The xx-year Itch

It's Christmas here in Munich (actually everywhere). Well it is my first Christmas in a foreign nation and I have mixed feelings. This is the time when all the people try to meet up their family members and I guess it is a very personal time for them. But the whole city is decked up in the spirit of Christmas.
When I am sitting at home doing my 'musings', I cant help thinking about India and how the family tradition of India is so much stronger. In some ways, I do miss India

I was going through some of my old forwards and came upon 2 articles of similar themes. It's about the 'itch' MBAs typically (actually not just MBAs) feel after sometime in their corporate jobs. You know, the inevitable question 'What are you doing with your life?'. Is your life limited to ensuring that your company delivers on its promise to customers (taking the marketing lingo). Is that all you are capable of?

One of the articles was written by an IIMA alumnus who supposedly sat out of the placement process and started a teen magazine. Everytime I hear about somebody trying to make out on their own, I feel a lot of admiration for them. I guess this is all part of the itch that I have already started to have. I am sure most of us are in the same boat but just dont know what to do about this 'inner voice'.

I dont know whether I will have the guts to listen to my inner voice and do something so drastically different. I find that people typically tend to get bogged down in the act of 'existing' that they forget to 'live'.

I would like to read the book 'What should I do with my Life?' by Po Bronson. This is supposed to be dealing with this subject of ordinary people who have dealt with this 'itch' in their own ways. They are not the 'inspirational' CEOs who dropped out of college but ordinary folks like you and me who were very much a part of the 'Corporate Matrix'.

The Matrix

Isnt the corporate world exactly like the 'Matrix'? I am not sure maybe the directors may have just picked up the idea from this cycle in the world. Think of it.

You are this kid brought into the world. From Day1, your parents are telling you that you need to be this great extraordinary student so that you can get to college and eventually find a job that is worth mentioning to the neighbour. Isnt that quite similar to the way the Matrix mass-produces human beings suitable to inhabit the world?

At least in India, there is this notion that education is this one full season of 16 years and at the end of it, you are 'world ready', ready to join the corporate brigade. You have been this protected child, protected by the safety net of family and community. In a lot of ways, this makes the transition to the independent person painless. It's a different debate as to whether it is the best model.

But due to this standard approach to the kid's education, there is almost no individuality to the person. He is part of the standard package that churns out millions of these kids who will don their corporate garb and be limited to the box defined by the school-college-job-family cycle with hardly anything differentiating me and the kid born the next minute.

In some ways, this may be an exaggerated view of the education system in India. But I am sure this system in some sense contributes to making us risk-averse citizens of the world.

Music Musings

Today I wanted to do something of compiling my ten favorite songs in English in the Pop Genre. I started putting down them. Let me see if I can come up with them.

1. Love will keep us Alive - Eagles
2. Scarborough Fair - S&G
3. Man on the Moon - REM
4. Tears in Heaven - Eric Clapton
5. Streets of Philadelphia - The Boss
6. Imagine - John Lennon
7. Vincent - Don Mclean
8. Sealed with a Kiss -
9. Baby Can I hold you - Tracy Chapman

Hey I could only come up with 9 of them in the same class. Maybe I will add to the list later.

Taking it forward, some of my favorite original soundtracks

1. Forrest Gump
2. Last of the Mohicans
3. All the Pretty Horses
4. Braveheart
5. Legends of the Fall
6. The Piano

Beers & More

Today is Day 1 of the famous Munich Oktoberfest. I also did wonder why is it called the Octoberfest when it has 13 days in Sept and only 3 days in October? I need to do the search on the web and find out the history behind that. Anyway I did visit this place called Theresienwiese here in Munich where the fest happens. As expected, it was a pretty sight. I feel when you are a place different from ours, the best way to get the cultural ethos of the place is through such festivals. Octoberfest brings out the traditional Bavarian (Bavaria is the state where Munich is) costumes and it was quite an interesting sight.

This festival is by the way nothing more than a beer party (I like to use the phase 'drunken revelry') where the beer landlords of Munich (there are about 600 breweries in Bavaria) come in complete costumes on their horses. They set up these huge tents where benches and tables are the only seats available. Imagine these huge tents where in each of them maybe 3000-4000 people are sitting and drinking beer also shouting, singing, dancing. It is some sort of a unique experience.

The digital camera is such a cool thing. I did manage to click quite a number of pictures but need to upload it to the web. Will do it....

About Germans

I was talking to a friend of mine over here about the differences in cultures especially Germans and Americans (having worked with them for all of 90 days each, that makes me an expert). Initially when I came in here, I was apprehensive having heard that Germans are not really as friendly set of people as the Americans are. I think it is true. In fact I had even written about this to my friends in India. But then after these 3 months, I am thinking they are just a misinterpreted set of people.

I think one major difference is that Germans will not be polite for the sake of being polite. If they think you are incompetent, they will tell you just that. The Americans on the other hand would go to your manager and tell him/her that you are incompetent while talking like to you as your best buddy. Both ways work. Though the Americans make you feel comfortable very quickly I could almost say that their behavior borders on being hypocritical. Yes, there are times when you think...hey that was harsh. But that is what you get!!

To be fair to the Americans, they are under the most scrutiny from the world as a country which makes their actions even more exaggerated. But I think in general there are a lot of America haters in the world and that is a completely different post. I wouldn't call myself a major hater of the US (being a very strong consumer of all American brands) but I could say that I am not in agreement with several of the activities from the US especially their foreign policy actions

At the end of this post, it seems to be a little patronising. I think I should leave it at the fact that the cultural differences are quite prominent.