Monday Blues

What is different about Monday! Is it not same as any other day? In fact it should be better than other days of the week, as it is the first day of the week and everybody is fresh and green to work after the weekend. Is it not?

Nope.. is the answer in bold. It should be called the priming day of the week. In short, it is a partial holiday in office, where employees change from holiday to working mode and get used to what they do or supposed to do best. This is widely known as Monday Blues. In our group, we usually tend to "fast" on Mondays. Yep, this is a term coined by us, which means it is a rest day in office.

Does this happen to all? Are all individuals the same? Why doesn't HR or managers account for this? It depends on what work you are into. For a person in a ticket window, a driver or people who do manual work this is totally absent. It is mostly present in IT and where independent individual contribution is done. Monday blue is broken when somebody approaches you for some work. For others who work independently, it continues for a longer period depending on the motivation level of the employee.

A fool's solution to this will to declare Monday a non-working day. A workaholic manager's solution is to login from home on Sunday evening. These are two extremes, what is the intelligent solution? Well, have motivated people and leave the rest the way it is. Time lost in the priming period will be made up in the same week as the week progresses... of course, if the week is long enough :).

Confession: This is written on a Monday morning, in office.

Economics, the tequila way ...

The other day I and my friends decided to have an evening together. It was long since we were deciding and finally the day was here. It was going to be just a booze followed by dinner, so we decided to go to a nearby place having smiley hours. I was happy that we were getting a pint of beer free on every bottle. We were four, off which one of my friend was the odd one out, having only non-alcoholic drinks. We decided to go with 4 bottles of super-chilled beer among three of us. Wow, we were already experiencing the lighter side of life. Beer, of course, with snacks was followed by tequila shots. Two of us were having tequila for the first time; I always wanted to try it and this was the time. What an experience it was! We were told by our experienced third friend to squeeze lemon into it and gulp it all at once, which we followed obediently. And now it was time to experience the never-before feeling of lightness. We had the second shot and it was as if gravity was reduced by half and we were floating in air, a good 6 inches above ground. Our good friend, who was still on ground and who always helps us get home without we realizing it, did his job well that day too :). We were all safe back home. On our way back, we bought ourselves a kulfi each, which I had when I was back home. I had always heard that one should avoid having sweet after a booze, but this was the day to experience. I couldn't sit; I had switched on my computer, which I didn't even bother to switch off and I was off on the bed. The experience that asrtonauts have after travelling all the way to the space, was being experienced by me (probably) on earth.

The following day I just happened to check my wallet, which had the bill we paid. Six tequila shots had cost us a bit more than 800 bucks and it had a whopping 25% VAT on the alcoholic drinks and 12.5% on food and non-alcoholic beverages. The mathematician in me told me how lighter we really were after those tequila shots. One really has to earn 179 bucks (79% tax) to have a booze worth 100 and 161 (61% tax) for the food we have in the restaurant. This is if we only include the income tax that we pay (other taxes are ignored).

Certainly, the income tax is going through a planned reforms phase, but in the mean time government is getting richer at a much faster pace and people are happy with the income tax reduction announced in the latest budget. This is economics, the tequila way; people are happier and lighter as well!

Earth won't lose a bit

Right from the big bang, earth has been evolving. Only thing that is constant is change. What started as volcanic lava soon turned to solid rock, which got disintegrated to soil. With vegetation life came into existence, then slowly over a long period of time countless creatures made earth their home. Dinosaurs, the most powerful of them ruled the earth. Then a celestial object struck the orbiting earth, which marked the end of an era. Dinosaurs and many of the living organisms became extinct. This was about 6.5 crore years ago.

Why am I telling you this? Before I answer lets see what came next.

Fast forward ... and human race came into existence with a lot many creatures. This time power did not rule the earth, intelligence did. Earth is now divided into nations. Man-made nations. This is mine, that is yours. Where do the animals go? Well, there are reserved forests. Yeah, there are. How free are they? How long will they be free? That is a different topic altogether. What's true is man is destructing the earth... burning fossil fuel, polluting the environment, depleting the ozone layer, creating a dark carbon layer around the earth, all this leading to what is known as the Green House Effect. Not the end still. Man has been mining, destroying the forests for various reasone. Madagascar, which has 85% of the species which are found only in Madagascar's forest, has only 20% of it's original forest cover left. What does it mean!

Baobabs trees are found in Madagascar and are believed to be holy. That is the reason only these trees have been spared.

In short, man is the only creature who owns the earth and is destroying it left-right-centre.
Why am I telling you this? Before I answer lets see what came next.

In Madagascar, there is a pyramid built by man in the heart of the forest which was once a city with more than 50,000 population. Where did it vanish!

Earth has nothing to lose. All that the earth loses because of unwarranted destruction will be made up after man's extinction in only a few lakh years. Who is at loss? It is man himself and with man all other innocent living beings.

B=C=B bond

IPL had a mega opening ceremony, Pathan scored a 37-ball-century, Sachin won the game for Mumbai Indians, Gilchrist is leading Deccan Chargers trying to defend their title, it is IPL fever all the way. Cricket sells in India... and that is good news!?!?! Anyways it doesn't matter. I am not a cricketer and I personally do not know a single person for whom cricket is his daily bread and butter. What matters is Indians have developed a lot of interest in cricket and it has a place very next (most probably on the higher side) to Bollywood. And so probably the line between Bollywood and cricket is thinning day-by-day. Cricketers who fail to go on all the way have tried their luck in movies and there are movies on cricket and now there is a third aspect to it which has come into play with IPL, hmm.. movie stars are now owning cricket teams. Wow.. this has developed into a covalent bond as in aromatic organic compounds, sharing more than what carbon and hydrogen (H=C=H) atoms do :). This aroma is attracting people and creating pools of wealth.

Another example wherein this aroma has come into play is in Ashutosh Govarikar's Lagaan and Nagesh Kukkunoor's Iqbal. On the other hand cricket has been played with a well defined script where the aroma turned into foul air; who doesn't remember our match fixer's. I can only say that nothing is impossible in India! But let the aroma hold on and let it spread all over India, entertaining the crowd the way it likes the most.

It's time to be in Bahrain

car

It's GP for me, be it Grand Prix or Grande Punto. I am a GP driver, obvious enough that isn't Grand Prix, I am not in Bahrain and I cannot imgaine myself in the driver's seat in a Grand Prix. Being there-doing that is an experience in itself and I do wonder how Narain and now Karun managed it all. Being an Indian, in India and with so limited resources, it is hat's off to Karun Chandhok and his parents.
The biggest name, of course, which has brought India on the F1 grid is .. yeah, you are right and who cannot be, it is Vijay Mallya. With Force India team's third year into GP, he is on his way to give India it's first GP track. Thanks to Mallya, many Indians can now be in the stands of GP including me. Mallya rocks and India will rock with him!!!