Marketers say "You Need It"

In one of these random weekday evenings, where I had a chance (read:no choice but) to sit and watch NDTV Profit. Ya! My dad likes such channels. Most of the dads do..
Being my usual self, it all started with commenting on anchors clothes and accent and all that - blame it on my limited knowledge on profits !!
It was a real estate show where they displayed all posh buildings, facilities with their prices and all that in all these newly developed cities like gurgaon, mohali etc. Further focusing on the show and the content, I found them talking about margins and profits, while I noted that my dad was watching it closely too. While I reached for the remote to change, he said "wait am watching".. I jus looked at him and said "Gurgaon?? How these people are Creating a Need na appa" He turned saw me and turned back..
May be he thought - This girl is brainless.. But on the contrary ! May be I was right !! He had no comments.. Turning pages in Masslows Heirarchy of Needs ! Or even primary basic needs.. Was n house just a basic need(safety to be precise).. Having house in Luxury is perfectly acceptable too ! Cause u can afford it and what else do u earn for ? But 2 to 3 houses, jus to buy, sell and buy again !! Where things started way back in trading, lending interest, has now come to a level of playing with real estate for just money. A lot of these luxury flats in multi storey apartments, remain locked. Cause owners(investors is the word for it) are waiting for the right time to sell.
And there the money goes, to builders who just build for the sake of it, those cracked out people who advertise it, those actors who endorse it and of course to NDTV Profit too.. Even made me think ! Why would someone sell houses on Profit? His selling pitch was so perfect, nice great things about the house, about never before customer experience, state of art and all that.. Yes boss ! We ve seen it all ! But is there a choice ? Flipside of Marketing !! Creating The Need.. Where marketing for awareness now part of marketing history..
Jus hoping dad's not falling for it and we don own a house in Mohali !! 😉 (I am just joking Dad! Incase u got to read this !!) ha ha ha !!

With Love, From the top !!

Lead & Inspire is the "in-thing" of today where leaders want to equip themselves to inspire. Turning back to my MBA days while we used to read in Organizational Behavior about Leaders and types and examples. I really used to wonder - do these things exist today, and does it even make a difference as to how the guy in the top was, when your salary and promotion was on time !!

Then did I realize the importance, when I got opportunities to work with people in top and help them transalate their thoughts to their employees(ya! Thats part of my job). There were leaders who wanted to connect, those who wanted to just bless, those who wanted to be the employee itself ! Thats when it struck, That man inspires.

"The One with class, who also appeals the mass"

A leader is like a cinema star, he needs to wave when he has to and let his hair down when needed !!  Balancing that perfectly - Inspirational !! Books call him Charismatic.. 
To an employees eyes, he will be that one who recognizes the difference between 'the employee' and 'the person'. The One that gives you clear expectations, travels the path with you and express a heartfelt appreciation at the end of it !! That does not mean he wouldn criticize you ! He will, not the past, but objectively your way forward.

He will be the One you want learn from and use as a role model in life. Who would not like to look into the cabin, smile and be smiled at !

After all ! The leader who makes his pastas, mixes your drink for you, dances for masala songs in a crowd & ofcourse does not make u feel bad for not leaving work at 9pm and offers you the drop back !!! Sure Inspires !! Permanently !

Cheers !

Are u Engaged Enough ??

Employee Engagement - The one aspect at workplaces that gets varied level of treatments. While certain leaders rate it to be the top most priority, others brush it aside as an unwanted expense ! Beyond all this, are companies doing it the right way is one big question mark!
Before even getting into the right ways of it, what does it mean to a company ? Though being associated with the employee engagement framework I have never been able to figure out what is the real intent..
Are we saying that just throwing parties and sponsoring 5 star lunches for employees gonna stop them from leaving the company.. If yes, that employee doesn deserve to be in the company at all !! While on the flipside constantly trying to make employees feel good seems to be the need of the hour !!
I always feel that there is the gap between the leadership team and the employees in this aspect.. Cause, what happens is that there is always a "I feed(read:push down your throat) what I feel you should eat" attitude among people who want to engage employees. Should  it not be "Tell me what you would like to eat, I d see how i can get u something close to that".. This is the huge disconnect that leads to lot of them being disengaged and leaving !  It is unavoidable for one to stop junior staff leaving and its good for staff who ve been around for too long leaving.. But the middle management, needs to be most engaged. Here engagement means involvement. What do they wanna hear, what do they wanna see, where are they making progress.. These things would be biggest motivation for employees to stay and contribute.. The need to have the pride of working on something that makes the own it up !!
Yes, parties and lunches do play a role too !! After all, all work and no play makes jack a dull boy !!
"Engagement is never a tick in the box, its like democracy - of the people, for the people, by the people !! Is it not??

Cheers

Refreshing Passion in Companionship !!

May be I should rename my blog Randomly.. From Indian Railways.. Cause i get to write only in the train.. Here we go plunging into today's random thoughts..  Refreshing passion in companionship..

BTW this post is 'U' certified for readers who got intimidated by the name.
Though the trigger for this was the film 'Lootera' that i saw over the weekend, i started researching on what passion actually means. Quite a few reviews on Lootera said that what was portrayed was Lust while I felt it was beautifully portrayed Passion.. That's when I typed in my phone 'passion' and my search engine said 'Bing SafeSearch would not provide results as your search might contain adult content'.. That was a shocker.
In my opinion, passion is this very strong feeling towards a person, not jus physical like portrayed in Indian Cinema. It could be passion due to the gratification that other person would give u mentally, emotionally, intellectually or even creatively.
 What we have done that word is now relating it only to making love !! Where writers in news papers talk about passionate, steamy and hot.. All the time !

That's when the movie Jab We Met(that i have watched like innumerable times) came to my kind. That kind of passion Shahid carries for Kareena in the movie is purely that emotional happiness she gives him ! In this kinda passion, you might jus want to see that person, jus a good morning from them might elate your day.. Simple things might look beautiful.. Sheer thoughts of that persons mental presence will motivate you., Though portrayal of this passion is too less in movies(from where we pick most of these things).. These do exist.. This does not necessarily mean love.. Sheer Companionship !!
You would never know when this companion might come into your life and when this passion might take over.. But when it does, jus follow your heart and go with the flow !! You will never repent !!
Cheers !!

Is it too old or are we too lazy !!

As the usual, as this writer(atleast let me call myself that) jus passes through station after station sitting in an Indian Railways Shatabthi makes me wonder, when will we ever progress in keeping our trains and stations clean.. Even if we don progress it is still ok ! But cant we have it clean? Cleanliness & Maintenence is the first thing to do.. Where does all the money meant for this go? Anyway the answer is there  - Into some palatial house of some so called politicians !!
A few questions raised in a mind.. Are we being just sheer lazy by saying that we will preserve antique and old structures and not doing anything new?? Leave alone new.. Will the old "antique"  structures get destroyed if they are cleaned and painted ?
In the same lines - a recent article talked about how people incharge and making money for themselves by refurbishing dustbins around the city and replacing them with cheaper and bad ones !
Ethics gone, conscience gone, new thinking gone, responsibilty gone !! Without all these, people are jus close to being dead.. Whats the whole point in being dead and leaving in a palatial house !!

Growth at Workplace...

The title does not reflect 100% of what is written here..

Everyone who works in big organizations normally have a little of vetti(time pass) time in which they observe and reflect on their colleagues behaviors.. Following the same path, I did observe same in my own vetti time and now reflecting on it.. I thought it was definitely worth the share..
Disclaimer : The writer was in the train while penning this down and hence everything is random..  Any resemblances to the characters at workplace is purely true though not intentionally pointed at..
There are on a base level 4 types of ways people try to grow.. To be more precise 4 types characters that people display to grow
1. People who really work smart and hard
2. People who crib and grumble their way up
3. People who stick to power centres like leeches
4. People who display high power.
Normally, we have a tendency to blame such characteristics only on women at workplace, but this is true to both genders..a
Nothing much about the people belonging to category 1. Moving to the Crib Category.. These people always go on and on.. They talk about family issues, work pressures(that might not exist), their health issues, in cycle. They always have excuses that make u pity for them.. Creating so much pity around mostly makes the managers think "This person is doing so much(thats how it seems) despite his/her problems". Though I agree its a lot in women to do this, men do it so subtlely too..
Category 3.. You really need to keep urself away from these people, if you want a peaceful worklife. These people do anything to get attention from power centres(which might include bringing prasadam from temples to always saying yes to everything told in all meetings). The stick on to the power centres so much that at times you wonder there is something between them ;-).. Also these people, will not any Category 1 even come into 1km radius of this power centre !!! These people in general terms are "Jalras" Hence obviously they get to grow !!
Category 4.. These people might or might not be power centre but their display of power makes others intimidated. The fear that person creates will make him grow the ladder very easily.. Jus that, these people need not necessarily be what they look. They will be highly insecure of the category 1 and will use their power to put them down !!
May be after reading this, u might classify people at your workplace too !! These are all random thoughts and excerpts of such discussions I have at work with a friend..
Until the next random thought occurs wishing you an awesome work life and beware of category 3 again guys !!
Cheers

Untitled by me !!

How many times will I say the same thing I wonder... I will write on this page regularly !! But am not saying it this time..

I think facebook and gtalk are 2 bad things which keep me away from unleashing the creative side of me.. I waste time there and I know it. Sheer waste.. Once in a while when i read my posts i jus feel so so good about them.. 2 - 3 years ago, I have written so much.. How could all this go away in jus a jiffy.. Have job made things as bad as this I wonder.. May be its not my job.. Its Facebook, the time waste site.. Still I seem to be addicted to it.. I so need to buck up and do better things in life.. Life seems so dormant !!

In the meantime.. I see a lot of progress in my life.. In this writing space, I have put down my best and my worst moments those 2 years and so i thought that this writing space deserved to know this too.. My wedding being fixed for the next year.. Time is jus flying and I am so waiting for the preps to start... Obviously, Its that moment of my life when I am the Princess getting read ta wed my Prince !!! On a good note I jus hope to write about other things here dear blog... and I jus hope I will...

Cheers

The Hindu : FEATURES / EDITORIAL FEATURES : Where rhythm scored

The Hindu : FEATURES / EDITORIAL FEATURES : Where rhythm scored

Madarasapattinam !!

Hi,

Awesome is not the word enough for a movie taken with a lot of research, perfect characters, right amount of acting and beautiful romance.

Madrasapatinam was a surprise packaged movie with all in right elements. It was astray Thursday afternoon my cousin and I decided we would go for this film as i had open tickets at Inox. I called my nephew along too and we went. The 3 15 show was booked... We stayed around there to see if there were any cancellations and there we got Rs10 tickets at 3:10 to watch the movie.. Though it was the Front row, the theatre was good enough to even mask that flaw.

So, we settled and there started the journey to the classic city in the 1940s... My own city Chennai a.k.a. Madras(at that time). Right from the sets erected to the lighting up of the Central Station, Ive never seem my own Chennapatinam being shown so beautifully. The movie was a very simple story line set in the independence era in the lines of Lagaan showcased in a beautiful manner. The roads, to the images of old Madras still stands fresh in every viewers mind. The old Spencers&co now Spencers Plaza, Walltax road, Central Tower, Ripon buildings and not to forget our very Own Adyar River(Cooum).. Though it pains to see that these things don exist anymore, the other side of me feels happy that I live in the place which was like this.. The movies highlights is surely the Cinematography, awesome portrayal, Background score and the best being the showcasing of boundless love and romance... The color tones used in the movie makes us differentiate the times and also gives a realistic feel..

The lead starts Arya and Amy Jackson have done excellent jobs.. The way the love between them has been portrayed so so well that other directors need to beg to know how to show love(of the(literal transalation of the thamizh saying.. Pichai edukanum idha kathuka)... Language is no barrier for love.. Both of their eyes convey thousand unsaid things.. The song Pookal Pookum tharunam has become my ringtone and one of those songs which make you listen to them over and again..

A small minus in this movie would be a little bit of Dragging in the second half which can be forgiven..

Hats off to everyone in that team who really worked hard to give is such a wonderful movie.. It makes me happy to realize that Good Director like Vijay still exist and great movies like this are still being made... Thus I came out of the movie hall with utmost Satisfaction, my beautiful city and the song Pookal pookum tharunam ringing memories in my mind...

Cheers

PS... You can have a look at the striking Old Madras Here

Whats in a BABY !!!

Hey,

All of us like babies a lot but whats in it to so Aw about !!!? Don mistake me.. Even i Aw at babies. This question of mine which was in the back of my head for so many days got answered very recently when i best friend gave birth to a kid. It was 8.30 in the night and I was standing outside the operation theatre doors, waiting for the guy to be out of my best buds tummy and BAM doors open and the doctor gets out the baby for us to see. He was jus 5-10 minutes old. O my God.. What a wonder !! A living things so sweet and nice has been sitting inside the tummy for so long. HE was so pink and i would also say dirty. And he suddely triend to open his eyes. Seeing this world and Universe for the first time... How can you jus not say an Aw about this. Tears welled up my eyes.. I ve never seen a baby so early.. Except my bro.. but i was small then, din understand these things... This I think is one of the most amazing things !!! So.. I visited him the next day(yesterday).. He was stretching nicely.. He is outta a cucoon and he was trying so hard to be free and out.. He was sleeping though.. AM so waiting to go and visit him today, which i will in sometime.. Happy mom and Happy Dad... And here I am.. May be he ll call me Aunt Aishu !!! I wouldn mind it though !!!!

And guys.. I ve been having this craving for Hot Chocolate since the day i saw the movie Chocolat.. I wanna really good hot Chocolate made outta Cacoa and not bournvita powder.. Do suggest me a place in Chennai if you know one..

Cheers