The epidemic of perpetual unhappiness and mid-career crises..

Nobody would have envisioned the term “Mid Life Crises” coined by Mr. Elliot Jacques to become an endemic issue across the world. While conventional wisdom and understanding denotes that typically GenY remain agnostic over and suffer from “Mid-Career Crises” some shorn of job/business, well-nigh with-in job or in whatever business we have, for variety of reasons best known to us, but are these the ‘real’ reasons? Do we really know the reasons? If yes, do we have an answer for all the possible bouncing questions with “How”, “What”, “Why”?

Off late I was wondering if I am one those numerous cynical and negative fellows cribbing daylong of their work? This comes without asking when every other colleague of mine keeps humming of more than 10 things which make them unhappy or at least not very satisfied with their current role, sucking boss or often their team.

Now since I happen to know them closely, I admit some of them are too bright, meritorious and set high benchmark for themselves and therefore harsh and cynical words from them make me think deeper of the reason.

But we all have a common symptom of being unhappy vis-à-vis outside view of good role, decent job for our exp vs career level. I have 8years experience with 7 consecutive outstanding rating, 3 different distinct roles to perform, with many different roles to play in between, so if someone would have asked me, when I started my career 8years back, would you be happy if you get all this 8years down the line. I would have happily taken it and went home being most satisfied person on the earth. But today if you ask me, I am unhappy with lot many things in my professional remit and that leads us to question WHY?

So why do we live the life of perpetual unhappiness? It is safe to say that we live alternative life (Because this is not what we want)! In other words, the prime reason for this unhappiness is the gap between what I am? And What I want to be? While most of us have answer to later in forms on CHRO, CEO, Indian Cricketer, IPS and IAS etc . Point B is clear but where we are lacking is to have honest answer to first question, “what am I”? If at all we can answer that honestly we’ll know whether our point B is in line to who we are? Or perhaps we need to change our point B.  If we look at this picture from 2*2 matrix, X axis has “Aspiration” with “what am I” and “What I want to be”. Y axis has “Actions” which I “know” And “don’t know”.

Example- 

“Imagine if there is a doctor who happens to have good name as cardiologist   and he aspires to be a best cardiologist in the town, he will make journey from left hand side bottom corner box to upper one that journey is simple since he “knows” what is takes to be a Best cardiologist in town. But If same doctor aspires to be a politician or Chief Minister of his state, he doesn’t know the skills/competencies it takes to be a Chief Minister of state therefore will fall in right hand side top corner box.”

What I want to be ?		High on aspirations and low on action
Who I am?
	KNOW	DON’T KNOW

Most of us are stuck in TOP right corner box in below matrix, high on aspirations, to be the best, to be a CEO, to be CHRO but we don’t know what it takes to be there? What are the competencies, skills, required to make journey from our current position, to the position we aspire for.

We (GenY) are full of energy positive and negative both, negative we tend to develop when our aspirations are not meted. Low energy transpires in Low action thereby impacting the result on the contrary high energy transpire the high action and more often than not turns the result in your favor.  

We (GenY) are different when I compare ourselves to our predecessors and biggest differentiator is “CHOICES”. We have abundance of choices today wherein our parents (baby boomers) had limited choices, therefore they were ‘ACTION’ oriented to prove a point and grab one of the choices wherein we have many to choose from therefore we are ‘Thought’ oriented since decision making becomes difficult with more choices and hence dilemma of TO BE or NOT TO BE. The Paradox of Choices is notion is already spelled in“The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less” is a book from 2004 by Barry Schwartz” , it explains that companies selling 24 different types of jam make less sales than those who only offer 6 varieties of jam: at a certain point, too many options get suffocating & turn us off making a choice at all.

Summing up top 3 reasons for unhappiness of GenY or “Mid-Career Crises’ it can be following-

• Ø  Disconnect between Aspiration and Knowledge/skills
• Ø  Negative Energy result into low actions
• Ø  Paradox of choices (To many choices to choose from)

Now since we know above are 3 primary reasons of our happiness and Mid-Career Crises, how do we attack these to come out as winner? All of us set a goal but that goal should be break into small short term objectives with actions in ‘Step-up model’ to reach the ultimate goal.

References- My dialogue with founder Sampark Foundation Mr. Vineet Nayar and some soul searching.  

आओ साथ मिल बैठे...

आओ साथ मिल बैठे, न जिद हो मंदिर, न मस्जिद बनाने की
खुदा की खुदाई भी हो जन्हा, राम के गीत भी गाए जायें, चलो ऐसा जंहा बनाये!!
 

घाव तुम्हारे दिल में भी ,घाव मेरे दिल में भी, कंही नासूर न बैठे

चलो मरहम लगाये अब, न जिद हो मंदिर, न मस्जिद बनाने की, चलो ऐसा जंहा बनाये!!
 

न दो तूल अब इतना की, वो अफ़सोस कर बैठे, इन्सां क्यूँ बनाया था    

न तो तूल अब इतना की, राम अफ़सोस कर बैठे, अपनी जन्मभूमि पर !
न दो तूल अब इतना की, रूह बाबर की सोच बैठे,क्या गुनाह कर बैठा, तेरी ज़मीं पर खुदा का नाम लेकर मैं !! 

न दो तूल अब इतना की, आस्था लज्जित हो जाये,खुदाई शर्मिनिदगी में सोचने को मजबूर हो जाये, इन्सां क्यूँ बनाया था !!!

तुम्हारी आग्यानता का नाश करने ,गर राम आ सकते , तो खुदा के साथ आकर कह जाते

ऐ जगती आँखों से सोने वालो,  नई  सोच का आगाज़ कर देखो !
अजाने गूंजे मंदिर के प्रान्गड़ से, भजन के गीत सुनाई दे मस्जिद के गुम्बज से
खुदा का कौन बंदा है , कौन भगत है मेरा, जो ये भेद मिट जाये तो आस्था खिलखिलाएगी, खुदाई नाच उठेगी !!

न दो तूल अब इतना की वो अफ़सोस कर बैठे इन्सां क्यूँ बनाया था,आओ साथ मिल बैठे न जिद हो न मंदिर न मस्जिद बनाने की !!!!!        

Spring Fest- Talent has no boundaries....

“Spring” was never this soothing and meaningful than bustling energy and budding cheerful kids all around! Yet again, HCL Foundation showcased the beauty of enormous talent hidden in special creation of God during the “Spring Fest” on April 20^th , which was a joint effort by ArtBox Group and CSC team.

The show opening was marked with angelic juveniles in white Indian attire forming a circular assembly with tabla and rest what followed was sheer magic! The rhythm, the coordination and sound and “TAAL” recital was complete bliss. It was thrilled to learn that if was merely five years back that their palms felt the tabla sensation for the first time.

After this initial pleasant surprise I was in for treat one after another, high quality performance, kids were full of confidence and stage presence. I was amazed to see the ease with which these kids came on stage and went about their business delivering social messages like dowry, gender issue, child abuse etc. What baffled me most was ‘their confidence’ and diversified raw talent they demonstrated despite them being not coming from privileged section of society.  

I left the auditorium with varied questions buzzing in my head. They didn’t go to best of schools, perhaps never had art classes, some of them would have not been exposed to this kind of stage ever before, then how did they do it? And perhaps answer was in this analogy which I heard from Vineet sometimes back “The tree which is in bank of river , looks green and healthy are the first one to get uprooted during the storm owing fragile roots, perhaps it was getting what it needed too easily therefore didn’t try that hard and fought that extra bit for survival, whereas the tree which is desert, had to work that extra hard every single day to extract the requisite water from earth for survival and it has its roots dug deep therefore it can withstand the storm every single day and survive” .

In spite of all odds tumbling these tiny tots, they would gave certainly never paid a second thought for working extra hard every single day and learn what been taught with great sincerity and motivation to be able to achieve this excellence. I saw some future dancers, actors, singers and musician on this Saturday and even if not in these disciplines, these will have their own niche in society tomorrow because of their spirit, immense talent, firm faith on themselves and zeal to learn and grow.

My takeaway in one line would be “Talent has no boundaries and it doesn’t discriminate”!! you might like to see yourself  http://bit.ly/1anu4gZ 

CONTRARIAN VIEWPOINT- On Delhi Safety Debate

There has been enough written and spoken about the Delhi gang rape incident followed by enormous discussions on the safety issue and/or measure by the learned folks representing all segments of society. Notwithstanding I have nothing much to add but while I was soaking in all what was being said, written on the topic, one thing was baffling me that all the blame was being bestowed upon Police, which is like blaming lack of DCT (Direct Cash Transfer) mechanism to poor for their plight and perhaps Mr. Nelikeni will have one stop solution to turn this country into RamRajya. Let’s get real and stop living in fool’s paradise.

Before some of you get red faced reading my perceived defense for our “culprit” Police above, decide to burn my effigies and shout slogans, let me say Police is at fault in this case and have trust deficit perhaps more than ever now. But unless we know the root cause, why they are the way they are, all this jingoism will not lead us anywhere. 

Allow me to park my views from other side of the table; I have 2 family members from Police community thus have seen it all from proximity. Disappointing your expectations, I am not amongst those privileged chaps who get a chance to sleep over the luxury of being a cop’s only son; I have been rather harassed by uniform clad like perhaps some of you. Therefore not putting this because I got needled having family members in Police and what transpired in Delhi case, but writing this after giving it a prolonged thought that perhaps we are not shooting in right direction.

Here is a job, which is 24*7, 7 Days a week, no leaves on festivals; rather one has to be right on his toes owing “Bandobasst” for the safety and security of our society. Well if this is the JD you want me to hire for? First thing I will say is “Don’t expect a good Samaritan” and where is work life balance here? And then if you still need someone you got to pay very handsome salary which perhaps compensate for other, rather “all” missing things.

Now let’s get back for reality check, my dad is a Cop and let me say this with full conviction the most honest one I know of, outside celluloid screen. He is BA, LLB of good old days, perhaps destined to land-up in this job thus can’t be look down as we normally do for his community tagging them as almost un-educated.

Albeit recalling hard, I do not remember a single celebration with my Dad wherein I cud fire cracker, play with colors with my father. Putting it other way, for the sake of society and safeguarding many other children like me and at the same time avoiding any mishappening,  he was on call of his duty.

Numerous times I have seen him going on duty call late nights, during election or VIP visits, he used to be out for 4-5 days on trot. 

Highlighting the tough to digest fact, that I still see the same number of police men in Police Stations (THANA) what I used to see as a kid, however population has grown many fold. In nutshell same number of people guarding the area what was there 2 decades back and this is perhaps the reason you heard/read public torching the Police Station stories getting repeated more often now.

My Dad has approximate 30+yrs experience, best possible CR amidst of the challenges above, being still designated as Assistance Sub Inspector, because not only he is honest but also belongs to General category (would have become Superintendent of Police by now if being part of Reservation quota as some of his peers), his remuneration is still less than a fresher hired for IT industry and will retire with status quo in 3years.  

The system has all the remedy to turn person into corrupt in this department, not only this one is expected to fight to AK47 with 303 first world war gun (you might remember the 26/11 scene” Police man was trying to fire on Kasab and gun got locked”), expected to be polite working 24*7, 7 days a week , 365days a year. Expected to guard quadruple number of people vis-e-vis for what he was being hired for 20-30 years back. And on top of all, get ready to be transferred every 1 year if you are honest and don’t comply with political boss’s desire.

Let’s do mirror mirror and confront the truth, someone has to look Human Right Violation of this community as well, isn’t it? Most of the Govt. departments has Union except this, all can go on strike asking for salary increase, better pension so on and so forth, this community has no voice what so ever. Therefore unless we apply our mind to improve illiteracy rate significantly, neither cash transfers and tokenism will erode the poverty nor the security will improve unless 1:360 odd ratio, 24.7 are been looked into and police reforms see the day of light instead rotting in ministry tables.

LEADERSHIP - A bottom of pyramid view

In the pursuit of looking for state-of-the-art topic to put forth my views in the canvas of my blog, I decided to write about something that has been considerably bothering me- the ideology of designated leaders around and their leadership skills.

The topic “Leadership” intrigues me, when I observe countless Experts earning their share of whole wheat brown bread and peanut butter (and not just bread and butter) by enlightening the world with their wisdom on this topic. When I reckon “leadership” with the backdrop of my limited ability and experience, the first thing which comes to my mind is “Fearlessness”. Unless one owes that spirit, it becomes no-win to be a leader. Historically you can pick-up any leader from Business, Politics, Sports or War Heroes who emerged as leader, each one of them had this innate quality. Unless you have risk appetite that comes with fearlessness you can’t dare to challenge the conventional trends and henceforth, merely keep eluding change which is the only way to taste success in today’s unprecedented scenarios.    

   

                    source-gitaaonline.com

How many times did we hear this “I don’t have a solution to this? I am looking for answers from you” most common clichéd line from leaders resonating his democratic way of leadership and perhaps projecting him as an accommodative leader. But does this solve the purpose?

I believe that a Leader should have surfeit of innovative ideas, not suggesting he has to know all, but having said that, even one strong IDEA can make you a leader, if it has the power to envisage large scale sustainable change. More often than not I have seen people torment with their individual role, reputation and well-being and not their team and that is de-facto reflection of fear.

Contemplating myself, I shall be greatly exultant and exalted to get someone smarter than me working in my team instead drawing apprehensions or getting afflicted about my status quo.

The reason pertaining to above statement would explicitly be my perception on “Leadership”. Leadership, for me, has precisely been about imparting knowledge, taking charge and onus of all which didn’t work for team, whilst giving credit to the team for everything which falls in place and brings applaud to us.

Who bothers for the credit as long as my Team is shining and perceived as winner’s team!!

In the time of crises or contingency, if the first thing to cross your mind is “what will happen to me (and not my team)?” you are just a supervisor and not a leader.

Pertinent to that, if I am not becoming irrelevant after sometime in my ad dock role perhaps I have been just doing factory set-up supervisor role and not cloning my team to perform what I could do with my respective role. As a Team Mentor, I keep emphasis on “WHAT” and let “HOW” part be driven by individuals in my team because that’s where innovation and creativity will grow in my team.

More of than not pyramid culture mushrooms leader on virtue of experience and age rather than pure talent and potential. It is appalling to find a bunch of elite people carrying hefty weight in their mail signature (courtesy above mentioned process) without imperative and adequate skills. Midst of this cynicism I must admit that I have come across certain brilliant minds that just mesmerize me with their wealth of experience, leadership quality believing in “WE” approach with “I” efforts and inspire many more to become like them in every touch points.

“HCL MEME”- Official2Social- Of the Employees, by the Employees, for the Employees…….

Off late a trend which caught world’s attention and made unprecedented transformation to all walks of life is Social Media, be it changing the Government’s, astonishment Arabic movements which resulted into end of dictatorships in various countries, public outrage on the LOKPAL Bill in India etc. In lieu to all this it was preposterous for Human Resource professionals like us to even think of ignoring this most remarkable business trend ever emerged in known history, which has mobilized the human capital on such a far-reaching scale.

HCL is pioneer of modern computing and known for our disruptive EFCS business philosophy, which frames the tenor in boardrooms globally. Once again one of our adept leader and Social Media evangelists Mr. Ravishankar B, who predicted Linkedin’s scintillating future in India with surgeon’s precision way back in 2007 in one of his interviews, stood up again with radical thought of B2E (Business 2 Employees) akin to B2C (Business 2 Customer) leveraging social media platform after studding B2C experiment from likes of Zappos and SWAs with phenomenal success in Facebook platform.

Social Media is a rostrum for Gen Y to speak their minds out with a digital form of expression. They have a quick sense of evaluation, despise archaic systems and thrive on word of mouth to make their headway. At threshold we had an option to leverage existing social media platform such as Facebook like others but it was onerous for us to unfurl our network whilst respecting our privacy and customer contracts. Henceforth we were left aside, but Ravi put across this B2E idea as food for thought to some young employees to build its technological frame. And as surmised, they jumped on the Idea and that’s how “MEME” took first shape on drawing board.

Now Idea has a name but the prime challenge staring our face was to jot down goals of MEME and delineate a plan aligned to company’s goal. EFCS came to our rescue again which is biggest testament that real business value is created in interactions rather process. Jobs involving the most complex type of interactions, those requiring employees to analyze information, grapple with ambiguity, and solve problems, make up the fastest-growing segment. And we contemplated that MEME will be a revitalizing approach to manage all four generations at workplace, yielding optimum results. It will be encouraging both “personal” and “professional” sharing inside the protected walls of a company’s intranet via collaborative efforts and interaction between HCLites. Such a utilization of internal social networking will build stronger bonds amongst employees and enable them to reach out to unfamiliar employees, breaking glass ceilings of project, location & vertical etc. Their motivations in getting accustomed to MEME will include connecting on personal level with co- workers, advancing their career with company. Overall objective was predominately engaging, learning and viralating the information and best practices across the board, getting to know pulse of the company by a glance to this tool and pulling answers to questions like what are the HCLites happy about? What are they apprehensive about? Which are the policies they are appreciating? Which one they want to amend and why?

While we had some clarity of thoughts for road ahead mentioned above, we were still clueless on MEME’s evolution. Then again Ravi along with another thought leader Mr.Uday (Digital Media Expert) put forth the notion that Employees will evolve it. And it was realized that a fundamental framework was built and floated to employee’s usage. Followed by the employee’s feedback, it could further be strengthened. Now the GenY dominated team at ground were upbeat about it but the challenge was to get green signal from top management keeping in account the size, scale of project and potential repercussions it could have amounted. Each one of them certainly had If’s and But’s with numerous other doubts like people might misuse it raising undue concerns. Amidst of these apprehensions, the legitimate leader Ravi took a firm stand and believed on his Employee’s wisdom while keeping scrutiny. And finally MEME got the nod from management with condition that 10% of population must show interest in its usage, creating communities of interest within 3 months or else it will be cast off.

This further added to the pressure but nonetheless it showed up profoundly. Finally, it was on March 14^th 2011 HCL launched MEME to all its employees with a message to CONNECT, SHARE, LEARN and GROW. On April 6^th 2011 we got all doubts phased out and answered in empathic style by 25000 HCLites who became MEMErs. HCLites bought sharing and collaboration to next level with 521 groups, 4300 posts, 1030 albums, groups like BLOGHER took women connect to unprecedented heights with 83 blogs within a month.

After just 4 months, 30K mark was reached, with groups like MADJAM (Make a Difference) taking the lead, where HCLites across the board submitted 930 business innovation ideas which had have or could create monetary gains to their respective projects or domains moving the value chain. HCLites voted on MEME for these ideas and finally 7 ideas were shortlisted for final, 1 declared the winner chosen by eminent jury of Business Leader’s within company. We took decision to leverage MEME for our passion survey i.e. EPIC which resulted into in increased participation by 10252, 100% jump in USA Geo participation, Geo’s like Mexico has 100% participation courtesy MEME viraling effect. This EPIC portal recorded 1,34,745 total hits in a month. Gradually MEME became one stop solution for all employee engagement programs and we successfully ran various programs with tremendous success like EFC (EmployeeFirstCouncil) election where 20,000 HCLites voted across India locations for 5,891 self-nominated HCLites who would run these councils. MEME escalated fun@work quotient, thereby enhancing employee engagement.

Latest numbers from MEME-

A) MEMEr connections:

1. 59,185 MEMErs

2. 4,38,769 Connections

3. Averaging 7.4 friends per MEMEr and growing

B) Groups

1. 1,579 groups, 38,008 posts

2. With posts averaging 24.07 per community

3. 58,595 MEMErs contributed averaging 37.10 MEMErs per group

C) Photos

1. 49,917 photos uploaded in 15,290 albums

2. 9,516 MEMErs contributed 5.24 photos per MEMEr

3. 3,638 MEMErs sent 38,498 messages averaging 10.58 message per MEMEr

D) Status, Comment, like

1. Status and wall update – 48,378

2. Status and wall comments – 35,543

3. Total likes – 2,10,806

E) MEMEr average time spent on MEME – 10.27 minutes

The real jubilation for team came, when before going to Dalian for WEF our maverick CEO wanted to anchorage MEME for visualizing our employees on Quality Growth, which will aid the world for recovering from current global scenario. A distinct page was portrayed on him, followed by 58K MEMErs today. Around 3500-4000 HCLites visit this page weekly and share their views directly with CEO on various topics, which affect us globally. Today many senior Leaders post their dilemmas and solicit employee’s views on subject.

Meme's differentiators come truly in such thinking as people finder by location to enable applications around it and the increasing ability to perform some of the standard transactions with the organizational service desk, socially. The platform extends to company's system, pro actively used by a Gen Y.

”ASK HR” tab for that matter has been the biggest revolution; and has received 2500⁺ HR queries, which are being resolved in no time in public forum.

Now, imagine a state where employees have the ability to freely comment on a policy and discussions happening around them. That assists the company to fine-tune its policies to attain employee’s satisfaction. It has cut down the bureaucracy of escalating comments / feedback through varied channels to the policy makers. The fairytale journey which we started as Connect , Share , Learn and grow evolved into ‘super-empowerment’ of “I” through MEME for collaborative learning, innovation, retention and growth therefore we have change our tag line to “MEME-Decoding Individuality”.

Our social romance perseveres and burgeons with each passing day and like always, HCL stood unrivaled in developing technology that touches life.

The forgotten “Patriotism and emphatic resurgent”

I always wonder why out of the blue every year, 15^th August is a day that suddenly makes us all very patriotic. I woke up listening to Mahender Kapoor and Manna Dey on radio and the moving manual of patriotism Manoj Kumar on my idiot box which got me thinking back to my childhood when 14^th August gave us a half day off from school where we had to polish our shoes and iron our clothes properly so that we were well prepared for the festivities that the next day offered. Most important of all was the “Booni ka laddo” J don’t know if this ceremonial style was restricted to heart of India or other parts as well.

This went on till higher secondary, along with these visible symbolisms a sudden surge of patriotism with passionate speeches and patriotic songs with no “sur” (Hindi Sur-Taal one) whatsoever were integral part of celebrations, All this used to start with first ray of light and by the time the sun set everything would be called off, erased from our memory and life got back to the usual business along with some trophies and medals to put in our showcase. By the time I reached college, 15^th August had changed quite a bit and became just a holiday where the most we would do was play a cricket match, even that single day of patriotism was out of the mind and replaced with romance of cover drives and square cuts.

But this year, 15^th August, 2011 came in a different shape, size and vibrancy. I was in small village in Madhya Pradesh where I could see no development whatsoever since immemorial. Early morning I woke-up to tunes of ‘Jab “ZERO” diya mere Bharat ne’ and immediately the thought came to mind on what a song to start an Independence celebration only because the irony is perhaps that this village is biggest testament of this song with its “ZERO” development J . In last 20 years all I have been witness just to so many cases in courts on land disputes and on the hindsight I believe, “land Acquisition” bill perhaps the government can consult these undesignated, argumentative talented law experts who are fighting these cases with their own fathers and brothers for ages. Midst of this sheer disgust we still get together every year on 15^th August to epitomize our freedom, unity and brotherhood. As the day progressed some eminent citizens voiced their opinion about dismal state of schools, teacher’s, and absenteeism in the most ritual manner as they had been doing for decades with zero follow-up and action afterwards. Then the drama begins as one of them came onto the dais and proclaimed that “I’ll ask a question and no teacher will have answer for it. Tell me a state which has 7 letters name?” After a deathly silenced he said “I told you no one would know, now do you know what kind of future our school and kids have?” He was not the first one of his kind. My cousin told me that last year this school organized an inter block Volleyball tournament and the local MLA was invited as Chief Guest for prize distributions , in his post match speech he said , There are 3 most popular games in the world “Balebaal, Footebaal and Tournament” J.

I believe my brush-up with patriotism is not an aberration and most of us if not all have had similar experiences unless you have had the privileged to go to Don Bosco’s and Saint Mary’s only. But all this changed on August 16^th 2011, by the time clock turned dawn a man from a small Village in Maharashtra walked to the political corridors with his white dhoti kurta and Gandhi Topi. At first glance he looked like just another NGO person who wanted to take head-on the issue which had been a discussion point in this country. Some predicted this to happen and thought that it will chew away all the hardwork and goodness gone behind unshackling the grip of the East India Company. The predictions turned out to be true and a silent menace against corruption started towards some greedy self centered power abusers who have gradually intoxicated whole system. Midst of the ever growing GDP and the dream of becoming an economical super power this issues has been part of AC drawing room intellect for a while but it was limited to that only without any substantial action at the ground to change it.

But it again took a village patriot to come forward, like all other people movements in our history, to galvanize the nation on this issue as well. The Gandhian, Anna Hazare has history behind him from being rampant fiery young guy who didn’t hesitate to beat the hell out of a police man while he was trying to overpower him on behest of his positional power, to a WAR solider of 1971 Pakistan war and then on to turning into a Gandhian, social activist in a dramatic style post reading the book of Swami Vivekananda in a train journey, rest is history in the making. Man taught us if you have right intentions and a big idea the sky is the limit. Ramleela ground of this historical city which has seen so many agitations during freedom struggle perhaps would have least expected to be embraced with same sense of patriotism, intense passion for the country amidst modern slut walks and gay parades.

With each passing day that Man captured the imagination of Indians with backdrop of Symbolisms. We as a society always been romancing with “Prateekvaad” and the moment we saw a 74yr old man ready to sacrifice his life and take head-on the paradoxically dogmatic government with a no burning buses, stone pelting and effigies bashing method but, without making any tangible harm to the other side of the table which will awake their souls as Gandhi has demonstrated in backdrop of numerous occasions during communal violence. India has learnt biggest lesson post independence in last 12 days that people hold the keys and each individual is empowered to bring the change provided we collaborate with intense passion rather than thinking what enablement do I need to tackle the problem? We must think of what we can do to make a difference for the problem at the threshold. The forgotten patriotism has an emphatic resurgent which perhaps is a new ray of hope in the looming darkness that our democracy is going through.........