In Memoriam: Sam Manekshaw

In Memoriam: Field Marshal Sam "Bahadur" Manekshaw

(3rd April 1914 - 27th June 2008)

The stories of Sam Bahadur's life have always inspired me. His exploits in WWII fighting in Burma despite his stomach having been ripped by Japanese gunfire. The India-China in 1961 where he reinvigorated the troops and pushed back the Chinese offense. And the well known anecdotes from the victory in the India-Pak war of 1971. But more than his military triumphs, his style of leadership was remarkable. While he had his quirks and eccentricities, he was hands-on and led by example even when he was the commander, which is unique in the Indian military context. His personal charisma and easy manner made him immensely popular with the jawans.

"Any one who says he knows no fear, is either lying, or a Gurkha!" - Sam Manekshaw

Ma Belle vs. Froggy

Our golden retriever pup is a hyperactive bundle of energy and loves playing my wife's old stuffed animals. Watch this duel with her toy frog - she gores it to death like a crazed tigress and then gives us her innocent puppy dog look.

Does meeting madness get to you?

Do you feel at times that you are in so many meetings that you just arent adding much value? Or that you are in an ad-hoc meeting where you land up and the discussion goes completely off course? And group IQ goes down with the increasing number of participants? Or are you usually just too busy looking at your blackberry or answering email to bother?

Organizing meetings is not easy, especially in today's globalized world with attendees from different timezones and continents, several distractions, and analysis paralysis. I've learnt a few tips in my career on organizing meetings effectively from a number of sources (particularly Marissa Mayer from Google, and various colleagues and partners I've worked with). I can't say that I successfully practice them, but they've served as good guidance and I wanted to share them on my blog and solicit feedback and inputs.

• Set a firm agenda - Ensure this goes out before the meeting, and give people sufficient time to prepare. This is your agreement on what the focus of the meeting will be.
  
• Assign a note taker - Preferably on a rotation basis, have the attendees take notes and distribute them. The focus of the notes is best served by capturing key updates, decisions made, and action items.
  
• Track follow-ups - Review follow-ups from previous meetings to ensure focus on execution is not lost
  
• Carve out micro-meetings - Carve out blocks of time (15 minutes for example)for smaller self-contained topics such as updates on certain initiatives.
  
• Rotate timings - Especially in today's globalized world, where we have attendees from multiple timezones, someone at one end of the spectrum lands up having to wake up early or stay up late. Encouraging rotation of the meeting times (for instance, once a quarter) ensures balance.
  
• Discourage politics, use data - This is particularly hard especially without sufficient data, but it is important to drive discussions with focus on customer feedback data, and not a culture around just personal relationships.
  
• Stick to the clock - Says it all.
  
• Seperate strategic topics from tactical updates - Often, I tend to see that especially weekly meetings which mix tactical and strategic topics become tactical in nature with people just sharing updates. If that happens, I've found it useful to either have a seperate meeting on the strategic topic, or to just have 2 weekly meetings. This facilitates a tighter, focused tactical meeting and a more creative discussion on strategic topics.
  

Are there tips you'd like to add to this list? How do you usually run your meetings? Are there stories (well run meetings, and/or meetings gone bad) that you'd like to share?

Birthday gift for Monami - Ma Belle!!!

We have a new addition - my gift to Monami for her birthday! A golden retriever puppy! Although her birthday was early May, we didnt get around to pup hunting until two weeks back since I had been out of the country travelling over weekends. We were initially keen on adopting a stray or orphaned pup, giving it the shots it needs and raising it with us, but after giving it much thought, we decided to consider that for a second pup someday once we had experience raising one.
When my parents visited the last weekend of May, we went over to the Lasrado's, a breeder recommended to us by the Mysore Kennel Club. Monami was initially torn between picking a German Shepherd and a Golden Retriever, but once she saw the goldies, she had made up her mind. :-)


Of the two little furballs on her lap, Ma Belle is the one on her left. The pups were only 25 days old though, and so we had to return the next week so that the breeder could finish a litter inspection and ensure the pups were ready for adoption. Sheer coincidence - the puppy was born on May 4th, just a few days before Monami's birthday.

When we returned a week later, the pups looked like they had doubled in size! Ma Belle is the plump little one on Monami's lap, still sniffing around with quiet confidence. The smallest of the litter, she was creamy white with golden brown ears and streaks of gold down her back. The little darling with floppy ears and cutie pie face took to Monami rightaway.

Here's a cute picture of us with Ma Belle's dad before we left the Lasrado's. He was a handsome, friendly and intelligent dog, and came by to sniff around and play for a bit. Ma Belle watched on quietly from Monami's arms without a whimper while we carried her away to her new life. Incidentally, this was the same evening as the French Open final (Nadal/Federer), but I dont think I've recovered from that enough to blog about it quite yet.
But why 'Ma Belle', you may wonder? It's a play on Monami's 'firang' name (Mon Ami is 'my friend' in French, and Ma Belle is 'my beautiful'). And of course, Monami and Mabelle are two (words) that go together well (Thanks Paul). We considered a number of other names though and didnt jump to this one right away: Totoro (Japanese anime), Momo (Tibetan dumpling), Remy (Cognac/Ratatouille), Milou (Tintin's snowy white dog), Pazu (Japanese anime), Simba (Lion King) and scores of others. But Ma Belle felt the best, and she has responded to her name quickly!
Monami and I have adjusted our work schedules around the 4 feeds a day she needs - Monami leaves early and comes back early, and I leave late and work late. This isnt too bad, since this aligns pretty well with our work hours and calls. In a few months, we'll be able to cut back to 2-3 feeds a day.
She has made herself at home quickly, lapping up bowls of Cerelac and weaning food, playing with some of Monami's old stuffed toys, pooping around everywhere, nibbling at anything she can get her jaws on and sleeping 18 hours a day. What a sweetheart!

Crazy to think Federer can win

Extracted from Peter Bodo's insightful post on the eve of the Federer-Nadal French Open Final.

"You have to be nuts to think that Federer can't win, but you have to be downright crazy to think he will win."

On Sunday, the same two men clash for a Grand Slam title for the third consecutive year for just the second time in the Open era -- the other occasion being the three straight Wimbledon finals fought out by Stefan Edberg and Boris Becker.
But the great -- and improbable -- thing about the incipient Roland Garros final between Roger Federer and Rafal Nadal is not how similar it is to the rivalry Becker and Edberg had at Wimbledon, but how different. For one thing, Federer and Nadal have been Nos. 1 and 2 in the world, respectively, for all three of these meetings. And that's unprecedented.
For another, Becker and Edberg were both attacking players with similar styles, playing on the surface best suited to that game plan. While Nadal, once again seeded No. 2 here, probably represents the ultimate clay-court expert, Federer is more effective on faster courts. That this is a battle between a paragon of surface-specific tennis (the specialist Nadal) and the master of the all-court game (the generalist) is a fabulous bonus.
In fact, Federer's status as the second-best player on clay -- he has reached a semi and three finals in the last four years in Paris -- represents an extraordinary achievement. The annals of tennis history are choc-a-bloc with Wimbledon champions who labored like Hercules to reach one Roland Garros final (John McEnroe, Stefan Edberg, Michael Stich) and others (Pete Sampras, Richard Krajicek, Goran Ivanisevic, Becker) were lucky to paste the rare, one-time semi or quarterfinal finish.

The downside, of course, is it was always Nadal opposite Federer on final's day. Roland Garros and the Australian Open are the two majors that have produced the highest number of different champions (24). In the case of the red dirt major, it's because the clay surface is a great leveler on which it's impossible to grease out matches with a big serve or other weapon. All the runs you score -- or give up -- at the French Open are earned.
So what does all this bode for tomorrow? Bad news for Federer. Let's face it, Novak Djokovic may be threatening to disrupt the pecking order near the top. Nadal's history of injury, coupled with Federer's slightly substandard results earlier this year, are convenient rationalizations for someone thinking this year somehow could be different. But the on-the-ground reality emerging these past 10 days in Paris is that nothing has changed. One common definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. It sure looks like the dudes here have been doing the same thing over -- and over.
Nadal is clearly playing terrific tennis -- he's caught a second wind after grumbling and complaining about the brutality of the schedule a few weeks ago. Federer has been slightly more up-and-down, but he'll have the counsel of a new coach (Jose Higueras, a clay-court master) to rely on. Tip: Look for Federer to attempt using his backhand as more of a weapon (if he can) -- especially the tough but potentially rewarding big backhand down the line. Look for Nadal to try to pin Federer into the backhand corner, taking away that shot.
It's amazing how the No. 1 player and candidate for GOAT (Greatest of All Time) can go into a Grand Slam final as an enormous underdog, but that's the case here. You have to be nuts to think that Federer can't win, but you have to be downright crazy to think he will win.

Where did May go?

It's been a whirlwind month of May and I've been away doing quite a bit of travelling both on a personal front and on work.

I picked up a new MotorRazr V8. It's sleek, packs a load of features, provides good sound quality and battery life, and take great pictures (Here's the first one I took - although my hand shook a bit, Monami's pic has come out well).

I spent a week in Redwood City on a short visit to our company's California headquarters. For my friends in the Bay area - unfortunately, it was a pretty hectic visit, and I didnt have time to catch up. Our office hosted a lounge event where Strictly Ballroom was screened.
It looked like fun, and I hope to see it again sometime.

Soon after I got back to Bangalore, I met up with Chemba, my college batchmate. It was the first time we were catching up after several years.

The next day, I drove down with Vasim and Vatsa to Madhu's wedding in Anantapur, a city located in A.P. about 250km from Bangalore. It was great to be at the wedding, but it was a pretty hot day and a long drive back and forth. The good part was, it prepared me for my visit the next day to my in-law's place in Nagpur. When I arrived there, it was a warm welcome - toasty 47 degrees Celsius, and it felt like an open air sauna (Now compare that with Chennai, the open air hammam). I had a great time relaxing (indoors) with family, celebrating Monami's birthday and enjoying some fine Bengali cooking.
In the middle of all this travel, Monami and I have had little success in being regular to our gym, and the results shows in our midsection. I left soon after to fly to Canada to visit our Halifax, Nova Scotia office. I was fortunate to fly JetAirways via Brussels/Toronto although it made for a longer flight, since the service was fabulous and beats Lufthansa and most American airlines anyday. The icing on the cake? Our whole company files economy, even on long haul flights, and things get hard if you are in a middle seat between two big guys. But not this time! I arrived at the airport early and got a front row aisle seat in economy. Apparently, their planes are slightly differently shaped from other carriers, and the front row aisle actually faces the aisle leading into first class. As you can tell from my outstretched legs, I had ample leg room. Bliss.

Halifax is a beautiful little maritime city - not too big, not too small, and the people are so nice. A couple of colleagues drove me around the city and down to Peggy's Cove, one of the most photographed spots in Canada. The views at sunset are stunning, and a cloudy day adds to the surreal ambience. The first photo was taken around 7PM and the second around 8PM just around sunset.

Although I left from the old Bangalore airport, the new one had opened the day before I landed. The new airport is much more spacious and well designed, with sufficient baggage belts, gates and other connecting infrastructure. The baggage distribution was a mess the day I arrived, but I hear that has been resolved. I personally feel that people's complaining about the distance to the new airport and total time involved are quite short sighted. At rush hour, it used to take me 45-60 minutes to get to the old airport from my office located 5-6 km away on airport road. The new airport takes 90 minutes, and provides a far superior and stress free experience. The airport shuttle is frequent, flexible and practical at Rs. 20o, and should alleviate most concerns for those on a budget trip. I see this as a huge step forward by the government towards building better infrastructure for the city. But the best part about the new airport move as far as we are concerned? Peace and quiet. Our apartment is close to the old airport, and it's been a great relief to be spared at last.

Other good news! SaturdayPost, the community paper promoted by my father is now 15 editions old, and has been receiving fantastic feedback from the readers. As word has started to get around, ads have started to pour in and we are planning on expanding further to other locations in Chennai.

I've been mostly oblivious to pretty much everything else going on around me, and have just been catching up. U.S. Elections. Karnataka Elections. French Open. Yves St Laurent. IPL. Federer's resurgence (fingers crossed). Earthquakes in China. Indiana Jones. Olympics. Tata buying Jaguar (How cool is that? Beats the Mittal acquisition on my list).