Sunday, August 27, 2017

Toilet: Ek Prem Katha - A lesson for professionals

While the movie Toilet: Ek Prem Katha was marketed as a different kind of love story (more rooted in reality), I discovered that the movie also presents a lot of lessons that we as professionals can learn.
Keshav, the protagonist was faced with a daunting challenge (absence of private toilets), one of its kind that never happened in his village. But he doesn't give up and gives his best to address the issue. Consider Keshav as the organization or professional and his wife as the client in this scenario. Following are the lessons we can take away from his efforts in this scenario (SPOILERS AHEAD):
  1. Explore all options: Be it stealthily sneaking into other's house that has a toilet, with any vague excuse he could find, or driving his wife to a stopping point where a train stopped for exactly 7 minutes to use its lavatory facilities, to even stealing a portable toilet from a shooting set, he explores all options.
  2. Short-term solutions don't work: Even though Keshav was coming up with innovative solutions, each was fraught with some flaws. Having a difficult client (his wife) does push him to seek for the long term solution.
  3. Benefiting not only his client (his wife) but also rest of the village (society): Solutions proposed should be replicable and scalable and benefit the society at large. While the solution was already present, making it reach to the people in need for it is itself a challenge and something we must strive to do as good professionals.
  4. Sometimes solutions are there, but people are not ready for it: Keshav's fight was against the archaic traditions that prevented him to deploy the long-term solution in the first place. In our organizations also we might have to deal with outdated policies and processes. However striving to overcome such hurdles to deploy long-term solutions that are clearly better for the organization and the society at large is a worthy effort.
  5. Smart one-liners have high stickiness factor and using them to promote your cause is an excellent idea.
  • "Biwi paas chaahiye toh ghar mein sandaas chaahiye (if you want your wife to live with you, better have a toilet in your house)."
  • "yeh maamla shauch ka nahin soch ka hain (this matter is not about defecation, it is about our thinking)."
6. Lastly, the movie was about flushing out archaic methods that have lost their utility (since better methods are available) and moving into the future. As a professional, one must keep updating oneself about latest developments to stay in the race.

Radhe Radhe! (salutation)

Sunday, August 20, 2017

Zombieland - Too good to be true

Watching Zombieland (2009) the movie made me feel that I wish I was in that world rather than in present world. While I feel stupid about thinking that post apocalyptic world could be better than present world, I do have my justifications, based on the movie:
1. Everything FREE! You see a car you like, just drive it away. You feel like having chips or snowball or Twinkie, just walk into a shop, shoot some zombies and take all the delicacies, for FREE! Refuel your car for free, get clothes for free! No income tax, no salary negotiations, no pressure to buy a house (just walk into any house and start living there!)
2. No traffic on the road! It would be like a dream come true, considering the traffic these days. Of course there was an occasional presence of zombie on the road whom you can hit and drive away.
3. In that world, the only task to do was kill the zombies. And in the movie, they make it look so easy! Its a video-game fantasy come true! Moreover, people shared stories of the best Zombie kill of the day/week/month/year/all time!
4. And if there is a HOT girl stuck with you, the only eligible bachelor, she might eventually start liking you! Same might be true the other way round.
5. Healthier life: No internet, which means more time to do "real" things like running, fighting, talking to other people, and "enjoying the little things"!
Of course we must follow the 32 rules laid down by Columbus in the film, from Cardio (#1) to Enjoy the little things (#32). Anyways we need to follow so many rules daily, most of which we don’t even understand or find useless but these 32 rules will be vital for survival.
Driving a Hummer on a long empty roads and killing zombies with a shotgun, wouldn’t that be amazing!
BTW, you can totally barge into empty mansions of millionaires and enjoy the luxuries there!