This is an interesting concept; it is about opening the door without questions, challenges, trying to make sense of what the person knocking on the door brings to the table beforehand, unfiltered acceptance, understand, analyze and dissect post acceptance.
It borrows from concepts around positivity. Everyone brings something positive to the mix until proven otherwise.
Everyone contributes positive energy to the mix, rather than negative energy or trying to live off of the positive energy of the mix.
It is about seeking meaning after action and not premeditating about the meaning, result before action. The result will always be a net positive is the mindset that is trying to cultivated.
What happens post fact is that, no job is too small, nothing in the world is not doable, positively or negatively, no work is menial, every act has significant meaning; hopefully positive. This flips the conventional think on its head. A person automatically becomes more open. This puts the person in a learning, listening and grasping mode. “Talk” follows input from one of the senses simply because all the senses are open to input.
I will update this post as some more thoughts formulate on this subject, but you as a reader must be getting an idea of the sense behind this principle and how it can make someone a better human being.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Burning Man - Introduction
This is a series of posts about burning man and how the principles of burning man can be applied in your day to day lives to make a more meaningful existentialia.
It is a culmination of my learnings from indulging in the festival that defies all “explanation”
You can only understand it by participating in it and taking away a meaning from it that is very personal to you. This festival is about what it means to you and not what it meant to someone else and them trying to project the meaning for you into a construct of what it could mean for you, even if they know you intimately.
This is something that your soul, mind and body need to experience for themselves and then conclude on what to make of it for your body, mind and soul.
Without further ado, let me create the next post(s) for each of the principles.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Indian Men - A Primer :-)
For everyone who thought
1) The guy you've been dreaming about is going to come find you while you dance away singing in the rain
2) He'll fall instantly in love with you and respect you even though you acted like a snotty brat
3) Men have honorable intentions
4) He's actually going to show up at your village during your arranged marriage and win your family's heart
5) You'll meet him on a trip to europe
6) He'll actually realize he loves you
7) I love you = i want to spend my life with you
8) He'll leave his family empire to be with you
9) He fell in love while he saw you happily dancing at your friends wedding dreaming of your own weddding
10) He has any intentions of keeping those promises he told you the first day
11) He'll fight for you
12) He won't look at another woman because he thinks your beautiful
13) He thinks your beautiful
14) He put the dupatta over your head to show you that he respects you
15) He feeds you the line..."worship 3 women, ek. durga ma, do. appne mae...aur...aur"
16) He will remain celibate if you die because he loved you just THAT much...and you also think he never checked out or thought of other women while you were alive.
17) Committment is a real word and can be applied between two people of the opposite gender
18) He cares if you cry
19) Every desi party/wedding you go to you expect to meet the love of your life
20) Every time you go out with your girlfriends, you think the desi guy who's been staring at you all night across the club is picturing taking you home to meet his mom and not his erm
21) You think the desi guy is going to jump in there and beat up a guy who insults you for dressin skanky and dancing in the rain
22) You think you actually look hot when your drenching wet in the rain and it makes your hair look sexy and he likes it
23) He's dying to spend the rest of his life honoring you as his wife
24) You guys are going to go to switzerland during your honeymoon and you'll get to walk in the meadow in a skanky sari even though it's snowing
25) Your mother in law is actually going to like you
26) Your going to be a cherished "bohu"
27) For the bachelor party he'll be telling his friends how amazing you are instead of hooking up with a hooker
28) At your sister's wedding, her husbands younger brother is going to be ridiculously hot and fall madly in love with you
29) The hot desi guy who sits behind you in class actually noticed you walking in with your long flowing black hair and not the blond in the mini skirt who winked at him before leaning over to retreive the pencil she "accidentally" dropped
30) He's a virgin...he's been waiting his whole life to "make love" to you on your wedding night just like you have been waiting for him...
31) He'll still think your hot after you've had three kids and you spend your day wearing pretty sari's with your hair in a braid cooking with your mother in law
32) In regards to number 31, you think he's not cheating on you
33) Your idea of a great weekend is going to be taking your kids to an amusement park, and you think he's going to be happy doing family things instead of seeing you in a halter top and mini skirt dancing on stage
34) You think you'll make a great balance between respectable mom and wife vs. sexy wife in bed and he'll let you get away with it.
35) The love of your life is your ridiculously hot best friend (male) who was there through all your girlish dreams but you just never realized he was the one....however, once you did he already found the "love of his life" in the form of a mini skirt wearing, desi song singing, foreigner who has "traditional" values....
36) Your heart skips a beat and you gaze down at your lap demurely at the talk of your "dholi"
37) Your heart goes mad when a guy in a shalwani approaches and grabs your dupatta before letting you slip away before any aunties catch you...
38) Your idea of flirting is smiling shyly and running away.
39) You get all choked up when you hear old songs like khabhi khabhi and start imaginging your "sohag raat" when the man of your dreams (who you happened date and then marry with your parents permission..yea rite) is going to lift your ghoonghaat and then lift your face and you'll blush and look down because you know whats going to happen but ur shy because you've never done anything with him before? right?
40) When you reject him...... he will be in tears and tell his friend 'zindegi mein PEHLI hum ne keise ko DIL se chaha' and you think its a true LOVE and except it
41) When you get mad and walk away, he grabs your hand and doesnt let go
42) Out of NO WHERE, an EXTREMELY good looking guy will appear and tell you how he has been in love with you for years and has to come to sweep you off your feet
43: Losing your anklet at a wedding:
Bollywood version:
You lose your anklet while running and then you realize you lost it and when you turn around, a hot desi guy is on his knee, slowly holding it up and look at you. Then you're allowed to put your foot on his knee (its like the ultimate mutual agreement) and he puts it on for you. Your thanks to him is to push his knee so he falls unbalanced and you run away into a song where you flirt with each other the rest of the night.
Real version:
You purposely lose your anklet in front of a hot desi guy and 1. he doesn't notice. 2. he looks at it and walks away 3. he bends down and picks it up, hands it to you and walks away
Reality is tough :P
Nishat that was amazing! i love that one)
44) It's raining and ur wearing a hot saree. ur umbrella blows away with the wind. a HOTTT guy comes and picks it up for u and offers u a ride home or walks u home
45) You both get trapped in bad weather and are unable to make it to your own homes, so you spend a night in a run-down cottage for safety, maintaining a good distance form each other. When you two get home, your parents will slander you and threaten to disown you because they think you did something with him. To protect your honor in society and from hatred from your parents, he will marry you and settle everything.
46) Walking down the library aisle,
and hoping to find him on teh other side as you find your book, and head to take it off the shelf,.. you see your prince JUST on the other side peaking at you
47) Everytime when you walked in the cold, with the wind blowing everywhere..u imagined being in a hot saari and a ridiculously hott desi would come over and give u his jacket. even though he probably willl catch a cold himself, he is enough of a gentleman to not let u freeze..then u realize he loves u, and ur parents let u see him.....
48. You'll go on an Europe tour and miss your train and fall in love with someone exactly like Raj Malhotra who will steal you away from the worst fiance ever and you'll live happily ever after with the approval of the marriage from your parents of man they've never met.
49. Ok think modern day Veer Zaara. He's Sikh and your Muslim. You meet and fall in love. You actually think religion doesn't matter and that all the rishtas your throwing away is worth the guy because he would do anything to be with you. Wrong! He'll go for the first beautiful girl from his own religion.
50. You think now a days, religion doesn't matter. You actually believe he'll love you enough that he won't hold it against you that your a different religion when it comes to marraige..
51. He won't tell another girl that you were just some random girl he met and that she's actually the one he's been waiting for.
52. He won't be double crossing you with another girl for months.
53. You think he wants to be with you when he gets jealous months after you guys break up and he finds out other men are interested. You think thats a sign that everything is going to be ok...
54. I love you actually means I love you, not I love you, but I think I love this other girl, and I'm really confused between you two, and I'm lying to you both about each other and who ever finds out first about teh other and then I'm damned, I'll break her heart.
55. You think that when you guys say good night he isn't calling his next girl.
56. You think he put his cell phone on silent because he wants undisturbed time with you and not because he doesn't want you to see the other girl calling him.
57. He's Punjabi sikh...haha and you thought he was decent.
58. He respects his mother. He respects his sister. Therefore you assume he respects women. WRONG. He just respects his own blood.
59. You think he keeps saying he wants to convert to Islam because he likes the religion and not because he likes teh idea of four wives.
60. He cries when he holds your hand at the hospital and keeps saying "i'll never let you go" and you assume it means he'll never let you go...in actuality it means...i'll let you go once your out of the hospital...cause i have a new chic waiting for me.
61....SO HE WATCHED DDLJ when he was like 17? Then he decided he wanted to just like Raj. The movie spoke to him apparently. He can play the guitar and he wants a Simran. So then you guys meet and he is JUST like Raj. He's romantic, he wants marriage, he is persistent and your slightly standoffish intially...and he keeps playing "Tuhjhe dehka toi yeh jaana Sanam" around you. To top it all off, your parents ARE looking for guys for you, and you know HE isn't going to cut it for them for various social and religious reasons or whatever reasons....So you secretly fall in love and promise to love each other forever ect..ect...He's your Raj. If there were trains in teh states you would definately have caught them for him! But since there aren't, you drove your car alot to be with him. Well...anyways...He thinks he's Raj...teh only problem is...every couple of years he finds a new Simran.
1) The guy you've been dreaming about is going to come find you while you dance away singing in the rain
2) He'll fall instantly in love with you and respect you even though you acted like a snotty brat
3) Men have honorable intentions
4) He's actually going to show up at your village during your arranged marriage and win your family's heart
5) You'll meet him on a trip to europe
6) He'll actually realize he loves you
7) I love you = i want to spend my life with you
8) He'll leave his family empire to be with you
9) He fell in love while he saw you happily dancing at your friends wedding dreaming of your own weddding
10) He has any intentions of keeping those promises he told you the first day
11) He'll fight for you
12) He won't look at another woman because he thinks your beautiful
13) He thinks your beautiful
14) He put the dupatta over your head to show you that he respects you
15) He feeds you the line..."worship 3 women, ek. durga ma, do. appne mae...aur...aur"
16) He will remain celibate if you die because he loved you just THAT much...and you also think he never checked out or thought of other women while you were alive.
17) Committment is a real word and can be applied between two people of the opposite gender
18) He cares if you cry
19) Every desi party/wedding you go to you expect to meet the love of your life
20) Every time you go out with your girlfriends, you think the desi guy who's been staring at you all night across the club is picturing taking you home to meet his mom and not his erm
21) You think the desi guy is going to jump in there and beat up a guy who insults you for dressin skanky and dancing in the rain
22) You think you actually look hot when your drenching wet in the rain and it makes your hair look sexy and he likes it
23) He's dying to spend the rest of his life honoring you as his wife
24) You guys are going to go to switzerland during your honeymoon and you'll get to walk in the meadow in a skanky sari even though it's snowing
25) Your mother in law is actually going to like you
26) Your going to be a cherished "bohu"
27) For the bachelor party he'll be telling his friends how amazing you are instead of hooking up with a hooker
28) At your sister's wedding, her husbands younger brother is going to be ridiculously hot and fall madly in love with you
29) The hot desi guy who sits behind you in class actually noticed you walking in with your long flowing black hair and not the blond in the mini skirt who winked at him before leaning over to retreive the pencil she "accidentally" dropped
30) He's a virgin...he's been waiting his whole life to "make love" to you on your wedding night just like you have been waiting for him...
31) He'll still think your hot after you've had three kids and you spend your day wearing pretty sari's with your hair in a braid cooking with your mother in law
32) In regards to number 31, you think he's not cheating on you
33) Your idea of a great weekend is going to be taking your kids to an amusement park, and you think he's going to be happy doing family things instead of seeing you in a halter top and mini skirt dancing on stage
34) You think you'll make a great balance between respectable mom and wife vs. sexy wife in bed and he'll let you get away with it.
35) The love of your life is your ridiculously hot best friend (male) who was there through all your girlish dreams but you just never realized he was the one....however, once you did he already found the "love of his life" in the form of a mini skirt wearing, desi song singing, foreigner who has "traditional" values....
36) Your heart skips a beat and you gaze down at your lap demurely at the talk of your "dholi"
37) Your heart goes mad when a guy in a shalwani approaches and grabs your dupatta before letting you slip away before any aunties catch you...
38) Your idea of flirting is smiling shyly and running away.
39) You get all choked up when you hear old songs like khabhi khabhi and start imaginging your "sohag raat" when the man of your dreams (who you happened date and then marry with your parents permission..yea rite) is going to lift your ghoonghaat and then lift your face and you'll blush and look down because you know whats going to happen but ur shy because you've never done anything with him before? right?
40) When you reject him...... he will be in tears and tell his friend 'zindegi mein PEHLI hum ne keise ko DIL se chaha' and you think its a true LOVE and except it
41) When you get mad and walk away, he grabs your hand and doesnt let go
42) Out of NO WHERE, an EXTREMELY good looking guy will appear and tell you how he has been in love with you for years and has to come to sweep you off your feet
43: Losing your anklet at a wedding:
Bollywood version:
You lose your anklet while running and then you realize you lost it and when you turn around, a hot desi guy is on his knee, slowly holding it up and look at you. Then you're allowed to put your foot on his knee (its like the ultimate mutual agreement) and he puts it on for you. Your thanks to him is to push his knee so he falls unbalanced and you run away into a song where you flirt with each other the rest of the night.
Real version:
You purposely lose your anklet in front of a hot desi guy and 1. he doesn't notice. 2. he looks at it and walks away 3. he bends down and picks it up, hands it to you and walks away
Reality is tough :P
Nishat that was amazing! i love that one)
44) It's raining and ur wearing a hot saree. ur umbrella blows away with the wind. a HOTTT guy comes and picks it up for u and offers u a ride home or walks u home
45) You both get trapped in bad weather and are unable to make it to your own homes, so you spend a night in a run-down cottage for safety, maintaining a good distance form each other. When you two get home, your parents will slander you and threaten to disown you because they think you did something with him. To protect your honor in society and from hatred from your parents, he will marry you and settle everything.
46) Walking down the library aisle,
and hoping to find him on teh other side as you find your book, and head to take it off the shelf,.. you see your prince JUST on the other side peaking at you
47) Everytime when you walked in the cold, with the wind blowing everywhere..u imagined being in a hot saari and a ridiculously hott desi would come over and give u his jacket. even though he probably willl catch a cold himself, he is enough of a gentleman to not let u freeze..then u realize he loves u, and ur parents let u see him.....
48. You'll go on an Europe tour and miss your train and fall in love with someone exactly like Raj Malhotra who will steal you away from the worst fiance ever and you'll live happily ever after with the approval of the marriage from your parents of man they've never met.
49. Ok think modern day Veer Zaara. He's Sikh and your Muslim. You meet and fall in love. You actually think religion doesn't matter and that all the rishtas your throwing away is worth the guy because he would do anything to be with you. Wrong! He'll go for the first beautiful girl from his own religion.
50. You think now a days, religion doesn't matter. You actually believe he'll love you enough that he won't hold it against you that your a different religion when it comes to marraige..
51. He won't tell another girl that you were just some random girl he met and that she's actually the one he's been waiting for.
52. He won't be double crossing you with another girl for months.
53. You think he wants to be with you when he gets jealous months after you guys break up and he finds out other men are interested. You think thats a sign that everything is going to be ok...
54. I love you actually means I love you, not I love you, but I think I love this other girl, and I'm really confused between you two, and I'm lying to you both about each other and who ever finds out first about teh other and then I'm damned, I'll break her heart.
55. You think that when you guys say good night he isn't calling his next girl.
56. You think he put his cell phone on silent because he wants undisturbed time with you and not because he doesn't want you to see the other girl calling him.
57. He's Punjabi sikh...haha and you thought he was decent.
58. He respects his mother. He respects his sister. Therefore you assume he respects women. WRONG. He just respects his own blood.
59. You think he keeps saying he wants to convert to Islam because he likes the religion and not because he likes teh idea of four wives.
60. He cries when he holds your hand at the hospital and keeps saying "i'll never let you go" and you assume it means he'll never let you go...in actuality it means...i'll let you go once your out of the hospital...cause i have a new chic waiting for me.
61....SO HE WATCHED DDLJ when he was like 17? Then he decided he wanted to just like Raj. The movie spoke to him apparently. He can play the guitar and he wants a Simran. So then you guys meet and he is JUST like Raj. He's romantic, he wants marriage, he is persistent and your slightly standoffish intially...and he keeps playing "Tuhjhe dehka toi yeh jaana Sanam" around you. To top it all off, your parents ARE looking for guys for you, and you know HE isn't going to cut it for them for various social and religious reasons or whatever reasons....So you secretly fall in love and promise to love each other forever ect..ect...He's your Raj. If there were trains in teh states you would definately have caught them for him! But since there aren't, you drove your car alot to be with him. Well...anyways...He thinks he's Raj...teh only problem is...every couple of years he finds a new Simran.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Sex in the boardroom!
Especially love the part of the article about the asshole who would like to get abused by his female boss. Indian men, keep it up !!! So PREDICTABLE that it is neither shocking or for that matter surprising. Need a movement in India, "RESPECT WOMEN, if you want to reach the next level as a country and a set of people"
Sex in the boardroom!
“When a man talks dirty to a woman, its sexual harassment. When a woman talks dirty to a man, it's $3.95 per minute”
The famous Steven Wright quote seems to be quite paradoxical, especially in the light of a recent Australian survey. According to the survey, it’s not only women who face sexual harassment at work places; men also have to go through the unwanted office vixenry. Remember Michael Douglas in Disclosure or Akshay Kumar in the desi version Aitraaz? The study also states that many men are sexually harassed by women at work but are afraid to complain to their bosses. And even if they complain about their bosses, they are more likely to be told they are actually lucky to be ogled and hassled!
This couldn’t be closer to the truth, at least where India Inc is concerned. We spoke to a cross-section of people on the issue and the reactions were, well, surprising, to say the least! Read on...
What’s going on in that cubicle?
“Yes. I agree that sex has entered the boardroom big time. Males are actually facing sexual pestering by female bosses and colleagues.” says ex. lieutenant Rita Gangwani, carefully avoiding the words harassment and exploitation.
“Since time immemorial, man has been the ruler and female just a follower. But with changing times, the new age women are getting much empowered. They are rubbing shoulders with men and doing much better in most of the fields. So, such sexual advances can be about flaunting, exercising power and not actually about sex, “she further exemplifies.
Supports producer of a leading sports channel, “Behind the scenes of every male life, there are instances (though very few) when they come across such a boss. But, to be very honest, if it exists then it’s a win-win situation for him.”
For most people, however, sexual harassment of a man by a woman is inane, to say the least. “A hidden world of sexual harassment, with female managers exploiting their power over men in the office, seems very unreal. See, especially in the desi context, sex is a very hush-hush thing and not something easily available. So, in such situation even if a man gets such a proposition, he can just not mind it. This stands true even if he doesn’t get any materialistic favours from his female boss in return. Where is the issue?” questions COO of a renowned Internet-solution company.
Pallavi Shekhar, sales manager, Idea Cellular Ltd, shares a similar opinion, “We all know how grapevines work at workplace. She would gain instant fame in and out the office. Why would a female herself opt for a situation in which everyone in the office and even in the industry think of her as a bimbo? No matter how modern a woman is - image matters a lot.”
Can a female actually exploit a man?
Can a female actually exploit a man?
“Not really,” says Rita Gangwani, making us understand why she avoided the word harassment, “I would call it sexual convenience for both. A female at a top notch position might be looking for some emotional backing. Women get emotionally involved the minute they enter a physical alliance; for them, ‘No-strings-attached’ also comes with a thin, white strand. In such cases, women get the much needed emotional refuge, flattering compliments and a dedicated escort and men get promotions/raises along with casual sex. It’s just a pact.”
“If there is Sex & Sum (money) then it will be total 'advantage men’. The reason for this is that sex is not open in our country,” asserts the sports channel producer.
So, does that mean men see such proposals as just another opportunity to carve a notch on the bedpost and get some “perks”? When, Pratish Aggrawal, a software developer working with Infosys, was asked if he has ever been harassed a female boss, colleague, he replied, "No, but I'd like to be”. Oops point taken! However, Pratish is quick to cover up, “Look men are not that sensitive. They do not consider mockery, sexual jokes, and lewd suggestions from female co-workers as harassment. Also, we have been taught from childhood that real men aren't victims – so we can surely find a way out.”
According to psychologist Dr Sanjay Chugh: “Men usually are more causal about sex but that has nothing to do with exploitation. A female boss asking for sexual favours may be a pleasant thing if the man finds that sex is worth the gain that he might get, or if he finds the boss sexually attractive. But if one doesn’t find the boss attractive, if one's value systems are different, it can be pure torture to even contemplate such a proposition. Sex with anyone can be casual and fun if it comes out of free choice. In this situation, it no longer remains casual.”
Legally speaking!
ACP Sanjay Tyagi says that in his entire carrier span he hasn’t “even heard of” any case wherein a male has registered a FIR against a female colleague or boss for sexual assault.
Anukul Raj, advocate, Supreme Court, explains, “There are no detailed and specific laws to deal with male harassment. We just have sections like Section 377 and Section 375 that deal with offence like sodomy and forced sexual acts.”
Highlighting the prejudice a male may face in harassment cases, he says: “In case a woman complains of a sexual assault, her word of mouth is considered as the proof and the onus of establishing that the convict is innocent is on the defense. However, if a male makes such a complaint, the onus of proving the assault is on the prosecution.” The lawyer further adds that he hasn’t heard of or fought any such case yet.
Exploring the reason for inhibitions on the part of a male sufferer, Dr Chugh explains, “We have to understand here that for a male it can be very difficult to come up with such a complaint because of the shame or embarrassment associated with it (just as it would be tough for a female). What makes it more difficult is the mindset (result of years of conditioning) that man is superior and more powerful. Men are still getting used to having women as bosses...accepting that they are sexually dominant too is something more difficult.”
Sex in the boardroom!
“When a man talks dirty to a woman, its sexual harassment. When a woman talks dirty to a man, it's $3.95 per minute”
The famous Steven Wright quote seems to be quite paradoxical, especially in the light of a recent Australian survey. According to the survey, it’s not only women who face sexual harassment at work places; men also have to go through the unwanted office vixenry. Remember Michael Douglas in Disclosure or Akshay Kumar in the desi version Aitraaz? The study also states that many men are sexually harassed by women at work but are afraid to complain to their bosses. And even if they complain about their bosses, they are more likely to be told they are actually lucky to be ogled and hassled!
This couldn’t be closer to the truth, at least where India Inc is concerned. We spoke to a cross-section of people on the issue and the reactions were, well, surprising, to say the least! Read on...
What’s going on in that cubicle?
“Yes. I agree that sex has entered the boardroom big time. Males are actually facing sexual pestering by female bosses and colleagues.” says ex. lieutenant Rita Gangwani, carefully avoiding the words harassment and exploitation.
“Since time immemorial, man has been the ruler and female just a follower. But with changing times, the new age women are getting much empowered. They are rubbing shoulders with men and doing much better in most of the fields. So, such sexual advances can be about flaunting, exercising power and not actually about sex, “she further exemplifies.
Supports producer of a leading sports channel, “Behind the scenes of every male life, there are instances (though very few) when they come across such a boss. But, to be very honest, if it exists then it’s a win-win situation for him.”
For most people, however, sexual harassment of a man by a woman is inane, to say the least. “A hidden world of sexual harassment, with female managers exploiting their power over men in the office, seems very unreal. See, especially in the desi context, sex is a very hush-hush thing and not something easily available. So, in such situation even if a man gets such a proposition, he can just not mind it. This stands true even if he doesn’t get any materialistic favours from his female boss in return. Where is the issue?” questions COO of a renowned Internet-solution company.
Pallavi Shekhar, sales manager, Idea Cellular Ltd, shares a similar opinion, “We all know how grapevines work at workplace. She would gain instant fame in and out the office. Why would a female herself opt for a situation in which everyone in the office and even in the industry think of her as a bimbo? No matter how modern a woman is - image matters a lot.”
Can a female actually exploit a man?
Can a female actually exploit a man?
“Not really,” says Rita Gangwani, making us understand why she avoided the word harassment, “I would call it sexual convenience for both. A female at a top notch position might be looking for some emotional backing. Women get emotionally involved the minute they enter a physical alliance; for them, ‘No-strings-attached’ also comes with a thin, white strand. In such cases, women get the much needed emotional refuge, flattering compliments and a dedicated escort and men get promotions/raises along with casual sex. It’s just a pact.”
“If there is Sex & Sum (money) then it will be total 'advantage men’. The reason for this is that sex is not open in our country,” asserts the sports channel producer.
So, does that mean men see such proposals as just another opportunity to carve a notch on the bedpost and get some “perks”? When, Pratish Aggrawal, a software developer working with Infosys, was asked if he has ever been harassed a female boss, colleague, he replied, "No, but I'd like to be”. Oops point taken! However, Pratish is quick to cover up, “Look men are not that sensitive. They do not consider mockery, sexual jokes, and lewd suggestions from female co-workers as harassment. Also, we have been taught from childhood that real men aren't victims – so we can surely find a way out.”
According to psychologist Dr Sanjay Chugh: “Men usually are more causal about sex but that has nothing to do with exploitation. A female boss asking for sexual favours may be a pleasant thing if the man finds that sex is worth the gain that he might get, or if he finds the boss sexually attractive. But if one doesn’t find the boss attractive, if one's value systems are different, it can be pure torture to even contemplate such a proposition. Sex with anyone can be casual and fun if it comes out of free choice. In this situation, it no longer remains casual.”
Legally speaking!
ACP Sanjay Tyagi says that in his entire carrier span he hasn’t “even heard of” any case wherein a male has registered a FIR against a female colleague or boss for sexual assault.
Anukul Raj, advocate, Supreme Court, explains, “There are no detailed and specific laws to deal with male harassment. We just have sections like Section 377 and Section 375 that deal with offence like sodomy and forced sexual acts.”
Highlighting the prejudice a male may face in harassment cases, he says: “In case a woman complains of a sexual assault, her word of mouth is considered as the proof and the onus of establishing that the convict is innocent is on the defense. However, if a male makes such a complaint, the onus of proving the assault is on the prosecution.” The lawyer further adds that he hasn’t heard of or fought any such case yet.
Exploring the reason for inhibitions on the part of a male sufferer, Dr Chugh explains, “We have to understand here that for a male it can be very difficult to come up with such a complaint because of the shame or embarrassment associated with it (just as it would be tough for a female). What makes it more difficult is the mindset (result of years of conditioning) that man is superior and more powerful. Men are still getting used to having women as bosses...accepting that they are sexually dominant too is something more difficult.”
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Battle of Evermore
Queen of Light took her bow, And then she turned to go, The Prince of Peace embraced the gloom, And walked the night alone.
Oh, dance in the dark of night, Sing to the morning light. The dark Lord rides in force tonight, And time will tell us all.
Oh, throw down your plow and hoe, Rest not to lock your homes.
Side by side we wait the might of the darkest of them all.
I hear the horses' thunder down in the valley below, I'm waiting for the angels of Avalon, waiting for the eastern glow.
The apples of the valley hold, The seeds of happiness, The ground is rich from tender care, Repay, do not forget, no, no. Dance in the dark of night, sing to the morning light.
The apples turn to brown and black, The tyrant's face is red.
Oh war is the common cry, Pick up your swords and fly. The sky is filled with good and bad that mortals never know.
Oh, well, the night is long, the beads of time pass slow, Tired eyes on the sunrise, waiting for the eastern glow.
The pain of war cannot exceed the woe of aftermath, The drums will shake the castle wall, the ringwraiths ride in black, Ride on.
Sing as you raise your bow, shoot straighter than before. No comfort has the fire at night that lights the face so cold.
Oh dance in the dark of night, Sing to the morning light. The magic runes are writ in gold to bring the balance back. Bring it back.
At last the sun is shining, The clouds of blue roll by, With flames from the dragon of darkness, the sunlight blinds his eyes.
Ooh, Bring it back, Bring it back...
Oh, dance in the dark of night, Sing to the morning light. The dark Lord rides in force tonight, And time will tell us all.
Oh, throw down your plow and hoe, Rest not to lock your homes.
Side by side we wait the might of the darkest of them all.
I hear the horses' thunder down in the valley below, I'm waiting for the angels of Avalon, waiting for the eastern glow.
The apples of the valley hold, The seeds of happiness, The ground is rich from tender care, Repay, do not forget, no, no. Dance in the dark of night, sing to the morning light.
The apples turn to brown and black, The tyrant's face is red.
Oh war is the common cry, Pick up your swords and fly. The sky is filled with good and bad that mortals never know.
Oh, well, the night is long, the beads of time pass slow, Tired eyes on the sunrise, waiting for the eastern glow.
The pain of war cannot exceed the woe of aftermath, The drums will shake the castle wall, the ringwraiths ride in black, Ride on.
Sing as you raise your bow, shoot straighter than before. No comfort has the fire at night that lights the face so cold.
Oh dance in the dark of night, Sing to the morning light. The magic runes are writ in gold to bring the balance back. Bring it back.
At last the sun is shining, The clouds of blue roll by, With flames from the dragon of darkness, the sunlight blinds his eyes.
Ooh, Bring it back, Bring it back...
Monday, April 27, 2009
Lessons on Fatherhood...
Raising Bill Gates
By ROBERT A. GUTH
SEATTLE -- Spend time with the family of Bill Gates, and eventually someone will mention the water incident.
The future software mogul was a headstrong 12-year-old and was having a particularly nasty argument with his mother at the dinner table. Fed up, his father threw a glass of cold water in the boy's face.
"Thanks for the shower," the young Mr. Gates snapped.
The incident lives in Gates family lore not just for its drama but also because it was a rare time that Bill Gates Sr., father of his famous namesake, lost his cool. The argument presaged a turning point in the life of a tempestuous boy that would set him on course to become the Bill Gates whom the public knows as co-founder of Microsoft Corp. and the world's richest man.
Behind the Bill Gates success story is the other William Gates. The senior Mr. Gates balanced a family thrown off kilter by a boy who appeared to gain the intellect of an adult almost overnight. He served as a quiet counsel as his son jumped into and thrived in the cutthroat business world. When huge wealth put new pressure on the son, the elder Gates stepped in to start what is now the world's largest private philanthropy.
Bill Gates Sr., 83 years old, is now co-chair of his son's $30 billion philanthropy, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He has avoided the spotlight. The public details of his life include little beyond his official biography at the foundation, which says he was a Seattle lawyer, World War II veteran, nonprofit volunteer and father of three. He has compiled his thoughts on life in a short book to be published next week.
In interviews with The Wall Street Journal, Bill Gates Sr., Bill Gates and their family shared many details of the family's story for the first time, including Bill Gates Jr.'s experience in counseling and how his early interest in computers came about partly as a result of a family crisis. The sometimes colliding forces of discipline and freedom within the clan shaped the entrepreneur's character.
The relationship between father and son entered a new phase when the software mogul began working full-time seven months ago at the Gates Foundation. For the past 13 years, the father has been the sole Gates family member with a daily presence at the foundation, starting it from the basement of his home and minding it while his son finished up his final decade running Microsoft. They now work directly together for the first time.
At six-foot-six, Bill Gates Sr. is nearly a full head taller than his son. He's known to be more social than the younger Bill Gates, but they share a sharp intellect and a bluntness that can come across to some as curt. He isn't prone to introspection and he plays down his role in his son's life.
"As a father, I never imagined that the argumentative, young boy who grew up in my house, eating my food and using my name would be my future employer," Mr. Gates Sr. told a group of nonprofit leaders in a 2005 speech. "But that's what happened."
The first stage -- argumentative young boy -- "started about the time he was 11," Mr. Gates Sr. says in one of a series of interviews. That's about when young Bill became an adult, says Bill Sr., and an increasing headache for the family.
Until that time, the Gates home had been peaceful. Bill Sr. and his wife, Mary, had three children: Kristi; then Bill, born in 1955; and Libby. It was a close family that thrived on competitions -- board games, cards, ping-pong. And on rituals: Sunday dinners at the same time every week, and at Christmas, matching pajamas for every family member.
While very involved in his kids' lives, Mr. Gates Sr. was somewhat distant emotionally, which his children say probably reflects his generation. His stature, combined with a lawyerly bent for carefully choosing his words, also made him intimidating at times. "He'd come home and he'd sit in a chair and eat dinner, but there was never any kind of warm, give-me-a-hug kind of thing," says Kristi Blake, his oldest daughter.
WSJ's Rob Guth speaks to Stacey Delo about his profile of the relationship between Bill Gates Sr. and his son, Bill Gates Jr.Mr. Gates Sr. left much of the day-to-day parenting to his wife while he was building his career at a Seattle law firm. Daughter of a Seattle banker, Ms. Gates had been an athlete and top student in high school and college, where she met Bill Sr. She became a full-time volunteer and served on corporate boards.
Ms. Gates encouraged her kids to study hard, play sports and take music lessons. (Bill Gates tried the trombone with little success.) And she imparted a discipline that reflected her upbringing in a well-to-do family. She expected her kids to dress neatly, be punctual and socialize with the many adults who visited their home. For the most part, young Bill dutifully abided.
"She was the most engaged parent and she had high expectations of all of us," says Libby Armintrout, Bill's younger sister. "Not just grades and that sort of thing, but how we behaved in public, how we would be socially."
A Battle of WillsBill Gates at an early age became a diligent learner. He read the World Book Encyclopedia series start to finish. His parents encouraged his appetite for reading by paying for any book he wanted.
Still, they worried that he seemed to prefer books to people. They tried to temper that streak by forcing him to be a greeter at their parties and a waiter at his father's professional functions.
Then, at age 11, Bill Sr. says, the son blossomed intellectually, peppering his parents with questions about international affairs, business and the nature of life.
"It was interesting and I thought it was great," Mr. Gates Sr. says. "Now, I will say to you, his mother did not appreciate it. It bothered her."
The son pushed against his mother's instinct to control him, sparking a battle of wills. All those things that she had expected of him -- a clean room, being at the dinner table on time, not biting his pencils -- suddenly turned into a big source of friction. The two fell into explosive arguments.
DiscussWhat will be Bill Gates's most lasting legacy?"He was nasty," Ms. Armintrout says of her brother.
Mr. Gates Sr. played the role of peacemaker. "He'd sort of break them apart and calm things down," says Ms. Blake, the eldest sibling.
The battles reached a climax at dinner one night when Bill Gates was around 12. Over the table, he shouted at his mother, in what today he describes as "utter, total sarcastic, smart-ass kid rudeness."
That's when Mr. Gates Sr., in a rare blast of temper, threw the glass of water in his son's face.
He and Mary brought their son to a therapist. "I'm at war with my parents over who is in control," Bill Gates recalls telling the counselor. Reporting back, the counselor told his parents that their son would ultimately win the battle for independence, and their best course of action was to ease up on him.
Mr. Gates Sr. understood that counsel because of his own childhood, an hour's ferry ride from Seattle in the working-class town of Bremerton. "There wasn't a lot of structure to my growing up," he says. "I had an awful lot of discretion about where I went, what I did, who I did it with."
His mother was doting and easygoing. His sister, his only sibling, was seven years older. And his father was a workaholic who sacrificed child-rearing to work at a furniture store he owned with a partner. "His complete focus was on the store," Bill Sr. says.
Mr. Gates Sr. early on built a life outside of his home. Next door, the Braman family had two boys for him to play with and a father who would become his most important role model.
That man, Dorm Braman, had built his business and would later become a Naval officer, mayor of Seattle and a U.S. assistant secretary of transportation. In the late 1930s, Mr. Braman brought Bill Sr. on family road trips across the country. He was scoutmaster of Bill Sr.'s Boy Scout troop, leading the boys on hikes through the Olympic Mountains and driving them in a beat-up bus to Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks. The troop spent two years building a log house from Douglas firs they felled themselves. Mr. Braman had "no sense of personal limitations whatsoever," says Mr. Gates Sr.
Bill Sr. and Mary ultimately took a page from that upbringing: They backed off. They enrolled their son in a school that they thought would give him more freedom. That was the private Lakeside School, now known as the place where Bill Gates discovered computers.
Mr. Gates says he began to realize, "'Hey, I don't have to prove my position relative to my parents. I just have to figure out what I'm doing relative to the world.'"
A Rare IndependenceFrom age 13, he was given rare independence. He took off some nights to enjoy free use of the computers at the University of Washington. He spent chunks of time away from home -- much as his dad had done as a kid. He lived for a time in Olympia, where he was a page in the state legislature, and in Washington, D.C. as a Congressional page. During his senior year, he took a break from school to work as a programmer at a power plant in southern Washington. And in what would become his first major collaboration with Paul Allen, his future Microsoft cofounder, Mr. Gates designed the "Traf-O-Data", a device for counting cars traveling over a section of road.
His parents played supporting roles. They acquiesced when Bill quit Harvard and then moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to start Microsoft. It was a tough decision to back.
"Mary and I were both concerned about it -- I think she a bit more than I," Bill Sr. says. "Her expectations and mine were very ordinary expectations of people who have kids in college -- that they get a degree."
The family support was one reason Mr. Gates decided to move Microsoft to Seattle, where he settled into a house not far from his parents. Ms. Gates arranged to have a maid clean her son's house, and made sure he had clean shirts for his big meetings. She also insisted he kept observing the family traditions, including the weekly Sunday dinner at his parents' house.
Mr. Gates Sr., drawing from his own experience as a lawyer guiding small companies, helped find Seattle businesspeople to serve on the Microsoft board. In 1980, Bill Gates brought his father along to dinner to help persuade college friend Steve Ballmer -- now Microsoft's chief executive -- to quit graduate school and join Microsoft. The father's law firm would also end up representing Microsoft, which became the firm's biggest client.
Bill Sr. eased his son's worries about taking Microsoft public when Bill fretted that it would be a distraction for employees. The offering would turn Bill Gates into a billionaire. It also spawned the next challenge for the family.
The Philanthropy PushAfter the windfall, Ms. Gates pressed her son to get into philanthropy. At his father's law office late one night, someone present recalls, Bill quarreled with his mother as she urged him to give money away.
"I'm just trying to run my company!" he snapped, says the person in the office at the time. Mr. Gates says that at the time he wasn't opposed to philanthropic work, he just didn't want to be distracted from his duties at Microsoft.
Eventually, she got her son to start a program at Microsoft to raise money for the United Way. He also followed his mother onto the national United Way board in the 1980s.
But as Bill Gates's wealth grew, letters from Seattle-area nonprofits asking for donations piled up. He says he planned to get serious about philanthropy after retiring from Microsoft, or at about 60 years old.
That plan would be fast-tracked after Ms. Gates was diagnosed with a rare form of breast cancer. As she battled the disease, she continued to urge her son to do more philanthropy. Ms. Gates passed away in June 1994.
The day of her funeral, the Gates family had dinner at home. Bill Sr. told his children not to worry about him, saying that he had about 10 good years left in him. He was 70 at the time. Still, after his wife died he was listless.
About six months later, standing in a line for a movie with his son and daughter-in-law, Melinda, the elder Mr. Gates again broached the idea of philanthropy. He suggested he could start sifting through the requests for money and give some out.
A week later, the software mogul set aside about $100 million to create a foundation that his father could run. Bill Gates Sr. later sat at his kitchen table and wrote the first check, $80,000 to a local cancer program.
In the early days, Mr. Gates Sr., who soon remarried, would scribble a few notes on the most-promising requests for donations. He would then put them in a cardboard wine box that he periodically sent to his son's house. The box would come back with Bill Jr.'s responses. Mr. Gates Sr. would then reply to all the grant seekers, sometimes including a $1 million check with little more than a single-page letter of congratulations.
Bill Sr. and a former Microsoft executive managed the foundation, doling out money, overseeing a staff of hundreds and expanding its purview to areas like education and vaccines.
Mr. Gates Sr. says he hasn't lost sight of the fact that he was playing the role of caretaker until his son and daughter-in-law took the helm. And after 53 years, he knows to give his son space.
"He has very fixed ideas of some things," says Mr. Gates Sr. "The dynamic of the family is that you don't cross him on those things, because it's a waste of time."
By ROBERT A. GUTH
SEATTLE -- Spend time with the family of Bill Gates, and eventually someone will mention the water incident.
The future software mogul was a headstrong 12-year-old and was having a particularly nasty argument with his mother at the dinner table. Fed up, his father threw a glass of cold water in the boy's face.
"Thanks for the shower," the young Mr. Gates snapped.
The incident lives in Gates family lore not just for its drama but also because it was a rare time that Bill Gates Sr., father of his famous namesake, lost his cool. The argument presaged a turning point in the life of a tempestuous boy that would set him on course to become the Bill Gates whom the public knows as co-founder of Microsoft Corp. and the world's richest man.
Behind the Bill Gates success story is the other William Gates. The senior Mr. Gates balanced a family thrown off kilter by a boy who appeared to gain the intellect of an adult almost overnight. He served as a quiet counsel as his son jumped into and thrived in the cutthroat business world. When huge wealth put new pressure on the son, the elder Gates stepped in to start what is now the world's largest private philanthropy.
Bill Gates Sr., 83 years old, is now co-chair of his son's $30 billion philanthropy, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He has avoided the spotlight. The public details of his life include little beyond his official biography at the foundation, which says he was a Seattle lawyer, World War II veteran, nonprofit volunteer and father of three. He has compiled his thoughts on life in a short book to be published next week.
In interviews with The Wall Street Journal, Bill Gates Sr., Bill Gates and their family shared many details of the family's story for the first time, including Bill Gates Jr.'s experience in counseling and how his early interest in computers came about partly as a result of a family crisis. The sometimes colliding forces of discipline and freedom within the clan shaped the entrepreneur's character.
The relationship between father and son entered a new phase when the software mogul began working full-time seven months ago at the Gates Foundation. For the past 13 years, the father has been the sole Gates family member with a daily presence at the foundation, starting it from the basement of his home and minding it while his son finished up his final decade running Microsoft. They now work directly together for the first time.
At six-foot-six, Bill Gates Sr. is nearly a full head taller than his son. He's known to be more social than the younger Bill Gates, but they share a sharp intellect and a bluntness that can come across to some as curt. He isn't prone to introspection and he plays down his role in his son's life.
"As a father, I never imagined that the argumentative, young boy who grew up in my house, eating my food and using my name would be my future employer," Mr. Gates Sr. told a group of nonprofit leaders in a 2005 speech. "But that's what happened."
The first stage -- argumentative young boy -- "started about the time he was 11," Mr. Gates Sr. says in one of a series of interviews. That's about when young Bill became an adult, says Bill Sr., and an increasing headache for the family.
Until that time, the Gates home had been peaceful. Bill Sr. and his wife, Mary, had three children: Kristi; then Bill, born in 1955; and Libby. It was a close family that thrived on competitions -- board games, cards, ping-pong. And on rituals: Sunday dinners at the same time every week, and at Christmas, matching pajamas for every family member.
While very involved in his kids' lives, Mr. Gates Sr. was somewhat distant emotionally, which his children say probably reflects his generation. His stature, combined with a lawyerly bent for carefully choosing his words, also made him intimidating at times. "He'd come home and he'd sit in a chair and eat dinner, but there was never any kind of warm, give-me-a-hug kind of thing," says Kristi Blake, his oldest daughter.
WSJ's Rob Guth speaks to Stacey Delo about his profile of the relationship between Bill Gates Sr. and his son, Bill Gates Jr.Mr. Gates Sr. left much of the day-to-day parenting to his wife while he was building his career at a Seattle law firm. Daughter of a Seattle banker, Ms. Gates had been an athlete and top student in high school and college, where she met Bill Sr. She became a full-time volunteer and served on corporate boards.
Ms. Gates encouraged her kids to study hard, play sports and take music lessons. (Bill Gates tried the trombone with little success.) And she imparted a discipline that reflected her upbringing in a well-to-do family. She expected her kids to dress neatly, be punctual and socialize with the many adults who visited their home. For the most part, young Bill dutifully abided.
"She was the most engaged parent and she had high expectations of all of us," says Libby Armintrout, Bill's younger sister. "Not just grades and that sort of thing, but how we behaved in public, how we would be socially."
A Battle of WillsBill Gates at an early age became a diligent learner. He read the World Book Encyclopedia series start to finish. His parents encouraged his appetite for reading by paying for any book he wanted.
Still, they worried that he seemed to prefer books to people. They tried to temper that streak by forcing him to be a greeter at their parties and a waiter at his father's professional functions.
Then, at age 11, Bill Sr. says, the son blossomed intellectually, peppering his parents with questions about international affairs, business and the nature of life.
"It was interesting and I thought it was great," Mr. Gates Sr. says. "Now, I will say to you, his mother did not appreciate it. It bothered her."
The son pushed against his mother's instinct to control him, sparking a battle of wills. All those things that she had expected of him -- a clean room, being at the dinner table on time, not biting his pencils -- suddenly turned into a big source of friction. The two fell into explosive arguments.
DiscussWhat will be Bill Gates's most lasting legacy?"He was nasty," Ms. Armintrout says of her brother.
Mr. Gates Sr. played the role of peacemaker. "He'd sort of break them apart and calm things down," says Ms. Blake, the eldest sibling.
The battles reached a climax at dinner one night when Bill Gates was around 12. Over the table, he shouted at his mother, in what today he describes as "utter, total sarcastic, smart-ass kid rudeness."
That's when Mr. Gates Sr., in a rare blast of temper, threw the glass of water in his son's face.
He and Mary brought their son to a therapist. "I'm at war with my parents over who is in control," Bill Gates recalls telling the counselor. Reporting back, the counselor told his parents that their son would ultimately win the battle for independence, and their best course of action was to ease up on him.
Mr. Gates Sr. understood that counsel because of his own childhood, an hour's ferry ride from Seattle in the working-class town of Bremerton. "There wasn't a lot of structure to my growing up," he says. "I had an awful lot of discretion about where I went, what I did, who I did it with."
His mother was doting and easygoing. His sister, his only sibling, was seven years older. And his father was a workaholic who sacrificed child-rearing to work at a furniture store he owned with a partner. "His complete focus was on the store," Bill Sr. says.
Mr. Gates Sr. early on built a life outside of his home. Next door, the Braman family had two boys for him to play with and a father who would become his most important role model.
That man, Dorm Braman, had built his business and would later become a Naval officer, mayor of Seattle and a U.S. assistant secretary of transportation. In the late 1930s, Mr. Braman brought Bill Sr. on family road trips across the country. He was scoutmaster of Bill Sr.'s Boy Scout troop, leading the boys on hikes through the Olympic Mountains and driving them in a beat-up bus to Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks. The troop spent two years building a log house from Douglas firs they felled themselves. Mr. Braman had "no sense of personal limitations whatsoever," says Mr. Gates Sr.
Bill Sr. and Mary ultimately took a page from that upbringing: They backed off. They enrolled their son in a school that they thought would give him more freedom. That was the private Lakeside School, now known as the place where Bill Gates discovered computers.
Mr. Gates says he began to realize, "'Hey, I don't have to prove my position relative to my parents. I just have to figure out what I'm doing relative to the world.'"
A Rare IndependenceFrom age 13, he was given rare independence. He took off some nights to enjoy free use of the computers at the University of Washington. He spent chunks of time away from home -- much as his dad had done as a kid. He lived for a time in Olympia, where he was a page in the state legislature, and in Washington, D.C. as a Congressional page. During his senior year, he took a break from school to work as a programmer at a power plant in southern Washington. And in what would become his first major collaboration with Paul Allen, his future Microsoft cofounder, Mr. Gates designed the "Traf-O-Data", a device for counting cars traveling over a section of road.
His parents played supporting roles. They acquiesced when Bill quit Harvard and then moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to start Microsoft. It was a tough decision to back.
"Mary and I were both concerned about it -- I think she a bit more than I," Bill Sr. says. "Her expectations and mine were very ordinary expectations of people who have kids in college -- that they get a degree."
The family support was one reason Mr. Gates decided to move Microsoft to Seattle, where he settled into a house not far from his parents. Ms. Gates arranged to have a maid clean her son's house, and made sure he had clean shirts for his big meetings. She also insisted he kept observing the family traditions, including the weekly Sunday dinner at his parents' house.
Mr. Gates Sr., drawing from his own experience as a lawyer guiding small companies, helped find Seattle businesspeople to serve on the Microsoft board. In 1980, Bill Gates brought his father along to dinner to help persuade college friend Steve Ballmer -- now Microsoft's chief executive -- to quit graduate school and join Microsoft. The father's law firm would also end up representing Microsoft, which became the firm's biggest client.
Bill Sr. eased his son's worries about taking Microsoft public when Bill fretted that it would be a distraction for employees. The offering would turn Bill Gates into a billionaire. It also spawned the next challenge for the family.
The Philanthropy PushAfter the windfall, Ms. Gates pressed her son to get into philanthropy. At his father's law office late one night, someone present recalls, Bill quarreled with his mother as she urged him to give money away.
"I'm just trying to run my company!" he snapped, says the person in the office at the time. Mr. Gates says that at the time he wasn't opposed to philanthropic work, he just didn't want to be distracted from his duties at Microsoft.
Eventually, she got her son to start a program at Microsoft to raise money for the United Way. He also followed his mother onto the national United Way board in the 1980s.
But as Bill Gates's wealth grew, letters from Seattle-area nonprofits asking for donations piled up. He says he planned to get serious about philanthropy after retiring from Microsoft, or at about 60 years old.
That plan would be fast-tracked after Ms. Gates was diagnosed with a rare form of breast cancer. As she battled the disease, she continued to urge her son to do more philanthropy. Ms. Gates passed away in June 1994.
The day of her funeral, the Gates family had dinner at home. Bill Sr. told his children not to worry about him, saying that he had about 10 good years left in him. He was 70 at the time. Still, after his wife died he was listless.
About six months later, standing in a line for a movie with his son and daughter-in-law, Melinda, the elder Mr. Gates again broached the idea of philanthropy. He suggested he could start sifting through the requests for money and give some out.
A week later, the software mogul set aside about $100 million to create a foundation that his father could run. Bill Gates Sr. later sat at his kitchen table and wrote the first check, $80,000 to a local cancer program.
In the early days, Mr. Gates Sr., who soon remarried, would scribble a few notes on the most-promising requests for donations. He would then put them in a cardboard wine box that he periodically sent to his son's house. The box would come back with Bill Jr.'s responses. Mr. Gates Sr. would then reply to all the grant seekers, sometimes including a $1 million check with little more than a single-page letter of congratulations.
Bill Sr. and a former Microsoft executive managed the foundation, doling out money, overseeing a staff of hundreds and expanding its purview to areas like education and vaccines.
Mr. Gates Sr. says he hasn't lost sight of the fact that he was playing the role of caretaker until his son and daughter-in-law took the helm. And after 53 years, he knows to give his son space.
"He has very fixed ideas of some things," says Mr. Gates Sr. "The dynamic of the family is that you don't cross him on those things, because it's a waste of time."
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Keep it up, India!!!
Only a reckless banker or a client-less astrologer will be willing to gamble their money and reputation on the outcome of the General Election. But one thing is certain: if Congress performs poorly in urban India and fails to reap the harvest of youth votes it is banking on, a large share of the blame will go to the ‘munshis and managers’ who forced the T-20 IPL tournament out of India.
In the course of just one successful season, IPL had become one of the biggest global brands, comparable to Wimbledon and the football World Cup. The Central government chose to deal with this Indian achievement with the same bloody-mindedness it displayed in the allocation of 2G and 3G spectrum for the telecom sector. An outpouring of meanness drove the Nano plant out of West Bengal. Last week, P Chidambaram donned the mantle of Mamata Banerjee and forced IPL out of India. Like Mamata, who felt that Ratan Tata could be browbeaten because he was a hostage to money already invested in Singur, North Block proceeded on the assumption that the IPL was a helpless captive. And just as Tata had to cut his losses and resist blackmail politics, Lalit Modi inveigled IPL out of a desperate situation with a daredevil flight to South Africa.
The implications of IPL’s exile from India are awesome. There is, of course, the colossal loss of income for all those directly or indirectly involved in the cricket extravaganza — from humble vendors at the venues to the hospitality and travel industry. This, in turn, will have a bearing on government revenues which are already feeling the pinch of the slowdown.
But there is a more horrifying dimension which goes beyond accountancy. Chidambaram was being more than a little disingenuous when he argued that the IPL organisers were being unreasonable in putting entertainment above democracy. If it had been a case of adjusting the dates of a few matches to accommodate the policing arrangements for five different phases of polling, no one in the BCCI would have contemplated taking such an extreme step. The organisers agreed to add new venues such as Ahmedabad, Dharamsala and Raipur so as not to over-burden the administration of the metros. Gujarat, for example, accepted the offer of six games without any reservations; it had a problem with the date of a seventh match.
It is more than a little curious that the IPL faced resistance only from the Congress-ruled states. It was the firm no from Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Delhi that finally clinched the issue in favour of South Africa. In Delhi, where policing is under the direct purview of the Centre, even chief minister Sheila Dikshit was in favour of hosting matches. Yet, the police chief informed her and Delhi Cricket Association president Arun Jaitley that no permission would be forthcoming before, during and after the polling. As far as the Centre was concerned, IPL could go to hell.
The Government, it would seem, was intent on teaching the IPL organisers a lesson. Whether this was because of Lalit Modi’s proximity to Vasundhara Raje or prompted by a desire to deflate BCCI president Sharad Pawar is a matter of conjecture. Also, worth considering is the Congress Party pressure on the IPL to lift the total ban on political advertising at the venue and during the official telecast. Whatever the real story, there is compelling evidence to indicate that the government hostility was not prompted by national security imperatives. It can hardly be the case that terrorists were intent on targeting only Congress-ruled states.
The global message of the IPL flight to Africa is stark. India has sent out a loud and clear signal that the country is unsafe for any major event that involves international participation and crowds. The simple message: India is as dangerous as Pakistan. India can only hope and pray that the world of global finance is mystified by cricket and fails to gauge the significance of the IPL fiasco.
If this self-inflicted ignominy is shameful, consider the other implication. India has proclaimed that it will respond to the terrorist challenge by running away from it. If terrorists target cricket, ban cricket; if terrorists frown upon a Rakhi Sawant Nite, deny permission to item numbers; and if zealots in Azamgarh want to impose an ideological veto on a political rally, meekly acquiesce. In an age of vote banks, this is called prudent politics.
No wonder, the latest batch of Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists trying to cross the border carried T-shirts proclaiming ‘Jihad is my life.’ The army took them on frontally and did India proud. The vote-banker in the Home ministry would have responded differently. He would have banned T-shirts.
In the course of just one successful season, IPL had become one of the biggest global brands, comparable to Wimbledon and the football World Cup. The Central government chose to deal with this Indian achievement with the same bloody-mindedness it displayed in the allocation of 2G and 3G spectrum for the telecom sector. An outpouring of meanness drove the Nano plant out of West Bengal. Last week, P Chidambaram donned the mantle of Mamata Banerjee and forced IPL out of India. Like Mamata, who felt that Ratan Tata could be browbeaten because he was a hostage to money already invested in Singur, North Block proceeded on the assumption that the IPL was a helpless captive. And just as Tata had to cut his losses and resist blackmail politics, Lalit Modi inveigled IPL out of a desperate situation with a daredevil flight to South Africa.
The implications of IPL’s exile from India are awesome. There is, of course, the colossal loss of income for all those directly or indirectly involved in the cricket extravaganza — from humble vendors at the venues to the hospitality and travel industry. This, in turn, will have a bearing on government revenues which are already feeling the pinch of the slowdown.
But there is a more horrifying dimension which goes beyond accountancy. Chidambaram was being more than a little disingenuous when he argued that the IPL organisers were being unreasonable in putting entertainment above democracy. If it had been a case of adjusting the dates of a few matches to accommodate the policing arrangements for five different phases of polling, no one in the BCCI would have contemplated taking such an extreme step. The organisers agreed to add new venues such as Ahmedabad, Dharamsala and Raipur so as not to over-burden the administration of the metros. Gujarat, for example, accepted the offer of six games without any reservations; it had a problem with the date of a seventh match.
It is more than a little curious that the IPL faced resistance only from the Congress-ruled states. It was the firm no from Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Delhi that finally clinched the issue in favour of South Africa. In Delhi, where policing is under the direct purview of the Centre, even chief minister Sheila Dikshit was in favour of hosting matches. Yet, the police chief informed her and Delhi Cricket Association president Arun Jaitley that no permission would be forthcoming before, during and after the polling. As far as the Centre was concerned, IPL could go to hell.
The Government, it would seem, was intent on teaching the IPL organisers a lesson. Whether this was because of Lalit Modi’s proximity to Vasundhara Raje or prompted by a desire to deflate BCCI president Sharad Pawar is a matter of conjecture. Also, worth considering is the Congress Party pressure on the IPL to lift the total ban on political advertising at the venue and during the official telecast. Whatever the real story, there is compelling evidence to indicate that the government hostility was not prompted by national security imperatives. It can hardly be the case that terrorists were intent on targeting only Congress-ruled states.
The global message of the IPL flight to Africa is stark. India has sent out a loud and clear signal that the country is unsafe for any major event that involves international participation and crowds. The simple message: India is as dangerous as Pakistan. India can only hope and pray that the world of global finance is mystified by cricket and fails to gauge the significance of the IPL fiasco.
If this self-inflicted ignominy is shameful, consider the other implication. India has proclaimed that it will respond to the terrorist challenge by running away from it. If terrorists target cricket, ban cricket; if terrorists frown upon a Rakhi Sawant Nite, deny permission to item numbers; and if zealots in Azamgarh want to impose an ideological veto on a political rally, meekly acquiesce. In an age of vote banks, this is called prudent politics.
No wonder, the latest batch of Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists trying to cross the border carried T-shirts proclaiming ‘Jihad is my life.’ The army took them on frontally and did India proud. The vote-banker in the Home ministry would have responded differently. He would have banned T-shirts.
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