An Indecisive Indian

  As I said in the last blog post on the subject, one must spend the initial months in spreading a message of love and empathy while checking out and modifying the HR ethos of the organization. For example, as the General Manger of Integral Coach Factory (ICF), I began my tenure by adopting some simple leadership principles, facilitating openness, discarding all meanly protocol and hierarchical straitjackets, gradual dismantling of the stifling bureaucratic systems, building a culture of trust and empathy, welcoming ideation from all levels, stressing importance of rectitude and probity, recognizing those who worked well with purpose and meaning while coming down hard on those who did not. And many other measures in a similar mould. But all this with a caveat. I did say earlier that a leader must contrive, fabricate and improvise to treat everyone with love. But since your love is contrived, you must continue to have control over it. At times, famous words of great poets make y...

  Quo Vadis, Private Train?   Don’t let this train derail! The last time I wrote on the subject was on 8 th November, 2020. I had written that, assuming that the entire exercise by Indian Railways (IR) was not about, first boiling the ocean and then blamestorming, but hopefully more like doing nothing by halves, certain sine qua non had to be spelt out. Summarizing, I had mentioned that it appeared that there was no risk for Indian Railways (IR), except loss of face in case of failure of the project whereas a prospective PTO (Private Train Operator) had to contend with high risks and perhaps even perpetual losses. At stake was not merely this project but long-term credibility and allure of IR, both from the standpoints of ease of doing business and long-term PPPs into the future. IR could not afford the smug luxury of a premise that it was dispensing favours, not looking for a partner in success. This privatization project was being seen as a very welcome move of IR to...

  We talked about your organization being your world and you must unriddle it fully to see what lay inside. You have to keep your eyes peeled, your ears to the ground and your mind wide open as if your charge was a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. So far so good but how do you start? Start with love!   Love? Well, what is it that you need, first and foremost, to do anything anywhere? Leadership, yes. Will and determination, absolutely. Vision, strategy and planning, sure. Motivation and teamwork, most certainly. I am no management guru but these are answers I get to this simple question and all are essential. But, did I not say, foremost? I believe that, first and foremost, the answer is simple: love what you do . It follows that you would then, naturally, love your organization and treat your colleagues with empathy.   Love your men . Love them in the spirit of what the poet Jigar Moradabadi said,   Ik lafz-e-mohabbat kā adnā ye fasān...

Moscow, October 1993: In those chaotic days after the end of the Soviet Union, the President and the parliament were at loggerheads. President Yeltsin was angling to dissolve the then Congress of People’s Deputies and Parliament, the Supreme Soviet, in a manner not authorized by the constitution. On 3rd October, demonstrators, beseeched by their leaders, removed the police cordons around the Russian White House, the then seat of the parliament, took over the Mayor's office and stormed the main television centre. Subsequently, the army, which was hitherto neutral, heeded to Yeltsin’s demand and stepped in force in early morning hours of 4th October. Army tanks began to shell the building and soon, the leaders of the resistance were arrested. The world watched in horror and speculated if Russia was on the brink. Well, it did not baulk and pulled back but the ten-day conflict became the deadliest single event of people fighting the army since the days of the Revolution in Ru...

  Haiñ aur bhī duniyā meñ suḳhan-var bahut achchhe kahte haiñ ki 'ġhālib' kā hai andāz-e-bayāñ aur   suḳhan-var: eloquent poet andāz-e-bayāñ: style of narration   (Although there be in this world many great poets but the style of narration of Ghalib stands unparalleled)   Mirza Asadulla Baig Khan, takhallus (pen name) Ghalib and Asad, the great poet, was born on 27 th Decmeber 1797. His has been the greatest voice in Urdu poetry and his shairi is rendered in singing and recitation and heard the maximum. Ghalib wrote in a nascent language and not only gave it innumerable embellishments but took it so much farther that he made his thought and words talk to the reader; so gifted was he that the language itself became Ghalib; Ghalib made Urdu, Urdu did not make Ghalib. Such was his charisma that even 200 years after he started writing, his shairi and shakhsiyat  (poetry and individuality) continue to be an enigma for analysis and research by scho...