Lost in translation or Ignorance?

Recently, a friend of mine came to me and narrated an incident which is a commonality in today's Bengaluru. At the end of his narration, he insisted I write a post which might influence the corporate big-wigs to devote their time in this regard and also for the many ignorant folks. I almost fell on the floor laughing when he said, my blog post might have an influence.

I address this friend of mine as "Mr Chloromint", cause he always has questions about anything and everything. Armed with his inquisitive mind, he has troubled a lot of people including our common boss to whom we report. There have been countless instances in our brief acquaintance of when his inquisitive mind has benefited and back-fired. Nevertheless, his enthusiasm for questioning remains solid. 

Mr Cholormint stays in the northern part of bangalore, while the office is abour 30 kms away which in Bangalore's standards is a two hour journey, with hiccups like silk board and madivala junction in the way. It was yet another day for Mr Chloromint. He boarded the usual bus, the bus would ferry him from Silk board all the way upto Bommasandra stop where our office is located. Amidst all the faces in the bus that day, there was a peculiar face that boarded the bus. He looked like a man from the state of Bihar. His understanding of Kannada was as good as a Beyonce's understanding of Mandarin. The conductor started telling people to buy tickets, unfortunately for this bloke, he went about shouting in Kannnda. His lack of knowledge in Kannada proved disastrous a few moments later. The bus went a few yards from the stop he got on and voila! two blokes stopped the bus and got into it. Who were these guys?? the ticket checkers. The ticket checkers began their job of hunting down the passengers who hadn't bought a ticket and this Bihari dude admitted that he indeed hadn't bought a ticket. At this moment, the ticket checkers demanded a fine, while this bloke kept on telling that he got into the bus the previous stop and reiterated that he couldn't buy a ticket cause he didn't understand the language. While the former spoke in Kannada the latter spoke in Hindi. There was a deadlock between kannada and hindi, it was more like a battle between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal but in different dimensions. The deadlock continued for a while and also infuriated the crowd. The agony was so high that one elderly person came and hit this Bihar lad and the lad reciprocated by giving back another blow. By now, the bus had passed the stop where the lad had to get down. The crowd was steaming with anger and people were all shouting and abusing this lad who was also abusing and shouting in Hindi. There was a verbal duel where both the parties didn't have an iota of understanding of each other's words. Just when things were about to go from bad to worse, Mr Chloromint intervened and mediated between the parties. He told the Bihari lad that he had to pay a fine since he hadn't taken a ticket, for which the Bihar lad said he had only a hundred bucks. Mr Chloromint then told the ticket checkers to leave the dude by collecting the hundred bucks. Both the parties agreed and the Bihar chap got down about four stops away from the stop he intended to get down, while Mr Chloromint also got down at the same stop which happened to be Bommasandra. 

Amidst all the chaos, came a thought in the mind of Mr Chlormint, what if this Bihar chap knew kannada, there wouldn't have been a slight chance of this chaos happening. The man wouldn't have been humiliated in public and the crowd in the bus wouldn't have been enraged. 

This brings us to the crux of the problem, why then are people ignorant in learning the local language, it's not mandatory to settle in a state, but it's for their convenience. The fundamental reason on why an individual has to learn the local language is survival. It gives an instant access to everything around, after all you connect with other human beings only through a language. I would say that the responsibility of learning the language lies not only with the individual but also with the organisation he is working for. There is a rule in Germany for students to get a visa is they should they should be proficient in understanding the basics of  language. 

While there shouldn't be an imposition of any such rule, there should certainly be an insistence for the same. 

After all as the great Rumi once said, “Words are a pretext. It is the inner bond that draws one person to another, not words.” 

This is Vattam signing off!!

Room for Sentiments at work

There has always been a sense of ambiguity in my mind over having sentiments at work. My mind is torn whether to be cold and emotion-less or to be empathetic and humane.

At work, a new conveying line was set up a few weeks back and it has been troubling us since it was set up. There have been constant niggles and snags since it's installation. This issue has been troubling my team.

It was one of those days when I was working on resolving this issue. The whole team was there, my manager, technician and myself. We were fiddling around with the settings, trying to get the right air-pressure and orientation. We worked on it for more than an hour. Sweating it all out, our efforts bore fruit, the results started showing in about an hour's time.

We were done with our work and we were about to leave. Just when a workman who stood there doing about his work came to me and with a smile on his face and gleaming eyes said, " En sir namma mane inda ne oodsbitralla? hadineidu varshadinda ide machine ge operator aagi kelsa maadtidvi, neevu nodidre kelsadinde tegsbitralla?". ( Sir, this used to be my home and I have worked on this machine for 15 years and you have made me jobless here ). Perplexed by his statement, I couldn't digress for a few moments on what he was saying. My mind put on it's thinking cap and started thinking on why this man spoke those agonizing words. When my mind began this thinking process, I recollected my previous project where a completely automated secondary packaging line was installed as result of which 15 people were removed from their positions in the line. The result of which, this man lost his position in the line and had to be moved off to another line in another division. After the thought process was over, I responded by saying, " Naavu enu madalla ri, Company kelsa heliddu, naavu maadlebeku." ( Nothing is in our hands, we have to just do what the company says) to which he nodded with a smile, his nod almost telling a story, made me speechless. After the debatable incident, I left the place and went on with my work.

Though I went on with my work that day, I couldn't take my mind off the words that had from that man. I shared this incident with a friend of mine and laughed it off. But deep down, I was guilt ridden and morose about what had happened.

All this boils down to the question is it right to have emotions at work? Is it right to be empathetic and  humane or do we need a much colder approach at work??

Age of Diplomacy

There have been slew of announcements in the top tech companies across India and the US. A few months ago it was Satya Nadella, Sundar Pichai, Vishal Sikka and most recently Thomas Kurian. Though I have mentioned names which all have India written all over it. The central purpose of mentioning these names is purely to bring in an element that from the modern times has been seen as the great asset for a human being's success. The word I was looking for is Diplomacy.

The masterful stroke that diplomacy plays is greatly summed up in the quote, " Diplomacy is the art of letting someone have your way. " by Daniele Vare. 

In the age when everybody talks about being cut-throat and the world being dog eat dog, there are others who have followed a rather free-spirited route in making a mark on mankind. Their way was simple yet sophisticated, they all stuck to the passive aggressive approach, they were assertive and never aggressive. All this boils down to the big question, in the age where everybody are interconnected and everything is interdependent and you can never eat alone, what should be your approach when you have to get things done? A question that has haunted the B-schools and the question that analysts are continually trying to answer. This Kazillion dollar question can be looked at by reading about some of the names that I mentioned above. 

Firstly, to talk about the man that whole of India is excited about, Sundar Pichai, the man who is literally incharge of the whole of Google. The reason the folks sitting at the top of the mountain view chose to put him incharge of almost everything is no doubt for his vision for the future of Google but also for his invaluable trait of diplomacy. Keeping in mind the innumerous mergers, acquisitions and deals that Google is trying in to make, it put this man for the job. A man who is known to have a calm demeanour is known to be the go to man when it comes to making deals. 

Next up, I wanna talk about the man who is synonymous with the current government, the man who is known for his sophistication and urbane demeanor, Mr Arun Jaitley. He is Modi's crisis manager. Known to be the close aide and mentor of many Leaders, this man is the mascot for diplomacy.  From politics to glamour, from cricket to business, his address book is known to have everyone who has had a stint with fame and power. 

Keith Ferrazi in his book writes a beautiful line that I want to end with, this line has always been on my mind ever since the day I read it .

“Relationships are all there is. Everything in the universe only exists because it is in relationship to everything else. Nothing exists in isolation. We have to stop pretending we are individuals that can go it alone. —MARGARET WHEATLEY”

― Keith Ferrazzi, Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time

This is Vattam signing off!