Blog@GraceJunction

TRUTH PAYS, LITERALLY!!

In the year 2008, Fox television started a new game show to titillate the minds of the viewers and get some excellent TRP ratings.

The show was “THE MOMENT OF TRUTH”. The game goes this way. The contestant has to undergo a polygraphy test before he or she goes live for recording. The contestents will be asked some very up close and personal questions which in todays times any individual would like to hide from his or her family. Then the answers are matched with the answers given at the time of the polygraphy test. (more…)

Few days ago I was attending an official meet from our compnay at Ahmedabad  Management Association. As usual there’s no proper parking space at the institute so there where hundred’s of car parked on the road. I along with three of my other collegues having not found any place parked our cars outside a society’s gate. In the midst of the meeting on of my collegues who’d to leave early for an appointment called me franatically saying that “all my four wheels have been punctured”. Initially I thought that he’s just joking, but it was not so as he franatically called me and texted me eventually forcing me to come down. And what do I see? All four wheels out of air. And not only mine all three cars where punctured, in all twelve tyres! (more…)

“One life. Why so serious?”.. Goes the latest ad campaign for the much awaited hatchback from the Honda stable, Honda Jazz. Let me take you thru a small history of this car. The car was launched in the year 2001 in Japan and in Europe, US and some other markets the car is known by the name “FIT” and in singapore, and some other markets its known as “JAZZ”. (more…)

Recently I was in Mumbai for a ten day training for Private Banking (a division that handles only ultra High Networth Individuals). This field is very polished and the Relationship Manager’s(RM) meet only the business biggies of that city or state. These RM’s are highly regarded by the company and they themselves have a big inflated ego, “pride value” and all other values we can think of. The training was for both domestic and International RM’s coming from different countries.

These RM’s were very touchy about small small things. Somebody was complaining about the hotel not being a five star and being a three star, somebody about food, somebody about the Air-Conditioner et cetera. But I want to share one incident whick kept me thinking for a long while and prompted me to come up with this blog.

In one of our breaks some of us went to the wash room. On entering the wash room one of the RMs, based at Bahrain, got his shirt pulled off by some sharp obeject, possibily on the door. The right side of the shirt tore off, near the hand, in the size of a “pin hole”. This guy looked at the shirt for a while trying to see if it could be hidden or adjusted in some or the other way. After few minutes he said to us, “I’m going to meet the General Manager of the hotel and take him to task”!! (more…)

“Life-On your Terms”. This is the quote I came across on the cover page of an investment review magazine of one of the biggest banks in the country; for some reasons I’ll keep it unnamed.

The magazine is a research magazine which shows the past performance of all the investment products available in the market. In short the magazine is giving us data to analyze and understand where to put our money so that we can make more money and when we have more money we can live our “Life on our Terms”.

But can we really live “life on our terms”?

If i see it from the material perspective may be “yes”. You see people around us taking control of their life: deciding what to eat, drink, when to drink and with whom to live, what brand, and even pre marital, post marital relations et cetera. These are components that people consider when defining “life on their terms”, doing what they want and when they want without strings and without any moral standards. (more…)

A week ago, people in my organization where busy in discussing only two things. The performance ratings of individuals and the speculations about the amount of increment in the salary. Some people had gone one step further and were planning for a vacation once they got a good bonus and increment. Some intelligent people where busy in data analysis of the trends over the years in pay rise and rankings. You could hear these discussions in the conference room, in the canteen and the tea shop outside the office. Finally when the curtains came down, I was shocked to see that we were running short of bandwith as almost 90% of the people were logged into the HR site for next 2-3 hrs analysing how much increment they got and also comparing how much their colleagues got! (more…)

We have been discussing various social issues in this blog and it has been a good reading. I desire to take on a topic which has not been taken so far and thus I am delving into unchartered area, a different tangent altogether.

Some days ago I came across an article titled “Intermediate Beings”. The title caught my attention because I know we all are “human beings” but what’s this!!! Then I thought it would be related to some mythological character, but read on and find out what’s it all about.

The article cited about Ravana, the demon king who had been granted a boon by Brahma that he would not be killed by any God or Demon or even man! But Rama did kill Ravana, isn’t it?! So technically speaking then, Rama in neither God nor demon nor man! It’s here that the writer brings in the concept of Intermediate beings, and justifies that Vishnu came down to earth and took birth as Rama. Rama was god incarnate in human flesh, which made him neither god nor human being, rather an “Intermediate being”. By doing this, the so called creator Brahma played a ploy with Ravana to have him killed!! (more…)