Heaven on earth! Magha Purnima!

Heaven on earth!

Magha Purnima!

What a tournament! Australian Open 2020.

What a tournament it was! Australian Open 2020! 

Psychological duels, physically demanding, exceptional skill, razor sharp accuracy, almost superhuman at times. 

Some fine tennis, one handed backhand beauties like Federer, Wawrinka and Thiem. And sheer grit and stamina of Nadal and Djokovic. Now clearly split between the old guard and the new. 

I rooted for Thiem to win; he is a credible challenge to the current order, and possesses the beauty of Federer, the never give up attitude of Nadal, and agility of Djokovic. More power to Thiem. 

The finals was the perfect summary to the championship, where every rally was fought as if was the final one.

Amazon, Flipkart and predatory pricing

Competition Commission of India has ordered an investigation into predatory pricing, preferential seller agreements, violation of foreign investment regulations by Amazon and Flipkart. I had ordered a book by Dr Seuss last week, and had incorrectly received a Tamil language copy of Bhagavad Gita. 

This is the first time that Amazon had made a mistake. And I didn't know if the error was because of Amazon or because of the seller. I asked for the item to be collected back, through an online link, and the action was swift and quick. The next day, the item had been collected back, at no cost, and my money was back in the card in two days. 

This confidence that Amazon has given or restored, that they were at risk of losing, is the key to operate in the online market, successfully. And Amazon have gotten it right. I can't comment on flipkart or snapdeal, because Amazon has not given me any reason to move. 

Randamoozham, Bhima

Read an article by Prem Panicker, about the nature of the current protests; he argued that the protests have now moved from being only against CAA and NRC, and has enlarged in scope to one against the problems in the country, arising from policies of the government. 

Curious to know who Prem Panicker was, I read his wikipedia page and found that he is a cricket journalist, and he had translated the Malayalam novel 'Randamoozham' into English, titled 'Second Turn'. I recalled that this was being made into a movie starring Mohanlal.

I looked for the English translation on Amazon, but I found it with the title of 'Bhima', translated by Gita Krishnankutty. I downloaded a sample from Kindle to get a perspective on the book. From whatever little I browsed, it was quite a rich and heavy read, and would take time to complete. 

Kaifi Azmi is 101!

Google doodle celebrates 101st birth anniversary of Kaifi Azmi. Kaifi Azmi is said to have introduced urdu poetry to Indian cinema, and along with Sahir Ludhianvi and Jan Nisar Akhtar, changed the tenor of hindi lyric writing. 

He wrote his first ghazal at age 11, and also another one, to a challenge, which became a rage, after being sung by Begum Akhtar. Which one, I couldn't find. His best work includes 'ab tumhare hawale watan saathiyon', 'waqt ne kia, kya haseen sitam', 'yeh duniya, yeh mehfil', 'tum itna jo muskura rahe ho', 'koi yeh kaise bataye', 'ya dil ki sunoh' and 'kuch dil ne kaha'. He wrote the lines for Heer Ranjha, where the entire dialogue was in verse. 

He was a full-time Marxist, and was called the last of the comrade songwriters. 

New beginnings!

Festive times here! And new beginnings! And the start of longer days! We are always on the lookout for a new date, to start something new. Birthday, new year's day, or Gudi Padwa, or Diwali or Dasera, or even the first day of a month, or the week, even Chinese new year, if nothing else comes up soon. 

This constant and perennial wait for the day from when everything will be right, all will happen on schedule, and life will be good. Hope floats! And when we are unable to pull off the ideal schedule or routine, after a few days of following it, we look for the next available date, so that we could start this effort all over again. 

There have been times when I'm motivated to start something, but just because a good date was coming up after a few days, I've delayed the start until that good date; never mind that I might end up probably not starting anything on the chosen day. A similar twist to this, is that if there is an impending job or overbearing deliverable, either at work or elsewhere, then we wait for the next slot after the current engagement is done. 

All in all, it is always a fight, not so much to do good for yourself, but the obsession to stick to a schedule. 

Mindful listening in a nutshell

The world is changing and so is the way we communicate. The last decade has seen us focus on building the skill to create effective communicators. While it is important to be able to stand up and talk, the importance of sitting down and listening cannot be undermined. As the world is moving towards a more digitized way of communication, the scope of the term listening too has to evolve to ensure completeness and comprehensiveness. It has become more important than ever to consciously train ourselves to become mindful listeners to deepen our understanding of the world and people around us, thus helping us build strongly rooted, fulfilling relationships in our personal and professional endeavours.

How can we become mindful listeners?

Listen to understand, not to respond

The idea of awarding bonus points to the person who starts the discussion at a group discussion has evolved to be widely misused when it is about ‘Listening to Respond’. We are in a hurry to respond to questions, not because we are equipped with the appropriate information or response but because we probably want to make our presence felt. And why not? After all, visibility matters. Little do we realise that by doing this, not only do we dilute the listening experience, we also put ourselves at great risk for negative publicity in case we don't get the question right. To be a mindful listener, it is very important to listen with the sole purpose of gaining deeper insights and understanding. 

Bring in some empathy

As judgement and bias are so closely placed, its best to avoid any form of judgment while trying to be mindful listeners. One of the effective ways is to empathize with the speaker(s) in the conversation. Empathy raises our Emotional Quotient and opens up our brain to the world of endless emotions that can be felt and decoded during the course of a dialogue, meeting or discussion, thus helping us to understand wholeheartedly and comprehensively.

Ask questions

Once empathy is in place, it is easier to establish a connection with the speaker. One of the ways to deepen our understanding and increase the level of listening is to ask pertinent, well-articulated, non-intimidating questions.  It’s important to be conscious of the reactions of the speaker when the questions are posed, in order to sense discomfort, aggression, relief etc, which will only help expand our understanding

Pre-conditioning the mind to listen

Often, prior to a social gathering or an important meeting, we pre-condition our mind to talk well, present effectively or network actively. On the contrary, how often do we tell ourselves to listen intently, remember accurately or understand comprehensively what we heard? Our brain is an amazing device - all we need to do is to train it appropriately to focus on the important activities which have lasting long-term impact, listening being one of them. Instruct the brain that it’s not only important to pitch yourself effectively at the next networking event, but it’s also important to receive information about the other attendees to build that resourceful database that you can tap into.

Why is mindful listening so difficult?

·     Bias: There is a thin line between judgement, experience and bias, which is why bias is one of the most difficult aspects to detect and deal with. Bias can include bias towards the speaker, situation, organization, idea of the kind of dialogue, bias towards the medium, such as a meeting, conference call etc. Bias closes the mind to the variety of possibilities that can be explored. Ironically, it’s also because of bias that we let our minds wander out of a certain situation or conversation.

Impatience: The pace of thinking of each individual is different and so is the rate of speech. Some like to rush their thoughts out even before they are completely conceived and comprehended, while others can’t even let out a sigh until they have formulated the entire sentence with the precise choice of vocabulary. As efficient listeners, we have to respect this difference and show patience, allowing them the required time to formulate their thoughts and vocalize it as. The temptation to complete somebody else's sentence may sometimes be so compelling, but we need to ensure we don’t succumb to it.

Jumping to conclusions: More often than not, we try to preempt the direction of a dialogue and what the conclusion could be. It is likely that we get so engrossed in this conclusion that we may start steering all conversation in this direction, completely missing out on the possibilities that could have been explored by an, otherwise, open mind.

Listening and emotional intelligence

With the world moving at a mercurially rapid pace, this era of evolution of mankind is becoming extremely complex. While technology has provided ease of operation; digitization and social media have whipped up emotions that are unmatched in their intensity and volatility. The web and the social media have taken complete control of our lives, shrinking the world into one large ecosystem where we live in a state of ‘constant feeling’, making instant gratification a way of life and a surge in emotions is just a swipe or a click/touch away.

It is becoming increasingly indispensable for people to acknowledge, comprehend and react appropriately, and become emotionally intelligent towards themselves and others. Emotional intelligence (EQ) is the new IQ.

A gasp of breath, shift in eye focus, slight hesitation, pauses and distraction are all subtle ways in which people express their real story. Choice of words, difference in what is explained in detail and what is cut short, pace of speech are all subtle indications that only a mindful listener can grasp, understand and decode to get to the underlying crux of a situation.

Mindful listening, as Dale Carnegie says, is a skill that can be mastered only with practice and conscious application, where a listener whole-heartedly commits himself to the discussion at hand.