Tag: life

Fashion is cyclic

Fashion is cyclic and so is life. I was once asked in my college viva as to why fashion is cyclic ? I did not know the answer and responded that it may be because the world is round. Later when I clarified with my professor, he said I was partly right. He said fashion is cyclic because the choices are always limited for everything in life. Once we reach the limit , we tend to follow a repeat cycle.

We can examine this hypothesis from different angles. Let us first look at fashion itself. If we take hairstyle, we have the option of having long hair, medium, short hair or no hair and then we revert to long hair. If we look at our pants. We had tight fitting pants, bell bottoms, parallels and then we may revert to tight pants. So, we notice that all aspects of fashion is cyclic.

If we examine this from HR practices in an organisation, the story is not very different. If we look at rewards and recognition practices, we had high level of differentiation and focus on individual rewards. We then moved to a hybrid model to balance individual and team rewards. Finally, we denounce individual differentiation and feel that the best way to go is team rewards. The story of the bell curve is testimony to this theory as well. Today the same organizations which kept bell curve as the way to differentiate performance assessment have started moving away from the same.

Now, let us look at life. As they say in common parlance, life has come a full circle. We go through bad times and after years of struggle, we feel we have got over the ridge and some good things start to happen. As we ride the crest, we again see the clouds of trouble approaching us. Life is never a straight road. It has a lots of twists and turns and it is up to us to develop the resilience to deal with the uncertainties of life.

Even nature teaches us the cycle of life. We have a great monsoon and a bumper crop for two years in a row. We feel the world is green and food and commodity prices drop. Then we have a severe drought and huge losses to farmers. This is followed by high inflation and escalating food prices. The following year again we have a normal monsoon and life seems to limp back to normalcy.

One of the lessons I have learnt in life is that it is unpredictable. You face a trough, when you expect a crest and vice versa. One has to develop our patience and perseverance to deal with ups and downs. Our ability to bounce back and deal with both with equanimity makes us a winner in life. We need to realize that there is always a sun rise after every sun set. Hence, there is no need to despair after a trough but be optimistic that a crest will soon follow.

Every thing in life goes round and round. We have to develop the ability to be comfortable with the circles in our life. It is a continuum and for every dark and cloudy day, there will be a bright and sunny day that follows. If we develop the ability to deal with the breaks in between, we become victorious in life. It may look that the dark and gloomy days never end for us. The sun looks to never shine for us. But, herein we need the patience and the gratitude that we are better off than millions of people around us in the world.

Life is a full circle like in the floral decoration of the photo above. Let us learn to deal with it.

S Ramesh Shankar

Quest for life and living…

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All of us may have learnt scientific inquiry as part of our school education. Most of us give up this spirit of inquiry as we transcend from childhood to adulthood. Very few of us have this spirit as a way of life. My sister’s husband was one such being. One can understand this spirit since he was a scientist in the Indian space research organisation for almost four decades.

Today I started my workday with a meeting as usual. I had kept my mobile phone in the silent mode. However I realised that some of my close relatives were continuously trying to reach me. When I sensed there could be an emergency, I interrupted the meeting and picked up the phone. It was indeed one of the saddest day of my life. I was informed that my brother in law had passed away. His name was K Natarajan and had served the Indian Space Research Organisation as a scientist.

He had got up in the morning and had gone to the rest room. When he did not return in reasonable time, his family members knocked the bathroom door. When he still did not respond, they broke open the door and called the doctor. The doctor examined and gave the sad news within minutes. He had died out of a massive heart attack while he was in the rest room.

This may be a very peaceful way to leave Mother Earth for himself. But, I could not imagine the fate of my sister, who was waiting outside with a cup of hot coffee for him to return. I could not imagine how one could wipe the tears of his mother, who is 94 and was staying with him. Life has its way of shocking us. We are rattled out of our normal being. We realise that life can change for any of us within minutes or even seconds.

I would say I was lucky. I had been to Trivandrum only last week for our leadership offsite. I spent a night with my sister and her family. I had spent hours discussing with him on various issues from politics, sports to spirituality. I have seen him from my childhood and have always admired his spirit of inquiry. He always explored knowledge and knowing about life and living.

He was a brilliant student and had an illustrious career in the Indian space research organisation in the field of electro optics. One could spend hours with him discussing on any subject. Apart from being well read, he was open to respect alternate view points and always stood by his views on all issues. I always admired his hand writing. It was almost like engraving in gold. I wish could I could have inherited his beautiful handwriting.

Another invaluable learning from him was his respect for elders and service to them. I still remember how he used to stay with my grandmother and take care of her when he was a student and took all opportunities to learn from her wisdom. He was very comfortable in interacting with people of all ages and used all mediums to interact. Today my son told me how he used to be the first to comment on his facebook posts and even wished him in German whenever he visited Germany for official work.

He took care of his mother right through his life. I had recently visited them and realised how blessed he was to be able to take care of his mother in her nineties. I did not know that today I would write his obituary in front of his mother, who is 94. Life teaches you many lessons the hard way. I cannot imagine how a mother in her nineties will feel losing her son in front her own eyes. I dread to think how my sister will lead the rest of her life without her life partner.

The photo above is symbolic of his family bonding and care.

I commit to live the spirit of inquiry and take care of elders to the best of my ability in life . This can be the only way I can pass on my tribute to him.

S Ramesh Shankar

22nd November 2017

Luck versus Hard Work

One may always be in a dilemma if luck or labour is needed for success in life. We hear stories of both categories being successful in life. On the one hand, we hear of many successful people, who work their way up in life through dint of hard work and perspiration. On the other hand, we also meet people, who are at the right place at the right time and catapult to success due to sheer luck.

One is always in a dilemma whether luck or hard work is the mantra for success in life. If I have to look back at my life and also the experience of admiring successful people around me in all walks of life I would say that hard work is the foundation for success in every aspect of life. Hard work is necessary and luck can supplement hard work but not the other way around.

Sometimes people get carried away by some rare examples of lucky people achieving success. It may be true that some people are indeed lucky and they achieve success not because of their efforts but because of their luck. This in my view would be more of an exception than a rule. It is like some people having great health right through their life and living in their nineties inspite of smoking and consumption of alcohol on a daily basis. If one concludes based on these examples that smoking and consuming alcohol every day could help us lead a healthy life, this could be misleading.

One of the reasons why many people do not consider hard work as important for success in life is that we tend to notice people only after they have become successful. We are not privy to the hard work and the challenges many of the successful people go through before they become famous. A good example could be that of a sportsman or woman. After they become famous and earn a lot of money through advertisements and endorsements, we tend to believe that life is so easy for them. We do not realize how many hours of practise they would have put in day in and night out before attaining the glory in their chosen field.

This is equally true in every aspect of life. We see famous sportspersons, actors, singers, dancers, corporate honchos and others being successful in life. They lead a life, which many of us may envy. But, we do not realize the trials and tribulations they go through before they become successful in life. They burn the midnight oil and fail many times in their attempts before success greets them.

In life, we need to work hard and if we are fortunate for it to be supplemented with luck, we could be happy. Hard work is like our daily meal. It has to be healthy, full of vitamins and regular. If we get a desert once in a way, we could be happy and that could be the supplement of luck with our daily meal. I cannot imagine we becoming healthy only by eating desert every day. So luck can help us like a catalyst but cannot substitute hard work in life.

Another important lesson in life is that we need to patient to be successful. Every process has its time limit. We cannot expect to have a child in less than nine months in a natural way. We cannot expect the monsoon to last in India for more than 3 to 4 months. So, everything in life is defined by time. We need to put in our best efforts and wait for the time for it to ripen and deliver results. Sometimes we are in a hurry and hence we end up disappointed.

It is like we tend to visit a temple one day before the exam hoping that God will bestow us with luck even if we have not worked hard enough for the exams.

Lets work hard and hope luck smiles at us on the way.

S Ramesh Shankar