Category Archives: 1-By Laksh

All these articles are from Laksh’s desk

1-By Laksh, Etc., Leadership, Management

Mentors are everywhere

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In the corporate world there is a lot of emphasis on mentoring
and its impact on preparing the next set of leaders.

While not taking anything away from the high profile mentoring programs,
I would like to present another angle to mentoring, where the budding
leader or a seasoned one, takes the role of forever-a-student
and learns from the real world. Suddenly he would find mentors
everywhere; some might stick him with for a life time and some might
disappear quickly, but leave with him a learning for a life time.

Here is one mentor of mine.

For years now, I visit the same barber. He operates out the of
the same shop as he did when he first started about two decades
back. This is not to say that nothing has changed. His
SOs (Service Offerings) have kept up with times and at any point of time
they are 60-70 percent close to any fancy men-only salon. While
expanding his service portfolio,he made sure that his core offering
that of a simple and straight forward hair cut is intact. This has helped
him to retain people like me and also cater to the first timers accompanied
by their fathers.

He still does not have an appointment system and you are served
on a first come first serve basis. If you are a few heads behind,
you could sample his magazines or savor his television set, in the comfort
of an air-cooler that has made it into his salon in the last few years.
Though I love to devour his film magazines, out of time constraint,
I visit him on off-peak days quite early in the day. And when I do,
it is always a pleasure to watch him come on his old motorbike sporting
a vermilion bindi, acknowledge my presence first, bow to his deity photo
in front of his shop before going through his daily motions. Finally, when he is
all done and the stage is set, he requests my presence on the big chair.
Unlike most other barbers, this guy does not talk much, thankfully,
coz he chews pan:)

You could argue that I am just used to the guy and settling for less,
when I could make use of the best that is out there.Or that I am just
paying cheap:) But, let me tell you, my hair has never felt
so good in his hands and I have had barbers all over and of different
nationalities—Greek, Italian, American, British, Chinese—to name a few.
And he never hurries this simple hair cut of mine, even when a customer
with a higher ‘revenue per visit’ waiting in the queue. Well, even if he felt it,
he never let his fingers show.

Over the years, I have come to admire his simple qualities like treating his work and workplace as a
place of worship, his one to one interaction with his customers as the most important service offering
and his genuine acknowledgment when he is paid for the service as his ultimate reward.

This admiration has grown over the years, as I made my way into corporate jungle.

Most of my colleagues in the IT and ITES industry might be earning much
more than him, but I haven’t found them paying a little more attention
to their tools or acknowledging the satisfaction of a hard-earned pay packet.
For them pay check is a routine, a fruit that has just fallen into their hands or
a set of EMI payments that have just hit their bank accounts enroute.
And, as the crowd becomes younger, the reverence factor shrinks further.

It is difficult to say, what would happen to this friendly neighborhood barber
when the biggies like Reliance makes their presence feel in this sector too.
It would be interesting to see his move and dunno what would happen
to customers like me. But for now, he is kicking ass, with his shop
listed in the Google directory. A nice color printout with his Google
listing adorns his wall, just besides his rate card.

Whatever his move and wherever he goes, I am sure he will have a
learning or two waiting for me. And, I am all ears and eyes!

1-By Laksh, ET, Movies

Brahmanandam- The one and only

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If you had watched Brahmanandam’s first TV (Doordarshan) appearance in ‘Pakapakalu’ more than two decades ago, you will appreciate the fact most of the roles he had enacted on the big screen later, drew some inspiration from those skits. A keen observer of the people and situations around him, he created enough material for himself to launch himself as a comedian and he was raring to go. As usual, he got his timing right when he met with Jandhyala which led to his participation in a string of comedy films and most notably the character of ‘Ara gundu vedhava’ in the movie of ‘Aha Na Pellanta’. (Interestingly, industry rumour has it that Sutti Velu was to play this role!)

While the contribution of Jandhyala to his career needs no mention, Brahmanandam owes his success to a lot of other producers and directors, who helped him to re-invent his image and persona. Speaking of directors, the pack of Jandhyala, Relangi Narasimha Rao, E.V.V.Satyanaarayana, SV Krishna Reddy, Ramgopal Verma and Trivikram Srinivas always tried to work a different angle. Beyond this pack, the rest of the popular directors like K.Raghavendra Rao, A.Kodandarami reddy, B.Gopal , Puri Jagannath, V.V.Vinayak, Surendra Reddy etc have merely used his abundant talent or his roles from other movies(sometimes their own), without making any extra effort to create something new. But it has to be said that these directors have played an important role in keeping the commercial value of Brahmanandam on the ascent and also keep the industry sentiment of “being a part of successful films” alive. Incidentally he also was a part of ‘Pokiri’ the biggest Telugu blockbuster ever J

Let’s congratulate Brahmanandam on his Guinness feat, and spring a celebration. What better way to do it then to feast on a variety of his performances?

Here are some clips from YouTube that captures some of his best moments and how he created laughs either all by himself or with the help of able directors.

Enjoy them while they last.

‘Ekkada ekkutarayyya…’ from Pellaniki Premalekha Priyuraliki Subhalekha

‘Bengali babu’ from Chudalani Undi

‘Deeni escalator antaru’ from ‘Manmadhudu’

“Cheppanu….” Hello Brother

“Idi Anjaneyuni parihasam…” from Gillikajjalu

‘Silence please’ from Vinodam

‘Nenu pedatanuga…” from Kshana kshanam

‘I want to talk to Peddareddi…” from Anaganaga Okaroju

1-By Laksh, Etc.

Temples of Silicon Valley

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Silicon Valley is the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in the United States. The term originally referred to the region’s large number of silicon chip innovators and manufacturers, but eventually came to refer to all the high tech businesses in the area; it is now generally used as a metonym for the high-tech sector. Despite growth in the technology sector throughout the United States, Silicon Valley continues to be the high tech hub because of its large number of engineers and venture capitalists.

A temple (from the Latin word templum) is a structure reserved for religious or spiritual activities, such as prayer and sacrifice, or analogous rites. A ‘’templum’’ constituted a sacred precinct as defined by a priest, or augur. It has the same root as the word “ template,’’ a plan in preparation of the building that was marked out on the ground by the augur. Though a templum, technically speaking, is not a “house of the gods” but a diagram that for the Romans linked the geometries of heaven and earth, it was also indicative of a dwelling place of a god or gods. Source Wikipedia

Silicon Valley sure has many temples…but rather different kind. Let me differ a little from Wikipedia, and commit blasphemy.:)

For starters, priests are neither dressed in black nor worship at altars. A mass here is an all hands meeting where the priests listen to the gospel of worshippers. And who are these worshippers? Which nationality they belong to? What religion, what caste? Well, take a pick….or just ‘google’ these terms. For once, all the ‘googol’ search results apply.

 

No matter who you are or where you are from, your entry is guaranteed if your grey matter is intact. Once you enter, you join thousands of others who are toiling away to ‘technology’ nirvana and in the process even churning out a few billions. And when you are ready, you simply go ahead and create your own (No need for a sanction from Vatican, a walk-out from the current employer would do). This is how all those temples in silicon valley came into being—HP, Intel, Apple, Yahoo and Google—to name a few.

The religion caught up all over the world…the products and innovations being their missionaries.  No wonder there are these tiny little vallies and temples all over the world now, each one practicing their own version of this religion.

 

 

 

And the religion? better not talk about it. It’s all about practicing it.:)

Folks! It’s time to pray in one such temple or better still, create one. Amen!