Heisenberg’s Paradox

A German theoretical physicist known by the name of Werner Heisenberg, sometime in 1927 espoused one of the primal principles of life, the unparalleled axiom of Causality, in the sphere of sub-atomic matter. And he was finally seen walking out with the Nobel Prize for Physics, that too, within half a decade. Though it was not as easy as it seems here. You do not get awarded with a Nobel Prize for doing nothing, for that you do have Annual Awards at your workplace. 

Coming back to Heisenberg, for a lazy mind like myself, there is a prevailing inclination to think, “Why on earth or hell, do I need to know the speed or position of a particle, which I can’t even see in this or any other lifetime!” and maybe “You little quark, to hell with you.” And as for the latter, my guess is that, my boss thinks the same of me. The theory is causal both in its nature and intent. To measure the position of a particle, you have to affect its speed (you hit it with a photon and God knows what else) and thus the speed you would measure would be the post-collision one. The cause in question is locating the particle and the effect is a change in its velocity. 

                       Newton had applied this philosophy in his third law of motion and mango people like us knowingly or unknowingly apply this principle daily in our lives. Especially in Mumbai, auto-wallahs and taxi bhaiyas can be hailed as supreme masters of Newtonian physics. By applying any or all of his three laws sometimes simultaneously in any given interval of time (also called delta t), these Newtonian masters register a yet greater rate of application than their own respiration rates. Had they studied these laws a bit further upon, they would have most probably ended up in some lonely cubicle, applying the same set of laws but in a different manner with a perhaps higher degree of sophistication like silent incantations under breath, commenting and liking blogs without any legible content and sometimes even daring to dream beyond IIMs, thanks to ponytail. And in the latter case, the general populace and more importantly their kinfolk would have been mercifully spared from the Effect set, promptly replaced by their bosses and by people who do not have to sit in cubicles but have the long nose to make others sit. 

Even at-first perplexed freshers from various graduate and post-graduate streams, who chose the haven of Bollywood over lesser known cities, to catch one glimpse of a certain Bollywood diva, imbibe these laws pretty quickly. They would be seen in local trains, deftly whistling and kissing around (only flying ones, stationary ones can still land you up at the nearest police-station), which is usually taken as a semaphore for letting sub-atomic movement in a crowd. The intensity read desperation and the cadence of whistling/kissing can be directly proportional to the time by which one thinks one is late to work. Therefore at most of the workplaces, the early bird award usually goes to the person arriving at office just before noon, which otherwise cannot be shared with the office boy. Going by departments, it seems that the HR department (barring a few losers who have a quite pervasive presence across continents) follows the laws of thermodynamics rather than the laws of motion. Here the exception is the absence of any effect but a whole lot of causes. Yes it does defy many laws, but you see causes engender further causes and it goes on and on. People who are usually so busy, that it becomes difficult impossible for them to locate even themselves in their own cubicles after 5:00 pm. And they share the lion’s share of organizational work. Organizational Change and Development, Leadership Programmes and all such gingerly designed programmes take bulk of their working hours both in designing and implementation. In consonance with the zeroth law of thermodynamics, these designs remain in equilibrium with each other and also with their heads, probably later with their graves too. If one of those designs on a rare occasion tries to spout itself out, it’s made to delve into another form of energy as per the first law of thermodynamics. It’s called process improvement and it’s cost can exceed the next five years of remuneration of the entire department.

There is yet another department which closely resembles the thermodynamics department but is elementally very different. Even Erwin Schrodinger’s equation with all his partial derivatives, cannot completely explain the laws governing this one. For they are neither particles nor waves. They are admin. From your flights abroad to your flights to the loo, they cover the entire spectrum. They research on your telephone calls, coffee, conveyances and even the amount of tissues that you could have used in the loo. Given these grounds, most of them would have got a Nobel Prize for welfare economics. They manage costs, not just the checks and balances but the allocations and de-allocations too. You would probably have loved them too.

Love thy neighbour and thy colleagues even more.

Wonder Years

Awesome Little Devils

These were the days when, ceaseless dreams could manifest every cloudy moment of our lives. Perhaps it’s a kind of reminiscence which we can so ill afford these days. These scenes started invariably in the classroom after usual morning prayer sessions and dissolved with the eventual bong of the school bell, a familiar feeling which still carries on itself, with after-marks of the rush and rumpus, and ever sizzling in our minds. Audio cassettes (both pirated and genuine ones) used to rule our musical temptations in a way maggi had reigned our appetites or rather non-appetite for the usual cuisines. Days were kind of marked with conceited collection of trump-cards, magnetic-stickers of cricket players and comic-book heroes, which came wrapped with bubble-gums. Sometimes, we were able to find the card only after chewing the gum and it was eventually wrapped in gum spittle to our utter joy of discovery. He-Man and Complan pumped us with powers both figmental and futile. We used to kind of discuss the travails of superheroes at great lengths and contest on the most powerful ones (which would usually be each of our favourite one namely, Styro-Dhruv and himself, Shirin-Superman, Gamma-Nagraj, Shelly-Powerpuff Girls and Sigma- Doga). Selection and decision making systems for these contests were basically electoral and the majority usually won easily, discounting any sort of logical reasoning. 

                To make a drift towards our superheroes who made the morning sun dazzle bright although sans any discernable super-powers, these were Sigma, Shelly, Gamma, Shilin and Styro. Usually Shelly, Shirin, Gamma and Styro used to finish well within the top ranks while Sigma took care of the bottom five. Shelly and Styro aspired to be doctors while the rest were clueless about their ambitions with the except the likes of Sigma who wanted to replace Sachin in the Indian eleven. Sadly, he ended up replacing some unfortunate female of the States and works in a call-center these days. Gamma topped in either academics or in body fat content. He never could quite achieve both the things at the same time. Though he was a bit of animal lover, he habitually doted on chicken and mutton. Styro was armed with a much young looking birth certificate and he occasionally ended up messing with his own year of birth. Shilin kind of hated everything equally but his love for the language never died. Though he could never replace Gamma in either academics or corpulence, both of them enjoyed beating the hell out of Styro every moment. Shelly was one focused female who was genuinely worried about the explosions preceding sun’s white dwarf formation which was perhaps some billion years away, given it could easily gulp away our planet.What will we do then!!

                              Shilin used to idolize Rahul Dravid while Gamma revered Shane Warne (both his bowling and scams), when neither of them knew anything about real cricket. Yet they could endlessly go on debating about proper seam positions and cover-drives just to sink Styro. Vanity seemed to have developed its inadvertent roots in consumable popularity. The only ones who really played cricket were Sigma and Styro. Styro and Gamma also used to worship Nagraj and Dhruv in their attics. With zillions of comic-books they were a kind of Sith-lords for comic-book lending. Shilin had a bunch of Asterix-Obelix comic-books which neither he nor anybody else wanted in exchange. Time went on till these kids could evolve into boys and girls and the gross sins of the universe could then start materializing. Gamma had a heavy incessant laughing sequence which usually landed up the whole neighbourhood in trouble. His boisterous laughs used to portend some unusual punishments by the teachers. Most of his preys were recently transferred fellow students and certain perennial Jackasses. Sigma gradually perfected the art of conditioning anonymous calls to neighborhood girls. He used to be called the Pana-phoner. Shilin and Gamma tried to learn the trade of lying while Styro could perfect the gospel of illusion in the meantime. Hailed as Faadu-Samrat, he once recalled an anecdote of a smallish purple dinosaur coming out of an lunchbox sized UFO, which had landed in a dirty puddle in his locality, post midnight. And then again on the following day, he saved a cute puppy from drowning in quicksand, inside the same holy puddle. There is also a self-proclaimed true account of Styro of how he had hooked a cricket ball to hit a flying airplane, in a place called Dolumundai, Cuttack. Perhaps, Shelly was the only one who could keep her grace, modesty and exuberance intact over the years. And the only one to notice it at that instant was Styro, thanks to his young birth certificate.  No doubt Styro was unusually versatile in painting, singing, academics, fabricating incredible anecdotes and cricket, but unidirectional laws of attraction seemed to tether his other flairs. Emotions seemed to drool over time while the others found it quite entertaining. Gamma and Shilin were kind of anxious, while Sigma was confused as ever. Confusion and frustration led to permanence of a perpendicular hair style of Sigma which later led to his comparison with another magnificent being better known by the name of porcupine.Then there was a certain Lambda who was equally gifted in both corpulence and mawkishness. Emotions were kind of utterly-butterly reserved for only the fairer ones and an inception of any kind of attachment took him only an exchange of a few words. The prettier ones were in their comfort zone till they had divulged their telephone numbers (fixed land lines in those days). Then the King-kong of torrential emotions would let himself loose. He gradually developed one odd habit of repeatedly getting himself bereft of mobile numbers of his dreamy muses, and getting them back from his connects. If you are one of the fairer ones and you happen to be reading this, may God save you from him! The anecdotes could go on and on, but its better to keep some things under wraps, at-least for a while.
                                                  Meanwhile Styro, Shilin and Gamma were able to make seminal discoveries in the cyber world, all as a part of growing up. They made significant inroads in to the world of curses and offbeat movies. Once upon a time, Sigma once got caught red-mouthed while trying to be an anonymous entertainer of a pretty girl over telephone and he was promptly nicknamed by her as CDA Jhinka- the local equivalent of a porcupine. It was later learnt that someone had purposefully leaked Sigma's identity to that very girl,earlier that day, as she was supposed to be one of his first true loves. Days were closing in till Styro could make his existence matter with Shelly. Perhaps there were feeble incipient signals from the other end too. He discussed this matter at great lengths with his prime advisers namely Shirin, Gamma and Sigma, who unanimously advised him to blindly forge ahead. Sigma also fancied his chances post-rejection. As, this was the concluding year at school and they really wanted to have some serious amusement. Styro had to face an instant rejection serving to the delight and expectations of his usual audience. Strangely enough someone had said that though we cannot change the cards we are dealt, but we can change just how we play the hand. And a few years later, he got back his lady luck. Styro at that time had also helped develop what is popularly known as Clove Theory, the story of lost keys after an immediate exposure to a scientific journal with seriously inappropriate content. One time, Gamma was caught abetting one felony which involved guarding a promising wanton love schedule of a person known by the holy name of Ved. Unfortunately, Ved's activities were at the other extreme and this was the not the first time he was caught red-handed publicly, thanks to his dear paramours. Ved had incidentally promised Gamma of some settlement to be done with that girl, asking him not to allow anyone else to enter the classroom. The settlement ended up in complete notoriety with the blissful ignorance of innocent Gamma.  After that Gamma got baptized as The Jaguali, the colloquial for a watchman. Sigma later had a perky disappointment with a Perk bar he had chosen to gift someone with the name of Seona. He painfully gnawed eight perks after that incident took place.  A few months later, Shirin tried a vain proposition with one Maroon and had to face a miserable rejection. He never could quite recover after that. Gamma and Shirin were content with their lives at that point of time, much to their agonies later.They later became needless replacements for American automation system and were rechristened as software consultants. Shelly completed her dream of serving the society as a doctor along with the Styro. Sigma incidentally made his mark in the world of anonymous call-reception, popularly known by the name of business process outsourcing. Living their lives after being separated by vast geographical distances, they still exist inside one another heart, as pieces of poetic nostalgia. Had mobile telephony not been invented, they would have found it a little difficult, living those mellifluous memories again and again. Perhaps there is a Sigma, Shelly, Gamma, Shilin and Styro living in each one of us who tries to connect to the other.

Momentary glimpses of the past still foreshadow what future holds for each one of these. Still these characters continue to live in the present, at least in the happy framework of mind and ever transient dreams. Cheers!!

Disclaimer

All characters appearing in this post are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Mumbai Diaries-I

The joining location was mentioned as Mumbai in my internship letter and incidentally it was the first time ever, I would grace this city inhabited by our fellow earthlings with my exalted presence. However, somehow the very thought of spending sixty days in the least economic city of the country started giving me goose bumps. Apprehensive of a should-be-more stipend, plummeting bank balance ever since I began my so called pursuit of higher education and an ongoing (still wonder whether it’s ever historical) inflation (whatever it is, the end result makes us consumers poorer and the sellers richer and that’s exactly where they get their BMWs and iphones from), second thoughts of balking it altogether and doing some phoney summers at my hometown seemed a lot more appealing. Thoughts of having home cooked food seemed to manifest as countless delectable dishes right at my study table. Futility of a weak-will against biryani converted into a call to the concerned human resources executive. 

                                   Globalization seems to have bestowed certain inadvertent benefits on both employment and employability. Projecting clerical and routine tasks as momentous ones created executive out of mere clerks and supervising those without even the faintest idea of what it entails, created managers (of course this is what we are supposed to do). This surely means more jobs (however redundant) for the same quantum of work and perhaps even menial quality.  But it does not necessitate dividing the same piece of pie; it’s more like making additional figmental pie out of thin air (note that the marginal cost of producing it is zero) while promising intangible and non-existent benefits such as quality and consistency. It can take a while to understand what the term consistency really means. It can be put in a few words as, “Truly replicating the same level of hopelessness over a much broader time horizon”.

                    

Fancy thoughts always seem much more comforting than genuine words. The executive surely could not cite her incompetence or lack of authority in assigning a new location. Instead she included a few management buzzwords like career opportunity; financial capital and broad scope in his conversation rather deftly about which I am sure that neither of us had even the foggiest idea. I even tried to note a few of them for future utility. It was still a hard bargain for me even though I knew that none of those words stood by their dictionary meanings. But still, there had to be something in my resume to brag about for a stretch of an hour or so during placement interviews.

These turn of events finally led my joining at a Mumbai location. One of my friends had booked a lodge for our stay and it turned out to be pretty good decision afterwards. It was cozy enough with the number of bed-bugs and cockroaches just below the lower limit of endurance and shoddy enough not to charge a supernormal rent at an already posh locality. And of course, the thoughts of some random rendezvous with Katrina or Genelia (for the uninitiated, they are bollywood stars who still have both age and beauty at their side) during some unknown shoots at marine drive had been crossing my mind like umpteen times.

                                                           

We quickly found out the cheapest and quickest shortcuts to convey to our offices. It was again another posh locality where these rich wasted and crazy psychotics had access to only the latest models of Audis, BMWs and Mercs. They comprised a major chunk of vehicular traffic like Altos and Santros elsewhere. Nevertheless these psychos inculcated a regular practice of a certain type of we can call it as neck yoga. It is like identifying a BMW from the logo on the bonnet and quickly turning your head to grasp the model from the trunk as it speeds away. Pretty fast, uh! Looking around for others, it seems some pre-destined wannabes have inborn neck-turnaround flexibilities, sometimes turning their necks till a knot is established. I will report if they develop two or more knots, for we could be on the verge of discovering some alien wannabes from a lesser planet. I still want to find out the proportion of wannabes who still manage to make the jump to at least a Honda City.

                                    

                                          The good part is that this city seems to have an innate style of welcoming visitors in umpteen ways. Even with a broken Hindi accent, you can manage to get almost anything in this city, discounting purple dinosaurs and their pretty precedents. One of our South-Indian friends who normally manages to scare off small time snack vendors, is actually managing a pretty decent life here. I had suspected myself to be agoraphobic but these suspicions seem to have dissolved away. An overcrowded and ever-rushing city, still manages to embezzle anxiety out of your mind. One of the greatest memories which will perhaps remain with me for a lifetime is watching India lift the World Cup’2011 trophy, a journey which has been an absolute phenomenon. Mortal absence at the Wankhede, could not inhibit its electric atmosphere from being mirrored all over this city and especially at the Irish. Though the Mumbaikars seem busy in their own little universes they still manage time to help you create yours, but with an obvious discount to your fancies and fantasies.

 

It still seems a long way to go from here, till the advent of a less cruel summer with a bit of drizzle from the heavens. Speaking of some nostalgia, I still miss the serene life at the hillock. Even in all the glitz of the city after dusk.

Megalomaniacal Mediocrity

We think, we aspire, we achieve. We desire, we dream and we do. Unfortunately enough if doers were so much prevalent, Scott Adams would not have the luxury to sketch Dilbert regularly.

And fortunately enough, we all have a fair chance to dream and succeed however incompetent we may have become or be from birth, when the doing part is kept with as much clarity as a puddle of muddy brown water. Here comes a living legend who is most talked about and its not because of his impeccable talent but due to his grandiose achievements. We all fondly call him "Daroga", now he is known as D0(pronounced as 'Deo'). He is a strategic achiever in the field of his own core competency or rather incompetency as a consultant. And above all, his ersatz verve for achieving whatever lies on his way is so laudable that we get a new kind of vivacious energy and it rightly caters to our amour propre with an exclamation.

Truck Loads of Coffee

The story starts with a red little truck with a yellow load, called import button. Perhaps D0's fetish for trucks starts from his childhood, when he had his mind less screwed, along with the same diminutive body. But, he wore the same 'Bermuda Browns' those days too. Whenever, he saw a truck, he tried to figure out whether he would have to buy a ladder or not so as one day he would fulfill his final destination of riding them. Know what, he could not buy a ladder, his father would hammer his head those days, obviously with a hammer because it would cause the least damage at that location. Then with the eternal search of trucks in his mind, he set sail towards the software field. Now, how would he find a truck in a field of computers, all hi-tech as he used to boast about, in front of others! All he could do earlier was to gaze upon a black cobol screen with a few alphabets on it. He took a year and a half to get the coffee out of the coffee dispenser, forget COBOL programing. May be he thought, he needed to learn some esoteric cobol code to get the coffee out, by chanting a mantra-program infront of the dispenser. Anyway he survived seven valiant years without figuring how to get a cup of coffee from the coffee maker. Then came the IT revolution. Every 1.5 people in 2 were getting jobs in software. Deo wanted a change for the first time in his life. So 'Self' as he calls himself, shifted to one of the companies he would never have even dreamt of in those days of trucks & ladders.I bet if the Nazis were there, they would have definitely killed him in their pogrom even if he is not a Jew. I personally feel he is a cross between an alien moon man-an ass-a beetle-an eucalyptus tree-a cactus plant-a pegelite zinovicks* and a plastic bucket.

*They are polyphrite ant suckers according to some research published in scientific journal Dublello Didicles.

Riding with the truck

He felt an incredible amount of elation when he was given his onboarding material in a carry-bag. Of course he had seen a carry-bag, every morning when he went to get vegetables from market. But that was made up from his own discarded bermuda brown and this was made of colored paper and the greatest of all there was a LOGO on the bag! He had no logo on his bermuda browns. He was assigned to lead his first project.

He had mails requiring urgent transports to production box and to his indignation everybody had left. He saw two types of trucks for the first time. One was half empty other full. He thought of his position as a lead and pressed the full one, half one was for lesser mortals like members and all. At least this is what he thought proactively. And then all the changes were transported into production. Next day he came to office unaware of anything with victorious smile on his face. He had burned the candle from both ends, 6 hours straight overtime to oversee the completion of his full-truck button. Once in a while he wondered why he could not have someone like Size-zero or why did the clocks turn round and round! Truck went straight then. He must have thought that it takes overwhelming effort to unload a full truck anyway, and may be after he hit the full truck, a Tata truck went all over to Germany from his office and it was unloaded.

Run Over

The nasty client had escalated with a hefty fine of $100 000. They wanted only one change in production not on the thousands of waiting ones. D0 looked as if he had seen a banshee wailing for his brainless dickhead to be served for supper. What he did next, to save his ass, only three people know in this world. God, Self and Self's Local Gods. May be he had willingly inhaled his Local Gods' farts but let's not jump to conclusions with such a little knowledge of the premises.

Return of D0

With a tinge of vengeance on his face, D0 was back at work. He had been promoted to something manager, the position from where he is likely to cause the least damage to technical work. It not that he is good at managing and bad at technical. It was precisely because still after 8 years of IT experience, he could not achieve puberty in technical know-how. And if its a case, then of lot of scrapping of projects could be in the air if Do was rolled into any of them. One fine day, when stickers were distributed for free, he got his own sticker of a half horse and joyously stuck it on his laptop. He fondly gave the nick name of 'Pegasus' to his laptop. It felt like a warrior within , the horse with wings that he would ride in near future. But most of the times it was the mythical creature that rode him. He tried Yoko height enhancer, but to no avail. He blamed yoko, and explained to his wife that he would have sued the organization, if he had time.Then came his first thanks award. He was incredulous at first, but gradually he gave in to his clairvoyance. The very thought that he can stay in a industry gives me jitters, yet a subtle confidence exists that if he can, then probably any ass could do it.

Epilogue

Do would love to do an La Shiney anytime, but the only problem is that he spends more than sixteen excruciating hours at the screen, trying to figure out what the role of a team lead is. He is strangled between half trucks, full trucks and bermuda browns. Still, IB-Confidential (you could as well call him 'Jackass') promotes his talent, may be rather the lack of it. All his work involves carrying papers from one conference room to another, with Godspeed hurry but with an insane lack of purpose. The legend will continue to live on till he is ousted by a more incompetent successor. We will address his successor as D1 once he arrives. He once aspired to go for the NBA championship , so he decided to start playing basket ball from the office side. Alas! the participation paper was posted a bit high and he could not reach it to sign it, even when he tried 16 times that day. I guess he washes his yellow full-sleeves at least once in his lifetime. It will be a welcome full moon for him then. Yet megalomania exists and so does mediocrity.