Unishe April - Movie

Rituparno Ghosh's national award-winning film starring Aparna Sen and Debashree Roy. Family dynamics, misunderstandings and how they get cleared up by the end of the day - 19th April. A day in the life of a mother and daughter. Unhurried. Well crafted. Sensitive. Glad I saw it.

Pather Panchali - Movie

Finally off the list. Glad I watched it now when I can appreciate the depiction of the human condition, human emotions, limitations and frailties. Ravi Shankar composed the music. Can't forget the scene when the father returns home with gifts. And to prove my theory - another movie based on a shor novel - this one by the prolific Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay who wrote 16 novels and over 200 short stories. With the movie in the hands of such giants like Satyajit Ray, Ravi Shankar and based on Bibhutinath's story one wonders at the talent that abounded those days.

Karwaan - Movie

Nice attempt. Some holes. Found the premise hard to digest - do corpses get switched like that and if they do, can you lug them around like these guys did? What is Irrfan Khan's character really? He looks too old to be a friend, too young to be an uncle (actually not)? Anyway.

I like any attempt at humour.

Baby - Movie

Nice. Action-packed stuff. Taapsee Pannu was a revelation.
Would it have had an even better run if it had a different name? I'd have watched it the first time round for sure. Anyway, never too late.

Anjali - OKRs Achieved

I read 'Measure What Matters' by John Doerr recently and was completely taken in by the simplicity of the idea and how well it works. I  promised myself that I will implement the idea and also share it as much as I can to make ideas come into reality with better execution for as many as I could.

The idea is really simple - write 2-3 Objectives - stuff you want to achieve. This must be significantly big and not an incremental improvement over what you are doing. It could be ideally an objective you want to achieve over a time period of a year, 3-6 months etc. If you achieve 0.7 of the Objective, you have done really well.

Each Objective must have 3-4 Key results which are outcomes/ results and not activities. KRs will be specific, timebound and measurable. At any point you should know where you stand with your OKRs. It's your own Objective. Share it with your team and have frequent conversations about it. Get feedback and develop a culture of recognition. (A link to my detailed book review for those who are interested http://harimohanparuvu.blogspot.com/2018/08/measure-what-matters-john-doerr.html)

Since I was super kicked about the idea, I shared it at home with the usual victims, Shobhs and Anjali. All of us sat down and wrote OKRs and while Shobha and I have longer-term Objectives (which are doing way better than normal), Anjali wrote hers with crystal clarity. There's a huge difference in the way she wrote hers and the way I wrote mine. Hers is uncluttered and has one Objective only. And it sticks out a mile. She added a line for herself at the bottom 'Be the best you can be'. I was happy that I could share the idea and she could benefit from it at her own pace.

But then she sat down and prepared for her exams exactly as she planned. I was impressed with her focus, her questions and the way she would egg us both to help or ask questions. There were times when she woke up early to study.

Result. She topped almost all her exams and with a comfortable margin, which was a first. Top she does but not all, and there is always someone snapping at her heels. This time she sailed through easily. The execution was spot on. Results clear.

'Congratulations! I said. 'Well done' when she told me with great excitement in the car that she topped all exams. 'OKR nanna,' she said, not losing sight of the simple practice we had used. And the moment we came home she took a sketch pen and wrote on the top of this OKR - 'OKR Achieved'. I loved that act of closure. And celebration.

Now to send this to John Doerr and thank him for the wonderful book. It works and very well.

Article in SpeakIn - How Cricket Keeps India Motivated

A link to the article that was published in SpeakIn.

https://speakinedit.com/2018/10/05/how-cricket-keeps-india-motivated/

Anjali - No Plastic Please

Now Daksha School has always been advocating a pollution-free and plastic-free world, so many of these ideas are firmly ingrained in Anjali's mind. So a couple of years ago she walked into our colony Ganesh committee and asked them if they were installing a clay Ganesha (and they showed her that it was indeed a clay Ganesha). She has been advocating carrying our own bags etc when we go shopping and she is now a passionate foot soldier for the no-plastic, save the earth campaign.

Today we went to a sweet shop to buy a few sweets and samosas - the sweets for her good performance in the recent exams. The guy packed the stuff in a plastic cover and gave it to us. 'Nanna', she said. 'No plastic.' I wondered what to do and this time the young activist took charge unlike the last time when I told her that we could do it next time. She yanked the cover off and placed it back on the counter. The chap at the counter looked at her face and knew better than to convince her otherwise.

In the car, the young activist let flow a tirade. 'Nanna, we must all do this. One person cannot to it all by herself. Even if no one on this earth will support me I will do it. But it will help and make it easy if everyone joined in (hinting at people like me surely). And what am I convincing them about? To save our earth? To save themselves? Come on, this is just too much. This is our earth. It gives us so much. It gives us life. And this is how we treat it? How can we take it for granted? How can we keep littering it with plastic and then it pollutes and kills animals. I saw a video where an animal eats up plastic thinking its an edible thing. Can't we carry bags, bottles....'

So passionate was she spoke almost non-stop throughout our 15 minute journey. I suggested that perhaps since we cannot change everyone at one go, we should perhaps model that behavior and at the same time influence them by spreading the information and giving them small tips on how to avoid using plastic.  She thought I was, as usual, trying to contain her enthusiasm and sobered down a bit. I suggested that maybe I could interview her and she could express her views on the blog it would be a good start. A few people would see and may change their habits or behaviors a little. She agreed to the idea. So the interview is on next.

I do not remember being so passionate about anything like this in my life. There is a different kind of kindness to things that are not human (animals, birds, earth, environment) that I see in these kids that I never felt nor saw much in our days. Bodes well for the future. Good going Anjali.