Hobby Copy

"What is your Hobby?", I glance through the answer that any candidate would share for this question on the fag end of personal information list - specially formatted for university fresh students ready to enter industry. Apart from candidate's name, father's name, DOB, percentile , grades, address, rest of the personal information in the self introduction form carries similar data point in various order of presentation and at times look like a copy. One would wonder why scientists are breaking heads to create character clones. I have seen may during the mass recruitment hours.

Watching Movies , sports, reading books , singing , dancing , playing computer games are a bunch of common ones that you would notice. No nothing wrong till here. You would certainly expect the person to bring in at least one dimension of the subject which would have some passion and insight beyond the rest. This is were you can sense how hobby copy happens.

Interestingly in once such campus session I was over with fifteen candidates when I noticed a crazy hobby of the last candidate. It was distinctly scribed as - "Meeting my father's friends". I had my seventh sense pricking me. Moved on to the first page once more to check out another data point - which I generally overlook as an interviewer.Yes his father's name had a pretext - "Late".

His grades where little above average. I gave him a number game. While he was breaking the puzzle , noticed he mentioned only one strength of his - "Good Listener". Guessing the obvious I refrained to pick up any communication on hobbies and naturally turned towards his Strength - which was not the copy type.

-"You have a great Strength, but how did you evaluate?" - That was the last question for that day.

He said - "I was seven years when my father died in an accident. My father was a popular people's leader. I used to walk up to his friends. They keep speaking about him till date - small and big happenings."

For a while I was no more an interviewer. With no emotion in voice he continued - " I know my father from all that I heard from his friends. Their memories keep him alive in my life. Every word they say, I keenly paint them."

This single interview made my day.

Gyan # 16 - Hobby with passion can instill strength even in grief.

Jogger and the weighing machine

Am sure many of us have gone thru the euphoric experience of getting into regular health habits. Be it morning walk, evening jogging, controlled diet or Yoga. If not in person definitely met someone who had given a try, may be not once but have gone for multiple attempts. The natural symptoms are - you go for buying lot of new accessories - comfort attires, shoes and in the very first week walking in the park or in the community gym you note down all that others have little more that you, to make this boring journey more energetic.
Parag and Anurag are residents of the same posh residency apartment, well settled with friends and families. They both are around forty and are responsible for heavy portfolios of the same corporate house. In a health check up session both were advised to shred a few Kgs of extra fat they were carrying with them. Being friends and respective wives being equally concerned it was very easy for both to land on the jogger lane.
The first two weeks were fantastic – they realized how green their complex is, they saw so many new faces in the same apartment complex, identified a few fast trackers on the jogger’s lane. Life was like a new start. So much of positivity with morning exercise being a priority. The story was same-same for Parag and Anurag till this point.
As the weeks changed "Morning Jogging" was not that exciting for Anurag. Priorities started changing post the commencement of his new project. Late night calls, discussions, reviews … Reasons are ample and not to be denied.
Parag ran alone watching out the green park for a few more days. On the third day of this lonely rat race he took a break, sat on the park bench and stretched his legs and kept his vision open to watch out. Suddenly noticed the old couple crossing, they just kept moving – same motion on the same pitch went on and on. Suddenly Parag felt he is losing a race. The old couple in each cycle threw him fresh challenges, stating that you lost the game. He could not take it anymore. Stood straight and started moving the next time the couple crossed him. That was it!
Every morning for Parag was an agenda to win the race that was on with the old couple. He ensured to circle the track faster than them and mentally kept a count. Unknowingly the health conscious old couple was two more rats in his race. Needless to say he won every day and had pity for the fourth rat – Anurag!
Wives are at times the biggest catalyst to make you more competitive. Anurag felt the same two months down the line. His wife tried pushing him to the park in the evening once in a while – but it didn’t click. It was all by chance that Anurag stepped on the weighing machine in the shopping mall just to keep up to his daughter’s weekend demands. The short and sleek piece of paper had “82 Kgs” in bold and the other end had a wish – ‘Be smart to achieve goals’.
Next day Anurag was back from office bit early than usual. With no coaxing stepped out for the community gym. Initially every weekend he made it a point to turn up to the mall to check the figures the machine had to say. In a months’ time had a digital weighing machine placed in the dry corner of the bathroom. He found all means to achieve a number less with each day. These days when on tour he looks for facilities to work out; at the least he needs a weighing machine to keep a constant tap on the numbers. Among all his priorities this is the only number whose increasing trend hurts him more than any other metrics failure these days.
The competitive Parag and the goal oriented Anurag are both now health freak but in their own way!
Gyan 10# - It takes a while to understand the strength in us, but once we know it we can travel different paths to achieve the same goal with equal élan.

My grandma's Kitchen

Whenever I unroll my memories about my grandmother - I visualize her cooking in an old style kitchen nearly all through the day till late evening. She probably deserved some lifetime award in cooking (Not sure whether we have any of it's kind even today). The eighteen member family had extended families and friends - which multiplied to numbers more that my mental maths capability. Age varied from eight to seventy. That would indicate preference from school goers till retriered members - some in their sick bed. In my teenage days , once very seriously I had asked her - "Why do you spend so much time, here in this kitchen?". She softly replied - "I speak to this house through the food I cook". While I was breaking my head on how to counter her next, she offered me a cup of steaming tea!

Gyan 1 - How versalite may be your stakeholders , bank on your strenght. Innovate to meet expectation revolving on your strenghts - which should speak on behalf of you.