Jobs leaves to Cook

I'd hate to be in the Shoes of Tim Cook now. Imagine, succeeding Steve Jobs as the CEO of Apple. everything that he does, or does not do, will be compared against the golden run of Jobs. Expectantly, Apple's shares fell over 5% no sooner Jobs announced his intent to resign from the day-to-day running of what was, at one time, world's most valuable company.
We will probably miss Job's annual presentations at the Apple annual conference, where every year, he come sin his trademark black T Shirt and announces a revolution. Somehow, I cannot see Cook in a Black Tee, perhaps a canary yellow, yes, but not a black tee. I also dont see where will Apple go from here? Not that there is any danger of Apple losing its position in the marketplace, but will Cook be bale to keep the 'wow' factor intact? Job's strength was not just getting a product out of the door, but in the way he packaged it for the market. Here was a messiah, thin and scrawny, coming year after year and giving you stuff that was not just great technologically, but was actually cool. It felt good to show off the Macbook pro in an aircraft, when the rest of the crowd is pulling out its dowdy laptops...The mac would always make heads turn.. it did then, it does now. Will it, in the future?
There was always this rather irreverant look about him - he could not care less about what was in vogue today.. he would take you where you wanted to go.. and didn't know it! That was, if anything, the true genius of the man.
Not that he did not understand the numbers behind the thoughts. If anything, he drove it relentlessly. What caught his attention was that he never talked about how big or profitable Apple was in the Apple World events - here it was always the products, the markets, the consumer, the cool quotient.. the rest would, inexorably follow. If anything, he was probably the smartest numbers guy in the valley. From Nextstep to Pixar, he created huge value in the companies that he created. Along the way, he also created some of the most memorable animated flicks that the world will swear by. And therein lay his ability to transcend the world of computing and entertainment - something that has become commonplace today.
And that is why I dont want to be in Tim Cook's position today. 

An outrage called Arundhati Roy

One of the most horrifying experiences in life is when somebody who you actually dislike for her views  has a view that you agree with - it can be deeply embarrassing. I read Arundhati Roy's views on Anna Hazare and my heart went out for him.
Let me make my position very clear. In my humble opinion, Arundhati Roy stands for one of the most regressive aspects of our society - a one book wonder, she had been propelled by Outlook for her shock value, and not for any great erudition. She opposes everything that the Indian middle class stands for. Many a time, she has taken stands which have been in congruence with many other social workers - for all the wrong reasons.
So when I read Ms Roy's piece in the Hindu, I was deeply embarrassed for the company I keep. Ms Roy's angst with Annasaheb is not because she supports corruption, but that he represents, the section of society that she disagrees with. Left to Ms Roy, she would just as soon give India away to Maoists, Naxals, Islamists, LeT terrorists et al.
My peeve with Annasaheb, is not for the cause, but for the creation of one more institution while not caring for the existing ones. Ms Roy would like to destroy the institutions, including the Indian polity. My peeve with Annasaheb's team is that they dont want to fight the system from within but want to create a new edifice in the system  from the outside. Ms Roy, left to her devices, would just as soon destroy the system to create chaos.
Arundhati Roy does not support Annasaheb, not because of any principle, but simply because she finds any change in the existing system not to her taste.
And therein lies the irony.
while we can bicker about the way and the process adopted by Annasaheb, what many of dont question is the need to weed out corruption in our lives. Some of us want end to the daily corruption in our lives, others want our politicians to reform first.. People like Ms Roy want the Indian polity to become dysfunctional, something that most of us, if not all, disagree with.
Hence my embarrassment at being on the same side as Ms Roy

Aw, come on, they are our boys

Just two months back, they were the heroes - the world cup champions of cricket - tests and one-dayers. The Golden boys.
Two months later, they are the villains of the country with choicest abuses -traitors, betrayers, money-minded, spineless.. I have left out some of the more colorful ones out.
What makes us so fickle minded? is it our own insecurity? Is it our own national lack of  a sense of achievement? Is it that we derive our greatness from the shadow of the great and hence when the supposed-great fall, we feel naked, in our own smallness?
It is important that we understand this phenom a little bit in detail. Sometimes, I also feel that we don't really 'own' the people that represent us. Consequently, when they win, we take them to a pedestal but  when they are down in the dumps, we trample them even more so. A pendulum that knows no way to come to the center.
I mean, come on, don't we have our off days? As business people, don't businesses have one year when they do badly (I know several which have converted the art of poor performance into an art form), as Individuals, don't we have seasons  (weeks, months, years..) when nothing goes well. How will we feel if during those times, the people who were supposedly your supporters and well wishers turned vicious against you? Would you ever feel anything for them? Why should your earning more or less make any damned difference to how you are treated?
When it comes to our Cricket team, why do we have such polarized reactions? What is even more astounding is that we justify it by saying 'they are making so much money that they SHOULD be ready to face the flak for poor performance! Nothing can be sillier than that. You and I retire at 65 or work till 75 (it is our choice). They retire at 35 (unless you are a Mr Tendulkar, when you retire when you want to), and then have another 40 odd years when they earn nothing. Secondly, I have not known a cricketer to have earned his millions by stealing from you and me. They are making that money in the market, so why does that make us so angry - that we are not and they are? In my books that is called Jealousy - plain and simple.
What is amplifying the problem is the media - newspapers and TV channels, which have relinquished the role of a copy editor! Consequently, we have a liberal usage of adjectives - 'abject, miserable, shameful, absurd, spineless...' both in the newspapers as well as channels, that are prefaced when talking about the Indian team's performance.
The second argument is that when they do well, we put them on the pedestal. Are they asking for it? Sure they will like it, but you are doing it on your own. does that give you a right to hammer them when they are down? I don't think so.
They are our children, our boys. If we come down so hard on them when they are down, don't expect them to go all misty eyed for you when they are up. In fact they will know that given our fickle-minded swings of mood, their penchant for being more aligned with the monetary issues will go higher and higher.
Support them when they are down. They have enough guys out there (Boycott, Nasser Hussain etc) who are anyway baying for them.
At the end of the day, they are our children, right

Why do I disagree with Anna Hazare

Let us get some facts right first - I am not for Corruption, and neither am I a card carrying member of any political party. I am just another Indian, who is equally frustrated by the way this country is being run by the government - any government, it does not matter - UPA, NDA, XYZ... they are all the same. I also get angry, very angry, when I see the sanctimonious nonsense that these politicians spout against corruption in public, knowing fully well that most of them, if not all, are venal and corrupt.

At the same time, I do not agree with Anna Hazare and his ilk. I believe that if you have institutions which are not functioning as they ought to, creating one more monster institutions does not help. In fact it creates bigger problems. The solution, I believe, is to fix the institutions using the methods that are available. My one simple question to Anna is - why dont you fight the elections? Anna Hazare knows that any election that he fights today, he will win, hands down. However, his reluctance to fight elections is testimony to the fact that Annasaheb does not want to strengthen the institutions, he wants to destroy them. He is a true Gandhian, in that sense - Gandhi did not want the British to reform, he wanted them to leave. In Annasaheb's case, he also wants the existing politicians, judges, civil servants to become subservient to a new super cop - he does not want to reform the cops and the system, it is too cumbersome and may throw up some new heroes.

It somewhat akin to saying that if your hand is not functioning well, for some reason, don't fix it, get a new hand, better still, create a super organ, that will now manage your hand. Same for head, brain, kidneys... I know that we are now bordering on absurdity.. but that is exactly what the civil society is asking for.

Has anyone in the civil society (learned members all) ever talked about joining the political system? Has any one of them Annasaheb, Bhushan (pere et fils), Kejriwals, Bedis, ever expressed a desire to get into the hurly burly of the Lok Sabha or the rarer echelons of the Rajya Sabha? Why not? Why are they so chary of something that we, as a country, should be justifiably proud - a parliamentary democracy? I believe that Annasaheb's team is not fascist, hence they do believe that democracy works, so why not get into the one forum which they keep criticizing, all the time? Frame policies, influence the policies and then, only then, pronounce judgments about whether the system works or not. If the system does not work, fix it. Get more like minded people to enter politics, fight elections, create own party... the solutions are many.

But no, Annasaheb's team knows it is a long haul, like any change in a democratic civil system. They want a vigilante justice. My way or highway. They know very well, that as Indians, we have almost a birthright on emotional outbursts sand logic. And this is what Annasaheb is waiting for, rather hoping for - an emotional outpouring of outrage over the so called 'politicians' who are destroying India, a popular middle- class uprising over the injustice meted out to Annasaheb, a scared government which only reacts to the antics of Arnab Goswami and/or the shrill banshee-like Sagarika Ghosh...the drama is being played out exactly as the learned men and women of Civil Society want, or hoped.

Annasaheb, what is the end game? Do you seriously think that the Parliament will consider your draft, even if it is presented as a private member's bill? You know it will not? So then what happens? Will you again go on a fast-unto-death for another 'mockpal'! In this game of brinkmanship, don't you think you are using the same pieces, that you are accusing the government of - the people's emotions, the only difference being, the government uses the poor and you are using the middle class!

I am not getting into a debate of whether the PM must be under lokpal or not (that is another blog, another day), but I think it is time for all of us, thinking citizens, to just pause and reflect for a minute.

For the last 64 years, we have allowed apathy, encouraged corruption and abetted systematic destruction of each of the institutions. Do we have the courage of our conviction to even partially accept our mistakes, our acts of omission and commission? We have voted the corrupt, not participated in elections, bribed for passports, traffic tickets, train tickets, school admissions, college seats and so on and so forth. Let us first accept our follies. Once we do that, we then ask our civil society members to form a political party and support them - I will support them, openly. Change the system from within. Let us stop dishonesty in our lives, in small or big ways. 

Then and only then, will change come.

This my 16 Anna truth!