Jai Ho

Gulzarism is again at it's best. Even before the Oscar, the song "Jai Ho", though not at the top of the chart busters, was a trend setter in its own way. Gulzar has always brought out new dimensions in words of a song. The poetry in his song is often sublime - the hard reality evaporates into a world of fantasy created by his mesmerizing words. He chooses the words in such a way that they were never heard of exactly in that form ever before. The same simple and mundane words when arranged in the Gulzar-way creates an aura and ambiance that transcends the literal meanings of the individual words. 

Many have criticized Gulzar for using expressions like "humne dekhi hai in aankhon ki mahekti hui khusboo" - which translates to "I've seen the emanating fragrance of her eyes". Some people have found this quite weird and an extreme exploitation of poetic license. Let's consider another lyrics written by someone else. It goes like this - "My song has put off her adornments. She has no pride of dress and decoration". 'Adornments of song' might sound as weird as the 'fragrance of eyes'. Let me remind that the 'adornments of song' is actually a song from Gitanjali written by Tagore. It's true that Tagore himself could not bring out the magic of his original Bengali words in English. But whatever he could bring out was indeed enough to mesmerize the world with something which I would call 'fantasy of words'. I believe that's a part of any good piece of poetry. 

If the words speak the same language as when I speak them, then what's the difference between me and a poet? There are so many other nuances that I fail to bring out through the same words when spoken casually by me. A poet or a novelist is actually a 'Kathaa Shilpi', a word-artist. When I use a canvas and a brush I can't paint the first rays of a morning Sun. But an artist does it so easily with the same brush and the same canvas. Gulzar is not a simple poet, but a 'Kathaa Shilpi'. If I'm allowed, I'd even take the liberty to call him 'Labzon ka Saudawi' - stealing from his own expression 'rang roop ka saudawi'. Ever since I started understanding the lyrics of Gulzar properly I felt that he plays with words in a very similar way as Tagore did in Bengali. I've learnt that Gulzar was highly influenced by Tagore's and other Bengali writings and it might not be just a coincidence that I find traces of Tagore in Gulzar in many places.

The biggest asset of Gulzar is the simplicity with which he sees everything. We often fail to be so simplistic and hence we have a much complex perception of a simple thing. Let's take the example of his latest song 'Jai Ho', making waves world-wide as the first Indian song to win an Oscar. The omnipresent essence of the entire movie is caught in just two words - Jai Ho. Perhaps the popularity of the movie is due to the fact that it speaks of the immense optimism, the hope against all hopes, the aspirations of a slum dog and finally the victory against all odds - everything captured just in two simple words - Jai Ho. It speaks of the life of someone who spends night on foot paths under the sky, someone who has to stay in filth and darkness. But in spite of whatever life has in store for him, he is always happy, and most importantly he never forgets to dream. So brilliantly Gulzar has expressed this in just a few lines - C'mon my life, come under the canopy - the canopy of the blue sky ornamented with stars. In bits and pieces I've spent my life under this sky, I've danced on the coal, I blew off the slumber from my eyes and counted the stars with my fingers till I burnt them. C'mon, drink this night - it's honey, it's like a heart that can endure anything. 

A very favorite expression of mine is 'gin gin taare maine ungli jwalaawi hai'. If I've to count million stars by tapping my finger million times I'd surely hurt my fingers.... Instead of saying 'I've counted million stars', he has used a very simple expression - that's what is Gulzar all about - simple things said in simple way. But then, in Tagore's words, simple things are not that simple to say!!

Here is the complete lyrics of Jai Ho and the English translation.

Credit: http://inkspillz.blogspot.com/2009/01/slumdog-millionaire-jai-ho-lyrics.html

Jai Ho!

aajaa aajaa jind shaamiyaane ke taley

aajaa zaari-waale neele aasmaane ke taley

Jai Ho! 

ratti ratti sachchi maine jaan gawayi hai

nach nach koylon pe raat bitaayi hai

aankhiyon ki neend maine phoonkon se udaa di

gin gin taarey maine ungli jwalaayi hai

aajaa aajaa jind shaamiyaane ke taley

aajaa zari-waale neele aasmaane ke taley

Baila! Baila!
(Dance! Dance!)

Ahora conmigo, tu baila para hoy
(Now with me, you dance for today)

Por nuestro dia de movidas,
(For our day of moves,)

los problemas los que sean
(whatever problems may be)

Salud!
(Cheers!)

Baila! Baila!
(Dance! Dance!)

Jai Ho!

chakh le, haan chakh le, yeh raat shahed hai

chakh le, haan rakh le, dil hai, dil aakhri hadd hai!!

kaalaa kaalaa kaajal tera koi kaala jaadu hai na?

aajaa aajaa jind shaamiyaane ke taley

aajaa zari-waale neele aasmaane ke taley

Jai Ho! 

kab se haan kab se jo lab pe ruki hai

keh de, keh de, haan keh dea ab aankh jhuki hai

aisi aisi roshan aankhein roshan dono heerey hain kya?

aajaa aajaa jind shaamiyaane ke taley

aaja zari-waale neele aasmaane ke taley

Jai Ho! 

Let victory come.... Jai Ho

Come, come my Life, under the canopy,

Come under the blue brocade sky!

Really, iota by iota, I have spent my life,

I’ve passed this night dancing on coals,

I blew away the sleep that was in my eyes,

I counted the stars till my finger burned.

Come, come my Life, under the canopy

Come under the blue brocade sky!

Taste it, taste it, this night is honey -

Taste it, and keep it - it’s a heart, that's the final limit.

You dark black kohl - it’s some black magic, isn’t it?

Come, come my Life, under the canopy

Come under the blue brocade sky!

For how long, how very long it’s been on your lips?

Say it, now say it, the eye is downcast -

Such bright eyes, are they two bright dimaonds?

Come, come my Life, under the canopy

Come under the blue brocade sky!

Aryan Dravidian Rift - It's more of a political than historical concept

There has been too much of controversy with regards to the origin of the people of Indus Valley.  A common view, endorsed by likes of Jawaharlal Nehru in 'Discovery of India' and later acknowledged by Amartya Sen in 'The Argumentative India', is that they belonged to the dark skinned Dravidian people, the original inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent.  By 1700s, when the Indus Valley civilization was on decline, might be due to drying up of rivers, floods or some other natural calamity, the fair skinned Indo-Aryans had already started migrating into India through the same regions where the Indus Valley had flourished. Though there is no evidence of any invasion by the Aryans but it’s not unlikely that the incoming Aryans had some confrontations with the native people. The Aryans had a different physique culture and gradually they might have overshadowed the natives to a great extent. Also those were the times when the erstwhile flourishing Indus Valley Civilization was declining fast. Cultivation and trade and commerce would have also declined. The incoming Aryans might have been stronger than the people of the declining Indus Valley Civilization. It's not unlikely that the incoming Aryans, belonging to a larger Indo-Aryan group of people who had already scattered across various parts of West Asia and East Europe, would have got a good hold of the land trade routes, like Silk Route, across Asia. There are references of Chinese silk in Mahabharata. Thus access to prosperous trade would have made the Aryans quite strong financially. On the contrary the native people of the declining Indus Valley might have become economically quite fragile due to the breakdown of their civilization due to natural calamities. Being vulnerable in front of the stronger Aryans, the natives might have gradually migrated away from the areas occupied by the Aryans and moved towards the South. The natives who stayed back were not thrown out or enslaved by the Aryans. They were eventually accommodated in the lowest stratum of the society as Shudras, doing agricultural and other household tasks for the upper three classes or Varnas – namely Brahmanas (the teachers and priests), Kshatriayas (the rulers or warriors) and Vaishyas (the traders). The present day Brahuilanguage spoken in some parts of Pakistan has striking similarities with Tamil, the mother of all Dravidian languages.  This is also perhaps evidence that some of the natives of the Indus Valley Civilization did stay back. The natives who moved to the south established prosperous civilizations and for quite some time didn’t have much of interactions with the Aryans of the north. 

This whole theory has been much exploited for being racist. The Tamil politicians of the 60s exploited the racial angle of this theory to create a divide between the North and South Indian people in South India, specially Tamil Nadu. But a closer look into the history would make it very clear that there's not much of the racism or discrimination based on the theory of the fair skinned Aryans gradually submerging the native dark-skinned Dravidians in North.

Some historians do accept the theory of Aryan migration but reject the Dravidian connection of Indus Valley Civilization on the ground that there's not much commonality between the subsequent Dravidian civilization in Southern India, which was predominantly rural, with the urbanized Indus Valley.

I don’t think the theory of Aryan migration is racist. In any other place any new and more powerful immigrant has always treated the natives very badly. In most cases they were enslaved or even executed, the most recent example being the handling of the Native Americans by the European settlers. But on the contrary the Aryans neither executed nor enslaved the natives. Off course they were not given the highest social status, but they were indeed accommodated in the Aryan society. I've mentioned earlier, that it's not unlikely that the native people might have become financially quite fragile during the period of decline of the Indus Valley Civilization and it's not irrational for the stronger Aryans to use them as labourers or workers. Similar things happen even now-a-days. The maid servant working at my house in Bangalore is a native where as I've migrated from outside. But still she has been put in a 'class' lower than me just because of the financial conditions. So accomodating the economically weaker natives in a lower class is not something unusual or vindictive. The issues of untouchability, which is a much later phenomenon in Indian society, can't be attributed completely to the Aryan class system, which was purely based on the division of labour. Though there was a gradation in the class system, but still all the four classes had their own importance in the society. There are enough references of people from the 'Shudra' class attaining very important positions in society. Mahabharata mentiones thatVeda Vyasa, the person to whom is attributed the authorship of Mahabharata and compilation of the Vedas, is dark skinned and belongs to a 'Shudra' fishermen class. Even the most popular of the personalities from Mahabharata, Krishna, is raised in a family of milkmen, Yadavas, which also belong to a lower class. Even Krishna is described to be dark skinned. So it’s not very correct to connote the theory of Aryan migration as racist. 

It took more than 1000 years for the Indus Valley Civilization to reach the rich Harappan phase and after that it survived for less than a millenium. The migration towards south would have started by 1700BC, the time when the Indus Valley Civilization started declining. From that time it took about 1000 years for the Dravidians to establish the prosperous Pandya, Chera and Chola Kingdoms in south India. Rich cities, prosperous kingdoms, flourishing trade and important ports came up in the south by 5th century BC. Those civilizations might not have been exact replicas of the Indus Valley, but then why should we assume that the same lot of people would replicate something of the past? The urbanization of the Indus Valley Civilization might have been the need of the time to remain economically prosperous. Some thousand years down the line, it's not neccessary that a similar establishment would serve the same purpose. Throughout the world the earliest forms of most of the ancient civilizations have been in the form of City States. The earliest form of civilization in Mesopotamia were the Sumerian States. The Greek and the Roman civilizations also started with City States. But with expansion of the civilization it's not feasible to have cities throughout a large kingdom or empire. The same is also true for the Indus Valley Civilization, which gradually evolved into later smaller and then bigger kingdoms both in the Aryan North and Dravidian South.

The Aryan and Dravidian, both are important components of Indian history and culture. It's nonsense to promote any theory of discrimination or superiority. Throughout the history there have been rise and decline of civilizations. No empire lasted for ever and no race could maintain their supremacy for ever. One kingdom declines and the other rises. One race starts something and someone else evolves it and takes it to a new dimension. That's what has happened throughout our history. The Dravidians started the earliest civilization in India in the north. Then came the Aryans and became prominent in the North. But the Dravidians continued with their civilizations in the south. And in between there was amalgamataion to such extent that it's really hard to say whether I, a Bengali, is more Aryan or Dravidian.

All for $0.00

This is a true story with an excellent outcome.
On Thursday, 24th January 2002, Derek Guille broadcast this story on his afternoon program on ABC radio. In March 1999 a man living in Kandos (near Mudgee in NSW) received a bill for his as yet unused gas line stating that he owed $0.00. He ignored it and threw it away. In April he received another bill and threw that one away too. The following month the gas company sent him a very nasty note stating that they were going to cancel his gas line if he didn't send them $0.00 by return mail. He called them, talked to them, and they said it was a computer error and they would take care of it. The following month he decided that it was about time that he tried out the troublesome gas line figuring that if there was usage on the account it would put an end to this ridiculous predicament. However, when he went to use the gas, it had been cut off. He called the gas company who apologised for the computer error once again and said that they would take care of it. The next day he got a bill for $0.00 stating that payment was now overdue. Assuming that having spoken to them the previous day the latest bill was yet another mistake, he ignored it, trusting that the company would be as good as their word and sort the problem out. The next month he got a bill for $0.00. This bill also stated that he had 10 days to pay his account or the company would have to take steps to recover the debt. Finally, giving in, he thought he would beat the gas company at their own game and mailed them a cheque for $0.00. The computer duly processed his account and returned a statement to the effect that he now owed the gas company nothing at all. A week later, the manager of the Mudgee branch of the Westpac Banking Corporation called our hapless friend and asked him what he was doing writing cheque for $0.00. After a lengthy explanation the bank manager replied that the $0.00 cheque had caused their cheque processing software to fail. The bank could therefore not process ANY cheques they had received from ANY of their customers that day because the cheque for $0.00 had caused the computer to crash. The following month the man received a letter from the gas company claiming that his cheque had bounced and that he now owed them $0.00 and unless he sent a cheque by return mail they would take immediate steps to recover the debt. At this point, the man decided to file a debt harassment claim against the gas company. It took him nearly two hours to convince the clerks at the local courthouse that he was not joking. They subsequently helped him in the drafting of statements which were considered substantive evidence of the aggravation and difficulties he had been forced to endure during this debacle. The matter was heard in the Magistrate's Court in Mudgee and the outcome was this:
The gas company was ordered to:
[1] Immediately rectify their computerized accounts system or Show Cause, within 10 days, why the matter should not be referred to a higher court for consideration under Company Law.
[2] Pay the bank dishonor fees incurred by the man.
[3] Pay the bank dishonor fees incurred by all the Westpac clients whose cheques had been bounced on the day our friend's had> been processed.
[4] Pay the claimant's court costs; and
[5] Pay the claimant a total of $1500 per month for the 5 month period March to July inclusive as compensation for the aggravation they had caused their client to suffer.

And all this over $0.00.

Let us speak up

Tue, 27/1/09, Ajit Nair <ajitnair1953@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear folks,

Fundamentalism in any hue will eventually destroy us all. Let us all be warned. A truism – if we do not learn from the lessons of history, we are doomed to repeat them. Some of the more important lessons of History are in succeeding paras.

A man, whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II, owned a number of large industries and estates. When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism. 'Very few people were true Nazis,' he said, 'but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. M y family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.'

We are told again and again by 'experts' and 'talking heads' that Islam is the religion of peace, and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the spectra of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam.

The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history. It is the fanatics who march. It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide.

It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave.

It is the fanatics, who bomb, behead, murder, or honor- kill.

It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque.

It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. It is the fanatics who teach their young to kill and to become suicide bombers. The hard quantifiable fact is that the peaceful majority, the 'silent majority,' is cowed and extraneous.

Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant.

China's huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.

The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a warmongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet.

And, who can forget Rwanda, which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were 'peace loving'?

History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our posers of reason we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points: Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence.

Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don't speak up, because like my friend from Germany, they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.

Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late.

As for us who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that counts; the fanatics who threaten our way of life.

Lastly, don't think that this issue is not serious enough to warrant your full attention – it is critical to our future.

And finally, let this not happen to Hinduism. Gujarat, Orissa and Mangalore are the warning signs. Let us speak up. 

Regards Ajit

Conversations with Garry Schyman, the composer of "Praan" - Stream of Life

In continuation of my previous blog on the popular video "Where the hell is Matt" and the background song "Praan" (adapted from the poem "Stream of Life" from Tagore's Gitanjali) used in it, I'd like to share my conversations with the composer of the song Garry Schyman.

Indeed Garry and Matt's effort is highly commendable. In this world of division and intolerance the very essence of capturing (in video and music) the "stream of life" that dances in the universe is of very high relevance. I'm not sure how much critical acclaim the scholars might put to this effort, but from a humanitarian point of view, such an effort is incredible and Garry, the composer of the song, and Matt, the creator of the video with people of 42 countries dancing with the music of "Praan" need all accolades for taking this up.

Helping the west to reinvent Tagore is an added impact that they have achieved. For this I and any Bengali who loves Tagore would always thank them.

If ever again in future Garry is interested to set to tune any otherTagore's poem, he may be interested to listen to Tagore's compositions and adapt that in his tunes. In fact each of the poems in Gitanjali is a song set to tune by Tagore himself in traditional, classical, folk Indian and even, in some cases, Western styles.
_____________________________________________________
Garry's mail to me: 30th Jan, 2009
Hello Sudipto,

Thank you for your kind words about my song Praan! Also thank you for all of the fantastic information you sent me about Tagore's work related to the lyrics I used.

I have come to realize that his work is very rich and complex and that the Bengali lyrics we used may not in fact be the precise source of his English poem "Stream of Life" which attracted Matt and I to use that poem. We did in fact rely on Palbasah Saddique and her brother to help us with that and neither claim to be Tagore Scholars. What we did learn is that Tagore freely adapted his poetry for Gitanjali (the English version) and that his English set of poetry of that name is not necessarily directly related to his original Bengali version.

A number of Bengal speakers have since pointed this out to me. That said I believe that many people (particularly in the West) have been reintroduced to Mr. Tagore's brilliant work and life and I am proud that I have, perhaps, played a small part in that. Though, as I have said, this was not my mission.

It is not practical to rerecord the vocal for the song. That would be quite expensive and I don't think many people would be all that interested in it. The lyrics we did use are from Tagore (that much I know) and work and sound marvelously with the music I composed. I have learned to accept serendipity as an important part of my music and trust that I am often led places by chance for some unknowable reason.

As it is, aware of the imperfect scholarship involved in finding the Bengali lyrics, my credit for Tagore reads "Adapted from" so that to be clear that a certain artistic license was used in the lyrics. Perhaps I should have said "inspired by", though that would imply that Tagore was not the actual author of the words.

You might be interested in listening to an interview I did with Minnesota public radio about how all of this came together. It all happened very quickly and almost magically.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfGk6S8-n9E

Very best,
Garry Schyman
__________________________________________________________
My mail to Garry: 29th Jan, 2009
Hi Garry,

First of all congratulations for all the awards for the music of Praan. It's really a fresh piece of music that has enthralled millions of people round the world. You've rightfully proved that music doesn't require any language or genre.

I'd like to make a clarification with regards to the lyrics.

Actually the Bengali lyrics that you've used is not the original song from which the English "Stream of Life" was derived by Rabindranath Tagore. Though both the English "Stream of Life" the Bengali "Praan" have the same essence - that's eternal stream of life, the original Bengali poem for "Stream of Life" is as follows:

E aamaar sharirer shiraay shiraay
Je Praan-tarangamaalaa raatridin dhaay
Sei Praan chhutiyaachhe bishwadigbijaye,
Sei Praan aparoop chhande taale laye
Nachichhe bhubane; sei Praan chupe chupe
Basudhaar mrittikaar prati romkoope
Lokkho lokkho trine trine sanchaare harashe,
Bikaashe pallabe pushpe - barashe barashe
Bishwabyaapi janmamrityusamudradolaay
Dulitechhe antahiin joyaar bhaataay.
Karitechhi anubhab, se ananta Praan
Ange ange aamaare karechhe mahiyaan.
Sei jugjugaanter biraat spandan
Aamaar nariite aaji karichhe nartan.

The lyrics of your "Praan" features in the original Bengali Gitanjali, but not in the English version. Actually the English version is created out of a selection of 103 poems from the Bengali Gitanjali and three other booklets of poems by Tagore.

Seeing the success of your "Praan" why don't you come up with another version of Praan with the original lyrics for "Stream of Life"? Also, would you mind to clarify this piece of information to your listeners? I've seen many comments made by Bengali speaking people about the confusion arising from little dissimilarities between the words of "Stream of Life" and "Praan".

Thanks & Regards,
Sudipto Das

Stream of Life

Music critique Jim Walsh wrote this in June 2008 about a very unusual song in Amazon and youtube

"The video was downloaded to the web on Saturday, June 20, 2008. By Sunday, it had 1 million hits. By Thursday, it was everywhere — embedded on Facebook and MySpace pages and flooding email inboxes and translating into millions of viewers, thousands of comments, and official "gone viral" status."

You would have heard this song or listened to the video "Where the hell is Matt" in youtube. Undoubtedly it's a remarkable video about the diversity of the world. It''s already one of the most popular videos in youtube. Matt, the creator of the video has travelled 42 countries and danced with the local people at the most exotic places round the world.

Apart from the unique concept of covering the diversities of the world the other striking thing about the video is the song used in the background. In the first hearing you might miss the lyrics of the song. It's actually in Bengali which goes like this:

Bhulbona ar shahajete,
Shei praane mon uthbe mete
Mrityu maajhe dhaakaa ache
Je antahiin praan |

Bojre tomaar baaje baashi,
She ki sahaj gaan |
Shei shurete jaagbo ami ......

Dao more shei gaan |

She jhor jeno shoi aanande
Chittobinar taare
Shapta sindhu dash diganta
Nachao je jhonkaare!

Bojre tomaar baaje baashi,
She ki sahaj gaan |
Shei shurete jaagbo ami ......

Dao more shei gaan |

The lyrics sounded very familiar to me. Upon searching the web I learnt that this is actually adapted from a Bengali song written by Tagore for the Bengali version of Gitanjali. Looks like Matt was looking for a song for the background that would exactly convey the message of eternal life that he has captured in his video. After lots of search he was finally shown some poems of Tagore and he chose the "Stream of Life" from the English version of Gitanjali. He apporached the composer Garry Schyman to set to music the original Bengali poem. They discovered Palabasha Siddique, a seventeen year Bangladeshi female, and used her voice for the song. The compositon by Garry and the rendition by Palabasha is just awesome. It brings such a freshness in terms of both voice and melody. It's no wonder that this song, named "Praan" meaning life in Bengali, is one of the most listened songs in most of the music portals. Above all the song just gels so well with the essence of the video.

The poem "Stream of Life" goes like this:

The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day
runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.

It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth
in numberless blades of grass
and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.

It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth
and of death, in ebb and in flow.

I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life.
And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.

Though the essence of both the Bengali and English lyrics is same - the eternal life, but still anyone who has read Tagore well can make out that the Bengali song doesn't exactly match with the English one.

I found out finally that the Bengali lyrics or Praan is indeed not the original song from which the English "Stream of Life" was derived by Rabindranath Tagore. The original Bengali poem for "Stream of Life" is as follows:

E aamaar sharirer shiraay shiraay

Je Praan-tarangamaalaa raatridin dhaay

Sei Praan chhutiyaachhe bishwadigbijaye,

Sei Praan aparoop chhande taale laye

Nachichhe bhubane; sei Praan chupe chupe

Basudhaar mrittikaar prati romkoope

Lokkho lokkho trine trine sanchaare harashe,

Bikaashe pallabe pushpe - barashe barashe

Bishwabyaapi janmamrityusamudradolaay

Dulitechhe antahiin joyaar bhaataay.

Karitechhi anubhab, se ananta Praan

Ange ange aamaare karechhe mahiyaan.

 

Sei jugjugaanter biraat spandan

Aamaar nariite aaji karichhe nartan.

The Bengali lyrics of "Praan" features in the original Bengali Gitanjali, but not in the English version. Actually the English version is created out of a selection of 103 poems from the Bengali Gitanjali and three other booklets of poems by Tagore.

Nevertheless, when the essence is same and the impact is so great it doesn't matter what the original song was.....

A good piece of art always inspires many other people. "Where the hell is Matt" and "Praan" has already inspired the students of IIT KGP to come up with this video about KGP.

Talibanization of India

This is with reference to the recent spate of events where people, even the CM of a state, have started setting standards for Indian Culture. I'm very sure that all these people are just a bunch of illiterate thugs who don't even have the intellect to assess the depth of the Indian Culture.

Firstly there's nothing called a Hindu Culture or Hinduism. It's just Indianism - the traditional way of life of the Indians - influenced greatly by the thoughts and traditions of the Aryans and updated and modified number of times through the ages, assimilating the cultures and thoughts of people from round the world. That's what we vaguely refer to as Hindu Culture or Hinduism. Even the term Hindu is not present in the literary works of the Vedic Age. Hinduism and Indianism are just synonymous and that's what make our religion or our way of life perhaps the most flexible and also tolerant in the world. It's no one's business to teach the Indians about the dos and dont's of our culture. 

We're perhaps the only people who worship a God named Indra who is known to be addicted to Soma, a form of intoxicating drink. We've Gods for love, sex,  passion. We've worshiped sex for thousands years. Even the Shiva Linga that we worship is actually Shiva's genital dipped in Parvati's vagina. It fascinates me how without the knowledge of Engineering Drawing, that we read in our first year Engineering, some one could conceive the idea of Shiva Linga as a cross section view, as seen from within Parvati's body, of a moment of intercourse. Kamasutra speaks of fashion among women to expose love-bite marks on their breasts as prestigious signs of their lovemaking. The walls of Konark Sun Temple, Ajanta/Ellora Caves and many other places have extremely artistic pictures of sex and nudity because we never associated any taboo with any of these things ever in our culture. We had our Gods of love and sex long before Valentine's Day came into being and we had the most revealing dresses even before the French Fashion gurus exhibited their traits. India has been advanced in all spheres of art, culture, science and education ever since civilization started in the world. This was possible only because of the all inclusive, free and tolerant atmosphere of India without any policing and restrictions. It's not that everyone had the same ideas or ideologies. There were always contradictions and counter views. But the unique part of Indian Culture has been that it had space for all ideas and contradictions. There was Kamasutra and also there was severe austerity and abstinence. There was atheism and also religiosity. There was Kalidasa and his classical romanticism and and also Meerabai and Surdas with their Bhakti. Indian Culture doesn't belong exclusively to anyone. It's the existence of everything that makes our culture so vibrant. We've been a diverse nation for ages and we've preserved each ethnicity with great care. Unification doesn't mean imposing a common code for all, but to give space to all the diverse elements and allow them to mingle with each other and co-exist together with peace and prosperity.

Personal behavior or choice or things of interest have nothing to do with the culture. Swami Vivekananda himself never gave up drinking and smoking. Does that make him a lesser Indian? Yes, Mahatma Gandhi did lead a different life, full with austerity and renunciations, but then he never disapproved of anything that's different. Even Tagore wrote in favor of and against renunciation at different phases of his life. Our Indian Culture includes all these contradictions and differences. That's what have made us so unique and we should go all ways to ensure that the all inclusiveness is never lost!! 

Anyway who talks about restrictions in Indian Culture actually don't know what the culture is and we should just ignore them.

HumanSigma Management Approach for Employee & Customer Engagement

I’d written sometime back in one of my blogs that I feel HR is perhaps the most ill-educated and ill-trained department in any company. Any other department recruits only people who have the relevant technical background. For example the finance manager should have had courses in economics and/or chartered accountancy. If he/she had done MBA, then it’s very likely that he/she had finance as the specialization. But how many times did you hear that the HR manager of a company has studied psychology? For example the HR in my previous company did bachelors in zoology or something like that. Well, humans are also animals – so zoology might be a relevant subject….!! It’s really weird that one of the most critical and important positions in a company is held by people without any relevant background and knowledge. Even people, who come to HR with MBA background, are the ones whose scores or ranks in MBA are generally not among the highest because the best guys always opt for finance, marketing, business development and other higher-paying jobs. The result is that very few companies can provide the best of the HR services to their employees.

 

Perhaps the main task of the HR is to make sure that the employees are satisfied. It’s a common sense that satisfied employees would work more efficiently and thus result in better performance of the company. At the same time satisfied and loyal customers are also equally important for a company because at the end of the day the revenue comes from the customers. Though it sounds very simple but still I never came across any survey or theory that links between employee and customer satisfaction all these days. I’ve been sent to so many trainings on various aspects of management but somehow I was not getting exactly what I was looking for. Also I’ve been really getting frustrated with the way most HRs operate. Customer satisfaction is often taken very seriously in most companies, but employee satisfaction is not always taken seriously, even though you would find so many HR policies claiming to do so. It’s well known to all that an employee always ‘quits’ a manager and his/her team, but very rarely the attrition is linked with the performance of the managers. Very few companies even have the policy of taking three sixty degree feedbacks. In most cases managers play a vicious role in causing too much damage to the efficiency of a company, but seldom is he/she held responsible. Most of the HR surveys are too cumbersome and people always get demoralized to fill up forms with hundreds of questions with five options each and then sections to feed in justifications and comments. Even the performance review forms are never crisp. Being an engineer I always felt that HR needs proper engineering way of approaching things. I understand things only when supported by results and fitted to a graph or curve. I believe human behavior is also best understood through mathematics.

 

Not happy with any of HR practices I’ve seen in any of my previous companies, I wanted to venture into this domain myself. After a few days of studies I could come up with some very simple forms which I feel can be used very effectively in HR. Moreover I came across something that I was looking for all the while – a survey linking employee satisfaction with that of the customers. It’s called HumanSigma, researched by Gallup. The concept is based on Employee-Customer Engagement. It says that companies which have engaged employees and customers at the same time are super performers and do much better financially than companies where either the employees or customers are not engaged.

 

I like the ‘term’ engagement very much. It’s really very thoughtful. When a boy and girl get very close to each other, when they are satisfied with each other’s behavior and attitude and when they become committed to each other we say that they are ‘engaged’ to each other. The same applies to a company also. An employee is engaged to a company when there’s an emotional attachment, which comes from various factors. Considering this human aspect in understanding the relationship between a company and its employees is the basis of HumanSigma. This emotional aspect can be extended to customers also. The Human Sigma management approach takes human nature into account and then uses that knowledge to manage and motivate employees, and accelerate their development, as well as to engage customers’ emotions. The central premise of Human Sigma is that emotionally satisfied customers contribute far more to the bottom line than rationally satisfied customers.

 

Gallup has done an extensive survey on 1,976 business units across 10 companies, which had applied the best practices for employee and customer engagement and found that these 10 companies outperformed their 5 biggest peers by 26% in gross margin and 85% in sales growth. Organizations or business units that engage their employees without engaging their customers suffer from being too inwardly focused and have lost their direction. In contrast, organizations or business units that engage their customers without engaging their employees cannot sustain themselves.

 

Gallup has also developed a very simple mechanism to measure the Employee and Customer Engagement based on the scores of a set of well thought and researched questions to be asked to the employees and customers respectively. The HumanSigma or HS of a company is a function of Employee and Customer Engagement Scores.

 

Following is the result of this survey.

Organizations or business units at HS₁ and HS₂ perform significantly below par on employee or customer engagement metrics, and require significant intervention and improvement. Notice the long tails on these two performance bands. This extreme and unbalanced performance on the two metrics is associated with relatively poor financial performance. These two performance bands account for 37 percent of the companies studied. Organizations or business units at HS₃ account for 29 percent of the companies studied and are also frequently out of balance, ranking high on one vital sign but poor on the other.

Organizations at HS₄ are classified as “emerging optimized” performers. They have established balance in the vital signs of the employee-customer encounter, but there are still substantial gains to be made to strengthen these metrics. Organizations at HS₅ and HS₆ are classified as “super” performers. Overall, organizations in HS₄, HS₅ and HS₆ are 3.4 times more effective financially than HS₁, HS₂ and HS₃.

I found the set of questions, used by Gallup to measure Employee and Customer Engagement, very useful and handy to use, in case the company is in service industry. For the first time I came across a survey with only 10-11 questions which are so easy to answer. Based on these Gallup surveys, with a little modification here and there, I’ve come up with a few simple forms which can be used for the following purposes:

1. To measure Employee Engagement: Gallup Standard Q12® survey
2. To measure Customer Engagement: Standard Q11® survey and its derivative
3. To calculate HumanSigma – which can be used as a measure of the overall health of the company
4. To review employee performance: EPR
5. To review performance of managers: Leadership Index (LI)

Each of these questions are to be answered in points between 1 and 5, with 5 meaning strongly agree or very good and 1 meaning strongly disagree or very bad. Scores between 4.5 and 5 correspond to an ‘Ex’ grade. Scores between 4 & 4.5 correspond to an ‘A’ grade. Scores between 3.5 & 4 correspond to a ‘B’ grade and so on.

 

Standard Q12® survey for Employee Engagement

This form should be filled by each employee of the company. Scores above 4.5 would mean that the employee is highly engaged and is very likely to perform very well too.

		Score
Q01	I know what is expected of me at work.	4.6	Accountability
Q02	I have the materials and equipment to do my work right.	4.9	Support
Q03	At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day	4.8	Achievement
Q04	In the last quarter, I have received
	recognition or praise for doing good work.	4.4	Performance Reward
Q05	My supervisor, or someone at work, seems
	to care about me as a person.	4.9	Team
Q06	There is someone at work who encourages my development.	4.9	Development
Q07	At work, my opinions seem to count.	4.9	Alignment
Q08	The mission or purpose of my organization
	makes me feel my job is important.	4.8	Alignment
Q09	My associates or fellow employees are
	committed to doing quality work.	4.8	Commitment
Q10	I have a best friend at work.	4.9	Team
Q11	In the last six months, someone at work
	has talked to me about my progress.	4.9	Performance
Q12	This last year, I have had opportunities to learn and grow.	4.3	Development
	Average	4.8

 

 

Standard Q11® survey for Customer Engagement

 

		Score
Q01	Overall, how satisfied are you with our company?	4.5	Overall Satisfaction
Q02	How likely are you to continue to choose our company?	4.6	Continuing Relationship
Q03	How likely are you to recommend our company to a friend/business acquaintance?	4.9	Recommendation
Q04	"Your company is a name I can always trust"	4.3	Trust
Q05	"Your company always delivers on what they promise"	4.8	Quality & Credibility
Q06	"Your company always treats me fairly/ethically"	4.2	Fairness & Ethics
Q07	"If a problem arises, I can always count on
	your company to reach a fair and  satisfactory resolution"	4.4	Troubleshooting & Competence
Q08	"I feel proud to be a your company's client"	4.5	Association
Q09	"Your company always treats me with respect and professionalism"	4.9	Respect & Professionalism
Q10	"Your company is the perfect service partner for company like ours"	4.4	Alignment & Relevance
Q11	"I can't imagine a service partner without your company"	4.5	Branding
	Average	4.5

 

Ideally this should be filled by the customers. But in many cases, especially when the company provides certain services to its customers, the later might not feel comfortable to answer questions like, “How likely are you to continue to choose our company” or “How likely are you to recommend our company to a friend/business acquaintance”. In such cases it might be wise to frame a different set of outcome oriented questions from the answers of which we should be able to derive the answers of the uncomfortable questions. There are several sites which enlist set of parameters which a customer generally looks for in a service provider. Based on these parameters, it was not hard for me to ‘derive’ a set of questions that would lead us to the Standard Q11® survey for Customer Engagement.

 

The following chart shows how the new set of questions is derived.

 

Q01	Overall, how satisfied are you with our company?	Overall Satisfaction
Q02	How likely are you to continue to choose our company?	Continuing Relationship
	Needs minimum directions/tracking for best output	}Derived Questions
	I have confidence in our company's technical capabilities and skills
	Communicates well with team and managers
	Has very good attitude, inter-personal skills and team spirit
Q03	How likely are you to recommend our company to a friend/business acquaintance?	Recommendation
	I have confidence in our company's technical capabilities and skills	}Derived  Questions
	Is matured, professional and abides by business ethics and norms
	Always delivers correctly on time
Q04	"Your company is a name I can always trust"	Trust
Q05	"Your company always delivers on what they promise"	Quality & Credibility
	Always delivers correctly on time	Derived Questions
Q06	"Your company always treats me fairly/ethically"	Fairness & Ethics
	Is matured, professional and abides by business ethics and norms	Derived Questions
Q07	"If a problem arises, I can always count on your company to reach a fair and satisfactory resolution"	Troubleshooting &
		Competence
Q08	"I feel proud to be your company's client" - No direct question	Association
Q09	"Your always treats me with respect and professionalism"	Respect & Professionalism
	Is matured, professional and abides by business ethics and norms	Derived Questions
Q10	"Your company is the perfect service partner for company like ours"	Alignment & Relevance
	Is the perfect match for the roles considered	Derived Questions
Q11	"I can't imagine a service partner without your company" - No direct question	Branding

 

 

So finally this is the modified set of questions for Customer Engagement – to be filled by the customer.

		Score
Q01	Overall, how satisfied are you with our company's performance?	4.9	Overall Satisfaction
Q02	"Your company is a name I can always trust"	4.8	Trust
Q03	Needs minimum directions/tracking for best output	4.8	Management
Q04	"I have confidence in your company's technical capabilities and skills"	4.9	Knowledge & Confidence
Q05	Always delivers correctly on time	4.7	Quality & Credibility
Q06	Has very good attitude, inter-personal skills and team spirit	4.5	Attitude & Team Spirit
Q07	If a problem/conflict arises, I can always	4.6
	count on your company to reach a proper and satisfactory resolution		Troubleshooting & Competence
Q08	Is matured, professional and abides by business ethics and norms	4.8	Professionalism & Ethics
Q09	Communicates well with team and managers	4.9	Communication
Q10	Is the perfect match for the roles considered	4.4	Alignment & Relevance
	Average	4.7

 

Employee Performance Review (EPR)

 

The above chart is points out the traits and parameters that my customer would like to see in us. If that’s the case hen why not derive our employee’s performance review from this? There are multiple sites that point out so many traits to be measured for performance review. After a deeper look I could actually find out that most of these traits can be finally mapped into Customer Engagement. This is logical because finally the Customer Engagement is a function of the performance of our employees.

 

Following is a very simple form for Employee Performance Review (EPR)

		Score
Q01	Overall, how satisfied are you with the individual's performance	4.5	Overall Satisfaction
Q02	Is very proactive and takes good initiative	4.7	Proactiveness & Initiative
Q03	Needs minimum directions/tracking for best output	4.7	Management
Q04	I have confidence in individual's technical capabilities and relevant skills	4.8	Knowledge & Confidence
Q05	Always delivers correctly on time	4.9	Quality & Credibility
Q06	Has very good attitude, inter-personal skills & team spirit	5	Attitude & Team Spirit
Q07	If a problem arises, I can always count on the individual to reach a proper and	4.5	Troubleshooting &
	satisfactory resolution		Competence
Q08	Is matured, professional and abides by business ethics and norms	4.6	Professionalism & Ethics
Q09	Communicates well with team and managers	4.9	Communication
Q10	Is the perfect match for the role considered	4.7	Alignment & Relevance
Q11	Has the desire to improve quality	4.4	Desire to improve
Q12	Is creative and innovative	4.1	Creativity & Innovation
Q13	Seeks feedback and takes feedback positively	4.6	Seeking feedback
Q14	Is highly committed and passionate about work/company	4.7	Passion & Commitment
	Average	4.7

 

 

Leadership Index

Leadership does play a very important role in Employee Engagement. Also providing the effective leadership is one of the most important tasks of a manager. So I feel it’s important to measure the Leadership Index also. Gallup already has a very simple form for this.

 

		Score
Q01	My manager/supervisor demonstrates competence in his or her job.	4.6	Competence
Q02	My manager/supervisor treats everyone fairly (i.e., plays no favourites).	4.8	Fairness
Q03	My manager/supervisor creates a motivating and supportive work climate.	4.9	Energize
Q04	My manager/supervisor represents my needs,	4.6
	ideas and suggestions to his/her manager.		Open
Q05	My manager/supervisor takes an interest in	4.7
	my professional growth and development.		Develop
Q06	My manager/supervisor involves me in decision making, problem solving and planning	4.7
	processes.		Participative
Q07	My manager/supervisor creates a high performance and collaborative work team.	4.7	Performance
Q08	I have the opportunity to interact with	4.5
	Management above my immediate supervisor		Less Hierarchy
	Average	4.7