It has lungis in it…

At first there was a lull in the conversation while malllusss mulled his words. On the face of it he could be asking why Malayalis wear lungis (sarongs). In which case there are entire books written on the topic. I don’t want to go into details but benefits include:

1. Easily adjustable for size of wearer. You can gain or lose weight or height without overhauling you wardrobe.

2. Fold can be raised or lowered depending on height of rain water, quantity of beer, volume of music.

3. Sustainability: after many years of satisfactory use a lungi can be converted into a blanket for babies, a durable kitchen towel, a restraining device for capitalists, or a shirt for Shah Rukh Khan.

4. Ventilation.

I could go on and on.

Part 2 of the France travelogue shortly. Maybe tonight.

But the book takes priority, as you will no doubt understand.

This came in the email day before yesterday. Harish, as you can see, has mega-tons more experience than I do. And also runs a big company. So you should probably listen to him.

***

Further advice to the MBA Class of 2011

Dear Mr. Vadukut, and MBA students navigating placement season -

Your “Cubiclenama” of last week, containing advice for the graduating MBA class passing through the madness of placement season, made for inspiring reading. There is a strong case for making it compulsory reading at all business schools. I must clarify that I am from a very ancient MBA Class of 1987, but some of your sage advice is relevant to all MBA students and alumni, however young or bald they may be. I have indeed begun balding, but am yet to finally conclude whether this is on account of a quarter century spent in corporate cubicles, or a sign of true wisdom that comes from reading various pieces of excellent advice such as yours.

I agree with all the advice you have proferred to the new MBA batch, except your recommendation that they should forget Pink Floyd. This is simply because it is never possible to forget Pink Floyd, despite the fact that we first heard many of their songs in the midst of alcohol fuelled stupor or even worse. Hence, you are asking for the impossible. In any case I must point out that it is quite appropriate to sing their signature number “We don’t need no education” when we finally leave the portals of business school, which is possibly the last educational portal most of us will ever pass through. Many of us will say a very loud Hallelujah to that.

Now, there is further sound advice I would like to share with the MBA class of 2011 as they step into placement season, which builds on what you have told them. To begin with, you must not merely answer questions from the august panel of interviewers. Many of us who are part of interview panels these days also like to be questioned, since we get questioned all the time in our offices anyway. A day without questions is like a dancefloor without music, or Elizabeth Taylor without a husband. So ask your interviewers a few simple questions, such as :

“Are you really happy at your job, Sir ? And what makes you so ecstatic at work, if I may ask ?”

“Do you have really beautiful women in your Organisation ? I mean, even rough approximations of Katrina or Angelina ? Do you encourage dates, Sir, either blind or visually vivid ones, with colleagues ? And a last question, Sir, given the high costs of dining out, do you fund these dates ?”

“What is the best and worst thing that has happened to habitual latecomers in your fine Organisation ?”

You can gradually progress to more complex and interesting questions, such as –

“Sir, can you tell me how you segment consumers in your industry ?” (rest assured, questions on consumer segmentation can never be answered correctly)

“Sir, how can smokers light up in your Company, without breaking the law ?” (from my years of experience, atleast one member of the interview panel will be a smoker, and hence likely to be an implicit breaker of the law. You will therefore never get a honest reply.)

“Sir, do you permit the wearing of bermudas in your office ?”

Now, this last question may appear unusual, but it is a very important investigation to make. Reliable dipstick research has shown that offices which permit Bermudas are generally happy-go-lucky places which you will enjoy forever. If they permit quick tots of Jamaican rum, a delightful liquid close enough in origin to Bermuda, they will be even better. But if an Organisation says No to a Bermuda or a Jamaica, be doubly cautious about accepting an offer from them, because you may end up in a stuffy office which has never ever heard of Dilbert or Vadukut. Sadly, such places exist.

You must also enquire from the interview panel whether the Company parties often, and if so where do they go to let their hair (or what is left of it, in some of our cases) down. If the initial response to this question is positive, go ahead and offer to organize a party that same evening in your dorm. Here is a valuable insight. Most interviewers crave to get back to their campus lives, and there is nothing like a rocking party to soften them up completely. You can play Pink Floyd, mix drinks liberally, and provide colourful bermudas to the interviewers as well. The Chairman of your Placement Committee should be kept away from these happy events, and use good masks all around since these days photographs and leaks appear liberally on the internet, even if Julian Assange is in some sort of custody.

Masks are good advice, actually. Use masks during the interview. Mask everything interesting or illegal you have done on campus. Mask your mathematics scores, if you can, or attribute the dismal performances to the flu you repeatedly suffered during exams. Falling ill is the most natural thing that can happen in business schools, and is sound preparation for your later life in an Organisation.

But let me cut to the only serious point I really want to make, which is the direct opposite of masks. Unmask your passion at the interview, and say what you really want from your career. Tell the interviewers what excites you, what you want to really do in your life. Speak spontaneously. Stand up and speak, if you wish. Loosen your tie, and roll up your sleeves, even if this is considered heresy. Nothing will show you in better light than speaking about what really moves you, and how. Show them that there is fire in your belly, and that it burns brightly. All good interview panels look for the spark within you, but you have to unmask it first.

Here’s hoping you land a job of your dreams !

Harish Bhat

(Harish Bhat is Chief Operating Officer – Watches, Titan Industries Limited. These are strictly personal views, and are quite likely to be disowned by both his Organisation and Alma Mater.)

Unfortunately the version you read in the paper was the bastard child of two versions of the piece: the first one I had written before the missus had a chance to quality control, and the final one after. But something got lost in email transmission. So not everything is in the right place. For instance there shouldn’t be two references to shaving. And there are some lines missing, which jar.

This is what the final version should have read like.

P.S. Now I know you’re thinking that this is a complete cop-out and I am merely doing this to update the blog without actually putting in any effort into writing an original post. You are thinking very correctly.

P.P.S. I might start an email newsletter.

P.P.P.S. I want to drop everything and write a crime novel.

***

Ladies and gentleman of the MBA class of 2011,

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, a good USB memory stick would be it. The long term benefits of a USB stick has been proved by the number of times people lose laptops, or are suddenly asked to submit resumes on a plane or at a conference. The rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering work experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy your last few days in business school. Chances are that you’ve already cynically dismissed the whole bloody place. But trust me, in 5 years you’ll attend an alumni reunion and realize that business school was perhaps the last place you were both truly intellectually challenged and emotionally excited. Both those things will happen again. But rarely together.

You are not as smart, or stupid, as you think.

Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to make investments based on research reports that will, one day, be written by that same clueless idiot sitting next to you in the canteen right now. The real troubles in your life will never be solved by a presentation or spreadsheet, and will always involve other people. And people are unpredictable sons of bitches.

Spend a little time everyday doing nothing.

Listen.

Don’t expect organizations to be as committed to you as you are to them. Organizations don’t work that way. If you do find one that is as committed, never leave.

Jog. (Or walk briskly, or cycle, or do yoga.)

Don’t judge yourself by how much money you make. Someone you know is always making more than you. (And no good comes from knowing who this is.)

Record all the feedback you ever get in your career. Especially the inaccurate, pointless, biased and vague bits that drove you nuts. This will help you when you eventually give feedback to somebody yourself.

Keep a copy of all your old resumes. When you are struck by bouts of existential crisis, flip through them in chronological order. Do the same with resignation letters.

Decide.

Not a lot of people are ‘meant’ to do something or the other. They just say that to sell bad books. Salman Rushdie might make an excellent, and content, supply chain management consultant. Who knows? You will find various amounts of meaning and satisfaction in various things. Choose your compromises wisely.

You’ll like the job a little better if you like the dress code.

Take chances when you’re young, single and don’t have loans to repay. You’ll take larger chances. Large chances are more fun than small ones.

Be nice to people for the heck of it.

Maybe you’ll retire when you’re 45, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll get an Awesome Alumnus Award, maybe you won’t, maybe you will marry your school sweetheart, maybe you won’t. Whatever happens, do not forget those probability lessons they taught you in school. Things tend to even out.

Dance. But keep it classy.

Avoid reading business books. However feel free to write them.

Travel light.

You will most certainly face difficult choices. In most cases it helps to think of what choice maximizes gain, instead of agonizing over what minimizes loss.

Invest in a good suit, pair of shoes and get a shave. Thanks to society’s shallowness, your return on investment will be considerable.

Calm down.

Let people give you advice. Develop the art of looking interested even if you are not. Pay attention to advice from people who have a stake in your happiness, and not a stake in your success.

Please stop listening to Pink Floyd.

But forget everything else. Quickly go buy that USB stick.

Best of luck.

***

If you have questions, thoughts, musings and such like leave a comment. Discussing things might further help a lot more people.

I write to you this morning regarding the latest Cricinfo column where I spoke about how the grossly inflated scores in contemporary cricket were sure to scare away youngsters. There was also some blending of cushions involved.

Many thanks to those who tweeted/wrote/outraged back to say that they liked the piece.

Therefore what you hear next will surely shock you.

The version you read on the Cricinfo website was a second iteration. One vastly different from the first one I sent to the folks at Cricinfo. My first column, which started identically to that column, was called “How to tell if a cricket match is fixed?”

Unfortunately I was told that the venerable cricket website has a strict no-match-fixing-not-even-if-it-is-a-joke policy in place. And since my column seemed to condone, albeit with tongue firmly in cheek, match fixing, they asked me to give it a full rewrite.

Now it give me great pleasure to say that in a world exclusive, this blog will publish the original version of that cricketing column. As you will see it starts identically, but goes to entirely different places.

I’d sat up till four in the morning writing it. And it seemed a pity to let it go waste. So, as they say in Germany, et voila!

—

How to tell if a match is fixed?

When even Ireland is scoring 300 runs, fans need to know when they’re seeing the real thing. This is how you can tell.

Many years ago, way back when I was a gawky but not unhandsome boy of 7 or 8, my younger brother and I used to spend our school summer vacations at my ancestral home in a tiny village in the southern Indian state of Kerala. (Kerala is also, incidentally, the home of S. Sreesanth, the cricketer popularly known as the Louis Vuitton of Indian pace bowling. This is because even though he is very expensive, he is very attractive and there is always very high demand for him. Especially in China.)

During these vacations I was normally watched over by my paternal uncle. My uncle, a kind and caring man, is of the persuasion that children should be involved in rigorous physical activity and should spend as little time as possible indoors. Doubly so in the case of me and my brother because our favourite indoor activities included gently electrocuting pets, liquidizing small items of furniture in the blender, and going to the toilet in the VCR.

Therefore he devised a unique variant of cricket that would keep us occupied for the entire day. My uncle would bowl comfortable medium pace at one of us while the other one fielded. The batsman could only be dismissed by being caught by the fielder. There were no stumps, no LBW, no run outs, no stumpings or any other means of getting out. And of course there was no limit on the number of overs bowled.

Which means you either scored a four or a six. And nothing else.

Often one batsman could bat for an entire day without being dismissed. But even then the best my brother or I could ever manage to hit in one day was something in the range of 250 runs.  In the 1980s and 1990s this was a stupendous total in cricket. (Which is also why I retired from all forms of cricket in 1994, while I was still on top.)

So you can imagine my consternation at the current state of ODI cricket. Match after match we are seeing teams score well in excess of 300 runs. Just yesterday Ireland easily overcame England’s score of 327 runs to record a massive upset. Largely due to a stunning century by Kevin O’Brien. (Incidentally, also from Kerala.)

What the heck is going in the game? More than a few fans have their eyebrows raised: Are these scores for real? Is there some monkey business going on? Are bookies involved? What are their contact details?

However this speculation can be most damaging for the game. Therefore in order to help the avid cricket fan distinguish fixed games from un-fixed fixtures we have a drawn up a ready reckoner. This is a list of incidents you should watch out for during a match. If any of these things happen, then there is a severe likelihood of hanky-panky. If not, the match is most likely authentic.

The match you are watching could be fixed if:

1. Dhoni wins the toss and elects to field first. When the commentator asks him who will open the bowling, Dhoni absentmindedly says: “Zaheer will open the bowling with two slow leg-cutters and then one over-stepping no-ball.”

2. After bowling three tight deliveries Sreesanth is halfway down the run-up for his fourth delivery when Billy Bowden signals a wide.

3. Kamran Akmal takes a sensational catch when he dives to his right, only for the ball to hit the tips of his gloves and loop high into the air. The ball then catapults earthwards, passes straight through the grill of his helmet and lodges itself in his mouth. During the ensuing celebrations several Pakistani players can be seen punching him in the stomach.

4. At the 2015 World Cup opening ceremony in Melbourne, ICC president Sharad Pawar ends his inaugural speech by officially declaring “West Indies as the new World Champions!”

5. At the 2015 World Cup the West Indies become World Champions.

6. Shane Watson is trapped in front of stumps by a Lasith Malinga scorcher. But the umpire refuses to give Watson out. The decision is referred to the third umpire. Who looks at the screen for five minutes and then thoughtfully says into the walkie-talkie: “Pass”.

7. New Zealand look well set to win a game when suddenly Brendon Mcculum is caught in the slips. Jesse Ryder is due next but discovers that someone had left a tube of super glue on his seat when he sat down. Ryder has to rip himself off his chair only to notice that shoelaces on both his shoes are knotted together. Just as he finally sorts things out and walks out to bat, Scott Styris trips him and Ryder falls down the stairs in a bloody heap. Determined to bat, Ryder staggers onto the pitch when the returning drinks trolley drives over him. Ryder then has to return to the pavilion because he is Timed Out.

8. The spinning ball hits the deck with venom and rears up to hit the batsman plumb in front of the stumps. Yuvraj Singh throws both hands in the air and appeals with a scream. Yuvraj Singh is the batsman.

Sincere fans will do well to look out for similar indications in matches. If nothing like this is forthcoming then you can rest assured that what you’re watching is the real thing.

Perhaps.

—

P.S. Coming to think of it, I could pimp my columns and articles more here. It would give the illusion of frenetic activity on the blog. Maybe I will…

Clipping 2: Then yesterday plans were revealed about the huge, awesome stand-up comedy venue coming up in Mumbai. The famed Comedy Store from London is coming! Whatay heart-breaking thing to hear just months after one resettles in Delhi. Damn. I foresee much low-cost flying from November.

Clipping 3: And finally, I was cleaning out the house yesterday morning when I came across this week old copy of the Hindustan Times lying behind the sink. Flipping through languidly I noticed a most bizarre Calvin and Hobbes strip. This time I truly did not “get” the C&H joke. The following is a clip from the e-paper.

Aai caramba!

p.s. As usual please maximize the Scribd thingies to read legibly.

Click top right to expand, read and so on.

P.S. Prepared before the semi-finals. So some stars might be conspicuously absent.