Are you Mummy Friendly?

This business of “keeping it new is an old one.”

People do not want to remove plastic from new things. This applies to the covers of new cars, remote of the new television, bodies of washing machines, new crockery, new mixies, new sofa sets, et all.

Sometimes even from people. My friend never took the plastic off from her new born baby for months. My mother-law never took it off from her husband for years, in the hope that there would be a magical transformation of making the old into new, but it did not happen…

Those who know how to maintain One -upmanship survive. It keeps the competition confused long enough to give up.

The secret lies in keeping the old new and the new old.

Let me explain it in a modern context.

How to make the old new? Perhaps this example will enlighten you.

Do you wonder why so many people who are “old enough not to do it-do it.” That is dye their hair, get flat Abs at the gym, shed 10 kilos and as a matter of principle refuse get into the senior citizens queue though there is no one in front. Of course if you are Hugh Hefner then you can get to pose with your 19 year old sex partner who is actually in reality not your sex partner. This comes under the classification of one upmanship oops… one up- womanship too.

Our societies have a youth oriented culture. We sell age defying creams and all our advertisements are about going back into the past- like looking younger, more energetic than our years, successful fourth marriages, second careers and bonding with our grand-kid without getting breathless.

To get the perspective we have to examine how to make the new old too… And how that matters.

Take crockery as an example.

My mother in law who is an absolute expert on what good investment is, says “ Its crockery.”

(She is correct says the International Monetary Fund. And they have the second last laugh on anyone who says “but I thought it is Gold?”)

Even the pharaohs knew that crockery was the best investment. They took with them a lot of crockery and saved it in their tombs. Today it has become priceless.

Gold gets stolen easily and goes into the family of its robbers, but crockery remains…

My mother-law the expert on the preservation of everything and a specialist on crockery, may even graduate to becoming a superior mummified Mummy. She even has secret investors lined up for the construction of her pyramid.

The problem we face is a decision on what matters most. Is it the antique or the new?

Well being a superior generation we have no problems with that. Both are required- the new serves the purpose of making us superior to the neighbors’ and in laws, and when the new becomes old we can pass it down to our kith and kin as antique heirlooms.

Let us digress and examine a new perspective on how all this is affecting us. And what all this is resulting in.

Psychologists called it the Collyer’s Syndrome. Hoarding was once a word associated with a hobby- like a coin or stamp collection, or Pokémon cards. Now everyone seems to be doing it.

Defining what is junk is becoming extremely difficult. We are told that every thing can have a use or can be recycled, given to someone, used for school projects, used for home decoration, used for creative writing, consumed, eaten, given to the underprivileged, left in your will as for your descendents or for the future archeologists of this planet.… the list goes on…

That is why no hoarder can be called a person with Collyers syndrome- Even if you have no space to stand in their house.

The issue of being planet friendly is too complex for most of us. The next generation will be more educated on this In the future all schools have dustbins with 17 slots along an educational curriculum with 11 semesters on how to use them so that we can have a direct hand in saving our planet.

For the moment let’s not worry about the planet but ourselves.

The best investment today remains the same as time immemorial- the Greeks, Harappans and the Egyptians who invested and buried their crockery; those who are now long dead would be quite rich on their antique crockery if they find a way to get alive again.

Here is my advice.

Avoid plastic crockery because of its ability to not disintegrate easily. That would lead to complications in assessing their antique value for your heirs.

You do not need to go for expensive brands like Wedgwood, Corelle, Corning or Sevres.(Even though many of them throw in a free pyramid as a bargain on their designer brands).

Just go for breakable crockery. Local brands will do too. It must have the ability to get damaged and restored by eminent restorers using latest technology to qualify as superior antique. Even if they are damaged but not restored they can adorn and add value to your descendents’ drawing rooms like headless Greek statues do.

And if all this is done with meticulous planning and precision then all of us who know how to store, preserve and mummify can look forward to …perhaps becoming an authentic mummy with a real pyramid?

Wonderful.Isn’t it?

Copyright © 2014, Lima Sehgal

Republication or dissemination of the contents of this article are expressly prohibited without the written consent of the publishers of Jobnet magazine & the Author

Niceness is Serious Business- Take a lesson from the Placement Industry

There was a time when I used to work as a Placement Consultant.

Placement business is a pure people business.

There is more to it than resumes, matchmaking, and getting the ideal job fit for the involved parties.If we look at any placement firm that boasts of surviving over five years then it would qualify as being good at being people friendly.

Let me give you an emotional perspective.

People who are in the people business have to treat people as important. Since we cannot always know who deserves to be called important we stick with presuming all people as being important.

If a man walked into your office in a shabby dhoti and barefoot, looking like a tramp, with a resume, how would you treat him as a potential candidate for placement?

Suppose you could not put a label on him?

What if he was Mr.Ambani junior, how would you treat him? What if he was the rebellious teenage son of your most important client?

There are no rules here. But as a placement consultant, the safest marketing bet is to be nice, without mindsets.

Placement firms that are “Not nice to people” have a very high death rate.

One of my jobs over the years is to constantly find a large number of new placement consultants for including in each new edition of The Jobnet’s Directory of Placement Consultants. And I can vouch for the fact that hostile, suspicious or rude companies do not live long.

People who are in the people business make it a habit to be generally nice and polite to people. After a while it becomes a natural part of one’s personality.

Success in the people business is about how well they handle people to create a network of goodwill. Goodwill cannot be calculated but it is like manure spread on a field, if it rains then who knows which seed will wake where.

Niceness is serious business.

I was 11 years old. My cousin won a medal for some Boys Scout achievement, and my aunt managed to get me a free invitation for the ceremony in Rashtrapati Bhavan in Delhi.

Here I was at a tea party. I wore a sari for the first time in my life (that I could not handle) I was overwhelmed by the atmosphere- A gawky, kid, all alone.

Then a nice man came up to me and asked me if I won any medal. I said “No.”
Then he said “I welcome you to have tea and samosas. I hope you enjoy it”.
That made me most comfortable. I enjoyed the rest of the party.

My Aunt told me later that the nice man was ‘THE President.’

Why do we remember people or feel positive about them? Not because they are great or famous or even important - But because of the way they treat us!

The Placement industry is a fitting example of how the people business should be run. Maybe we should apply it elsewhere too.

Copyright © 2014, Lima Sehgal

Republication or dissemination of the contents of this article are expressly prohibited without the written consent of the publishers of Jobnet magazine & the Author

E – roses – My Love !

Question: If it took eight men ten hours to build a wall, how long would it take four men to build it?
Answer: No time at all it is already built.

They failed me in mathematics in school for that answer. Because the right answer is supposed to be a number, not a sentence.

Precision – to the point, number or to the button is of crucial importance.

The list of what all I do not know, never affects me much. But what I need to work on is my button intelligence.

I am a moron; my button IQ is pathetically below average … it has been proved time and again.

I am told that I am not an impossible case. The formula for being correct is so simple today – Every thing can be correct; you just have to press a button. (The small print says the right button, to be right, the wrong button to be left – (out).

I have problems deciding which is the right – button to be pressed.

With time, the buttons have gotten smaller, and my fingers bigger. They never could punch a single key. Then the print on the buttons got smaller and smaller and smaller…

Every one feels sorry for me.

It means that my million best friends whom I do not know, cannot get my profound one liner. Or my e – lover cannot take me to a 5 star e- dinner in Paris, without my husband knowing. Or my husband cannot give me an e- platinum mangulsutra on my wedding anniversary with a card that says “with this we again wed, but now – properly”.

My life’s ambition is to be like everyone else. Be it the Joneses, or the Sharmas or the Vermas or the next door neighbor whom I do not know. I would do any thing to be, button savvy!

I should be fearless, I am told.

People, who do not know how to read or write, can also press buttons. Buttons don’t bite.

Only thing to worry about is that the passwords you use everywhere be regularly changed to avoid the hackers. The sharp ones who know how to, can, get in and those others too, who do not know, but have accidentally hit your password by error because they were lost and experimenting.

According to statistics, your hitting the lottery button is zero. The fruits, according to karmic law fall only on those who do not want to eat it – Like Edison who wrote a library of scientific literature on an apple falling on his head. Ever heard of a starving beggar on the road having an apple falling on his head?

Scientists world wide are doing research on button pressing issues and its effects on humanity. They are worried about some idiot who would accidentally press the enter button on a nuclear bomb thinking that pressing enter would shut it down like it does for a computer.

No one who is a button moron would ever qualify with either the espionage agencies or the terrorists. Both only hire those who are either, button or trigger savvy!

(Ironic, but, people who hesitate, even when there is only one button that says shoot, qualify with either employer).

In spite of being button phobic, people like me are getting to be highly valuable to society. They do not add much to the e- economy but, I am pleased to be informed that even Darwin would have agreed with all other renowned scientists today, that the survival of the species would be directly linked to the button ignoramus.

This is what they say…

The future is here already. The unification of the universe is no longer in the spiritual but in the one universal screen – the TV, Computer, Telephone …. Are all now linked to the universe.

The debate on Darwin’s concept of the survival of the species has concluded, that people who are button savvy, may be the fittest, but they will not survive.

Simply because they will be less bored.

Novelty is stimulating. It is available on the internet. The button savvy will have a great time, having fun. They will even graduate, to having sex with holograms, and have harems to choose from.

But what will happen to the button ignoramus?

They will be left behind. To remote- controls that say; up- down, 1,2,3,4 etc., or on – off – All that simple stuff that even two year olds know how to handle.

Bollywood and Mollywood would cater to people like me, by continuing to churn out fixed formula entertainment, movies and mega serials with stories that are interrupted by songs at regular intervals and commercial breaks at irregular intervals. People as usual will get bored with reruns and then, like our ancestors, would engage in the time honored sport to relieve boredom – sex.

Beats virtual sex, if not for titillation, at least for babies!

(I think, Hollywood would go bankrupt because they would be competing with an English speaking audience using internet language. They never, ever could compete with either Mollywood or Bollywood. They could try the Chinese, who are currently upholding the number one score in population volume. But dubbed Chinese tastes like Indian Chinese cuisine. The Chinese would prefer to go hungry).

The mental regimentation program that humans have adopted as a means for survival is backfiring. Primarily because of our misconception that knowledge is a perquisite to wisdom. We have subjected ourselves not only regimentation of knowledge and experience, in our schools, but also in every other aspect of our lives.

Every thing we do is governed by the ease factor or the correct answer. Perhaps we have become the buttons, we so admire.

But my opinion is incorrect, so my therapist says. Because I am not button savvy, I suffer from button envy.

But the button savvy have their problems too. It is the ultimate lifestyle disease today. Affects everything; mind, body and fingers.

I recently dialed the personal telephone number of my bank officer who also happens to be my cousin. I know him quite well. He had just returned from a skill upgradation program for bank employees

“Hello” I said
He said “Please press star to continue in English.”
I thought that maybe it was a wrong number.
I carefully dialed again and asked “Is this telephone number 97609812389?”
The answer I got was, “yes, yes, no, no, yes, yes, no, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Please press one if the number is correct or else dial another number…”

Such things happen too…

Copyright © 2014, Lima Sehgal

Republication or dissemination of the contents of this article are expressly prohibited without the written consent of the publishers of Jobnet magazine & the Author

Switch the backdoor while job hunting

Perhaps it is time to address the problem about why education does not include job hunting methodologies. 

Why do we allow educational institutions to limit the vision of job hunting to who they can invite to their campus? What about all the rest of their crowd who do not make it at first go in the job hunting season  - Those who did not find a job because they do not know how?

Finding jobs through the effective use of placement firms remains a backdoor methodology. When most private sector jobs are processed thru them how can they be relegated to the status of witchdoctors not invited to the doctorate banquet?

Perhaps the first most crucial step is to convey the fact that jobs do not find you because you are the best,  but jobs are got because you know  how to.

Much like explaining electricity to a caveman, but it has to be done.  

Copyright © 2014, Lima Sehgal

Republication or dissemination of the contents of this article are expressly prohibited without the written consent of the publishers of Jobnet magazine & the Author

The New Baby Politics of India!

My friend is teacher in a school - the Delhi Public School.

She is popular with her students, which is strange, considering, that her pupils are long haired teenagers with a war cry towards authority. Incidentally, she loves her job.

So I ask her” Why are you stressed?

She says “I have two lovely kids aged 7 and 10.”

(Well I think they are brats, but being polite, I do not say that).

So, instead I say, “How do you manage a class full of 48 teenage brats and not get stressed?

She says that it’s not the same. Baby sitting other people’s kids is better.

Even with the best baby sitters running 2 shifts under the supervision of her mother- in- law, her kids are complaining about being deprived. She worries about the long term consequences of imperfect child management. She is seriously reviewing the situation, and planning on getting into better child management systems involving tutorials, dance school, finger painting classes and…

Being experienced in the fine art of politics and proficient in the new course of the art of living, I quote the unfailing methodology of success “your in-laws are always better in every way, than my in- laws.”

She says, “I applied that formula that but it had a technical hitch - my husband agrees! But I would not enlist the services of his in-laws too…”

Motherhood has become a totally new phenomenon for us modern Indian ladies.

Our Mummy says – “Competence in child rearing is equivalent to training a mammal to keep its epiglottis closed under water! But do we really need to watch over the new mammalian species so he/ she, does not drown while breast feeding, or over the coke at MacDonald’s? “

But Mummy is wrong. Performance is the keyword today.

That is why for us, surrogate parenting is no longer the issue. Once anyone could baby -sit your baby, but not anymore. We are not looking for substitutes for parenting but superior surrogates who will compensate for our deficiencies and improve the quality of our kids.

Finding the right babysitter is directly proportional to the level of perfection in the kid’s development. This is where the expertise is directed towards, the science of good babysitting. Do not get fooled by the Maids in Macdonald’s who accompany parents at large social gatherings involving joint and extended families, as babysitters…they are passé…

Today, what has emerged as a superpower, the supreme babysitting services is the Educational system in India.

From the age of 2 years they can be used as the best in surrogate parenting. All we need to do is to find a good school, and afford it.

In fact the Government of India is extending schooling years on a regular basis, because of the pressures from mothers.

Today kids in India spend at least 3 years in playschool, which expect you to begin training in nursery rhymes in the womb to save precious education time. 12 years in regular school is prevalent. And I am happy to announce that I have the backing of a million mothers country wise, and around a few crores world wide, who wish to extend schooling till the age of 40 years for boys, and the age of 55 for girls so that they can become properly mature, under supervised babysitting services, before they become active participants of society.

It has led to a few lopsided laws in the country, which some people believe need to be changed.

In India our youth have a different minimum age for marrying – 21 for boys and 18 for girls. They can drive, vote and marry, produce babies, but they cannot drink alcohol by law in a bar before they are 21 years of age.

Parents are comfortable, but social change always has fallouts.

All this has led to a revolution no less bloody than any other. Historians call it The Indian Revolution of the Babysitting Era.

This is about a very cold generational war, and the formation of The BBB of India: Bharatiya Babysitters Body of India.

The BBB started as a dangerous underground movement by the experienced generation of mothers and in-laws and others who felt that their superiority in babysitting was being undermined by women who felt that the new fangled information resource like the internet, pediatricians with dubious connections with sales force of pharmaceutical, toys and diaper companies, schools with secret alliances with textbook and computer companies and so and so forth… were not good influences for kids.

Today, we have nothing to fear because the BBB of India got official recognition as an NGO with Funding from the UNICEF and is now affiliated to The World Baby Sitters Body,( international is better than desi, since the NRIs have become a majority). They are now expanding their agenda to babysitting not only for human babies but pets and plants too…

(Incidentally, my Mother- in- Law has recently been appointed as the Vice President, so now you can woo me as a person with contacts, all bribes are welcome too).

Today, the BBB of India is revising their manifesto, in order to accommodate new modalities.

This trend in society towards institutions rather than individuals for child rearing is a trend that cannot be stopped. The more information oriented we become the less confidence we will have on our level of individual expertise. We have spent centuries of time raising children to be the clones and inheritors of our selves. Today we have new dreams about creating future generations who are not just survivors but successors in a terrain that is unfamiliar to us. And I am not talking about just Mars or Jupiter but our backyard and playgrounds which have new terrain - trees replaced by plastic slides, free pornography for all ages, good instant cooking in cling film, and friends on twitter…

Why protest against the new. Most the old remains too.

And sometimes it’s refreshingly good. Like the legal ban on bride burning, but no law on killing the plants- in- law.

Copyright © 2014, Lima Sehgal

Republication or dissemination of the contents of this article are expressly prohibited without the written consent of the publishers of Jobnet magazine & the Author

The Indian Jobseeker's Buttocks

The swivel chair ? Yes the movies did catch on and we have those pictures about success.
 
The buttocks are the ultimate definition of job success.

Indians have a strong conviction that the buttocks are the defining criteria for future success.

The youth needs hard seats to develop brains for success. Schools and all other educational institutions agree to its role in future success.

As a mother, I  have checked the availability of water coolers, the quality of teachers, the accreditation, the lab facilities, the sports facilities, academic facilities, the toilets, hostels rooms etc- And always the Buttock- Rest offered by an institution.

The hardness of the buttock- rest is directly proportional to the success of a student .

All Indian schools always believed in the Buttocks Theory of Education.

Once upon a time corporal punishment was quite the in thing and one got caned on the buttocks to improve performance.Even if it did not work for some, it did wok for some others- so I am told.

But because of statistical problems( I must explain that the the proliferation of idiots who could not be improved and the save the forest naturalists who wanted to reduce the cutting of wood which went into the cane industry, thereby killing our forest,s which was happening because of the unnatural number of idiots being born in that era) all led to the government banning corporal punishment in schools.

The Educationists and the Politicians did much mud flinging but luckily the Parliament passed it.

To counteract this crisis the government as well as the private education authorities advocated a new educational policy of 'the hard bum education plan' to help improve the quality of education.

Finally the true test of success would be the swivel chair with a soft seat. If you feel soft on the bum while working that means you are the boss -you have arrived.

Somehow  education is still a primary problem.We must outlive the brochures that lure us to a seat which promises a softer future for the buttocks.Employment just happens to the bastard baby that lands up in your lap.

Unfair but real.

The unemployed job seekers who got the so called best of education are the ones who suffer the most. The quantum of suffering being directly proportional to the fees.And the Bum

But the Butt still hurts

Hey - that calls for some justice- but a cushion would help too

Copyright © 2014, Lima Sehgal

Republication or dissemination of the contents of this article are expressly prohibited without the written consent of the publishers of Jobnet magazine & the Author

Who is the Father of my Nation?

Much has happened after the Hapsburgs or the first landing on the moon — and an education that says that my two fathers are not the same – The one who fathered my nation and the one who is the father of my nation.

For me, I have often wondered about my education. To Be or not to Be was not my question (Pardon me, Shakespeare, for the theatrics of life). Rather it has always been — Did I or did I not ?

Some time ago, some psychologists like Mark Rosenzweig, while experimenting (with rats), discovered a striking increase in the mass and thickness of the cerebral cortex as well as accompanying changes in brain chemistry in animals, when they were kept in a variety filled, lively, enriched environment. Since a more massive cerebral cortex would play a role in future learning, the importance of enriched childhood environments was clear.

That was when the play ground got replaced by the playschool.

Not mine.

Playschool deprivation, which I have because I didn’t go to playschool could be a major handicap. I am told that it is the reason for my lack of understanding of my co – humans. Also, my ignorance of drawing and nursery rhyme skills could be one of the reasons why I am not as talented as Bill Gates or Rowling.

My school - going son, who like me also has a problem about figuring out the utility of his education, is confident that he will be better off than me.

At least with the number of hours he puts into playing in his virtual playground, killing Jedis, Ninjas, other sundry good and bad guys and Lara Croft and other sexy girls on his T.V. and Computer- What he learns is much more relevant to survival in the social and corporate jungles, and of course he has in the process also learnt how to fly and crash all kinds of airplanes with admirable nonchalance.

And I am impressed. I never learnt to fly or crash a plane - virtual or otherwise.

Virtual problem solving is a great development of the modern times. And as usual we resist good ideas with great gusto. As modern parents, we are ready to buy the CD version of the Encyclopedia Britannica, the advanced Math tutors, the National Geographic and wonder why it fails to either interest or impress our youngsters.

Is it only us, who make this merry – go – round, go round and round? Because we know no better?

Can we let go of what we know? We must. We no longer know how to educate them. We are offering knowledge that has no relevance to the kind of life they will lead. Even in terms of the future demands as employees or entrepreneurs, knowledge will be proved to be a handicap and hindrance to innovative ways of creative problem-solving that will have no past precedence for reference. If one plus one may not add up to two in some applications with different parameters in the future, we are better off in striking it off the curriculum today.

But we regard our educational curriculums as a precious heritage that has been nurtured and updated over the millenniums that we can’t let go. And worse, we have no idea what will replace it.

So we continue with what we have.

Writer A. Toffler was famous when I was in school. He wrote this.“Today, children who enter school quickly find themselves part of a standard and basically unvarying organizational structure: a teacher - led class. One adult and a certain number of subordinate young people, usually seated in fixed rows facing front, is a standardized basic unit of the industrial era school. As they move, grade by grade, to the higher levels, they remain in this same fixed organizational frame. They gain no experience with other forms of organization, or with the problems of shifting from one organizational form to another. They get no training for role versatility. And no advance experience of what they will face when they begin to move through the impermanent organizational geography of super- industrialism”.

Today my son studies in the same system that I did.

Do we really need the excuse of waiting for spring time to do a spring cleaning?

Copyright © 2014, Lima Sehgal

Republication or dissemination of the contents of this article are expressly prohibited without the written consent of the publishers of Jobnet magazine & the Author

Home Alone?

Heard  this one?
Man: “What is that drink you’re mixing?”
Bartender: “Rum Dandy. It’s got sugar, milk and rum.”
Man: “Is it good?”
Bartender: “Sure, the sugar gives you pep, the milk gives you energy.”
Man: “And the rum?”
Bartender: “ Ideas about what to do with all that pep and energy.”

Jokes aside, how come we never have any answers? Instead we are charged with an optimism without bothering to figure out the nitty gritties of how things work.

Alfred North Whitehead states – “It is the business of the future to be dangerous…The major advances in civilization are processes that all but wreck the societies in which they occur.” Knowing that, do we have a game plan? I suspect that most of us believe that our resistance to change will keep the future away. It is never that simple.

Meanwhile, our problems are vested in todays. A work environment that demands competence, and a daily involvement in the never ending Herculean feat of gaining recognition, which is an integral part of being a cog in the wheel. Knowing that one is dispensable, we have to become competent egoists conveying an impression of indispensability. Our best efforts need to go into the promotion and advertising of our worth.

I’m told, two things happen to cogs in the wheel. Either they become idiots, or sharp survivors, who have the ability to survive at the cost of others. Such extreme competitiveness slowly erodes the spirit of cooperativeness.

Extreme specialization has created a assembly line society where only the system is important, the individuals being replaceable. The fallout is isolation – that is individualism in the extreme.

Take a look at one of the ramifications of this – the loss of the interdependence of one generation with the next. With the boom of information accessibility, dramatic lifestyle variations caused by work demands and frequent geographical relocation, there is very little need of one generation on another. When we no longer inherit the family trade, or the ancestral home, and family ties get relegated to e-mails and phone calls, personal bondings weaken. Are we aware that the reciprocate spirit that was operational between one generation and the next for over a couple of billion years is eroding fast? Altruistic considerations are unimportant, but one must give a last check at the pockets before discarding the old shirt.

Children are the casualties of work-life. They’re relegated to leisure time activity. Once you strapped your baby on and worked in the fields; it would be out of place to expect the board meeting to pause while one changed the diapers. Montague, an expert on child rearing, states that “the impersonal child rearing practices which have long been the mode…, with the early severance of the mother and child tie and the separation of mothers and children by the interposition of bottles, blankets, clothes, carriages, cribs and other physical objects, will produce individuals who are able to lead lonely, isolated lives in the urban crowded world with its materialistic values. “ Sounds practical and convenient?

Or there may be a strong chance that we may, out of convenience or practicality, simply stop having children.

Foresight was never our strength. Perhaps, that is the reason why we always end up in a Catch-22 situation. For example, has anyone noticed that our playgrounds have changed, going hand-in-glove with our current lifestyle trends? Carl Sagan, the famous space scientist, endorses this viewpoint. Take the explosion of computer games. “this sort of information gathering,” he says, “is precisely what we call play. And the important function of play is thus revealed: it permits us to gain, without any future application in mind, a wholistic understanding of the world which is both a complement of, and a preparation for, later analytical activities. But computers permit play in environments otherwise totally inaccessible to the average students.”

We have come a long way from catch-catch or hide and seek.

A natural evolution? The time to stop and think is when one is in shallow waters – not when out of one’s depth.

Copyright © 2014, Lima Sehgal

Republication or dissemination of the contents of this article are expressly prohibited without the written consent of the publishers of Jobnet magazine & the Author

Indian 5-Star Gourmet Job Hunting

Putting cooking ingredients on a platter does not create gourmet.

Given today’s job market conditions, it may be wiser to dump the chef.

Too many help services, with too little help. The resume blasters, spot lighters, locators, the career fairs, customized career designers and other such services that promise deep sea hunting and fishing in the Tsunamic oceans of the job market...

Job seekers agree that, ultimately, what counts is zeroing in on the interview and, of course, being invited to it.

It is surprising that in spite of the growth of placement firms over the past decade, the Indian job seeker is still ignorant on how to use them effectively. Either, one chooses to indiscriminately to send a CV to all, or else choose to shortlist the one or two our best friend recommends.

What works is not the right pickings of placement firms, but an effective understanding of the workings of the placement industry — vis-a-vis 1) their clients (e.g. why it may be necessary to apply to a placement firm in Bangalore or Mumbai if we are keen on a posting in Delhi) 2) their vendors (e.g. why placement firms are hesitant to use resumes that come through the blaster services of job websites).

So, how about a home cooked meal cooked in your own pressure cooker?

Copyright © 2014, Lima Sehgal

Republication or dissemination of the contents of this article are expressly prohibited without the written consent of the publishers of Jobnet magazine & the Author

Being First- The Karma of Success of Delhi-ites

The laws of Karma are absolute, as we all admit. But let us cut thru all the theory stuff that is in our Gita (the book, not the girl) and it all boils down to taking action.

Therein lies the problem – what action?

That is where I suspect its application in modern times.

Winning, by creating good karma is not satisfactorily explained in the ancient scriptures like the mahabharatha. We all agree, that if some of our kith and kin and especially all our in- laws were lined up on the other side of the battle field, we would gladly annihilate the lot with a single nuclear weapon, without hesitation.

But life for us is not so simple anymore. Attack with a pure conscience, knowing that all is fair, if justifiable in love and war, has become a suspect maxim, now what with the competition from another bestseller book the Bible, which is currently higher up on the international bestseller list. The other maxim – Do unto others as you would like them to do to you; or offer the other cheek to get re-struck – is really confusing

There is a global confusion on what creates good karma – All over the world, but not here, for us Delhiites. Here we know what to do, even when we do not know what to do.

We know that good karma is created as a result of being the first.

Being first creates no confusion about being right. The winner is always right, the loser, who does not count can always whine, resort to a lawyer or choose to remain dead.

But what about the mystical web of cause and effect? “No fear”, says the Delhiite, “cause and effect does not have to be applicable when you have a choice- you will always have a choice if you are- 'First.'

Let me give you an explanation of this philosophy.

It is really quite simple. That principle of “make sure others do unto you what you would like them to do to you.” That creates good karma – for you.

Also. Do unto others what you would not like them to do unto you — that way you get to do it first.Being first will always create good karma -for you

Makes sense to be the first to break the law, and then wait around for the lawbreaking policeman who takes a bribe. Bribes cause good karma because it spread happiness for both parties.

- If in doubt do it anyway. Everyone always honks at the red light because, you can never be sure if it will ever turn green.And if it does you have to be first .

But remember being first has the ultimate advantage- We become the one who gets to decide what to do.

The philosophy of Being First is one of supreme compassion, so our sages say.

Did you know that Delhiites are considered the world’s most compassionate people? Applying the karma of being first is not easy especially when faced with the other side that wants the same. So they are especially kind to those who do not shoot, abuse, bark, kick and bite.

Like trees.

No Delhiitte can bear the thought of huge, poor helpless trees in colonies or on road sides or even in city forests being left to fend for themselves in this cruel world. There is a compassionate passion for cutting stray trees and putting them out of their misery. After all, the cows, dogs and cats have access to overflowing dustbins; what do trees have?

The same compassion is applicable to fellow humans too.

The Delhi parties embody this spirit.

If you go to a party, only then you get a chance to know who you really are.

All Delhiites will give you precisely two and a half seconds to answer three questions – Your name with surname, the colony where you live, your designation and company name. After which they will proceed to introduce themselves by answering the same three questions about themselves in precisely two and a half hours. If you happen to be worth anything then you will get the honor of being requested for your visiting card so that at some future date you could be suitably utilized.

There was this memorable party I once attended in Delhi, and I think I managed to create a fairly reasonable impression .At that time I was living in USA and my father was working with the World Bank.

Five years after the party I got a call “Hey remember me, I met you at that party, thrown by the friend of that grandson of that MLA — ?

Of course I did not (since I suffer from Alzheimer’s from my teens). So I told him “Of course I do remember you.”

“Well, he says, “my nephew has just finished History Honors from Delhi University, so can you ask your father to get him a job in the World Bank?”

I informed him that my father had retired from the World Bank a few years back. He politely stated the fact that since the kid graduated this year so he only thought of contacting me now .So, can I now please ask my Dad if he could use some of his contacts?

Well, I bumped into him recently and he still remembered me.

“Hey I was just remembering you. My nephew wants to get a green card; can you ask your Dad? “

“Sorry, I told him, my Dad died sometime back so he can’t help. He beamed a terrific smile – “Congratulations. You must have inherited his address book and visiting card folder too!

That is the spirit of give and take – you give and I take.But me first.

And do not believe for one moment that there is a motive of greed or unfairness.There is only a holy motive. The giver is greater than the taker, so say our sages, so a Delhiite takes to make the giver morally superior.

And if you doubt their integrity, you run the risk. Every Delhiite has the direct mobile numbers of Gods and Judges, and both always immediately help them because they are always right. And fending for the right makes good karma.

Copyright © 2014, Lima Sehgal

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