updated – Page 107 – Abhijit Bhaduri

August 27, 2009

Published by Abhijit Bhaduri on August 27, 2009

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How to Manage Short Term Asignments

You are the rising star of the corporation. You are working at building a resume that will qualify you for the corner office in the next few years. You want to set the world record for being the youngest head of the corporation. In anticipation, you have started looking up models of corporate jets you could buy and the power suits you will need to order for the swearing in ceremony. In the midst of all this comes the email on the blackberry that your manager wants to know if you would be interested in a short term assignment to New Widgetovia, the country where your company has struck gold. You would need to be there for three months... maybe six... ummm ... a little bit more perhaps but hopefully not.

August 16, 2009

Published by Abhijit Bhaduri on August 16, 2009

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Reviews

Kaminey

I am a fan of writer, lyricist, music composer and film director Vishal Bhardwaj. He brings in a breath of fresh air into Indian cinema especially mainstream Bollywood. He has cracked the magic formula of making movies that are aesthetically appealing and yet are commercially successful. Never afraid to experiemnt, Vishal is gifted and gutsy. As a director, his films Maqbool (adaptation of Macbeth, made in 2004) and Omkara (adaptation of Othello, made in 2006) have made audience sit up and take notice. Taking great stories to the masses is a challenge. To take the complexity of a Shakespearean play and adapt it to contemporary India and yet make it appeal to a broad spectrum of audience is what Vishal does best. His literary and cinematic mentor Gulzar writes songs that play at an upmarket nightclub as loudly as they do in the autorickshaws. Omkara had Saif Ali Khan and the blockbuster song Beedi Jalai Le (watch the song here if you have not) featuring a sizzling Bipasha Basu. Kaminey has Shahid Kapur.

August 11, 2009

Published by Abhijit Bhaduri on August 11, 2009

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Interview Questions for HR Applicants

Many moons back when I started off my career as a HR person, I had a chance to attend a training program. All the HR folks used to have this once a year get together and just bond. I was briefed by my boos that being the lowest in the food chain, I had to just take the opportunity to get to know the big fish in HR. Being a really obedient kind of person I took that advice to heart. I spent the next tea break running around that huge hall like a headless chicken collecting names and faces. I will tell you upfront that I have difficulty remembering zillions of names with matching faces. Within fifteen minutes of this maniacal pursuit of perfection, I discovered that the names and faces were all a big jumbled up noodle soup. I gave up.

August 1, 2009

Published by Abhijit Bhaduri on August 1, 2009

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Sonia Faleiro

To be able to write and to have access to forums that will publish one’s writing widely is a privilege. As a journalist and a reader I’m left in no doubt that there will always be people to write about the rich, the powerful, the glamorous; sometimes when they have nothing to say. But writing about such people, doesn’t impact them in the way writing about the marginalised and the alienated does. To write about those who have no voice, or whose voice has been silenced, is to empower them. Writing about the farmers of Vidarbha, who have been committing suicide since the 1990s, at one time at a rate of one every 12 hours, for example, has had a tangible impact on the political attention and economic stimulus offered to their community and their families. Having another profile written about Shah Rukh Khan, however, makes no difference to him, and frankly to readers—what more is there to learn about him?

July 29, 2009

Published by Abhijit Bhaduri on July 29, 2009

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A Blot on Wiki

I suppose the pyschologists and pyschiatrists - called "shrinks" in popular parlance - have their own code of silence. Once they are certified to practice, they are not supposed to give away the secret tests and techniques about how they figure out of the person lying on the couch is normal or abnormal depending on the response to the tests. To the person being tested this can evoke different feelings eg Awe or Aw (short for awful) and everything in between. So naturally people are anxious - which by itself could tell the shrink stuff about you that you don't want them to know.

July 22, 2009

Published by Abhijit Bhaduri on July 22, 2009

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Should You Self Publish

It is truly a magical moment when you read the manuscript and suddenly feel that there is nothing more left to add or to take away. If you add stuff you will feel the need to trim the fat and you cannot take away a single word without leaving gaps in the mind of the reader. It is that moment when you feel the most self-confident. You are ready to take the book to a publisher.

July 11, 2009

Published by Abhijit Bhaduri on July 11, 2009

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Ideas

Who Should Pay for You to Learn

You started as a small fish with dreams of being a biggie. You routinely practiced your moves. You tried to learn new tricks to please those who held power to hand out generous changes in S&B (Salary and Bonus). You regularly preened yourself as you passed the mirror, admiring the lean mean fighting machine that you continued to be ... at least for the initial few years. When you met the other alum from your college or B School, you traded notes to see if anyone had learnt a trick that you had no clue about. There were usually a few who always had something clever to share. You read professional journals. The names were all familiar. The Professors would keep egging you on to read more and more and yet would sneer at your term paper before labeling it a B+. That just built in you the grim determination to keep slaving away at sharpening your skills until you could extract an A+ from the hard-to-please faculty. That was then.

June 26, 2009

Published by Abhijit Bhaduri on June 26, 2009

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Reviews

Sona and the Sound of Music

Sona Mohapatra has a degree in Engineering and an MBA in Marketing. That's not all. At 5'8", this MTV Style Icon 2006 trained as a classical singer for 10 years. Her debut video Bolo Na बोलो ना (Translation: Tell me...) made people sit up and take notice. The song was about drifting relationships. She still bristles when someone describes her music as 'unusual'. She would rather describe it as a "unique sound" and not unusual. Her debut album "SONA is a blend of contemporary and ethnic sounds with nuances of Romanian gypsy music, R&B, East Indian baul, Flamenco and North Indian folk rhythms." At a friend's I heard the album and liked her sound. The song that lingered on for a long time in its aftertaste was अभी नहीं आना Abhi Nahi Aana (translation: Don't visit me now). I must admit I had initially found the lyrics a bit masochistic. I mean here is the video of a woman pining for her lover and yet she is telling him to not visit her. Ummm ... why not? Just so that when they meet, it is just that much nicer. See what I mean?

June 21, 2009

Published by Abhijit Bhaduri on June 21, 2009

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Reviews

Ustad Ali Akbar Khan

Hindustani Classical music was traditionally passed down from the maestro to the disciple. This tradition known as the guru-shishya parampara helped nurture some of the greatest artistes. "Baba" Allauddin Khan (1862-1972) court musician of the princely state of Maihar, was the guru whose disciples themselves went on to become musical legends in their own right. "Baba" taught his disciples of the Maihar Band the nuances of Hindustani Classical music as well as Western music tunes. The Maihar Band lost yet another musician yesterday. Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, the sarod player who popularized the complex instrument among Western listeners died on 18 June 2009 at age 87 in California.