Secondly, on micro managing. You need to appreciate that as a young manager, you are scrutinized much more than a grey haired manager & you need to keep proving yourself every single day to keep people’s respect alive. I have always believed in one thing. If I need to feel someone to be my boss, he has to be better than me in all aspects. Period. I apply the same rule for myself when I am someone’s boss. That was the reason, I used to insist on making those 2 sales calls a day. In fact if you recollect, the biggest business of your M06 branch was logged in on the 19th of February that year . And in case you also remember, I was the one who had closed that deal on behalf of one of your colleagues. Not that I was going to earn any commission out of that. But because, I was going to earn the respect of my crew that their captain can sell as good as, if not better than them. You also need to remember that I was an unlikely challenger to many middle aged “domain specialists” who were constantly keeping an eye on me and waiting for an opportunity to crucify me. That was my battle with my learned peers too . That’s an old worldly self-defense most sales guys have. I am no exception.
As for getting personal about work targets, well that’s a serious defect in me. Never was able to shrug it off. I am a bad loser. I love to win. And if someone beats me, I take it personally . Yes, over the years, I have mellowed. But this defect still pops up every year when my boss appraises me. He asks me to correct this trait. I nod sagely .And I forget it the next day. Sorry about that.
So X – that was the background of my three follies which you still remember so strongly. Hope you understand me better now. My intention was not to show you that I am God. I am not. I am a mere mortal and have loads of defects. However, I genuinely strive to course correct myself so that I have lesser and lesser complaints from folks who I end up rubbing the wrong way.
I took more than an hour to write all that. Hope that gives you the confirmation that you still matter a lot to me and I really care for your opinions. Take care and do well. Call me when you are in Delhi. We should meet for a drink.
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Thursday, 21 April 2011
Bardi Ma lives....
There are times when you feel the news before you actually hear it. I was on my usual Monday evening weekly review calls from my cellphone when two flashing call-on-hold intimations from Bablu Mama’s number silently conveyed the message, which I had been dreading all evening and yet expecting. Curiously, it was also calming , the fact that finally the three week ordeal had ended. As it happens at every moment in every part of the world, a life had just ended. However, for me and many more people like me, it was not just a life that drifted off the face of the earth. It signified the end of an era. It signified the end of an institution. It signified the culmination of the journey of one of the feistiest women I have ever known ,a journey which began in the earlier part of the 20th century in Dhaka, Bangladesh and concluded in a small private nursing home in the sleepy coal town of Asansol at 7.30Pm on the 10th of January 2011.
More than a hundred people had gathered at the nursing home, braving one of the chilliest winter evenings in recent times, each person in various stages of mourning. While some were sobbing profusely, others were grim , lost in thoughts, sad thoughts as they realized that this is the last glimpse they were having of this person, who had touched their lives in some positive way or the other over the past seven decades. There were handful of her contemporaries, a handful of family members who had travelled from far flung corners of the country to be by her in her final journey, while most of the crowd was a heterogeneous ensemble of people who were strangers to one another. From a retired school peon to the local mayor, from a sweetmeat vendor to a semi paralyzed doctor ,to name a few & who were, at this moment, bonded in a strange, undefined bond by the woman who lay lifeless on the bed inside the ICU having battled a cerebral breakdown leading to a multiple organ failure over the past few days where she had been oblivious to her condition, as she lay coma ridden on the hospital bed as her bed sores assumed terrifying proportions and scared onlookers. Thankfully she did not have to endure the pain of the bedsores. For that matter, she would not have to endure any pain any longer. Finally she would be at peace. Quite a farewell to a Government Higher Secondary School teacher, who had retired fourteen years back.
I knew I had to write something. We Hindus don’t do eulogies. However, I felt a burning need to write my thoughts at this hour of my life lest they evaporate as I go about my “productive” life , in my corporate disguise, where emotions are considered a baggage and hearts are not supposed to be worn on your sleeves. I needed to write this for myself. I don’t need any readers. I don’t need any appreciation. For that matter, I might not even publish it on any of my blogs too. This story doesn’t need to be told. It just needs to be documented. And felt. It’s a story of courage. It’s a story of love. It’s the story of a matriarch who built not one ,but many fine homes. It’s a story where I too figure in, in a miniscule way, and therefore would want my daughter to feel it with the same intensity as I do, someday. She needs to know someday that had it not been for this woman, her father might not have come to this world in the first place …..
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Shobha Ganguly was the first child of Shri Gopal Ganguly and Smt Prafulla Bala Ganguly. She was in her teens when her father, a strapping handsome police officer in Bengal Police had to swap positions owing to the outbreak of communal unrest and assume a new responsibility in India. Despite persuasion from his Muslim colleagues and friends, the senior Mr. Ganguly refused to sell of the family properties in Dhaka. “This is just a temporary phase,” he said, “We will soon be back. We belong to East Bengal, and can’t live anywhere else”.
This was not to happen. It was during Shobha’s graduation that Mr.Ganguly succumbed to a fatal cardiac arrest , still in his 40s, leaving behind a family of 5 daughters and 5 sons ( 3 were their own and 2 were adopted, abandoned kids of poor homes). The onus now came upon the young Shobha to put food on the table for this large family living in a semi constructed palatial house which the senior Mr.Ganguly had started building ambitiously in the upcoming mofoussil coal pocket of Asansol. She took up a job with the Indian Railways while pursuing her masters. She went ahead to obtain a double MA, while at the same time holding together her siblings who were in various stages of their growing years. While the eldest son was pursuing his engineering, the youngest was barely four years old, and who incidentally was the same person who was trying to reach me last evening and finally when we spoke, the 55 year old CEO of a Multinational Organization broke down like a small child who has just lost his mother. He wanted to speak to his closest sibling, the 4th of the 5 daughters and his closest confidante and compatriot during their orphaned teens. And when I did connect them on the phone, they did not speak. They just wept. And silently they consoled one another that their surrogate parent was no more. They were finally orphaned more than five decades after the departure of their father and more than three decades after the departure of their mother. It was heart breaking to see my 60 year old Ma weeping helplessly like a child, while my daughter held her hand, trying to console her.
There are names which define some people and then there are people who define their names. While for the sake of description, I mentioned her real name. But Shobha Ganguly was to be known as “Bar di”(meaning elder sister in Bengali). And Bardi she was, to everyone in her generation . I never heard anyone address her by any other name. And when newer generations arrived, they just added a “Ma” to it. So she was “Bardi Ma” to all of us cousins and going forward she became “Bardi Ma Didaan” for my daughter’s generation. And elder sister she was. Those were turbulent decades in the post-independence Bengal which saw many upheavals and unrests. Brilliant careers were stopped short by pseudo-intellectual and wayward political ideologies. Many a home lay disintegrated as the scions abandoned their academics in pursuit of a “meaningful” life and ended up in front of a police bullet. But this was not to happen to the Ganguly household. Bardi ensured that all her five brothers got the best professional grooming in the best engineering institutions from ISM to IIT, while the sisters went ahead to graduate and post graduate with honors. She got most of her younger siblings married before entering her own married life in her early 40s with a quiet, sensitive and a fine gentleman. When she got widowed within 10 years of her marriage, she accepted her destiny with the same calm and dignity that she had always conducted herself with. She had a 9 year old daughter to take care of. With more than 20 years of motherhood experience, she was possibly aged beyond her years when her own biological child arrived and she ended up being both parents to her, temperamental at times and excessively indulgent at other times.
All that was statistics. Let me now tell you about the person herself.
Standing at 5’2”, she was the shortest among the siblings. However, she was one of the most strikingly beautiful women I have seen. Her early photographs showing her in a stylish sari and a sleeveless blouse , in her reading glasses could be mistaken for a movie star of the 50s. While all sisters were endowed with long hair, she had the longest, which reached her ankles. Possibly God graced her with a beauty that did not require much maintenance, knowing that she did not have the luxury or time for that. So even on her 75th birthday, most of her hair had miraculously escaped greying.
Bardi Ma was one of the most engaging and entertaining conversationists I have known. Maybe her diverse and difficult life gave her all the snippets that we would flock to hear from her. I don’t remember any occasion when Bardi Ma was visiting us and we did not end up listening to her anecdotes till wee hours into the night. She was a natural entertainer whom you loved to listen to. However, she was also an empathetic speaker, taking in your interjections and points of view and listening while speaking. And stories she had ! From the outright hilarious ones like when she would board a train , peer into the dark compartment and ask casually, “Bhai toraa chor naa passenger ?” (Brothers, are you robbers or passengers ?), to her narrations of the Naxal era of Bengal(I have heard how she used to get actual naxalite youths to escort her home at night, saying “Ektu baari chhere de to re, aaj kaal ei Naxal der utpaat e aar paara jaaye naa” (Please drop me home. These days the Naxals have made life very unsafe). Though she never sounded her political ideologies, I presume she was a leftist. One day, she casually mentioned a party meeting she had chaired in Burdwan with Utpal Dutt, the then upcoming socio political commentator who later on went to become the film star Utpal Dutt. I thought she was fibbing. Then one day I actually saw photographs of Bardi with Utpal Dutt, Bhanu Bandopadhyay, Sabitri Chatterjee etc. which made me feel ashamed at having disbelieved my larger than life Maashi. Despite her killing work schedule and frequent transfers, she took out time to act in a few plays with renowned troups as a pastime.
She was not always her twinkle eyed, humorous self. I have seen her erupt into an uncharacteristic rage as she reprimanded my father one day when my parents were having a disagreement. Even my mercurial father did not react or raise his voice at her. Possibly that was the years of deep seated respect he had for her, seeing her at close quarters for so long that in a way, she was a family elder to him rather than a sister in law. Even in her 70s, I have seen many tough guys (and Asansol is a rough neighborhood) go timid and oblige when Bardi asked for something. As the nest grew empty over the years ,as the siblings got scattered by way of marriage, careers or even death, Bardi remained the custodian of the “Jahaaj Baari” that her father had started building. Though now complete, in recent years, the house bore a haunted look as she locked up most portions of the house and remained confined to one corner bedroom and a small kitchen. In a typical day you spent with her in the house, you would see a steady flow of visitors, from her ex-students to some neighbors to complete strangers accompanying others. Everyone was welcome. And everyone knew that she was moody. One day, I heard her hollering from the kitchen, “Oi Malaakaar taa Jodi aaj aabaar aashe, ore juto mere baar korum” (If that Malaakaar fellow shows up today, I will boot him out), only to realize that Malaakaar was standing just outside her kitchen at that moment. Without batting an eyelid, Bardi says “Oh, aaishaa porsho, bosho taahole, Chaa khaaiyaa jeo” (SO you have come,eh ? Anyway, sit and have a cup of tea). That was the rapport she enjoyed with everyone. No one minded her insults because they knew that beneath the toughened exterior lived their Bardi, who genuinely wished well for them.
I need to tell you now how she was beyond being just my maashi. My mother suffered a cerebral thrombosis at the age of 17 and was hospitalized for close to two years (CMC ,and later PG).Thrombosis was a deadly thing to happen those days with hardly any avenues for treatment. It is still deadly. So naturally ,everybody had given up hope and had started counting days when she would depart. Everyone, except Bardi. She just refused to accept it. She brought her to Calcutta. She used her political connections to get Ma a proper bed in the overcrowded CMC and ensured that she gets the best doctor to see her. Yes, it took a long time. Yes, it left my Ma’s left wrist mildly paralyzed. But she lived. She completed her graduation after that. Got married. And my brother and I got to see the world. And I have heard from Ma that during those two years, there was not one single day, that Bardi did not go to see her. Must have been tough on her really, as she was posted in Burdwan district and used to take the first train out ,go to Calcutta, see Ma, and then get to work. No wonder Ma slipped into her stoic silence last evening, intermittently breaking into sobs. These are heavy bonds.
The other day, I was boastfully mentioning to someone that of late my day starts with China time and ends with US time, suggesting that I have really arrived in life. Reflecting on Bardi ma’s “career” per se, her days were not defined by geographies, but by human beings. How many double MA s were around in the mid 20th century in India ? And how many of them settled for an obscure career and a life of anonymity just to ensure that people around could get better lives ? Okay, she was the eldest sibling no doubt. But what stopped her from becoming a rebel at 20 ? What stopped her from eloping with someone to escape the drudgeries of a ramshackle home and a dozen hungry mouths to feed ? Her career was her family which she steadfastly built on some basic good values. When I was younger, I used to bask in the glory of the professional accomplishments of my uncles (all of whom reached the helms of big organizations).But today as I am in the middle of my life, I really feel prouder of Bardi than of anyone else. That was a life well spent.
Death is probably the only assured outcome of any birth. Everyone has to die. But once in a while there come people who leave behind a legacy in the lives they touch. They spread good will and warmth. They remind you that love is not old fashioned yet. I mentioned my youngest mama. Well, he and I have not being getting along for the past couple of years. Possibly both being hard sales nuts, we have the unspoken professional rivalry between us. However, yesterday, when I heard him weep on the phone, something changed. Our commonness in our grief washed away our foolish worldly baggage. Both of us had suffered the same loss which united us. I made it a point to make amends with him soon. Maybe this was Bardi ma’s last lesson for me.
Last evening, I poured my regular measures to make things look normal. However, the drink did not taste as good as other days. Late into the night, once I spied that my wife was asleep, I switched off the reading lamp and lay my heavy head on the pillow.
I cried.
More than a hundred people had gathered at the nursing home, braving one of the chilliest winter evenings in recent times, each person in various stages of mourning. While some were sobbing profusely, others were grim , lost in thoughts, sad thoughts as they realized that this is the last glimpse they were having of this person, who had touched their lives in some positive way or the other over the past seven decades. There were handful of her contemporaries, a handful of family members who had travelled from far flung corners of the country to be by her in her final journey, while most of the crowd was a heterogeneous ensemble of people who were strangers to one another. From a retired school peon to the local mayor, from a sweetmeat vendor to a semi paralyzed doctor ,to name a few & who were, at this moment, bonded in a strange, undefined bond by the woman who lay lifeless on the bed inside the ICU having battled a cerebral breakdown leading to a multiple organ failure over the past few days where she had been oblivious to her condition, as she lay coma ridden on the hospital bed as her bed sores assumed terrifying proportions and scared onlookers. Thankfully she did not have to endure the pain of the bedsores. For that matter, she would not have to endure any pain any longer. Finally she would be at peace. Quite a farewell to a Government Higher Secondary School teacher, who had retired fourteen years back.
I knew I had to write something. We Hindus don’t do eulogies. However, I felt a burning need to write my thoughts at this hour of my life lest they evaporate as I go about my “productive” life , in my corporate disguise, where emotions are considered a baggage and hearts are not supposed to be worn on your sleeves. I needed to write this for myself. I don’t need any readers. I don’t need any appreciation. For that matter, I might not even publish it on any of my blogs too. This story doesn’t need to be told. It just needs to be documented. And felt. It’s a story of courage. It’s a story of love. It’s the story of a matriarch who built not one ,but many fine homes. It’s a story where I too figure in, in a miniscule way, and therefore would want my daughter to feel it with the same intensity as I do, someday. She needs to know someday that had it not been for this woman, her father might not have come to this world in the first place …..
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Shobha Ganguly was the first child of Shri Gopal Ganguly and Smt Prafulla Bala Ganguly. She was in her teens when her father, a strapping handsome police officer in Bengal Police had to swap positions owing to the outbreak of communal unrest and assume a new responsibility in India. Despite persuasion from his Muslim colleagues and friends, the senior Mr. Ganguly refused to sell of the family properties in Dhaka. “This is just a temporary phase,” he said, “We will soon be back. We belong to East Bengal, and can’t live anywhere else”.
This was not to happen. It was during Shobha’s graduation that Mr.Ganguly succumbed to a fatal cardiac arrest , still in his 40s, leaving behind a family of 5 daughters and 5 sons ( 3 were their own and 2 were adopted, abandoned kids of poor homes). The onus now came upon the young Shobha to put food on the table for this large family living in a semi constructed palatial house which the senior Mr.Ganguly had started building ambitiously in the upcoming mofoussil coal pocket of Asansol. She took up a job with the Indian Railways while pursuing her masters. She went ahead to obtain a double MA, while at the same time holding together her siblings who were in various stages of their growing years. While the eldest son was pursuing his engineering, the youngest was barely four years old, and who incidentally was the same person who was trying to reach me last evening and finally when we spoke, the 55 year old CEO of a Multinational Organization broke down like a small child who has just lost his mother. He wanted to speak to his closest sibling, the 4th of the 5 daughters and his closest confidante and compatriot during their orphaned teens. And when I did connect them on the phone, they did not speak. They just wept. And silently they consoled one another that their surrogate parent was no more. They were finally orphaned more than five decades after the departure of their father and more than three decades after the departure of their mother. It was heart breaking to see my 60 year old Ma weeping helplessly like a child, while my daughter held her hand, trying to console her.
There are names which define some people and then there are people who define their names. While for the sake of description, I mentioned her real name. But Shobha Ganguly was to be known as “Bar di”(meaning elder sister in Bengali). And Bardi she was, to everyone in her generation . I never heard anyone address her by any other name. And when newer generations arrived, they just added a “Ma” to it. So she was “Bardi Ma” to all of us cousins and going forward she became “Bardi Ma Didaan” for my daughter’s generation. And elder sister she was. Those were turbulent decades in the post-independence Bengal which saw many upheavals and unrests. Brilliant careers were stopped short by pseudo-intellectual and wayward political ideologies. Many a home lay disintegrated as the scions abandoned their academics in pursuit of a “meaningful” life and ended up in front of a police bullet. But this was not to happen to the Ganguly household. Bardi ensured that all her five brothers got the best professional grooming in the best engineering institutions from ISM to IIT, while the sisters went ahead to graduate and post graduate with honors. She got most of her younger siblings married before entering her own married life in her early 40s with a quiet, sensitive and a fine gentleman. When she got widowed within 10 years of her marriage, she accepted her destiny with the same calm and dignity that she had always conducted herself with. She had a 9 year old daughter to take care of. With more than 20 years of motherhood experience, she was possibly aged beyond her years when her own biological child arrived and she ended up being both parents to her, temperamental at times and excessively indulgent at other times.
All that was statistics. Let me now tell you about the person herself.
Standing at 5’2”, she was the shortest among the siblings. However, she was one of the most strikingly beautiful women I have seen. Her early photographs showing her in a stylish sari and a sleeveless blouse , in her reading glasses could be mistaken for a movie star of the 50s. While all sisters were endowed with long hair, she had the longest, which reached her ankles. Possibly God graced her with a beauty that did not require much maintenance, knowing that she did not have the luxury or time for that. So even on her 75th birthday, most of her hair had miraculously escaped greying.
Bardi Ma was one of the most engaging and entertaining conversationists I have known. Maybe her diverse and difficult life gave her all the snippets that we would flock to hear from her. I don’t remember any occasion when Bardi Ma was visiting us and we did not end up listening to her anecdotes till wee hours into the night. She was a natural entertainer whom you loved to listen to. However, she was also an empathetic speaker, taking in your interjections and points of view and listening while speaking. And stories she had ! From the outright hilarious ones like when she would board a train , peer into the dark compartment and ask casually, “Bhai toraa chor naa passenger ?” (Brothers, are you robbers or passengers ?), to her narrations of the Naxal era of Bengal(I have heard how she used to get actual naxalite youths to escort her home at night, saying “Ektu baari chhere de to re, aaj kaal ei Naxal der utpaat e aar paara jaaye naa” (Please drop me home. These days the Naxals have made life very unsafe). Though she never sounded her political ideologies, I presume she was a leftist. One day, she casually mentioned a party meeting she had chaired in Burdwan with Utpal Dutt, the then upcoming socio political commentator who later on went to become the film star Utpal Dutt. I thought she was fibbing. Then one day I actually saw photographs of Bardi with Utpal Dutt, Bhanu Bandopadhyay, Sabitri Chatterjee etc. which made me feel ashamed at having disbelieved my larger than life Maashi. Despite her killing work schedule and frequent transfers, she took out time to act in a few plays with renowned troups as a pastime.
She was not always her twinkle eyed, humorous self. I have seen her erupt into an uncharacteristic rage as she reprimanded my father one day when my parents were having a disagreement. Even my mercurial father did not react or raise his voice at her. Possibly that was the years of deep seated respect he had for her, seeing her at close quarters for so long that in a way, she was a family elder to him rather than a sister in law. Even in her 70s, I have seen many tough guys (and Asansol is a rough neighborhood) go timid and oblige when Bardi asked for something. As the nest grew empty over the years ,as the siblings got scattered by way of marriage, careers or even death, Bardi remained the custodian of the “Jahaaj Baari” that her father had started building. Though now complete, in recent years, the house bore a haunted look as she locked up most portions of the house and remained confined to one corner bedroom and a small kitchen. In a typical day you spent with her in the house, you would see a steady flow of visitors, from her ex-students to some neighbors to complete strangers accompanying others. Everyone was welcome. And everyone knew that she was moody. One day, I heard her hollering from the kitchen, “Oi Malaakaar taa Jodi aaj aabaar aashe, ore juto mere baar korum” (If that Malaakaar fellow shows up today, I will boot him out), only to realize that Malaakaar was standing just outside her kitchen at that moment. Without batting an eyelid, Bardi says “Oh, aaishaa porsho, bosho taahole, Chaa khaaiyaa jeo” (SO you have come,eh ? Anyway, sit and have a cup of tea). That was the rapport she enjoyed with everyone. No one minded her insults because they knew that beneath the toughened exterior lived their Bardi, who genuinely wished well for them.
I need to tell you now how she was beyond being just my maashi. My mother suffered a cerebral thrombosis at the age of 17 and was hospitalized for close to two years (CMC ,and later PG).Thrombosis was a deadly thing to happen those days with hardly any avenues for treatment. It is still deadly. So naturally ,everybody had given up hope and had started counting days when she would depart. Everyone, except Bardi. She just refused to accept it. She brought her to Calcutta. She used her political connections to get Ma a proper bed in the overcrowded CMC and ensured that she gets the best doctor to see her. Yes, it took a long time. Yes, it left my Ma’s left wrist mildly paralyzed. But she lived. She completed her graduation after that. Got married. And my brother and I got to see the world. And I have heard from Ma that during those two years, there was not one single day, that Bardi did not go to see her. Must have been tough on her really, as she was posted in Burdwan district and used to take the first train out ,go to Calcutta, see Ma, and then get to work. No wonder Ma slipped into her stoic silence last evening, intermittently breaking into sobs. These are heavy bonds.
The other day, I was boastfully mentioning to someone that of late my day starts with China time and ends with US time, suggesting that I have really arrived in life. Reflecting on Bardi ma’s “career” per se, her days were not defined by geographies, but by human beings. How many double MA s were around in the mid 20th century in India ? And how many of them settled for an obscure career and a life of anonymity just to ensure that people around could get better lives ? Okay, she was the eldest sibling no doubt. But what stopped her from becoming a rebel at 20 ? What stopped her from eloping with someone to escape the drudgeries of a ramshackle home and a dozen hungry mouths to feed ? Her career was her family which she steadfastly built on some basic good values. When I was younger, I used to bask in the glory of the professional accomplishments of my uncles (all of whom reached the helms of big organizations).But today as I am in the middle of my life, I really feel prouder of Bardi than of anyone else. That was a life well spent.
Death is probably the only assured outcome of any birth. Everyone has to die. But once in a while there come people who leave behind a legacy in the lives they touch. They spread good will and warmth. They remind you that love is not old fashioned yet. I mentioned my youngest mama. Well, he and I have not being getting along for the past couple of years. Possibly both being hard sales nuts, we have the unspoken professional rivalry between us. However, yesterday, when I heard him weep on the phone, something changed. Our commonness in our grief washed away our foolish worldly baggage. Both of us had suffered the same loss which united us. I made it a point to make amends with him soon. Maybe this was Bardi ma’s last lesson for me.
Last evening, I poured my regular measures to make things look normal. However, the drink did not taste as good as other days. Late into the night, once I spied that my wife was asleep, I switched off the reading lamp and lay my heavy head on the pillow.
I cried.
'Hey Guys - This is God"
I had never imagined that God would be such a dude !
I mean, we Indians have this image of our Gods as people donning golden head gear, having long hair tied in knots, a halo behind their head , folks clad in dhotis and some silk cloth wrapped around their torsos.
But this guy on the stage was surprisingly a contemporary and a stylish fellow, dressed fashionably in a pair of crumpled cargos , a black T-shirt and comfortable footwear, his sunglasses and Blackberry communicator peeping out of the 5th and 6th pockets of his cargo pants.
He had shook my hand while introducing himself before this session. So I can say that he had a physical form like me, as my hand did not pass through air ,as they show in those Sci-Fi or Ramsay movies. And he benevolently used English phrases in his introductory presentation ! How crude ! I had expected him to chant hymns in Sanskrit !
I looked around the dark auditorium. It was a pretty standard 3-tier building, like we had in the erstwhile movie theatres in India. But the seating arrangement was neatly done, with some superb darkroom effects. Also, the seats were spaced wide apart ,which made it almost impossible for you to see the guy in your next seat. The only light source was coming from the stage ,where the “dude” God was casually taking us through a breezy introductory session.
We had arrived in various lots over the past week .Though none of us had met each other in person yet, what I could gather so far, was that the induction session was pretty professionally done up. The staying arrangements had been comfortable and the food was okay too(though I had started craving for more spicy food already !) . I had had a couple of briefing sessions over the past few days mainly through IVRS – type telecons and some menu driven software in my room TV. But this was the first time with the Big Boss himself in person. He is a busy man , and his calendar had permitted him to be free only this afternoon.
(Just to give a bit of a background….. My name is Ayon Banerjee.
I am (oops,was!) 35 years old till last week. I had led a pretty ordinary life with some extraordinary moments thrown in, like most folks have. I used to have a wonderful family and had been a moderately successful professional.
I think I died last week .I say “I think” because this was the first time it happened to me. It was a road accident , the types you see in movies ,at blind turns of an up hill road. The last thing I saw before the blinding flash ,was the lorry driver’s face. He was a young Sikh guy called Narender ,as I learnt later, on our way up here. He was a nice boy and surprisingly had not even been drunk when his lorry presumably banged us both out of earth .
But on arrival here, I lost track of him. This is such a huge place after all, with confusing alleys, each leading into different resort-like sectors. I had been escorted to my room and thereon ,had been following the printed itenery given to me).
Coming back to Mr.God. I was surprised that he was not dishing out sermons on heaven and hell, karma and kismet et al. His presentation was more to do with elementary stuff, Organization Charts , Emergency contact numbers , Fire alarms etc Since ,his pitch was quite(very !) boring, I started paying more attention to the physical aspect of his. I might sound pompous, but I could sight some faint(very faint )resemblance that I shared with him, say about 15 per cent or so. I also had to admit that the guy’s presentation abilities were pretty good as he relied more on technique , than on technology ,while speaking . He also looked extremely healthy. Not just fit and muscular, but ‘ healthy’, if you know what I mean. His skin glowed.His hair shone. He had that athletic spring in his steps .He looked very well groomed and carried that “rich” look about him as if he has just emerged from a long shower. He spoke with a calm conviction and did not seem to be in a hurry.
The screen showed “ Break-Out time”. I had no idea on what it meant.
Suddenly I felt that an overhead spotlight had descended on me, making me feel naked and vulnerable in the dark theatre as I was sure that every occupant was now looking at me.
“So Ayon, how’re you doing ?”
“ I am doing fine so far Sir.. oops…Sorry..Mr.God. Sir ! Yeah I am missing my family quite a bit and if you don’t mind, my evening whisky and some spicy Indian food. I generally get into with drawl symptoms if I don’t get some form of meat for over 12 hrs”. There was a mild appreciative laughter from all over the theatre. Even God smiled. “Yeah boy, I know all that. In fact today is your last day of the induction and hereon I hope your concerns would be addressed to. As a protocol of this place, I would be introducing you with the other people in this room now. After that you would be given a ticket to your next destination (Business Class, he chuckled !)”
With these words of his, suddenly one side of the auditorium lit up with some high-tech Ceramic discharge-type lamps and I could suddenly see some similar and shady looking characters sitting in a row which had three seats in all, and generously spaced out . Again I could feel that vague sense of familiarity with these fellows (“You and your narcissistic line of thought AB !” I reprimanded myself angrily).
God began ….. He started with the most hideous looking fellow of the lot, seated grumpily in one corner. The spotlight customarily moved from me to him.
“The one sitting at that extreme is a guy called Ayon. He had the worst performance in in this group. He has taken all the wrong turns in life , given his life to just his basic callings, never bothered to be faithful and trustworthy, never displayed any sense of honesty, guilt or character in any of his dealings in life. He could never appreciate his family , betrayed their trust constantly , harmed lot of people . His unscrupulous business dealings landed him on the wrong side of the law all his life. No matter how many surveyors I sent, none of them could come up with one word in his favor. He met his end last fortnight after battling the worst form of exit routes, a multiple cancer which eroded him for over a year before I finally agreed to send him a ticket to come up.” God had become visibly disturbed and agitated while discussing Mr. Hidey.
“The guy next to him is also called Ayon. He is a shade better than the first fellow. While he appreciated the value of his family and friends, he was a lazy and a crafty fellow, who always tried to seek out shortcuts in life. As a result, he never could manage to be a good student, nor a good professional .He had a lot of ambition ,but never followed them up with a honest day’s work. He was a bad influence on his kids and his handful of friends. His poor wife had to toil a lot in order to make good the gaps he left all over. I went slightly easy on him. I gave him diabetes and a weak heart ,which means I left him with options to protect himself through self control. Sadly ,he lacked the willpower .His smoking and lazy lifestyle took him to his first attack the last year and his second and fatal one nine days back.”
“The one sitting on this end of the row is again called Ayon. He was a God fearing family man ,who too had quite a few short comings ,but also had a bit of will power to come out of some of them .He led an average life. He was never the go-getter type, though he could have, if he wished. His indecisiveness and shakiness never let him step out of his comfort zones in life. I got him here 3 days back, in his sleep. He was a not a bad fellow, but too weak and softhearted. He was too scared of physical pain, risks and death .In fact his cowardice at every step of his life held him back from realizing his best life. He disappointed me really as I had pinned high hopes from him once”, God regretted.
Fascinated and slightly nervous after the spine chilling introduction, I studied the 3 blokes with more severity. Indeed, all of them were “ME” indeed in various stages of disfigurement. While the first fellow was the most grotesque version that I could ever become, with his dark patches ,his obese body, his scars and his bloodshot eyes, the last one was probably the closest in appearance to me.
God then proceeded to carry on the same exercise to the other side of the room, where again, there were three people visible ,sitting comfortably in their seats(which seemed better seats than mine , I noticed)
“The first one sitting closest to you is Major Ayon. He was a good product of mine. Tried and retained all that I had sent him to life with. He was a hard working fellow, reasonably honest and tried to put in his best efforts in life. The only aspect he fell short, was his work-life balance , in being a model parent and an empathetic husband as he always put his duty ahead of everything else. He arrived a month back”. Seeing my questioning glance, God clarified, “Oh, he died in combat. He was a soldier after all. He died while warding off some infiltrators in the North West border of India last month. He was delayed in arriving here as he was being sewed up and reconstructed in our in-house clinic, as he had suffered 18 bullet injuries while killing 6 of the infiltrators.” I could trace a faint trace of pride in God’s voice as he spoke of Ayon # 4
. “The second gentleman in a suit is Dr. Ayon. He was a brilliant fellow, one of my best so far. A deeply academically inclined mind, who chanellised his life into pursuing medicine and making good inroads into Oncology treatments. His institute in Washington received several prestigious awards from all over the world for the exceptional progress they made in easing the pain of man’s most dreaded disease. The only shortcoming I could put in his appraisal was that he was too materialistic in his approach to life and measured everything in terms of it’s dollar or objectivist output. He missed out completely the joys that his family and a few good friends could have given him. Had he had a better human approach, maybe he could have done even better .He came in day before yesterday. He died on his desk out of a massive cardiac arrest ,which was inevitable ,given his workaholic self. Probably he was too busy to realize that he was dying !” God was distinctly proud of Ayon # 5 and it came out clearly
“The one sitting furthest in the the other extreme is Ayon , who had been a very successful businessman in UK for about 10 years ,before he decided to lean towards his other callings in life. He was a committed husband, a model son and a doting father all along. He did quite a lot for the society through his missionary organization. They educated slum kids in India, Pakistan and Indonesia, created rehabilitation homes for war widows and deserted old folks and destitute kids , spread lot of good will and love wherever they could manage to reach. He came in yesterday. It does not matter how he reached this place . He was my favorite . So I got him the painless way. He flew in with me in my private charter."( “Wow !”, I thought, this God fellow is surely on a roll !Private charters and all, eh !”)
I again looked at the three guys closely .Uncannily I could spot the similarities, which went on diminishing ,with the Major looking closest to me , while the last one( Mr. Holy, I thought sarcastically !) just bore a faint resemblance to me (maybe the nose and the eyes only). I also suddenly realised that the last one seemed to look almost identical to the Boss himself ! I mean, save a few cosmetic changes and some added CEO-glow which God had on himself, this fellow could almost pass on as a close cousin of his.
Now, the blackberrys up there have this uneasy habit of picking up unspoken thoughts. God somehow understood what I was thinking. He smiled and fiddled with the remote a bit which resulted in the full spotlight fall on him so that I could study him in detail for a while. I was shocked at the close up view ! I mean, he was so like me ,and yet so unlike me. I mean , physically his body was what mine could have been, minus all the abuse and neglect it had undergone in it’s 35 years ! And from what I could gather professionally, I am sure that I could have been in his seat today, had I led my best life, had I taken all the right turns in all of my 35 years, without making a single mistake ."Just imagine what perks this fellow is enjoying !" I regretted bitchily !
But then, it was practically impossible, to go through human life without a single error, is’nt it ? God had again read my thoughts & had come up to my seat now. He had an envelope in his hand and this is what he told me :
“ See Ayon, I know you cannot go error-less in your human state. That’s the biggest fallacy of human life, the compulsory detour called Sin, which does not exist up here. Just as you cannot escape sin, you also cannot escape death. What you can do is, minimize your sins. More importantly, look within you and try to dig out all the tools I armed you with, while sending you on this trip .If you use them well enough, you would be lucky enough to be like this fine fellow up here who flew in with me , painless and happy. Nothing irritates me more than jerks who come back with their goodie bags unopened and unused. What you saw here today were just 3 variants each, of the two extremes of your own spectrum. There are millions of other selves in between these 6 guys, whom I could not invite here for space constraints. But I guess that you get the message. Each of those guys is a “You”, a better you, or a worse you. And I am the “Best- You”. Hope now you realize that all the stupidities you guys frame down there ,in the garb of religion and a few billion Gods, is all bull shit ! Each human has his own God and his own devil within him depending on the millions of choices he makes every day of his mortal life. Each choice leads him to a better or a worse finale. It is for him to realize and traverse towards which extreme he wishes to.” With this he handed me the envelope which had a funny looking boarding pass in it, plated in Gold and my name engraved on it. God went on -
“That night, I got a call from my good friend Narender. He is a great guy and was traveling to Earth that evening to pick up “his” Narender the painless way.From what I understood, “his” Narender had graduated first class in his Earthly assignment and as I mentioned earlier ,had qualified to fly the private charter way. The accident was not intended. It just happened that Narender had to sneeze and he lost control on the steering and knocked you off the cliff and sent you into a coma for the past seven days .That’s the reason I am sending you back, business class, as a goodwill gesture for the trouble and worry you and your family had to undergo. I hope you had a comfortable stay over the past week and a sneak preview of what awaits you after you actually wrap up your earthly chapter. With this ticket, you may choose to land up in any of the forms of your life you wish to, and take off your life from there and continue your journey till we meet again !”
The moment I held the ticket in my hand, the screen buzzed back to life again. I suddenly saw a hospital room ,where my wife and daughter were sitting besides a bed, pale, drawn and sleepless.
I then saw the body on the bed stirring and all of a sudden I saw a wild glow of happiness on both the faces.
I don’t know how I got transported from the theatre to that room .But I do remember having had made my choice just before losing consciousness. I wanted to go back to my present life again and work on it from the scratch and take the right turns there after. No shortcuts for me anymore !
Looking at the relieved faces of my wife and daughter, I realized that I had never felt happier ,though the wounds still ached (I should have negotiated a painless recovery deal with God, I regretted !). "May I pls have a pad and a pen ?" I asked my wife.
“Again one of your ‘To-Do’ lists ?”She sounded distraught and disgusted.
"Ya, that, and more importantly, a ‘not-to-do’ list too !” Said I.
I was back in business !
I mean, we Indians have this image of our Gods as people donning golden head gear, having long hair tied in knots, a halo behind their head , folks clad in dhotis and some silk cloth wrapped around their torsos.
But this guy on the stage was surprisingly a contemporary and a stylish fellow, dressed fashionably in a pair of crumpled cargos , a black T-shirt and comfortable footwear, his sunglasses and Blackberry communicator peeping out of the 5th and 6th pockets of his cargo pants.
He had shook my hand while introducing himself before this session. So I can say that he had a physical form like me, as my hand did not pass through air ,as they show in those Sci-Fi or Ramsay movies. And he benevolently used English phrases in his introductory presentation ! How crude ! I had expected him to chant hymns in Sanskrit !
I looked around the dark auditorium. It was a pretty standard 3-tier building, like we had in the erstwhile movie theatres in India. But the seating arrangement was neatly done, with some superb darkroom effects. Also, the seats were spaced wide apart ,which made it almost impossible for you to see the guy in your next seat. The only light source was coming from the stage ,where the “dude” God was casually taking us through a breezy introductory session.
We had arrived in various lots over the past week .Though none of us had met each other in person yet, what I could gather so far, was that the induction session was pretty professionally done up. The staying arrangements had been comfortable and the food was okay too(though I had started craving for more spicy food already !) . I had had a couple of briefing sessions over the past few days mainly through IVRS – type telecons and some menu driven software in my room TV. But this was the first time with the Big Boss himself in person. He is a busy man , and his calendar had permitted him to be free only this afternoon.
(Just to give a bit of a background….. My name is Ayon Banerjee.
I am (oops,was!) 35 years old till last week. I had led a pretty ordinary life with some extraordinary moments thrown in, like most folks have. I used to have a wonderful family and had been a moderately successful professional.
I think I died last week .I say “I think” because this was the first time it happened to me. It was a road accident , the types you see in movies ,at blind turns of an up hill road. The last thing I saw before the blinding flash ,was the lorry driver’s face. He was a young Sikh guy called Narender ,as I learnt later, on our way up here. He was a nice boy and surprisingly had not even been drunk when his lorry presumably banged us both out of earth .
But on arrival here, I lost track of him. This is such a huge place after all, with confusing alleys, each leading into different resort-like sectors. I had been escorted to my room and thereon ,had been following the printed itenery given to me).
Coming back to Mr.God. I was surprised that he was not dishing out sermons on heaven and hell, karma and kismet et al. His presentation was more to do with elementary stuff, Organization Charts , Emergency contact numbers , Fire alarms etc Since ,his pitch was quite(very !) boring, I started paying more attention to the physical aspect of his. I might sound pompous, but I could sight some faint(very faint )resemblance that I shared with him, say about 15 per cent or so. I also had to admit that the guy’s presentation abilities were pretty good as he relied more on technique , than on technology ,while speaking . He also looked extremely healthy. Not just fit and muscular, but ‘ healthy’, if you know what I mean. His skin glowed.His hair shone. He had that athletic spring in his steps .He looked very well groomed and carried that “rich” look about him as if he has just emerged from a long shower. He spoke with a calm conviction and did not seem to be in a hurry.
The screen showed “ Break-Out time”. I had no idea on what it meant.
Suddenly I felt that an overhead spotlight had descended on me, making me feel naked and vulnerable in the dark theatre as I was sure that every occupant was now looking at me.
“So Ayon, how’re you doing ?”
“ I am doing fine so far Sir.. oops…Sorry..Mr.God. Sir ! Yeah I am missing my family quite a bit and if you don’t mind, my evening whisky and some spicy Indian food. I generally get into with drawl symptoms if I don’t get some form of meat for over 12 hrs”. There was a mild appreciative laughter from all over the theatre. Even God smiled. “Yeah boy, I know all that. In fact today is your last day of the induction and hereon I hope your concerns would be addressed to. As a protocol of this place, I would be introducing you with the other people in this room now. After that you would be given a ticket to your next destination (Business Class, he chuckled !)”
With these words of his, suddenly one side of the auditorium lit up with some high-tech Ceramic discharge-type lamps and I could suddenly see some similar and shady looking characters sitting in a row which had three seats in all, and generously spaced out . Again I could feel that vague sense of familiarity with these fellows (“You and your narcissistic line of thought AB !” I reprimanded myself angrily).
God began ….. He started with the most hideous looking fellow of the lot, seated grumpily in one corner. The spotlight customarily moved from me to him.
“The one sitting at that extreme is a guy called Ayon. He had the worst performance in in this group. He has taken all the wrong turns in life , given his life to just his basic callings, never bothered to be faithful and trustworthy, never displayed any sense of honesty, guilt or character in any of his dealings in life. He could never appreciate his family , betrayed their trust constantly , harmed lot of people . His unscrupulous business dealings landed him on the wrong side of the law all his life. No matter how many surveyors I sent, none of them could come up with one word in his favor. He met his end last fortnight after battling the worst form of exit routes, a multiple cancer which eroded him for over a year before I finally agreed to send him a ticket to come up.” God had become visibly disturbed and agitated while discussing Mr. Hidey.
“The guy next to him is also called Ayon. He is a shade better than the first fellow. While he appreciated the value of his family and friends, he was a lazy and a crafty fellow, who always tried to seek out shortcuts in life. As a result, he never could manage to be a good student, nor a good professional .He had a lot of ambition ,but never followed them up with a honest day’s work. He was a bad influence on his kids and his handful of friends. His poor wife had to toil a lot in order to make good the gaps he left all over. I went slightly easy on him. I gave him diabetes and a weak heart ,which means I left him with options to protect himself through self control. Sadly ,he lacked the willpower .His smoking and lazy lifestyle took him to his first attack the last year and his second and fatal one nine days back.”
“The one sitting on this end of the row is again called Ayon. He was a God fearing family man ,who too had quite a few short comings ,but also had a bit of will power to come out of some of them .He led an average life. He was never the go-getter type, though he could have, if he wished. His indecisiveness and shakiness never let him step out of his comfort zones in life. I got him here 3 days back, in his sleep. He was a not a bad fellow, but too weak and softhearted. He was too scared of physical pain, risks and death .In fact his cowardice at every step of his life held him back from realizing his best life. He disappointed me really as I had pinned high hopes from him once”, God regretted.
Fascinated and slightly nervous after the spine chilling introduction, I studied the 3 blokes with more severity. Indeed, all of them were “ME” indeed in various stages of disfigurement. While the first fellow was the most grotesque version that I could ever become, with his dark patches ,his obese body, his scars and his bloodshot eyes, the last one was probably the closest in appearance to me.
God then proceeded to carry on the same exercise to the other side of the room, where again, there were three people visible ,sitting comfortably in their seats(which seemed better seats than mine , I noticed)
“The first one sitting closest to you is Major Ayon. He was a good product of mine. Tried and retained all that I had sent him to life with. He was a hard working fellow, reasonably honest and tried to put in his best efforts in life. The only aspect he fell short, was his work-life balance , in being a model parent and an empathetic husband as he always put his duty ahead of everything else. He arrived a month back”. Seeing my questioning glance, God clarified, “Oh, he died in combat. He was a soldier after all. He died while warding off some infiltrators in the North West border of India last month. He was delayed in arriving here as he was being sewed up and reconstructed in our in-house clinic, as he had suffered 18 bullet injuries while killing 6 of the infiltrators.” I could trace a faint trace of pride in God’s voice as he spoke of Ayon # 4
. “The second gentleman in a suit is Dr. Ayon. He was a brilliant fellow, one of my best so far. A deeply academically inclined mind, who chanellised his life into pursuing medicine and making good inroads into Oncology treatments. His institute in Washington received several prestigious awards from all over the world for the exceptional progress they made in easing the pain of man’s most dreaded disease. The only shortcoming I could put in his appraisal was that he was too materialistic in his approach to life and measured everything in terms of it’s dollar or objectivist output. He missed out completely the joys that his family and a few good friends could have given him. Had he had a better human approach, maybe he could have done even better .He came in day before yesterday. He died on his desk out of a massive cardiac arrest ,which was inevitable ,given his workaholic self. Probably he was too busy to realize that he was dying !” God was distinctly proud of Ayon # 5 and it came out clearly
“The one sitting furthest in the the other extreme is Ayon , who had been a very successful businessman in UK for about 10 years ,before he decided to lean towards his other callings in life. He was a committed husband, a model son and a doting father all along. He did quite a lot for the society through his missionary organization. They educated slum kids in India, Pakistan and Indonesia, created rehabilitation homes for war widows and deserted old folks and destitute kids , spread lot of good will and love wherever they could manage to reach. He came in yesterday. It does not matter how he reached this place . He was my favorite . So I got him the painless way. He flew in with me in my private charter."( “Wow !”, I thought, this God fellow is surely on a roll !Private charters and all, eh !”)
I again looked at the three guys closely .Uncannily I could spot the similarities, which went on diminishing ,with the Major looking closest to me , while the last one( Mr. Holy, I thought sarcastically !) just bore a faint resemblance to me (maybe the nose and the eyes only). I also suddenly realised that the last one seemed to look almost identical to the Boss himself ! I mean, save a few cosmetic changes and some added CEO-glow which God had on himself, this fellow could almost pass on as a close cousin of his.
Now, the blackberrys up there have this uneasy habit of picking up unspoken thoughts. God somehow understood what I was thinking. He smiled and fiddled with the remote a bit which resulted in the full spotlight fall on him so that I could study him in detail for a while. I was shocked at the close up view ! I mean, he was so like me ,and yet so unlike me. I mean , physically his body was what mine could have been, minus all the abuse and neglect it had undergone in it’s 35 years ! And from what I could gather professionally, I am sure that I could have been in his seat today, had I led my best life, had I taken all the right turns in all of my 35 years, without making a single mistake ."Just imagine what perks this fellow is enjoying !" I regretted bitchily !
But then, it was practically impossible, to go through human life without a single error, is’nt it ? God had again read my thoughts & had come up to my seat now. He had an envelope in his hand and this is what he told me :
“ See Ayon, I know you cannot go error-less in your human state. That’s the biggest fallacy of human life, the compulsory detour called Sin, which does not exist up here. Just as you cannot escape sin, you also cannot escape death. What you can do is, minimize your sins. More importantly, look within you and try to dig out all the tools I armed you with, while sending you on this trip .If you use them well enough, you would be lucky enough to be like this fine fellow up here who flew in with me , painless and happy. Nothing irritates me more than jerks who come back with their goodie bags unopened and unused. What you saw here today were just 3 variants each, of the two extremes of your own spectrum. There are millions of other selves in between these 6 guys, whom I could not invite here for space constraints. But I guess that you get the message. Each of those guys is a “You”, a better you, or a worse you. And I am the “Best- You”. Hope now you realize that all the stupidities you guys frame down there ,in the garb of religion and a few billion Gods, is all bull shit ! Each human has his own God and his own devil within him depending on the millions of choices he makes every day of his mortal life. Each choice leads him to a better or a worse finale. It is for him to realize and traverse towards which extreme he wishes to.” With this he handed me the envelope which had a funny looking boarding pass in it, plated in Gold and my name engraved on it. God went on -
“That night, I got a call from my good friend Narender. He is a great guy and was traveling to Earth that evening to pick up “his” Narender the painless way.From what I understood, “his” Narender had graduated first class in his Earthly assignment and as I mentioned earlier ,had qualified to fly the private charter way. The accident was not intended. It just happened that Narender had to sneeze and he lost control on the steering and knocked you off the cliff and sent you into a coma for the past seven days .That’s the reason I am sending you back, business class, as a goodwill gesture for the trouble and worry you and your family had to undergo. I hope you had a comfortable stay over the past week and a sneak preview of what awaits you after you actually wrap up your earthly chapter. With this ticket, you may choose to land up in any of the forms of your life you wish to, and take off your life from there and continue your journey till we meet again !”
The moment I held the ticket in my hand, the screen buzzed back to life again. I suddenly saw a hospital room ,where my wife and daughter were sitting besides a bed, pale, drawn and sleepless.
I then saw the body on the bed stirring and all of a sudden I saw a wild glow of happiness on both the faces.
I don’t know how I got transported from the theatre to that room .But I do remember having had made my choice just before losing consciousness. I wanted to go back to my present life again and work on it from the scratch and take the right turns there after. No shortcuts for me anymore !
Looking at the relieved faces of my wife and daughter, I realized that I had never felt happier ,though the wounds still ached (I should have negotiated a painless recovery deal with God, I regretted !). "May I pls have a pad and a pen ?" I asked my wife.
“Again one of your ‘To-Do’ lists ?”She sounded distraught and disgusted.
"Ya, that, and more importantly, a ‘not-to-do’ list too !” Said I.
I was back in business !
The Second Oldest Profession in the World
My daughter hated “ Rocket Singh, Salesman of the Year” and yawned away through most of the movie.
My wife was not crazy about it either. But she could relate to it in most parts and so bravely held on till the end, lest her fidgeting upsets me.
My parents have not seen it. Had they done, they would not have understood it, just the way they still cannot understand my profession even thirteen years from the day I had announced that I was not sitting for my CAT or GRE and instead, taking my plunge into the big bad world outside my University walls.
I can’t exactly recall which particular event or incident triggered my decision to become a salesman. Maybe it was that Ziglar Corp. seminar I had attended with my saved up pocket money in college. Or was it the Brian Tracy tape I saw on video which had come accidentally with a VCR we had hired to catch some dirty movies in the college hostel ? I remember being seriously drunk with some hostel buddies when it started playing , and by the time it was midway, the stupor had vanished and when it ended, I was clapping as I reached out to play it once more ! ( at two in the morning !) . Or was it the Og Mandino column in the “Success” magazine which had almost become religious literature for me those days? So much so, that I even penned an article in our college weekly explaining an analogy between Ayn Rand’s John Galt and the best salesman in the planet
The “when” does not really matter after all these years. The “What” does.
A salesman was born. Like millions before, millions around and millions after him.
And so as I unveiled my grand career plans to my friends, most of them ridiculed me. They just could not understand why a guy with good grades needs to go for a loser’s game like sales ?
Information Technology was hot those days. So was project management. Or higher studies at least ?!
But Sales… ??? Ugghhh !
Some sympathized with me. Others wrote me off.
Today, thirteen years hence, looks like my gamble paid off. The same folks who scoffed at me then, today acknowledge that mine is a profession after all, which enables me to drive fancy cars, visit exotic countries , compete with some of the brightest CEOs around , and most interestingly , breeze through the so called “toughest profession in the world” without a single day ‘wearing me out’, a phrase I hear so often from my friends from other professions.
My first sale was a welding machine I sold to a workshop in Uluberia, a small town off the Calcutta suburbs (“Ghosh Electric Works” read the worn out name plate which I saw while getting down from a cycle rickshaw) & my most recent sale was a M&A / spin off proposal which I & my team (over a webcast) sold to about 400 disgruntled employees spread over a few countries.
The journey has been long & exciting with it’s share of setbacks & frustrations but mostly about learning something new every single day, about this fascinating business of ours – the “People business” !
As Ranbir Kapoor says towards the end of the film, – “Main Bandaa ban gayaa Sirji”.
So profound ! As any salesman will swear by , that sooner or later, this wonderful profession eventually will make a “Man” out of the “Salesman”.
So by now you might have guessed that I had loved Shimit Amin’s film. Let me try to tell you why.
Firstly I compliment Amin on the character setting and his attention to detail. I am someone who started without a fancy B-School degree. So my initial years were spent jostling crowds in Calcutta’s Ezra Street, or Bombay’s Lower Chawl, or Dilli’s Bhaagirath Place. I never took a course in accountancy or finance management after my Engineering. I learnt accountancy from “Matric-pass” ‘Kaabra jis’ and ‘Hari Bhais’ of these wholesale markets while I picked up my finance gyaan from the “Gallaas” of the Seth jis, who never went beyond High School, but surprisingly emerged unscathed from all economic bloodbaths which sunk many a Harvard Alumini in the past decade .
So full marks to Amin for noticing the nitty-gritty’s and the DNA of our trade, the reverse-worn jacket(to save the shirt for one more day from the dust and the grime)or the pinning up of the trouser leg while kick starting a motor cycle ,or bribing the watchman with a pack of cigarettes for competition information, or scanning the Client’s notice board to stay abreast with the client office’s political climate , or the “budget” celebrations with cheap booze and bollywood songs playing in the office after office hours , monster bosses ,irrational targets , lousy territories , overlapping and conflicts , and a room filled by a group of people noisier than a truckload of magpies and more boisterous than a rugby team , who eat all kinds of food, at all kinds of times , the only kind of humans who mix vada pao with ice cream, pizzas with bhel puri , Chinese with samosas and full cream chaai (but only “diet cokes” to wash it down, mind it !), sometimes all together in a single meal ! These people remember their client’s maternal grandfather’s birthday, but somehow forget their own marriage anniversaries, will invariably have a broken love story(even if they don’t, they will make one up !), can out-drink Captain Haddock himself, and will definitely know the next cubicle’s figures better than their own !
Amin notices all these and makes the characters seem uncannily familiar , whether it be the pot bellied, gutkha chewing, balding Mr. Cribber , or be it cleavage revealing bindaas receptionist who knows ‘everything’ and practically runs the office ,the self respecting pantry guy, Mishraji nicknamed “cup-plate” or the industrious and sharp Sales Manager, Nitin who is shown to to have earned his cabin solely by merit and being the best of the lot, the porn addict, service manager Giri(with whom no one messes with , as he is the only techie among the ‘sale-oos’)or the idealistic simpleton protagonist himself, AKA Harpreet Singh Bedi (39%- Graduation and “Ek Saal fail” in betn) riding a ladies scooter and breathing the preaching of Sales gurus of all times without making it seem like preaching !
So when a TV Ad shows 3 restrooms, “Men”, “Women” and “Salesmen”, most people get the pun right !
Amin avoids predictable clichés of painting his main characters as just black or white. Most are shown with grey streaks, yet left with unmistakable positive traits (Even in the end, where the Villainous ex-employer returns Harpreet’s “company” and walks off saying “See you in the field”, you feel like applauding such a gallant gesture!).
The best thing about Amin is that he has re-introduced heroism in Bollywood. All his 3 films are about heroes, be it the encounter cop , Nana Patekar in “Ab Tak..” , be it the memorable SRK playing the fallen Kabir Khan in “Chak De” or be it the endearing Ranbir Kapoor selling his Rocket Corporation with all sincerity and integrity and still winning in a corrupt, overcrowded marketplace. Suddenly heroes are back ! These characters today are what Vijay was in the Yash Chopra films of the 70s.
Finally, after a year of no-brainers , 2009 finally departs, leaving behind a pleasant feel through the message of this movie, which revisits the basics of a profession, mostly the sales profession. It deftly weaves an impossibility theory and plugs it possible and shows that some basic tenets never change, be it the 19th or the 21st century. The hardest worker and the most honest guy still wins in the end, and that while quick-fixes might be good to cover up that odd quarterly shortfall, but it is ultimately the iota of trust your customer has on you which decides your yearly balance sheet. So while you can “buy” a company, you cannot necessarily buy it’s customers too, unless you are willing to work for it.
Did someone say that the movie was about three reels too long ? Well, with Ranbir Kapoor on the screen, can any movie be too long ? Only a Kapoor could have upstaged the Khans, and man, isn’t this boy doing it with aplomb ! The rest of the cast also puts up commendable performances. I am especially impressed with Gauhar who plays Koena(the receptionist) and the guy who played Nitin (a super salesman who loses his morals somewhere on his way and again finds it back). The Padamsee girl does not have much to do, except look sweet and smile, which she manages well.
Go and see this movie. Ignore the cynics. This is one of the best things to have come out of Bollywood in 2009. And yes, don’t miss the end credits, where everybody is shown as a partner in this “ideal” company while Harpreet Singh retains his “Salesman” tag . This was probably the most important lesson I learnt in my past 13 years. Just like Harpreet, I too was ecstatic when I received my first bunch of visiting cards and could not wait to distribute them(mostly to my then girlfriends !).But along the years, as my profession became my passion , as work became play and as my clients became my friends, I no longer print visiting cards. Irrespective of what fancy tag my company directory gives me, I know that at heart, I am a salesman. And every morning, when the sun is up , we salesmen tie our shoelaces , pick our wares (contained mostly in laptops these days) & our equipment (product brochures, proposals , appointment diaries) and armed with enough self confidence which can move the world, step out in the streets , never minding silly things such as snowfall or heat waves or floods or holidays. The best whisky in the world cannot match the high which we get after closing a good sale.
A tip for those youngsters who are as confused about their lives as I was at their age, after academics. Try this profession. It’s fun. It is cool. It ensures a daily doze of endorphins to keep your heart healthy. It is about heroism. About accomplishments . About life itself.
And the best part is, it is totally recession proof !!
My wife was not crazy about it either. But she could relate to it in most parts and so bravely held on till the end, lest her fidgeting upsets me.
My parents have not seen it. Had they done, they would not have understood it, just the way they still cannot understand my profession even thirteen years from the day I had announced that I was not sitting for my CAT or GRE and instead, taking my plunge into the big bad world outside my University walls.
I can’t exactly recall which particular event or incident triggered my decision to become a salesman. Maybe it was that Ziglar Corp. seminar I had attended with my saved up pocket money in college. Or was it the Brian Tracy tape I saw on video which had come accidentally with a VCR we had hired to catch some dirty movies in the college hostel ? I remember being seriously drunk with some hostel buddies when it started playing , and by the time it was midway, the stupor had vanished and when it ended, I was clapping as I reached out to play it once more ! ( at two in the morning !) . Or was it the Og Mandino column in the “Success” magazine which had almost become religious literature for me those days? So much so, that I even penned an article in our college weekly explaining an analogy between Ayn Rand’s John Galt and the best salesman in the planet
The “when” does not really matter after all these years. The “What” does.
A salesman was born. Like millions before, millions around and millions after him.
And so as I unveiled my grand career plans to my friends, most of them ridiculed me. They just could not understand why a guy with good grades needs to go for a loser’s game like sales ?
Information Technology was hot those days. So was project management. Or higher studies at least ?!
But Sales… ??? Ugghhh !
Some sympathized with me. Others wrote me off.
Today, thirteen years hence, looks like my gamble paid off. The same folks who scoffed at me then, today acknowledge that mine is a profession after all, which enables me to drive fancy cars, visit exotic countries , compete with some of the brightest CEOs around , and most interestingly , breeze through the so called “toughest profession in the world” without a single day ‘wearing me out’, a phrase I hear so often from my friends from other professions.
My first sale was a welding machine I sold to a workshop in Uluberia, a small town off the Calcutta suburbs (“Ghosh Electric Works” read the worn out name plate which I saw while getting down from a cycle rickshaw) & my most recent sale was a M&A / spin off proposal which I & my team (over a webcast) sold to about 400 disgruntled employees spread over a few countries.
The journey has been long & exciting with it’s share of setbacks & frustrations but mostly about learning something new every single day, about this fascinating business of ours – the “People business” !
As Ranbir Kapoor says towards the end of the film, – “Main Bandaa ban gayaa Sirji”.
So profound ! As any salesman will swear by , that sooner or later, this wonderful profession eventually will make a “Man” out of the “Salesman”.
So by now you might have guessed that I had loved Shimit Amin’s film. Let me try to tell you why.
Firstly I compliment Amin on the character setting and his attention to detail. I am someone who started without a fancy B-School degree. So my initial years were spent jostling crowds in Calcutta’s Ezra Street, or Bombay’s Lower Chawl, or Dilli’s Bhaagirath Place. I never took a course in accountancy or finance management after my Engineering. I learnt accountancy from “Matric-pass” ‘Kaabra jis’ and ‘Hari Bhais’ of these wholesale markets while I picked up my finance gyaan from the “Gallaas” of the Seth jis, who never went beyond High School, but surprisingly emerged unscathed from all economic bloodbaths which sunk many a Harvard Alumini in the past decade .
So full marks to Amin for noticing the nitty-gritty’s and the DNA of our trade, the reverse-worn jacket(to save the shirt for one more day from the dust and the grime)or the pinning up of the trouser leg while kick starting a motor cycle ,or bribing the watchman with a pack of cigarettes for competition information, or scanning the Client’s notice board to stay abreast with the client office’s political climate , or the “budget” celebrations with cheap booze and bollywood songs playing in the office after office hours , monster bosses ,irrational targets , lousy territories , overlapping and conflicts , and a room filled by a group of people noisier than a truckload of magpies and more boisterous than a rugby team , who eat all kinds of food, at all kinds of times , the only kind of humans who mix vada pao with ice cream, pizzas with bhel puri , Chinese with samosas and full cream chaai (but only “diet cokes” to wash it down, mind it !), sometimes all together in a single meal ! These people remember their client’s maternal grandfather’s birthday, but somehow forget their own marriage anniversaries, will invariably have a broken love story(even if they don’t, they will make one up !), can out-drink Captain Haddock himself, and will definitely know the next cubicle’s figures better than their own !
Amin notices all these and makes the characters seem uncannily familiar , whether it be the pot bellied, gutkha chewing, balding Mr. Cribber , or be it cleavage revealing bindaas receptionist who knows ‘everything’ and practically runs the office ,the self respecting pantry guy, Mishraji nicknamed “cup-plate” or the industrious and sharp Sales Manager, Nitin who is shown to to have earned his cabin solely by merit and being the best of the lot, the porn addict, service manager Giri(with whom no one messes with , as he is the only techie among the ‘sale-oos’)or the idealistic simpleton protagonist himself, AKA Harpreet Singh Bedi (39%- Graduation and “Ek Saal fail” in betn) riding a ladies scooter and breathing the preaching of Sales gurus of all times without making it seem like preaching !
So when a TV Ad shows 3 restrooms, “Men”, “Women” and “Salesmen”, most people get the pun right !
Amin avoids predictable clichés of painting his main characters as just black or white. Most are shown with grey streaks, yet left with unmistakable positive traits (Even in the end, where the Villainous ex-employer returns Harpreet’s “company” and walks off saying “See you in the field”, you feel like applauding such a gallant gesture!).
The best thing about Amin is that he has re-introduced heroism in Bollywood. All his 3 films are about heroes, be it the encounter cop , Nana Patekar in “Ab Tak..” , be it the memorable SRK playing the fallen Kabir Khan in “Chak De” or be it the endearing Ranbir Kapoor selling his Rocket Corporation with all sincerity and integrity and still winning in a corrupt, overcrowded marketplace. Suddenly heroes are back ! These characters today are what Vijay was in the Yash Chopra films of the 70s.
Finally, after a year of no-brainers , 2009 finally departs, leaving behind a pleasant feel through the message of this movie, which revisits the basics of a profession, mostly the sales profession. It deftly weaves an impossibility theory and plugs it possible and shows that some basic tenets never change, be it the 19th or the 21st century. The hardest worker and the most honest guy still wins in the end, and that while quick-fixes might be good to cover up that odd quarterly shortfall, but it is ultimately the iota of trust your customer has on you which decides your yearly balance sheet. So while you can “buy” a company, you cannot necessarily buy it’s customers too, unless you are willing to work for it.
Did someone say that the movie was about three reels too long ? Well, with Ranbir Kapoor on the screen, can any movie be too long ? Only a Kapoor could have upstaged the Khans, and man, isn’t this boy doing it with aplomb ! The rest of the cast also puts up commendable performances. I am especially impressed with Gauhar who plays Koena(the receptionist) and the guy who played Nitin (a super salesman who loses his morals somewhere on his way and again finds it back). The Padamsee girl does not have much to do, except look sweet and smile, which she manages well.
Go and see this movie. Ignore the cynics. This is one of the best things to have come out of Bollywood in 2009. And yes, don’t miss the end credits, where everybody is shown as a partner in this “ideal” company while Harpreet Singh retains his “Salesman” tag . This was probably the most important lesson I learnt in my past 13 years. Just like Harpreet, I too was ecstatic when I received my first bunch of visiting cards and could not wait to distribute them(mostly to my then girlfriends !).But along the years, as my profession became my passion , as work became play and as my clients became my friends, I no longer print visiting cards. Irrespective of what fancy tag my company directory gives me, I know that at heart, I am a salesman. And every morning, when the sun is up , we salesmen tie our shoelaces , pick our wares (contained mostly in laptops these days) & our equipment (product brochures, proposals , appointment diaries) and armed with enough self confidence which can move the world, step out in the streets , never minding silly things such as snowfall or heat waves or floods or holidays. The best whisky in the world cannot match the high which we get after closing a good sale.
A tip for those youngsters who are as confused about their lives as I was at their age, after academics. Try this profession. It’s fun. It is cool. It ensures a daily doze of endorphins to keep your heart healthy. It is about heroism. About accomplishments . About life itself.
And the best part is, it is totally recession proof !!
Rajneeti Rocks !!
There were two reasons why I wanted to catch “Rajneeti” over the opening weekend.
First – Raja Sen, the Rediff reviewer had dismissed it harshly. Now, Sen is a good writer and a terrible reviewer and has absolutely no idea of the business of cinema. So whenever he hails a movie, it bombs and vice versa. So I was pretty sure that this movie will at least be a paisa wasool fare if Raja thinks that it’s bad.
The second reason is more interesting. I remember being told as a kid (by my mother),that any and every story in this world can somehow be directly or indirectly derived from the Mahabharata. Now this was fascinating ! So I always used to subconsciously trace all stories I read in my childhood to the Mahabharata and it indeed worked. Such is the expanse of this Indian epic. It does not really matter whether it was History or fiction. What delights is the sheer scope of the story, the complexity of emotions and the grey undertones in all characters. So while the Ramayana was preachy and about Gods, Mahabharata was about humans and the largest reference library of realpolitik of Indian heartland,which is different from Sun Tzu’s Far East,or Machiavelli’s Europe.
So when I heard that Jha has modeled his flick on the Mahabharata, curiosity got the better of me. I wanted to see how could he format a 3-hour screenplay and do justice to a saga, which took several hundred episodes of B.R.Chopra’s iconic Doordarshan serial in the 80s.
The Report Card – “Rajneeti” was worth the delayed release and the long wait. It is the first big movie of 2010 and Prakash Jha should take a bow for bringing out the best work of his career long after his National award-winning debut with Daamul . Rajneeti rocks !
Now, let me try and narrate why.
Firstly, Rajneeti is not entirely Mahabharata. Second, it is not entirely “Godfather” either. Jha has managed to evolve a story which starts from the Mahabharata, moves into Mario Puzo’s masterpiece effortlessly and masterfully oscillates between the two,with generous inputs from Machiavelli and Sun Tzu, and yet churning out a gritty ,gripping , edge-of –the-seat political thriller, which would make RGV’s “Sarkars” look like kid movies. The way the story unfolds and the characters are deftly hurled at you ,it displays Jha's sheer mastery of the medium. Despite the racy narrative, Jha keeps the screenplay simplistic and deliberate enough for every member in the audience grasp the story as it progresses. And yes, Rajneeti is a BIG movie and is best suited to the big screen format and might not look so good on DVD. The grandeur, the colours, the loudness and the crowd scenes look best on a 70 mm. As a story, it is pretty simple and contemporary to India. A political first family calling the shots in a backward state in central India,where people worship them more than they worship their deities. And then there is sibling rivalries leading to phase two of dynasty politics, where greed and ambition fare over blood relationships . And then there are the outsiders who want to get a piece of the pie while the insiders would stop at nothing to cling on to the intoxicating game of power and wealth. Where it ventures away from the Mahabharata, is the fact that there are no clear cut Pandavas or the Kauravas here, or in other words, no clear heroes or villains. Both sides are deeply grey and the story leaves it to the viewer to pick his or her heroes. Also, certain main characters from the Mahabharata are omitted (Yudhistir, Draupadi,Nakul,Sahadev,etc), some characters have been clubbed into one,while some have been inspired from the Godfather. In the end, good does not triumph over evil. It is politics which triumphs like it happens everyday in India. After loads of drama,bloodshed and gore, politics keeps standing on it’s own. Nothing changes and the show goes on.
The flaws ? Well, for one – the second half is too melodramatic. Also the lead actors end up doing a lot of first hand action which makes it slightly bollywoodish. Secondly although every news article of late is screaming about Katrina’s role, she falls terribly short and shows that she is best fitted for her Barbie girl roles. Thirdly, I personally felt that Jha had quite a powerful screenplay already . He could have avoided lifting some scenes straight from Mario Puzo’s book. These apart, “Rajneeti” is the best movie of 2010 so far.
Let me now try and rate the performances.
Arjun Rampal – As a crossover between Sonny Corleone (clearly) and Bheema(probably),he delivers his career best performance. He not only looks every bit the 3rd generation politician with his designer kurtis and sports shoes, but also gives a power packed performance as the mercurial elder son and the heir apparent to the throne. As a hot headed, clear hearted and testosterone charged politician, Rampal glows in each frame,even in a gory one,where he clubs two people to a bloody death and smiles while wiping the blood, or when he shyly confesses his love for Katrina .
Nana Patekar – The three most complex characters of the Mahabharata were Krishna, Shakuni and Bheeshma. It becomes even more complex if you roll them into one character and ask someone to enact it. And does Nana deliver ! He shows that not only has his stubble grey-ed since his Ankush and Kranteeveer days, but he has grown leaps and bounds as an artiste. Who would have thought in the early 90s that this hyper, loud, fidgety actor can ever play a calm, smiling, scheming game changer and author of a murky political play.
Ranbir Kapoor – Being the flavor of the season, this boy is landing up all the author-backed roles for himself. But to be fair to him , he once again stakes his claim to be the Dhoni ,the crown prince of Bollywood, as he slips heart and soul into the role of the outlier , Michael Corleone and Arjuna rolled into one. As a sophisticated, educated and cool headed and cold-hearted mastermind , despite such a young age, Kapoor delivers to the T. He is an absolute delight in the hospital scene when his father dies and the corrupt policeman slaps him. He however disappoints in the rally takeover scene where he hijacks a speech right under a hapless Manoj Bajpei's nose. This was his moment where he could have left behind a historicl scene,but falls short by trying to underplay.
Manoj Bajpei – Bhiku Maatre had shook the nation in 1998. So much so that people forgot the name of the actor portraying this gangster’s role & identified him by his iconic rendition . Manoj Bajpei had to do a “Shool” to register his name as one of the finest discoveries of the past decade. However, along the way, in a bid to be a second rate SRK and to over-stylize himself, he lost the actor in him. All his performances were B-stuff after that. The Rajneeti promos showed him in a new,dapper and promising look. While he could not go back to the intensity of his Satya and Shool days,nevertheless Bajpei, as the hot blooded Duryodhan comes up with a pretty inspiring performance after a long time. Only had he been more natural,rather than resorting to histioronics in every scene, he could have taken home a national award for the role that was written to be every anti-hero’s dream. However, he has his moments and when he slowly growls and repeats with blood shot eyes to the crowd that “Karaara jawaab milegaa” you actually get goose bumps.
Katrina Kaif – Make no mistakes. She is not Draupadi of Mahabharata , nor is she Kay of Godfather. She is an add on, in every sense of the term. As the daughter of Mr.Monybags, she plays a weakly put up character which starts off as a kick ass, independent Lexus driving girl in love, to an aagyakaari daughter cum wife cum widowed politician ,absolutely unconvincing in every sub frame.
Ajay Devgan – However much I dislike this guy, I have to give him marks for having an eye for picking the right roles which manage to make him look good in spite of his mediocre acting skills and his permanent scowling face and his muttering between his nicotine stained teeth. As Karna , Ajay Devgan gets one of the meatiest roles in the saga. As the illegitimate elder son, brought up amidst Dalits and one who challenges dynasty rule by pairing up with an ousted Duryodhan, Devgan is not bad. As Duryodhan’s’ main ally, strategist and also executionist, Devgan could probably have shed a bit of weight to do this role. He looks too beefy for a thinking man.
Finally, the scene which stays with you. Jha always creates his intervals better than his endings. The rally hijack scene where Ranbir,Nana and Arjun Rampal actually take over a rally organized by Manoj Bajpei while the crowd is clueless of what’s transpiring as Nana chuckles in Bajpei’s ears “Ise kehte hain din dahaade Ser-maari”, this is my pick for the scene of the movie.
A word of caution. This movie might not strike a chord with the NRI audience, who associate politics with ethics,leadership, developmental work and patriotism. Indian politics is(at times) sleazier than a brothel, murkier than a mud fight and runs strictly on the power to entertain, rather than reform. Where else would you have had someone ousting hardworking outsiders from a state in the name of regionalist job quotas, or the very party responsible for killing industrialization in a state, winning with a thumping majority in the same state. This is the land of Chanakya, who would have made Machiavellian strokes seem like kinter garden rhymes .
(Author's' note - I am,in no way trying to demean the great work done by many political leaders of our country.There have been and there still are so many politicians in our country who inspire and lead. However,my take is on the other 70% of the pie,who are the content for flicks like these).
First – Raja Sen, the Rediff reviewer had dismissed it harshly. Now, Sen is a good writer and a terrible reviewer and has absolutely no idea of the business of cinema. So whenever he hails a movie, it bombs and vice versa. So I was pretty sure that this movie will at least be a paisa wasool fare if Raja thinks that it’s bad.
The second reason is more interesting. I remember being told as a kid (by my mother),that any and every story in this world can somehow be directly or indirectly derived from the Mahabharata. Now this was fascinating ! So I always used to subconsciously trace all stories I read in my childhood to the Mahabharata and it indeed worked. Such is the expanse of this Indian epic. It does not really matter whether it was History or fiction. What delights is the sheer scope of the story, the complexity of emotions and the grey undertones in all characters. So while the Ramayana was preachy and about Gods, Mahabharata was about humans and the largest reference library of realpolitik of Indian heartland,which is different from Sun Tzu’s Far East,or Machiavelli’s Europe.
So when I heard that Jha has modeled his flick on the Mahabharata, curiosity got the better of me. I wanted to see how could he format a 3-hour screenplay and do justice to a saga, which took several hundred episodes of B.R.Chopra’s iconic Doordarshan serial in the 80s.
The Report Card – “Rajneeti” was worth the delayed release and the long wait. It is the first big movie of 2010 and Prakash Jha should take a bow for bringing out the best work of his career long after his National award-winning debut with Daamul . Rajneeti rocks !
Now, let me try and narrate why.
Firstly, Rajneeti is not entirely Mahabharata. Second, it is not entirely “Godfather” either. Jha has managed to evolve a story which starts from the Mahabharata, moves into Mario Puzo’s masterpiece effortlessly and masterfully oscillates between the two,with generous inputs from Machiavelli and Sun Tzu, and yet churning out a gritty ,gripping , edge-of –the-seat political thriller, which would make RGV’s “Sarkars” look like kid movies. The way the story unfolds and the characters are deftly hurled at you ,it displays Jha's sheer mastery of the medium. Despite the racy narrative, Jha keeps the screenplay simplistic and deliberate enough for every member in the audience grasp the story as it progresses. And yes, Rajneeti is a BIG movie and is best suited to the big screen format and might not look so good on DVD. The grandeur, the colours, the loudness and the crowd scenes look best on a 70 mm. As a story, it is pretty simple and contemporary to India. A political first family calling the shots in a backward state in central India,where people worship them more than they worship their deities. And then there is sibling rivalries leading to phase two of dynasty politics, where greed and ambition fare over blood relationships . And then there are the outsiders who want to get a piece of the pie while the insiders would stop at nothing to cling on to the intoxicating game of power and wealth. Where it ventures away from the Mahabharata, is the fact that there are no clear cut Pandavas or the Kauravas here, or in other words, no clear heroes or villains. Both sides are deeply grey and the story leaves it to the viewer to pick his or her heroes. Also, certain main characters from the Mahabharata are omitted (Yudhistir, Draupadi,Nakul,Sahadev,etc), some characters have been clubbed into one,while some have been inspired from the Godfather. In the end, good does not triumph over evil. It is politics which triumphs like it happens everyday in India. After loads of drama,bloodshed and gore, politics keeps standing on it’s own. Nothing changes and the show goes on.
The flaws ? Well, for one – the second half is too melodramatic. Also the lead actors end up doing a lot of first hand action which makes it slightly bollywoodish. Secondly although every news article of late is screaming about Katrina’s role, she falls terribly short and shows that she is best fitted for her Barbie girl roles. Thirdly, I personally felt that Jha had quite a powerful screenplay already . He could have avoided lifting some scenes straight from Mario Puzo’s book. These apart, “Rajneeti” is the best movie of 2010 so far.
Let me now try and rate the performances.
Arjun Rampal – As a crossover between Sonny Corleone (clearly) and Bheema(probably),he delivers his career best performance. He not only looks every bit the 3rd generation politician with his designer kurtis and sports shoes, but also gives a power packed performance as the mercurial elder son and the heir apparent to the throne. As a hot headed, clear hearted and testosterone charged politician, Rampal glows in each frame,even in a gory one,where he clubs two people to a bloody death and smiles while wiping the blood, or when he shyly confesses his love for Katrina .
Nana Patekar – The three most complex characters of the Mahabharata were Krishna, Shakuni and Bheeshma. It becomes even more complex if you roll them into one character and ask someone to enact it. And does Nana deliver ! He shows that not only has his stubble grey-ed since his Ankush and Kranteeveer days, but he has grown leaps and bounds as an artiste. Who would have thought in the early 90s that this hyper, loud, fidgety actor can ever play a calm, smiling, scheming game changer and author of a murky political play.
Ranbir Kapoor – Being the flavor of the season, this boy is landing up all the author-backed roles for himself. But to be fair to him , he once again stakes his claim to be the Dhoni ,the crown prince of Bollywood, as he slips heart and soul into the role of the outlier , Michael Corleone and Arjuna rolled into one. As a sophisticated, educated and cool headed and cold-hearted mastermind , despite such a young age, Kapoor delivers to the T. He is an absolute delight in the hospital scene when his father dies and the corrupt policeman slaps him. He however disappoints in the rally takeover scene where he hijacks a speech right under a hapless Manoj Bajpei's nose. This was his moment where he could have left behind a historicl scene,but falls short by trying to underplay.
Manoj Bajpei – Bhiku Maatre had shook the nation in 1998. So much so that people forgot the name of the actor portraying this gangster’s role & identified him by his iconic rendition . Manoj Bajpei had to do a “Shool” to register his name as one of the finest discoveries of the past decade. However, along the way, in a bid to be a second rate SRK and to over-stylize himself, he lost the actor in him. All his performances were B-stuff after that. The Rajneeti promos showed him in a new,dapper and promising look. While he could not go back to the intensity of his Satya and Shool days,nevertheless Bajpei, as the hot blooded Duryodhan comes up with a pretty inspiring performance after a long time. Only had he been more natural,rather than resorting to histioronics in every scene, he could have taken home a national award for the role that was written to be every anti-hero’s dream. However, he has his moments and when he slowly growls and repeats with blood shot eyes to the crowd that “Karaara jawaab milegaa” you actually get goose bumps.
Katrina Kaif – Make no mistakes. She is not Draupadi of Mahabharata , nor is she Kay of Godfather. She is an add on, in every sense of the term. As the daughter of Mr.Monybags, she plays a weakly put up character which starts off as a kick ass, independent Lexus driving girl in love, to an aagyakaari daughter cum wife cum widowed politician ,absolutely unconvincing in every sub frame.
Ajay Devgan – However much I dislike this guy, I have to give him marks for having an eye for picking the right roles which manage to make him look good in spite of his mediocre acting skills and his permanent scowling face and his muttering between his nicotine stained teeth. As Karna , Ajay Devgan gets one of the meatiest roles in the saga. As the illegitimate elder son, brought up amidst Dalits and one who challenges dynasty rule by pairing up with an ousted Duryodhan, Devgan is not bad. As Duryodhan’s’ main ally, strategist and also executionist, Devgan could probably have shed a bit of weight to do this role. He looks too beefy for a thinking man.
Finally, the scene which stays with you. Jha always creates his intervals better than his endings. The rally hijack scene where Ranbir,Nana and Arjun Rampal actually take over a rally organized by Manoj Bajpei while the crowd is clueless of what’s transpiring as Nana chuckles in Bajpei’s ears “Ise kehte hain din dahaade Ser-maari”, this is my pick for the scene of the movie.
A word of caution. This movie might not strike a chord with the NRI audience, who associate politics with ethics,leadership, developmental work and patriotism. Indian politics is(at times) sleazier than a brothel, murkier than a mud fight and runs strictly on the power to entertain, rather than reform. Where else would you have had someone ousting hardworking outsiders from a state in the name of regionalist job quotas, or the very party responsible for killing industrialization in a state, winning with a thumping majority in the same state. This is the land of Chanakya, who would have made Machiavellian strokes seem like kinter garden rhymes .
(Author's' note - I am,in no way trying to demean the great work done by many political leaders of our country.There have been and there still are so many politicians in our country who inspire and lead. However,my take is on the other 70% of the pie,who are the content for flicks like these).
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