Quotes from "Shantaram"

2005-12-31T20:19:00.000+05:30

I recently read Shantaram, and absolutely loved the book. I am not going to go about reviewing the book for you as i dont think i am very good at it. Instead you can click on the title of this blog, and you will be redirected to amazon.com which a very articulate review by souls much better at expressing their thoughts.

I would like to share with you my favourite quotes from the book. I hope i am not infringing any copyrights by publishing the below mentioned quotes. I guess even if i am, i am only trying to say good, and hence help increase sales of the book, which i hope would redeem me from the the crime. (as is said in the book, "i'm doing the wrong thing for the right reason" ;)

Quotes from the Shantaram follow,

- News tells you what people did. Gossip tells you how much they enjoyed it.

- I was a revolutionary who lost his ideals in heroin, a philosopher who lost his integrity in crime, and a poet who lost his soul in a maximum security prison.

- So it begins, this story, like everything else, with a woman, and a city, and a little bit of luck.

- Fate needs accomplices, and the stones in destinys walls are mortared with small and heedless complicities such as those.

- A man in no hurry gets nowhere fast.

- The truth is a bully we all pretend to like

- What we call cowardice is often just another name for being taken by surprise, and courage is seldom any better than simply being well prepared.

- The starving, the dead, the slaves. And through it all, the purr and restle of prabaker’s voice. Thers a truth that’s deeper than experience. Its beyond what we see, or even what we feel. Its an order of truth that separates the profound from the merely clever, and the reality from the perception. Were helpless, usually in the face of it; and the cost of knowing it , like the cost of knowing love, is sometimes greater than any heart would be willing to pay. It doesn’t always help us to love the world, but it does prevent us from hating the world. And the only way to know that truth is to share it, from heart to heart, just aws prabaker told it to me, just as I’m telling it to you.

- But I couldn’t respond. My culture had taught me all the wrong things well. So I lay completely still, and gave no reaction at all. But the soul has no culture. The soul has no nations. The soul has no color or way of life. The soul is forever. The soul is one. And when the heart has its moments of truth and sorrow, the soul cant be stilled.

- I clenched my teeth against the stars. I closed my eyes. I surrendered to sleep. One of the reasons why we crave love, and seek it so desperately in that love is the only cure for loneliness and shame and sorrow. But some feelings sink so deep into the heart that only loneliness can help you find them again. Some truths about yourself are so painful that only shame can help you live with them. And some things are just so sad that only your soul can do the crying for you.

- If your fate doesn’t make you laugh, then you just don’t get the joke.

- What I dint tell karla was that the girlfriend had described me as, interested in everything and committed to nothing. It still rustled, it still hurt and it was still true.

- People always hurt you with their trust. The surest way to hurt someone is to put all your trust in them.

- I don’t know what frightens me more, the power that crushes us, or our endless ability to endure it.

- You are not a man until you give your love truly and freely to a child, and you are not a good man until you earn the love truly and freely from a child.

- Nothing grieves more deeply or pathetically than one half of a true love that wasn’t meant to be.

- The most precious gift you can give your lover is your suffering. So I took each sadness confessed to me and pinned it to the sky.

- Prisons are the temples where devils learn to prey. Every time we turn the key, we twist the knife of fate, every time we cage a man, we close him in with hate.

- Every virtuous act has a dark secret in its heart

- It isn’t a secret, unless keeping it hurts

- If you make ur heart a wepon, you always end up using it on yourself.

- Depression only happens to people who don’t know how to be sad.

- We all attempt suicide three times in our lives, sooner or later we succeed.

- May he/she have ten daughters and may all of them marry well.

- Fate always give you two choices, the one you should take and the one you do.

- Heros always come in three kinds, dead, damaged or dubious.

- Its always a foolish mistake to be alone with someone you shouldn’t have loved.

- There is a war everywhere, all you can do is choose a side and fight.

Do read the book, it ROCKS!

Cheers,
Oscar.

Can i have some attrition please?

2005-11-09T17:26:00.000+05:30

Hello,

I have read a few articles recently, that try to promote the age old philosophy of working with one company for an extended period of time. Infact, in one of the articles i read, (which was by a Tata group head), he mentioned that most of the CEO's you see in large companies are at their post because they stuck to their company and climbed their way up the ladder. It also said that, one can get an increment in salary and position through job hopping, however one still has to go through the learning curve, and hence there are no shortcuts to success!

Well, i agree, that there are no shortcuts to success. The climb to the top of the mountain involves toil, no matter how easy or difficult the mountain is. What i would like to mention though is,

1) Staying at one organization over a long period of time slows your momentum. There is always a "JOSH" element involved in working in a new organization, proving your worth, and winning your way ahead of the other participants in the rat race. The painful process of joining a new organization, burning the midnight oil, learning new ways of work, and meeting new people, provides more marginal utility than that can be added by your current organization.

2) If they new organization is paying you more, they probably expect more from you. So you push yourself harder than you would have in your older organization, to make sure you deliver the worth of the money your new organization is paying you.

3) No matter how loyal you are, your cynisyzm towards top management will only grow if you stay in one organization for a very long period of time. Why? well there are a lot of idyosyncracies that one can see in any organization. If you stay in an organization for a long period of time, the idiosyncracies will begin to affect your daily life. They will become irritating, and since you can not do much else, you will retaliate through cynisyzm, if not out loud, then softly to yourself.

A healthy attrition rate is indespensible from an organizational perspective too, as infusion of new talent with a diverse background improves the organizational learning curve towards the external market and brings in new ideas into the organizations thought process.

I have also personally seen that employees that stick for too long in an organization are,
1) Happy with their current environment (e.g. if it aint broke, why fix it),
2) Are just too lazy to think about their career and have other priorities, or
3) Are incapable to get a better job.

I have spoken to many knowledge workers such as myself over the years, and the reason to stick on to one job has primarily been,
1) This is close to my house, so the commute isnt a problem, i dont wanna give that up.
2) This is a comfortable job, the people are good, the work pressure isnt too great, why change for a 30% hike in salary and create complications.
3) I am performing very well here, i have proved myself, why should i join a new organization and go through the process all over again.
4) I am already working with the biggest guy in the industry, where can i possibly move on to. And how much more could they possibly be willing to pay me.
5) I cannot get a job an a different organization at the same position as i am here. My salary will decrease, i will have to start off from the scratch, i wish i could, but i really cant afford that at this point of time. (very dangerous situation)

The people that do move on to other jobs primarily move due to problems with bosses, an unfavourable work environment, long working hours, long commutes, better work content or a better brand name.

I have also met many people, especially company management, who expect a strong reason from you when you are leaving their organization. i.e. Why are you looking for a change? is it the pay, is it the work content?

I guess sooner or later we shall all realize that change is the way of life, and although we keep saying this, we dont really appreciate it in its truest sense. if we did, the above questions would never have a sarcastic tone to it... do you remember people saying, are you changing for the sake of change or is it because you are not happy where you are.... ring any bells???

As for the comment by the tata group head, about CEO's having stuck to their companies over decates. That was the old economy with GDP growing at 3% and a stable external environment, today i just dont see that happening.

I guess its up to the management to decide a healthy attrition level, and rather than targeting a retention rate, they should probably target an attrition rate?

Cheers,
Oscar.

My walk in a crowded path

Quotes from "Shantaram"

Can i have some attrition please?