Same Old Change

The lights were shining bright all along Orchard Street. A new life almost seemed to emanate from them. Avi was feeling happy – not just because of the lights, but because of a day well spent.

There is something new about these lights, he thought, somehow they seemed different. There was something unknown about them. The street, which he knew very well, was foreign. As much as he knew he knew the street, he didn’t quite recognise it.

Such is life, he thought. Javed must be feeling the same. Once, long time ago, Javed and he had walked the Orchard. Asking the questions that made most sense. Most questions didn’t make sense today. Default was the order of the day. Avi had some trouble slipping into it, but he felt he would get there, eventually.

He tried hard to think how the others must be feeling, but he couldn’t. It had been a long time since Salim, Sanjay or anyone for that matter, had talked with him. In a way, it is nice, he felt, they are all busy doing something worthwhile. In fact, he hadn’t talked with Javed for over a month.

The same old feeling of newness, he thought and instantly laughed at the contradiction.

Only, he walked alone with his questions.

The Story-teller

As he put his laptop in its bag and was about it to close it – a thought ran through Avinash’s head. It’s time for me to go. The Singapore sky was as grey as could be, he looked out form the far away floor that he worked on. It seemed as if he had moved his office a few floors above. Things down there seemed more distant – more blurred.

Lee had asked him to meet by the Tex Mex at seven this evening. Avinash looked at his watch, it was just five. Yet he didn’t feel like working any more. From the office to Boat Quay would only be about thirty minutes. He had ninety minutes more to give the finishing touches to the project he was working on. Yet, he couldn’t bring himself to take his laptop out and start working.

Something had died.

He wondered what it was, what the rotting smell was about.

It was about stories, the same stories continued with fashionable consistency. He detested it. He even considered his bag to be that and contemplated letting it go in the only worthwhile river in Singapore. Avinash was settling down well in his job. The past was happily left behind. Yet the silence from Salim and Sanjay hurt him somewhere. AV was lost in getting the plot right.There were no new stories of glory. Javed still spoke with him – but those conversations were of daily nothings. He shut the clasp on his bag with some determination. Shut out the lights.I didn’t help create new story-tellers, he thought to himself. No more bards. Avi couldn’t help hanging his head as he headed to the elevator.

He was sick of listening to the same old story repeatedly. The walk to Boat Quay would be a long winded one. Just meandering. Senseless, purposeless – like the stories he heard nowadays. Not one story-teller was born out of his death.

The same old myths haunted him.

He had to leave the building.

A Blur of Being

It was a very big blur from where he saw.

There were too many foggy layers of emotions that obstructed his vision. Avinash never knew that you could get fog in so many types. Yet he tried hard to look through the layers.

Some were of fear – unfounded ones. Man-made, he thought and then smiled – aren’t they all man-made? These were not only man-made but also nourished and distributed. Some were of mistrust, some were of pure confusion. The dense ones, were of a mistaken purpose.

Before he could imagine taking a walk along the park, he had to wait. Wait till the fog cleared.

Clay Gods – II

Avinash had recently got his new PDA phone. He wished it had a better keyboard and could open multiple browser windows. And if it could some how ‘unfold’ itself into a projector – like a recent advertisement he had seen – he would have it all. Avinash smiled to himself. ‘I am a simple man,’ he said to himself, ‘just basic stuff in life.’ It could even have MP3 as ring tones, but Avinash preferred that a phone rang like a phone; the standard Tring-Tring tone.

Tring-tring

Avinash attempted visualising a handset being pressed to an ear as he heard the familiar, unconventional beginning of a phone conversation. Salim loathed mobile phones; Avinash had wanted to suggest that Salim become a model for land-line phone companies.

“How’s the skyscraper?”

“Fine, how’s earth”

“Oh, as human as ever; amidst all the hurt, pain, anger, and sadness – happiness and joy seems to stand a good chance of winning.”

“That’s nice – there seems to be hope.”

“Yes, I am taking decisions, you know, so are Sanjay and Rahul. The ultimate salvation, however, is still a distant dream.”

“But we are getting there, aren’t we?” Avinash relaxed. He closed the files on his laptop and relaxed and looked out at the blue sky. The weather bureau had promised an overcast sky with heavy showers. Avinash wondered why they talked about how his day would be, rather than really telling how the weather in the city would be.

“Right,” Salim chuckled, “what matters, however, is that everyone else also understands, isn’t it? I don’t think everyone is thinking the way we are or even the way you would! It’s just a few of us holding it all together.”

It was Pareto who coined the 80-20 rule. Avinash didn’t recall what the origins of that rule were, but knew that the rule was used to describe how most work happened in most organisations. 80% of the work gets done by 20% of the people or 20% of the products get 80% of the revenue, and the examples even become recursive. It seemed so applicable – everywhere. Salim didn’t want to talk about Pareto; Avinash didn’t bring up Pareto. Salim seemed to be relaxed and have time on his otherwise busy hands. A good conversation might just stimulate him to finalise the change management programme, Avinash thought. “Maybe I should just come back,” he said.

“Too politically correct! Are you on a speaker phone; are there others in the room?”

Avinash realised that his new phone had a speaker phone; he didn’t need to carry his shrunk computer-in-a-phone all over the room. Avinash switched on the speaker phone and said, “I am now on speaker phone and no one else is in the room and it is as sound proof as it gets.”

“OK, I heard about your new toy from Javed. Anyways, I thought you’d have a better answer than that.” Salim’s aversion to gadgets was making its way through the radio waves.

As Avinash sifted through the radio waves – he wondered whether it was the aversion to gadgets or disappointment at his answer. He concluded it was probably his response. “What were you expecting as a better answer?”

“It’s all right, I understand,” Salim acknowledged, the rhetoric taken as rhetoric. He crisply told Avinash what was going on back there without any of it sounding like a complaint. Very analytical, just like the consultant he had trained to be.

“It’s a problem of expression you know,” Avinash said, thinking hard at the way the problem was presented and talked about. “You and a couple of others think so well, yet are so lacking in expression. I wonder how you do your consultant reports.”

“No point in expressing if no one is going to listen or change behaviour.” Avinash loosened his tie. This promised to be a long one. And for once Salim’s head had bobbed up from the ocean of assignments that he was working on; Avinash didn’t want to miss out the opportunity. It was even selfish in a way. He missed these people. He missed these times. His new challenge was challenging enough and had its own romance – but like Javed often quoted some management guru – we are always attached to the job that we grew out of.

“That’s not the purpose of expressing an analytical thought. That’s what differentiates a philosopher and a radical. Better to have thoughts that allow others to reflect on what they do,” Avinash suggested.

“I agree because you are saying it – but I didn’t understand what you just said.” That was Salim for you, as honest as a white sheet of paper. This is what Avinash liked about thinkers. They didn’t agree to things because they sounded good. Thinkers like Salim and Maddy. Maddy was another omnipresent team member often attributed to magical powers. It was even suspected that he was the Reluctant Messiah who wrote the other handbooks about solving problems, which Richard Bach didn’t publish.

“Let’s see. The purpose of getting your thoughts out is not to transform how people work. When you express your thought, you offer them a perspective. Offer a perspective that they can’t have or may not ever have.

“This is beginning to make sense; I agree.”

“When an expression is “imposed” on people – without offering them the chance to think for themselves – it is the purpose of a thinker who uses expression for personal or narrow motives. In my opinion, the radical thinks like this. It may be right – in a context – however it is still imposed. It doesn’t offer any chance to a person to use that perspective and see if it makes sense. Think of most fundamentalist groups and most philosophers you know. They do “nearly” the same thing. They offer a “manner of thinking”. The philosophers however, offer a “manner of thinking” in a more subtle way. They allow you to be free to disagree and form your own opinion and even allow you to build on their thoughts. They enable you to think for yourself. The purpose of getting your thoughts out is not to ‘change’ people. It is to help them think right and think for themselves.”

Avinash sensed a complete silence on the side from where the radio waves were emanating. “Getting simpler or even more complicated?”

“Much better, go on.”

“The objective of the expression is not a deterministic goal – like bringing about change in people. The expression is the objective itself! That – is the purpose”

“You are drinking in the office?” Avinash guessed that Salim had understood all that Avinash wanted to say. He just wished that others understood too.

“Nope. I am saving that time for when I am with you guys.”

“Hope you are coming back soon, fun is long pending and behind schedule.”

The sky was still bright and clear. Slits of sunshine escaped through the blinds in his cabin.

Party A

Avi was wandering the empty streets of Singapore City.

There was a party on back home. He had just called them. It seemed like the ever lively party that he had been a part of. Nandini, the perfect hostess, and her husband the perfect host.

He spoke with them for a while. At least he thought so.

As he walked down the banks of Clark Quay, he realised how much he “didn’t” miss being there in the party. There was a tomorrow and his absence was a little sacrifice for that tomorrow. There would be more opportunities to celebrate – bigger reasons.

He didn’t mind walking alone – he wasn’t. He warmed up to the feeling of being with his team. This unusual cold weather in Singapore couldn’t make him shiver.

Javed’s presence, and Salim’s retorts. Raghu’s irrefutable logic and Sanjay’s silence. Nandini’s laugh and Abhinamyu’s nostalgic sense. There was enough warmth on a rather cold day.

Basic Fun-damentals

“Did you get any response from K2? I need to get my team moving.”

Avinash contemplated the statement. Was it a question? Was it a threat? Was it impact analysis? The tone was inscrutable. An entire conversation seemed to dwell in that statement. Nandini flicked her eyebrows rapidly half a dozen times. Where is my answer, they seemed to ask.

They had worked together for a long time. A lead consultant with the firm, she had recently begun taking over key accounts in the firm.

“Three voice messages to all of them – go check their answering machines if you don’t believe me,” Avinash replied in his sarcasm laced language.

“Oh, I believe you, you wouldn’t lie to me – you have no reason to,” she was still double parked, holding the translucent glass door to Avinash’s cabin.

“Either you come in or you go out – don’t pass on all your stress to the spring that makes the door close by itself. Leave the poor done alone; it hasn’t done you any harm,” Avinash said without looking up from the papers that he was only half-reading.

Nandini Agarwal was well used to Avinash’s abstract oration, like everyone else in the firm. She opened the door, ambled inside and plonked herself onto one of the leather chairs. The door resigned from its suspended state and closed with reluctance.

“I am so ready to go home,” she said without expecting any answer.

Avinash turned the blinds to allow light to come through. There wasn’t much light, it was getting dark. He gave a huge sigh, thinking about his day and said, “It’s too early, you worked only nine hours, are you taking the rest of the day off?” Nearly the entire team was working long hours to finish various assignments; this had been going for a month now. After the initial bickering and complaints, everyone was now making jokes about it. Not very healthy, Avinash thought to himself.

“Well, say that on Friday, AV is taking all consultants out for dinner.”

“That’s nice, at least AV seems to be doing things right, and why only consultants, why not us?”

“That’s because you have become a boring old man,” she giggled, “But it’s not entirely your fault I guess, age catches up with everyone,” she said, laughing out loud. Nandini was easily the sound of the firm. She was heard everywhere and whether her team worked or not, her vocal chords were workaholics to the core.

“Not entirely true or fair,” Avinash wanted to explain why it wasn’t fair, but he held back. It would go back to the same things that Salim and Raghu had argued with him a couple of months ago. He decided that he would just let the conversation flow. Nandini was up to her usual mischief. She continued teasing Avinash about him being a bore, keeping quiet, and indirectly – not being available. Avinash nodded and murmured acknowledgements, but he was thinking about something very different. It seemed to him that he kept going back in time more often, these days. Not so much for nostalgia, nor as regret; it seemed to him that he was searching for something in the past. Something had changed along the way that he was unable to put a finger on.

“And yes, please do take AV out of the office, any more time here and he will grow roots at his seat. Let’s all go out for a weekend – maybe that will stop fruit sprouting out of AV’s ears,” Avinash said, smiling and hoping that the present will allow him a chance to change that ‘something’ that had changed in the past.

“Sure, we are always available, fun is our middle name, Avinash – what about you?” she giggled again – somewhere referencing his getting old, “we always have fun!”

The events of the day were fading from Avinash’s conscious thoughts; he wondered how many of the “we” she talked about would honestly confess to having fun.

“No, you guys are boredom incarnate! You see me as boring because your entire view towards life is boring. I haven’t changed a bit! You set the weekend – I bet no one will show up,” the only way Avinash was going to get back in this conversation if he kept up with Nandini’s mischief.

She stormed out of the room to ask if people were willing. Avinash went back to his mail, switched on his laptop and started finishing up on the day’s work. He seemed to be working mechanically, his thoughts on what Nandini had just said. He knew her well, it was just a fun way to end the day for her – teasing people, laughing – being able to go back home happy. Avinash smiled. His 43rd floor seemed less fun than this place. There was work to be done – the 43rd floor also has to become a fun place.

“Raghu has agreed,” she said; as she threw open the reluctant glass door again.

“Only one?”

“You can’t plan these things, you know. This has to be impromptu – one day before just announce it and go!”

“So that no one really goes?”

“Bah! You don’t know things, do you?”

“Not anymore, you see Javed and I gave up this a long time ago!”

“You can’t plan fun,” she nearly screamed, “don’t expect everyone – some get it – some miss it,” she threw her arms up and walked out of the room, “I’m going home!”

She is right, you can’t plan fun. But then somewhere you have to have the willingness and the energy to have fun. Whether it is in the daily mundane things that you do or the exotic things – which you do on a whim, it didn’t matter. Avinash searched for answers in his reports and in the various open documents, they didn’t offer any.

I Fear for my Hope

AV ambled in to the office with dreamy eyes. Javed thought that they were sleepy rather than dreamy, but after a long weekend out on a drive, most people tend to come with dreams plastered on their eyes. Abhimanyu Vaidya was hardly ever called by his name, unless there was a customer within earshot. Everyone preferred AV and AV didn’t mind.

Even his computer seemed to come to life very lazily – as if searching for a good location on the hard drive to start from. The RAM warmed up and the computer finally arrived at the logon screen. AV logged on, started downloading his email. He looked around while the server was being asked permission to connect. 106 mails.

He got up from his desk, leaving the computer alone to download the mails, to check if anyone else was still suffering from the long weekend hangover. Avinash and Javed joined him and they went out for a smoke.

“It’s an amazing drive. I could have just kept driving for hours and hours together.”

“You’d have to stop somewhere to at least fill up your tank.” Except for their initials, Javed Feroz Khan and John F Kennedy had nothing in common. Not even their brand of humour. Javed’s humour was always this – tangential, boyish and free of any hang-ups.

AV ignored Javed, and continued, “Green all over – it’s just amazing driving through the country.”

The countryside around Mumbai was nothing like the well-manicured English countryside, but it had its own charm. It was the unkempt, yet liberated of sorts. Just left to be as it should be – no one tried making it look any better. Avinash liked that – he was a sucker for driving down the countryside. The conversation went to two cigarettes as they talked about other great drives and drives that they should be doing together. Javed was distracted – one of the drives to the country side a few years ago had led to a very big change in his life. The conversation naturally moved on to something else – easily linking from one to another – that would have been otherwise difficult to imagine. AV talked something about changes.

“Well, we hope for the best, don’t we?” Avinash asked. “And we even work towards making our hopes come true.” Avinash made that statement hoping that it would seem like a heavy thought that would end the conversation and they would get back to their hardworking computers.

“Hope keeps us alive and ticking”, AV said. He had a few drags left on the cigarette filter. Javed got a call and he walked out of earshot from us with his outdated and abused mobile plastered to his ear.

“Right now, it’s fear which is keeping us alive and ticking. Fear – the strongest emotion of all. It is stronger than any other human emotion.”

“I agree about the fear part, but I think both hope and fear play an equal role. They allow us to balance the positive and negative of life.”

“In any human emotion there is fear embedded, think about it. In love there is fear of losing love, in hope there is fear of a dream not coming true. In every emotion there is fear – in some form or the other. Just hope is nothing – if it doesn’t have its feet on ground. It’s a wish – nothing else. Most will succumb to fear – the others will however use fear as a survival tactic and stay alive in bad times.”

The conversation was getting interesting, however, by this time the 106 mails would have been downloaded twice over. AV’s feet had begun pointing towards the exit. Javed finished his call, “What’s going on, what are you two guys so excited about?”

“Well I am boring AV to death by philosophy,” Avinash laughed, “or maybe it’s the other way round!” He added as an afterthought.

They all moved back to their weary workstations. In the unfinished duel between fear and hope there was an audience waiting to participate – to lay bare their emotions and look at every emotion spread there on the ground. To feel the emotion that was laid out by the other. Except for the self-styled thinkers walking back after a heavy dose of nicotine, and a few others, no one was willing to lay their emotions down.

Just fear, Avinash thought to himself.

Clay Gods

The phone screamed its shrill monophonic ring tone. The voice on the other side did not begin with the famous word that features in the world’s first C program, “You are showing signs of not coming to office today.”

Salim Azmi wasn’t a person who was given to being formal when speaking with his boss. In fact no one in the consulting firm ever gave their bosses the impression that they were. “I’m coming,” Avinash said, “I wonder why you would say that. I will there in an hour.”

Avinash Sarkar imagined the chuckle coming through the radio waves of the mobile conversation, “There has been a barrage of instructions from you to everybody here; I guessed you were taking the day off.” Avinash was sure Salim was smiling, “Normally, all these would have hit us after you came in.” Salim completed his thought.

Avinash sensed that this conversation was not entirely about his attendance, “I am getting used to the fact of working from my skyscraper.” he said, praying that the light remark would not weigh heavy on Salim.

“Yeah; no need to remind us always that you are now not going to be around.” he said. Avinash wished for a video phone; he was sure that Salim’s smile-curve was slowly flattening. Avinash went back in time, four months back. His consulting firm had recently acquired a backend processing operation. Getting the acquisition to work the way his firm did would prove to be a nightmare. Avinash was to go and manage that company and see how they could make the acquisition an asset rather than a liability. In short, he was to make it work. Bring in scale and all that jazz. Avinash’s new office in Singapore was on the 43rd floor.

“’Around’ is a factor of the mind – not the body”, Avinash offered.

“Yes, but it is not the only factor. When a person is close by “body” he is closer by mind too.”

“Not true.”

“May be for you”

This was something Avinash was not expecting. “The only confidence I have, to take up this assignment, is because of you guys. If it was some other team here, I would have just asked for a salary hike and continued doing what I do now. If we really want to be successful with this kind of growth, we’ll have to manage it. Would you rather put your destiny in someone else’s hands?” Avinash said hoping that this would calm the rough emotions.

“No! I know that very well and in fact I am very happy that you are taking up this assignment.” Salim said, the tone becoming more solemn. “Even when you became Consulting Partner, I always believed this firm would benefit more, if you did different things. In fact this has been a key discussion point when I talk with Sanjay and Raghu.”

“Then why do you all seem so sad, depressed, and confused?” Avinash cried out. It was not easy being God, and definitely not easy being the emigrant God. 
“The only confusion is that we need an authority figure who will take firm and final decisions which seems to be missing, now. You know it, we are all very stubborn and we might not bend, if you know what I mean. There were many instances when you took decisions that were against us, but they were fine because you were the authority.”

It’s convenient that way, Avinash thought, and it’s even more comfortable. But it was becoming difficult for Avinash. He was learning things that he believed to be his imagination. Following the current, Avinash said, “Good then, time for you to learn then, maybe an authority will evolve? Maybe you all will learn to take decisions by consensus. Consensus – can be a good possibility, though I personally don’t prefer it. Maybe you all will just call me when you can’t take a decision”

“But we wasted a lot of time in that; we hardly ever reached a conclusion, when we went the consensus way,” he said. Avinash winced; he remembered the meetings that went on forever. Everybody came with their own agenda; in the absence of a common shared objective.

“Now it is real – you will have to learn to take decisions – that is the only reason why some of you are not growing. In a company where everybody has the possibility of growing every quarter, we’ve had a year of stagnation. Now – whether you like it or not – you will take decisions, right or wrong – you will. None of you made any mistakes in the last year, which proves that you guys did not take any decisions at all.”

“Bullshit”

“Why?”

“You can’t say that we did not take decisions!”

“Of course you guys took decisions; I am talking about the decisions that you look up to an authority for. If you guys are so sure that you did take decisions then why does my absence bother you so much.” Avinash said, hoping he did not get the answer to that.

“No. again we come back to the point where your absence bothers. I already told you my views on that. There is a probably a vacuum created by your shift. And we are trying to fill it. And I am very sure it will get filled. I will just miss the Avinash Sarkar effect – that always used to be there.”

This world is made of clay gods and plastered smiles, Avinash thought, clay gods are immersed every year in the water with much fanfare. Plastered smiles are de-plastered when you look the other way. Next year the same God is brought back – with equal fanfare, again made of clay. It’s easier to immerse a clay idol – it dissolves in water.

“You will get used to it, that’s how life is. We all get used to change. Only we don’t know it when the change occurs. God has given us an amazing power of forgetting.”

“This change will not be to forget. We all know that you have a big hand in running the show. And it’s going to be a new challenge for us to keep the show running.”

There was a pause; Salim was speaking with someone else. Work came up, a market analysis report was to be sent, and Salim was the Lead Consultant for that account.
“This is an unfinished discussion, boss,” he said, “We need to finish this over three strong espressos.” Avinash agreed, and shut the phone. Avinash wondered whether the blisters near his ear were because of his CDMA phone or because of what Salim just said.

Taking an office in a skyscraper wasn’t going to be so easy. Avinash was shifting to take up a change management assignment; he never realized that he was going away from one.