Forgive Or Don't?

Forgiveness is the Economics of Heart..
It Saves the Expense of Anger
The Cost of Hatred
The Wastage of Peaceful Moments &
Gives You Profits on Smiles..

The above whatsapp that I received gives the message to: Forgive And Forget!

True..!
Lovely tangible and intangible cost-benefit analysis it offers.

But it's difficult for me to forgive someone slapping me, arriving from the 'blue', apparently for no reason. One shouldn't tolerate itunless of course it's sensed as a God-sent one.

In the latter case my action is to Forgive. In case of the former it is to: Forgive But Don't Forget. Because history 'says' if you do (forget) and stay indifferent, more 'slaps' come back in search of you for 'no reason'.

Decades ago, doors of Sydenham commerce college got 'banged' on me. When some close some do open. Some for the better. Those of Ruparel college opened with many more thereafter. 
The 'slap' proved to be God-sent!

In engineering college, someone ridiculed my looks. I learnt to differenciate among Functional, Aesthetic and Functionally-Aesthetic look/s.
The 'slap' proved to be God-sent!

There were many more 'slaps' even in my professional life. Sometimes due to inadvertent mistakes. All of those made me stronger and wiser.
The 'slaps' proved to be God-sent!

Day-by-day, I've been trying to get WISER to know the difference!

P. S. You may take a tests of wisdom for the 'slaps' in case of situations in the blogposts listed in the end.

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder: Please do consider leaving a comment or sharing this post.

Tolerate Once, Twice, Thrice? 
Functional-Aesthetics 
WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling 
Take Habits For A Ride 
How To Make A Difference 
Big-Be Or Bug-Be ! 
Make checklists your friends  
Drove To Hell ... Almost ! 
Nauseous Communication Gaps 
Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis 
Raam or Krishna-Shyam: Tell me Hey Raam! Will It Work Here?  
Some Moron ! Some Great !!!  
That's How Morons Work
You seem Reasonable if you appear Un-reasonable 
Smart-Moron Who Breaks Your Glass  
Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy 
Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation
Tolerate Once, Twice, Thrice? 
Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture 
IQ-EQ-or-SQ: What-is-more-important?
Do you know a Best-Career-Plan 
Take your career in fast lane!
Succession-Plans In Fast Lane!  
In-a-problem? No-problem! Dwell-a-while!
Success-or-failure! What-do-you-like? 
Do you exercise your choice meaningfully 
Do You Ask Right Questions?  
Overworked? Tension? CPU of the mind hung-up? 
No Time? Micro-Meditate!  
Talk In Order To Listen!  
Eternally Happy! 
What You See Isn't What's Made 
Am I 'Short-sighted' or 'Long-sighted'?  
Deity is in the eyes of the beholder 

Simplicity Of Theory Of Relativity

My google map was not responding.
Public transport was not in sight.

How far is Hill road, I asked at the roadside stall. 
"15 minutes", the stall-owner replied.

Just to reconfirm I asked same question to a person parking car nearby. It's hardly 2 minutes: He replied.

I was a bit confused. 15 minutes or 2 minutes?

After a couple of minutes walk, I asked same question to a lady waiting to cross the road.
She replied: It's about 30 minutes.

More confusion: 30 minutes after 5 minutes walk?

I continued walking down.
After 10 minutes walk, I asked someone for a landmark for the place I had reached. I thought someone could pick me up from there in order to reach me to my destination.

The person couldn't tell me one. She kept looking at the cow instead I was standing next to. Luckily she didn't tell me the cow as the landmark. Otherwise I would've ended up looking at 'google-guy' (snail) instead of google map. (Cow is pronounced as Guy in vernacular.)

The point I am driving home is it's all relative!
Long ago Einstein brought the concept of relativity. 
Perhaps by car it was 2 minutes.
By walk it was 15 minutes.
And by the walking speed of the lady it was 30 minutes.
Probably the lady was right. She was pregnant.

The only thing wrong was I didn't confirm the mode of travel. Nor did they specify.
Actually I was wrong not to ask right question.

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:  Please do consider leaving a comment or sharing this post.

Do You Ask Right Questions? 
Do you exercise your choice meaningfully
Make checklists your friends
Love is Care.. Care is Love ! 
Take Habits For A Ride
Are You Good If Others Are Bad? 
Bust-wants, Boom-needs
Do You Celebrate Mean-or-Green
Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture
I am afraid ! What do I do !!
Discrimination-is-Cremation of Law-&-Order
Success Or Failure: What Do You Like?
Fearful Death-Of-Birth !
Aesthetics Spills-Over Function, Want Spills-Over Need
Raam or Krishna-Shyam: Tell Me Hey Raam!

Are You Good If Others Are Bad?

Last week just before conducting an audit for Continual Improvement Culture (CIC) in one of the companies in Western India, I asked the audience to self-assess and give a score for CIC at their workplace.

Few participants gave a score of 10%. Few others rated themselves on higher side with a score of 40% although they had just begun attempting the CIC initiative.

I proposed claps for those who rated themselves on lower side. Why? Because their score wasn't to underestimate themselves but it intended to show further scope for improvement.

A headline in Loksatta newspaper reminded me of this incidence. The news reported a minister (in a conference on Change) challenging Gujarat state touted as being ahead of Maharashtra.

How do you think progress of an individual or an entity be measured? What should be the measures of performance to decide who's ahead of whom?

Is it the result or the means to it or a combination of both? The means inter alia may include attitude, continuity and consistency of approach to help achieve the desired results.

If it was results alone then it's the Hare that would always get declared as winner. If it was the latter then it's the Tortoise that would always get declared as winner.

Actually it should be a combination of both. In addition it should include the rate of efforts applied while trying for enhanced rate of improvement. Outcome sometimes may be failures (to learn from) rather than expected improvements per-se though.

If you think this approach to measurement is right then the challenge reported in above headline seems confusing.

If the claim therein were to be right then:
1/ The rate of improvement of infrastructure in Maharashtra should have outpaced the rate of urbanization that of 50% as quoted by one of the economists during the same conference.
2/ The industry scions wouldn't have 'complained' of poor infrastructure and poor assistance by government as reported in the same conference.

Anyway, the point of contention is: isn't it in your own interest to compete with your ownself than with others. Its not necessary to show others down to show ownself up.

If at all one wishes to compare with others it should be with an intention to stretch own benchmarks. It should be to find out how far and how fast one needs to go in comparison and by what approach.

In short, it's good to think and take positive steps rather than otherwise.

It's good to aim at 'sky' as your template of destination. It's better than looking down upon other's garden to show your's to be better and bigger.

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

Make It Simpler, Rest Will Follow
How To Make A Difference 
Big-Be Or Bug-Be ! 
Treat Root-causes, Not Symptoms !
Nauseous Communication Gaps
Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis
Raam or Krishna-Shyam: Tell me Hey Raam!
Will It Work Here? 
Some Moron ! Some Great !!!
That's How Morons Work
You seem Reasonable if you appear Un-reasonable
Smart-Moron Who Breaks Your Glass 
WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling
Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy
Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation
Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture
Tolerate Once, Twice, Thrice?
That's how some business partnerships work
Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !!
Technology in-place, security dis-placed
IQ-EQ-or-SQ: What-is-more-important?
Do you know a Best-Career-Plan
Customer or Custo-Mer? 
Experienced A Delightful Payment !
An Experience of Heart-and-Soul
Less With More And More Gets Sore
Should one care for value? 
ABCD of India Shining
Beware Of Political-Presentations
Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis
Hoarders Of Filthy Hoardings

Functional-Aesthetics

"Almost all crime is due to the repressed desire for aesthetic expression." Evelyn Waugh English Writer. 

The concept in this blogpost was triggered by a picture that I saw painted on a wall of Rail Museum in Mysore.

It said: Way to Maharani (Queen) Saloon!

At its first sight, I was reminded of a term usually misspelled in India, Saloon for Salon: the term for a barber's shop.

I wondered what had the painting to do with the rail exhibits. In the wildest imagination, I could think of its links, if at all any, with the hairdressing of Queens of the dynasties in palaces of Mysore and around.

I found myself wrong after looking around for a while. I found the real Saloon. A part of the rail carriage was exhibited there. It was devoted to seated relaxation combined with a dining table: The Saloon!

Anyway, let me take an about-turn now. Let me expand on the thought that occurred to me at the sight of this picture at this site.

Why do people go to a salon: a barber's shop?

Some go for their Functional 'Needs'.
Some go for their Aesthetic 'Wants'.
Some go for "Functional-Aesthetics": This is the term & the concept that had instantaneously occurred to me then at the sight of the painting.

I 'googled' for the term "Functional-Aesthetics" and giggled that it didn't exist.

What is Functional-Aesthetics?

Typically a haircut that's acceptable with reference to military norms is functional.

Actually long hair can be unhealthy as well as dangerous, both in military as well as in other contexts. In military setting in particular, additional reasons of their typical haircut could be to preempt accidents due to long hair, its maintenance, distractions or undesired attractions due to them if stylized, as the case may be, in the warfield. The functions that it is expected to serve makes it a functional haircut.

A funny haircut acceptable only to a small group of trendy people as a fad could be termed as purely aesthetic one. It's generally acceptable as a style for its funny aesthetics more than for the function that it's expected to serve if at all.

On the same lines, a haircut typically acceptable to school norms could fall in the category of Functional-Aesthetics.

In short, 'needs' that stand the tests of an acceptable system's logically acceptable judiciously balanced norms or standards or criteria could be termed as Functionally-Aesthetic.

'Wants or desires' that go beyond such logical norms or criteria could be termed as Aesthetic more than Functional, with reference to a given system. 

A style that adds substance to the function (that it is supposed to serve) without any extra cost to the offering nor to the ecology may also stand the test of being Functionally-Aesthetic: A shirt for instance bought for its extra-large pockets or additional pockets unconventionally located on its sleeve, say, in order to eliminate carrying an extra hand-bag. 

Paradoxically, a functionally-aesthtic offering to be on the right path of evolution should truly lead to multi-functionality in its usage with minimalist use of resources while at the same time simplistic-to-use, maintain & facilitate eco-friendly disposal as a part of its total lifecycle. 

Functionally-Aesthetic offering in general should 'sell' more in the longer run than purely Functional or purely Aesthetic one. Because it offers value; because it offers Total Quality to all its stakeholders. On the contrary, rest of the offerings necessarily need marketing 'push' & overselling too. Or in its absence, the purely Aesthetic may fail to exploit its full potential. 

A Lesson!

If you mindfully observe, you may find that the Mother Nature and its every design itself is Functionally-Aesthetic both in its form-and-fit. It's intelligently crafted Aesthetics! That's why everything natural from food-to-fossil is pure, beautiful, lean, value-adding and valuable. Hope human race strives to maintain it that way. Hope it draws a lesson or two to learn from (it) and invests its finite time in adding value to life rather than destroying it by incorporating the unwanted waste under the disguise of so-called Aesthetics.

Only way to do so is by arresting unneeded human activities and unwise choice/s for want/s that create a materialistic world. Spoiled choices in particular take one away from being Functionally-Aesthetic: The choices that are far from being sustainable!

Here's a MaiKu© poem while on the subject:

On way to queen's saloon
Imagination took off in balloon
Finally landed Saloon in Salon

©MaiKu Is My-Haiku
Freely ideate it's poetic rhymes
Any objective topic it chimes

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

Do You Celebrate Mean-or-Green

Aesthetics Spills-Over Function, Want Spills-Over Need (Part-1)

Aesthetics Spills-Over Function, Want Spills-Over Need (Part-2)

Should one care for value? 

Do you exercise your choice meaningfully

What You See Isn't What's Made

You seem Reasonable if you appear Un-reasonable

Wish To Be Planet-Friendly?: Save! 

Less With More And More Gets Sore

Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy

Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation

That's How Morons Work

Smart-Moron Who Breaks Your Glass 

WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling

Eternally Happy

Eternally Happy: परमानंद

Drove To Hell ... Almost !

Next day at 0700 hours I was supposed to leave Dahej for Baroda. I was supposed to begin seminar at 0900 hours. I kept checking at reception desk of the hotel but 'No Show' until 0715. So finally I called on driver's number that the company officer had given me.

Driver said he's reaching in 5-minutes. Finally he arrived at 0730 hours, half an hour late.

"Don't worry" he said, when I told him about no time left for "getting ready" the equipment at seminar venue about 170 kilometres away on the outskirts of Baroda.

He took off adjusting his seat. After some time he began telling stories about how drivers get exploited complaining about owner not paying for food nor parking charges, etc. I told him to keep quiet noticing that he was looking back and forth and sideways while driving.

Now he began showing driving skills. He would approach vehicles in front of him charging on to the accelerator, blowing horn that was so weak that only two of us could hear it. He would then charge into the brakes at the last minute and drift into side-lane. I didn't dare to ask him why he didn't plan beforehand to be himself in the available free lane.

Actually I was lucky that he wasn't driving in the night. I had experienced him driving in the night. He seemed to have poor vision that I am sure he wouldn't have admitted to. I could easily notice that he wasn't able to judge vehicles running ahead of him. Sometimes he would bump into stones on road. Sometimes he would look into his wrist watch with almost 30-degree downward bend.

So en-route Baroda, after some time he took city road instead of highway. The signboard showed left turn "to Baroda" while the driver took right turn. When I asked why, ''Don't worry'' was his reply. I could decode his ''Don't worry'' as he approached a fuel pump. I had no option but to express my displeasure after noticing queue there. I told him next time he should be 'all ready' beforehand for a long haul like the current one.

At the fuel station he argued because he had exhausted account-slip that would allow him to fill tank on credit. Somehow he 'managed'.

Inside Bharuch city he kept boasting of cars moving on road from his company's fleet. At a couple of places he drove parallel to some vehicles to wave off his colleague drivers until I reminded him that we were late.

Then at some places he began driving at 60 kmph in spite of being in city's single lane. And then suddenly he would apply brakes at rough patches.

There are cases of head-on collisions or a vehicle bumping into from behind.
At one place he had almost bumped into a speed breaker until I reminded him. His response was: ''Don't take tension''.

After some time we approached Highway to Baroda but he took a subway below it. When asked, he added to my knowledge that he always fetches some holy water to drink from there.

A Govt owned fertiliser company GNFC is on the banks of Narmada river. Entering a 'No Entry' zone he fetched water from their security office, bought some cigarettes and  'Pan Masala' (Indian derivative of tobacco) to chew. Armoured with it he'd another driving style to show. He kept spitting on highway intermittently opening the door while driving: A skill perhaps only Indian drivers have mastered.

Throughout the highway at every opportunity he would take cuts and overtake from wrong side. Incidentally the taxi didn't have left side mirror making the overtake that much more difficult. Once while overtaking from behind a truck, suddenly a tourist bus appeared from opposite side from nowhere. The bus itself was in wrong direction.

When cautioned him to refrain from such risky practices his reply was "I drive on this road daily". Perhaps he meant he drives "like this" driving his passengers "mad" daily. I wished the highway had rumblers all along. Rumblers do restrict such "madness". Continuously driving at steady speeds brings in monotony that in turn brings in 'defects'.

Just about while he was at 100 speed a truck driver took right turn without indication. Now he had an opportunity to show his strength as "Son-of-soil". He sped and parked car right in front of him. Got down. Abused him. Reached to his collar.

Gaining some strength from this 'win' he finally landed me at the destination more than an hour late. Unbelting myself I promptly jumped out of car with a sigh of relief. 

I had no choice but to deeply apologise to the audience for the delay: (since) I had an appointment with a devil and just had a drive little better than Hell !

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

When Safety Becomes Sorry

Prevention: The Best Cure! ... Is it really so?

WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling

Do you exercise your choice meaningfully

I am afraid ! What do I do !! 

Fearful-Of-Death-of-Birth

Treat Root-causes, Not Symptoms !

Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !!

Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation

Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture

Tolerate Once, Twice, Thrice?

That's How Morons Work

A Ride To Hell

How To Make A Difference

When Safety Becomes Sorry

A mother standing in isle of the bus fell on her child holding her hand. Both got injured with their noses profusely bleeding. First-aid box inside the bus was nearly empty. Luckily bus had just taken exit from express-way so emergency aid was accessible.

Both, mother and child with their luggage, were standing in the isle in anticipation of arrival of their destination close by. It was an intercity Volvo with powerful air brakes.

The driver had applied emergency brakes. Reason was a couple of pedestrians walking on road suddenly taking a U-turn. They didn't notice the bus arriving.

Why didn't the driver blow horn in order to alert the pedestrians?

He did try but the horn didn't work. Condition of the horn in high-technology bus had got deteriorated. It was not restored to it's original condition. It was 'fixed' rather than maintaining or refurbishing it. The wires were pulled from steering wheel and left open loosely hanging. Driver did try to touch positive wire to the negative one hanging from top in order to blow the horn in vain. 

So there were three apparent causes of the accident.

One was J-walkers on road haphazardly moving.
Second one was dysfunctional horn that failed to work.
Third one was wrong habits of passengers anxiously standing in isle of the bus nearing it's destination.

Solution to each one of them is imbibing safe practices, safety discipline and improvement attitude. These are generic terms though. People-in-power must drill down to root-causes of symptomatic causes as above.

Root-cause may be lack of training or lack of adequate standards and practices. It may be lack of motivation to follow or enforce discipline to comply with desired standards if ones are established.

'Imbibing attitude' involves involvement of corresponding people: The decision makers if it's a workplace. The parents and teachers if it's at personal level.

Wrong behavior of people (including 'small-people', the children) is a manifested reflection of wrong behavior of their superior's.

It's primarily the people-in-power who can make the difference by behaving in a desired manner. Attitude of the 'watchers' then 'behaves' itself.

Here's a MaiKu© on the topic.

Tom crushed Harry
Root-causes weren't wary
Safety became Sorry

MaiKu© Is My-Haiku
Freely ideate it's poetic rhymes
Any objective topic it chimes

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

Please consider leaving a comment or sharing this post via social media.

Prevention: The Best Cure! ... Is it really so?

In a Problem?: No Problem ! Dwell A While !!

Beware Of Political-Presentations

Discrimination-is-Cremation of Law-&-Order (Part-1) 
Discrimination-is-Cremation of Law-&-Order (Part-2) 
Discrimination Cremated! But How Long? 

Make It Simpler, Rest Will Follow

How To Make A Difference

IQ-EQ-or-SQ: What-is-more-important?

A Ride To Hell

Treat Root-causes, Not Symptoms !

Nauseous Communication Gaps

Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis

Raam or Krishna-Shyam: Tell me Hey Raam!

Will It Work Here? 

Some Moron ! Some Great !!!

That's How Morons Work

Smart-Moron Who Breaks Your Glass 

WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling

Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy

Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation

Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture

Tolerate Once, Twice, Thrice?

Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !!

Technology in-place, security dis-placed

I am afraid ! What do I do !! 

Fearful-Of-Death-of-Birth

Take Habits For A Ride

Long time ago, while approaching a crossroad where red light was blinking, I slowed down the jeep that I was driving.

Just about when I was to cross the signal, suddenly a biker overtook me from left in a flash. He almost took a ninety degree turn to right, crossed me and sped away. By the time I could realise what was happening, he evaporated in thin air.

His dangerous adventure was just short of being fatal. His motor cycle narrowly escaped  bumper of my jeep. Perhaps the elephant-god saved him. It was the first day of Lord Ganesha's festival in Mumbai. So what the blind faith may prompt one to believe so.

He took himself for a ride 
Death almost came calling in stride
Why don't habits suicide

Couple of mistakes that he committed was he overtook from wrong side. At the crossroad looking at amber signal in particular he should've slowed down instead of zipping in. He should've stayed in the extreme right lane well beforehand with indication signal ON if he wanted to take right turn.

Perhaps for him those were "I've been doing this for years" kind of 'skills' rather than mistakes. So how does one tackle such 'skill-full' mistakes?

Mistake-proof methods (Poka-yoke) should be in place particularly in high-probability high-risk zones. Poka-yoke is an innovation by Shigeo Shingo at Toyota. Poka stands for a mistake. Yoke stands for proofing against it. It's a commonsense improvement (Kaizen) but with a structure. In order to prevent nail-biting habit, application of something on fingers that tastes bitter is an age-old Poka-yoke used by a typical grandma.

For instance, in accident prone areas there should be guided lane dividers to prevent sudden lane changing habits. Rumblers should be provided to force slowing down at crossroads. Speed measuring devices should be installed alongwith cameras to detect speedsters.

In spite of the above, some practices (Habits!) get ingrained in us so much that they become our second nature. If the habits are for good then it's fine. Otherwise even if you want them to die they don't! Instead they make sure that you do!

By using various grandma kind (Sama-Dama) methods one may try to change habits piece-by-piece. But a piece still remains until you lose your peace. Habits do die but they die hard way.

Habit is a H. A. B. I. T.
Even if you remove H in it, A BIT remains.
Remove A; and BIT still remains.
Remove B; but until you remove 'I' in it, IT still remains.

The only way to remove 'I' in it is to teach IT (the self) by a stick if everything else fails. If you don't, the habit-prone may 'poke' a 'yoke' in the Poka-yoke itself.

Here's a MaiKu© on the topic.

Back-n-forth Habits sway 
Unless they die hardway
Few mistake-proof by-the-way 

MaiKu© Is My-Haiku

Freely ideate it's poetic rhymes
Any objective topic it chimes

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

Please consider leaving a comment or sharing this post via social media.

Prevention: The Best Cure! ... Is it really so?

In a Problem?: No Problem ! Dwell A While !!

Beware Of Political-Presentations

Discrimination-is-Cremation of Law-&-Order (Part-1) 
Discrimination-is-Cremation of Law-&-Order (Part-2) 
Discrimination Cremated! But How Long? 

Make It Simpler, Rest Will Follow

How To Make A Difference

IQ-EQ-or-SQ: What-is-more-important?

A Ride To Hell

Treat Root-causes, Not Symptoms !

Nauseous Communication Gaps

Do You Cleanup-After-Crisis

Raam or Krishna-Shyam: Tell me Hey Raam!

Will It Work Here? 

Some Moron ! Some Great !!!

That's How Morons Work

Smart-Moron Who Breaks Your Glass 

WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling

Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy

Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation

Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture

Tolerate Once, Twice, Thrice?

Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !!

Technology in-place, security dis-placed

I am afraid ! What do I do !! 

Fearful-Of-Death-of-Birth