Gender inequality in Hinduism

The ancient society was in fact quite considerate and respectful to those (both men and women) engaged in various vocations, and people were free to make choices or changes in their careers or skills if the opportunity existed. Vedic prayers also indicate that the women had considerable say in selecting their marriage partners, and were espoused to live in monogamous relationships while enjoying same rights as their husbands. Furthermore, in the Vedas there is little evidence of child marriages, dowry system and the practice of Sati. Similarly, there is no indication of any stigma relating to widowhood or the remarriage of a widow. There is also no religious restriction against women cremating or lighting the funeral pyre of their departed kin. Note also that the well-educated, scholarly and charismatic women of yore, who also participated in many philosophical debates with men, included Gargi (the daughter of Vachaknu).

Resistance to Change

One of the most baffling and recalcitrant of the problems which people in all segments of life, whether work or personal life face is the resistance to change in or from people around. Any type of Change is, put in simple words, a variation in pre-existing habits, methods, customs and conventions. Change is always inevitable but so is resistance to change. It is the basic human nature of people to try and keep their methods and customs constant.

In order to facilitate transitions and changes, we should identify the exact reason for resistance. People generally find it convenient to continue doing something what they have always been doing. Making them learn something new is difficult. Changes always bring about alterations in a person’s duties, powers and influences. People who are adamant on maintaining customs instead of taking risks and doing new things will always resist changes. This can happen either due to their insecurities or lack of creativity and will.

Ambitious Zombies

The new generation is motivated: it combines the cultural values of the traditional Indian family with the life goals of the western teenager. No matter how poorly placed they find themselves now, they actually constitute the world’s largest ever cohort of like-minded young people, and they find absolutely no reason why the world shouldn’t run by their rules.

A point of concern but still remains that there aren’t enough jobs to go around. The sheer number of young people has yet to become an asset: only 2.3% of the Indian workforce has had formal training. Secure work is hard to find in India. Entire districts of one or two cities are devoted to call-centre scams. The work has its attractions – one of them is outsmarting foreigners who believe they are smarter, as well as richer, than you are – but the main driver of recruitment is push rather than pull.

Today, although baby boomers are the largest generation of active workers, research shows that boomers identify their strengths as organizational memory, optimism, and their willingness to work long hours. This generation grew up in organizations with large corporate hierarchies, rather than flat management structures and teamwork-based job roles. On the other hand, millennials have a drastically different outlook on what they expect from their employment experience. Millennials are well educated, skilled in technology, very self-confident, able to multi-task, and have plenty of energy. They have high expectations for themselves, as well as from the teams they work in teams, instead of individuals in it. Millennials seek challenges, yet work life balance is of utmost importance to them. They do, however, realize that their need for social interaction, immediate results in their work, and desire for speedy advancement may be seen as weaknesses by older colleagues.

While the Indian CEOs pooh-pooh the issue of work-life balance by saying we have to work 18 hours and build the nation, the expats find the lack of work-life balance in India quite appalling. Unlike the West, there's no distinction between work and life in India — they are fused. Expat CEOs believe spending long hours in the office equates with inefficiency. It's actually hard work done smartly that takes you the long way. At the end of the day, time management is important.

Getting the Work Done? Are you Sure?

Business is all about people. Opportunities don't unfold and become good businesses without teams doing what they should be doing to leverage the opportunity. CEO's/Bosses often cry and create shit about how employees can't understand simple instructions. More often than not, the fault lies with them and not the employee.

As leaders, we often fall into something called the CharadesTrap! We give instructions which seem very clear in our heads but our colleagues may have no idea what we want them to do. Has it happened to you that you called a young trainee to do some work, and when she got back the next day - having slogged all night to finish the task - you were disappointed? They haven't quiet done what you were looking for.

The next time that happens, do remember that the problem is with the you, as you knew what you wanted to get done, you assumed it was clear to the young trainee too. That is seldom the case.

The next time you are communicating with a colleague, think about the "Dumb Charades Corollary". Remember, what's obvious to you may not be so to the other person. When the listener/guesser says he doesn't get it, that's not a signal to get irritated. It's probably telling you to put yourself in the other person's shoes, and try and be more explicit. 

One more thing. enacting harder or enacting repeatedly won't make it any easier for the other person, rather try a different way to convey, which is more conducive and understandable or acceptable to the guesser.

Mythology is Old Wives' Tale

Mythology <-- Myth (Assumption) <-- Mithya (Lie)

It is pretty evident from the genesis of the word that mythology is just a lie to serve it's purpose as per the beholder. While it can drive you to a righteous path or draw you to an illusion but more often than not, to hide one lie you must tell another and that is why we have scriptures stringing the lies together.

Why does history or religious literature have a discriminatory treatment? A mother treats her children the same irrespective of  whether they turn rogue or becomes a god-man, then why is that the sightings of God and the wonders were only in the other yugas with none in the Kalyug. Oh, I forgot those are called magicians and doctors. We ourselves accept the fact that the Ramayana and Mahabharata are epic "stories" and stories are always scripted to deliver a moral message. But mind you, mythology is a sub-set or spin-off from religion and do not mean the same.

Look at the things that entice us, enchant us: wizardry, fantasy, fiction. As human race, our brains are programmed to believe the unbelievable, accept that as truth, associate with it and become so attached as to be a part of it in daily life, say HP, GoT, Twilight Saga, Narnia to name a few. The same goes true for mythology. We need a lie to make us do something which is right in its own sense. We are rebellious to the rosy path and would tread on the thorns but wish for the soft and cozy ride in the clouds.

Let me also take it through a different angle of how and what is told in the "religious books" or preached by the priests, prophets and pastors: keep fast to keep the Almighty happy and he will grant your wish. Well the genesis is that as primitives, we were hunters to date when we junk on various foods, need to cleanse the system and keep the organs running in good stead, so day/period to not put in new garbage into the system would keep it going good like over-hauling of a machine/engine, but had we been told this upfront.......hence the stories!!

The best part with stories is one can interpret as per their own whims and fancies, so while Quran says a "kafir" is a non-believer, it is an equivalent of "naastik" in Hinduism, which literally means one who does not believe in the existence of "Him", in other words pertaining to athiest/nehilist/agnoistic , and never ever anywhere directs it to believers of other religion, custom or culture. Similarly, in the story of rabbit & the tortoise, one may feel to associate with the tortoise and be steady in life to reach their goals, while others may live in the present and enjoy life as it comes, as you never know if you live long enough to relish the future you so ambitiously are saving for.

Basically, a myth (the genesis word for mythology) is folklore consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in the creation, maintenance and destruction of society and are/were endorsed by the influential mass by linking it to religion and spirituality. On many accounts they are nothing but accounts of the remote past and hence historical aberration in the narration or evidences of the same event/person/period (as and when accounted by whosoever it concerned).

Tappers & Listeners

One of the best and apt examples and experiments for corporate relationships and team management.

The tappers are given a list of popular tunes, such as "Happy Birthday to you" and "Jingle Bells". They have to tap out the tune with their fingers on a table, and the listeners have to guess the song. Of the 150-200 times a tune is tapped, the listener ideally can guess the tune correctly only a few times on an average success rate of ~2-2.5%.

But here's the interesting bit. Before the tappers begin to tap the tune, they are asked to predict the probability of the listeners being able to guess the song correctly. The tappers usually predict a 50% chance that they would be able to get the listeners to guess the tune correctly. So while they think that they would be able to get the listeners to guess correctly one out of two times, the reality was that listeners could guess the tune only once in ~40-50 attempts.

Well, here's what was happening. As the tapper taps the tune, they can hear the song playing in their head. Their fingers seem to be tapping the tune in perfect sync with what's playing in the head. And they just can't understand why the listener is not able to pick up such a simple tune!!

And what about the listener? Well, they don't have the tune playing in their head, without which, they have no idea what's happening. They try as hard as one can to make sense of the bizarre Morse-code like tapping that they hear. Alas, to no avail. This results in utter frustration.

Beliefs may not always be correct!!

Being an ancient religion, Hinduism now is plagued with many wrong and false ideas about it. These probably arose over time because people did not always adhere to the proper sources of knowledge. Interpretations and re-interpretations have given birth to a lot of confusion and misconceptions.

It is natural to unknowingly approach Hinduism with foreign notions of God, soul, heaven, hell and sin in mind. We translate Brahman as God, Aatma as soul, Paap as sin, Dharm as religion, but these are more than the mere interpretations and drawn similies. To obtain a true understanding of sacred writings, such as the Upanishads, one must read them on their own terms and not from any other perspective.

The most obvious misconception about Hinduism is that we tend to see it as a religious faith. To be precise, Hinduism is a way of life, a Dharm. Dharm does not mean religion; it is the law that governs all action. Hinduism was not founded by one person, it does not have a core doctrine, there is no central authority, it does not require followers to accept any one idea, and no one can agree on when or even where it began. Hinduism is essentially a conglomeration of diverse religious, philosophical, and cultural ideas, beliefs and traditions. It is characterized by the belief in reincarnation, one absolute being, the law of Karm, a path of righteousness and liberation from the cycle of births and deaths.