chaotic order

Jottings - Slice of life - 111 ( The girl on the train - Book, Movie and Emily Blunt) During my flights to Seattle and back this week, I watched two films : “The girl on the train” and “Devil wears Prada”. Both of them are based on books with same names, and both of them are wonderful adaptions - true to the intent of the author. I chanced to read Paula Hawkins book in 2015, just because I had nothing to read on a particular flight. I picked it from an airport book store, and was half hoping to fall asleep midway. But surprisingly, it was powerfully written. The story and characterization of a depressive, alcoholic; her perception of life that flits between imagination and reality at regular intervals, kept me reading till the end. It was a murder mystery, and Paula had enough command over the medium to keep the story at the edge and not revealing the true killer till the last few pages. It was a four hour flight, and I had almost finished the book before we landed. I remember fe

Jottings - Slice of life - 112 ( Rajan, yet another milestone..) Loyalty is a quaint word in an organization. On one hand, it shows tremendous sense of discipline, contentment, innovation, finding ones right footing in your field of work, climbing up a specific ladder with unwavering sense of purpose; and on the other hand, loyalty can also means inefficiency, incompetency, comprising to the lure of mediocrity and staying where you are and living out a professional life without pushing the bars of excellence for oneself and others. When you tell somebody, you have worked for a single organization for twenty five odd years, without a break or sabbatical, your listeners will involuntarily interpret your stay there in either of these ways. They can perceive you have grown and excelled into something better each year, with increasing responsibilities, elevated positions and carving out new opportunities for yourself and the organization , or they can easily surmise you have stagnated,

Jottings - Slice of life - 113 ( Anna, congratulations!!!) It is not often that one gets to write congratulatory notes on the growth, evolution and promotion of two individuals close to you. I wrote a short piece on Rajan’s remarkable journey today morning, and in the evening, as I was sitting in the sauna basking in its intense heat and sweat listening to the sonorous voice of Abida Parveen singing rapturous poetry of Kabir , my brother called to inform his elevation to a very senior position in the oil industry and will now move to Mumbai - the heart of India’s business. I felt twice blessed with good news today. Driving back home, My thoughts went back to the mid eighties, when my brother had just finished four years of bachelors education in Chemical engineering at coimbatore, and was with us in Hyderabad applying for jobs. It is always a pivotal point in a Man’s life - the pregnant waiting, the undetermined transition from secure student life when no questions are asked to a

Jottings - Slice of life ( A remarkable professional journey) RV college of Engineering, Bangalore may not be in the same league as IIT’s. At least, not in general public perception, but for those who have lived in Bangalore, interacted with the college, met its professors or head of departments, mingled closely with its alma mater - it quickly becomes quite clear, those who have studied and graduated there possess an ambition, charisma, grace, leadership and an ability to continuously learn which have often propelled them to highest echelons of success in many organization across the globe. This is not to say it is the atmosphere of the college alone which contributed to their success; we must give equal or more credit to the quality and calibre of students it has managed to attract from all parts of Asia. Over the last half a century, it has produced stalwarts in virtually every walk of life without too much fuss or propaganda. Sapnesh Lalla, our new CEO- designate ( announced

Jottings - Slice of life - 114 ( frequent flyer - eccentricities and uncertainties) Every seasoned flyer will have at least one; most likely many personal stories to share about flight delays, interminable waits at airports, missed flights and bags, bad seats, re-routing, long layovers, unexpected upgrades, bad food, ineptitude of flight personnel , so on and so forth. In fact, in most airport bars this is the most common subject matter of conversation - whose and which flight stories are more entertaining or excruciating than the other? But I believe the true sign of a frequent flyer lies in the composure and presence of mind they display during abnormal travel conditions. How well and how quickly can we accept the fact that running this complex network of air travel , including a zillion variables - both man-made and natural - can break down in so many different perceptible and imperceptible ways. While, as travelers, our focus is to reach our destination as painlessly as possibl

Jottings Slice of life - 109 ( Salman Rushdie - my muse) There are only few contemporary novelists who can match the torrential and luxurious prose style of Salman Rushdie. Perhaps a Mark Helprin, Julian barnes, a Kazuo Ishiguro or an Ian McEwan can sometimes write few paragraphs that transcend normal semantics of writing, but no one, in my opinion can consistently, page after page, sentence after sentence, pour into a novel so much lingual virtuosity, elegance of phrase, clarity of thought, audacious flights of imagination and characterization, spell binding story telling; and a seamless narrative gathering itself like a river in spate all that it encounters into one magical climax without , even for a minute, losing track of the central thread, the axle of the story being told. Reading Rushdie is losing oneself in a world only pure geniuses can create, where imagination is everything, and inhabiting that magical world of imagination is a rich profusion of ancient and mythical sym

Jottings - slice of life - 108 ( The taming of a beautiful, cold beast ) To observe a snow storm from a Hotel room is spectacular. Especially those of us for whom snow is a rarity. And what a blizzard it was. For five hours, little, cold, sizzling flakes of soft ice cut through strong winds with ceaseless precision. Within no time, the brown earth was covered by a patina of white coating, which grew in density every passing minute. Vigilant snow ploughers standing by with their machines would sweep the roads, only to be covered again with a rich, copious deposit of fresh snow, even as the plough engine moved ahead. Relentless!! is the word that comes to mind. I took some time off from my meeting, put on my wind sheeter, and stood out in the front lobby, hearing the merciless drone of cold winds, witnessing a face of nature that was at once fascinating and terrifying. But what impressed me is the state of preparedness of Man used to living in such conditions. The city of Boston