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Right on Track

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  • Friday, 15 November 2013 14:51

AS I WRITE this piece, my mind wanders to the strife at Westgate Mall in Nairobi. My prayers for the 10 hostages reportedly stuck in the centre of a gun battle between Kenyan Army and (allegedly) al-Shabab militants. I cannot pretend to imagine what the 10 stuck hostages must be going through, just as I can only imagine the anxiety of their family members. As a news addict I have frequently regretted picking up the newspaper too early in the day, however, as my parents daughter, I have inherited an attitude that helps me to seize the positive out of the negative. I hope by the time this magazine reaches you, dear readers, Nairobi shootings would be a crucial albeit tragic lesson that will help the country to take a step forward in strengthening its security. And the men, women and children who went through the most harrowing time of their life, I can only hope they derive strength from their family, friends and faith, to make their way to emotional recovery.

But not all of this world is dark. There are citizens of this world who dedicate their lives to uplift others—the Kenyan army and Red Cross are merely two examples. Then there are those who’s existence must have made language specialists add adjectives such as “exciting, dynamic, interesting” to the English dictionary. We spoke to one such person for this month’s cover. He is one of the fastest Indians in the world—literally. We expected Narain Karthikeyan to be brave, 2013precise and focused—because a driver needs to be all that when laps fly by. However, we got a bit more—we spoke to a professional who was humble and tuned in to the demands of his unique life. A long Q&A with the man left us a little breathless—and his hopes to put India on the circuit map also made a lot of sense.

Read on to get to know the F1 Master just a bit better. As for the usual; we introduce yet another travel expert to our kitty—the more, the merrier we say!

Also read about the unique Lokatma initiative to boost rural Madhubani arts and of the unique Bambike. As I wrote earlier, some people refuse to bow down to negativity and strive to make the world a better place. We feel blessed when the magazine gives us the opportunity to put our focus on them. Do write to us and let us know of the magazine, the articles, and also of India’s entry to the Oscars—The Good Road. Do you think The Lunchbox would have been a better choice?


The Fastest Indian

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  • Friday, 15 November 2013 14:22

The first Indian in Formula 1, and the first athlete from motorsports to win the Padma Shri Award, Narain Karthikeyan can easily shift gears from being the fastest Indian in F1 to being a devoted family man. Days before the Indian Grand Prix, DW managed to talk to the man—who’s raised our collective hopes— on his passion and dreams...

Democratic World: Tell us how did your childhood shape your foray into racing, that one time when you really knew that this was what you would be doing for the rest of your life?

Narain Karthikeyan: I used to drive cars owned by my family, mostly an old and reliable Maruti 800. I would drive it sideways near my home. Racing (pardon the pun) ran in the family—my father is a former national rally champion and has multiple wins to his credit. There are several others in the family, including Late S. Karivardhan—who was a close relative—who were involved in racing. Honestly, it was all I knew as a child.

What drew you to racing?

Though it is difficult to dissect but I would have to say that pushing a race car to its limit is an extremely demanding task. And the satisfaction derived from getting get it right, is unmatched by any other sensation.

How did your family react to the news when you formally announced that you would be a race car driver, especially since it is one of the most dangerous sports in the world?

They would have been surprised had I not gone down this way to be honest, so it was just a matter of when! Tell us a bit about your father. How did he influence your actions and aspirations? If there is that one person who was responsible for making me into a Formula One driver, it is my Dad!

Tell us about your first race.

It was a Formula Maruti race at the Sriperumpudur track in Chennai. I was up on the podium. So it was an exhilarating and incredible feeling. The build-up to the race was intense. I was so nervous, but at the same time quietly confident, despite knowing that I would be racing with people with more experience.

What was the greatest lesson that you learnt in that race?

Don’t give up until you cross the finish line.

What were your thoughts—or what are your usual thoughts—when you grip the wheel right before the start of a race?

I must say that the beginning is the best part of any race. However, the mind becomes a bit Zen, and thoughts are sparse, as one concentrates on the various variables behind the wheel and tries to get the best possible start. If a driver is on the pole position, he would want to capitalise on it and make a clean getaway to protect his advantage. If one is a bit further off from the starting line, then one is thinking of making up places and getting through the first corner in one piece. The latter can be quite tricky!

You are the title contender after fourth win in Auto GP World Series—what are your expectations now?

I am only concentrating on doing my best and hopefully win both races. My title hopes depend a lot on how great my rivals do as well—a factor which is not in my control. So I will give my best shot. I will get the best possible result, and see how it goes.

If you could see one change in the history of Indian racing, what would that be?

The one incident I see as a huge setback to Indian racing, is the death of S Karivardhan. Had he not passed away in that aircraft crash, our domestic racing scene would have been much better-off. That I am sure off.

India’s growth prospects in the arena of racing—what are our chances do you believe? And what are our chances at this year’s Grand Prix?

The Jaypee Group has worked extremely hard in bringing F1 to India and running the show as flawlessly as it did last year. But, I believe that to make an event a complete success, the central and state governments’ support is cardinal. To make such a global event even more successful in the long run, we will need to put in that much effort. Most of the other Grand Prixes—barring a couple few—are all supported by local governments one way or the other whether the help comes in form of tax breaks or custom relaxations or hosting fee contributions.

The Indian government should understand that hosting the Indian F1 shows, throws a positive light upon our country and puts us on a global map. It also adds on to our tourism industry. Classifying F1 as a sports, instead of entertainment, in this country—I believe—will be a good place to start.

What helps you to be consistent in your performance?

Focus, dedication and self-motivation is what drives me and allows me to perform consistently. Of course without the support of my family and fans, nothing would be worthwhile.

What do you do for your physical fitness? To be a strong driver, you need strong neck muscles.Is there any other particular bit of fitness which is important to you?

When we drive, a lot of emphasis is on core strength and upon lower back muscles, especially in a singleseater car, which is extremely bumpy to drive and produces high g-forces. Thus, strong shoulders and neck are a given as well.

What do you do just before a race?

I tend to spend a little time with myself right before the race, and keep unwanted distractions away.

What are your plans for the future?

I am only concentrating on doing my best, and hopefully win both races. My title hopes depend a lot on how my rivals perform, as well—which is something which is not within my control so I will just it give my best shot, and get the best possible result. See how it goes.

How did you feel upon being conferred India's highest honour, the Padma Shri? Was it a recognition that you felt was long over due?

I felt great after receiving such an honour and I was naturally terribly happy. I consider the Padma Shri as a recognition not just for me, but for the entire motorsport fraternity. It was a great honour for me to receive the award from the President of India. The style in which the function was conducted itself provides an avid feeling. The sports that I am involved in requires a lot of skill, determination and consistent hard work. Of course, none of this would have been possible without the support of my family.

Do you consider yourself as a pioneer?

NK: I am not very comfortable with the label, but it has been put on me. But if it is a label that I have to bear then I bear it humbly. I am aware of the responsibilities that come with such an honour. Being a pioneer, I have to take that extra-effort, and I have to do more than expected. There was a time when racing was not recognised or seen as an accepted sport, I had to put in more effort and time into it. And look at the attitude towards the sport today. After I won the F1 title, people in India, especially those in the south of India, have become more aware about the motorsport racing. Many are now showing their interest in this sport and are coming forward, which is an appreciable act. In India, Coimbatore has produced a large number of racing drivers. Maybe that I was born and brought up here, I was so biased to motorsport from even my childhood. The people here are so supportive and encouraging.

Would you like to talk about your comeback to F1 which happened after a gap of five years?

I was very excited about getting the second opportunity. To be driving in front of the Indian crowd was an added bonus. I am driving for a small team now. It is going to be difficult to make a come back, but I believe in myself and believe that I have the ability to do better than what I have been doing.

Has the sports changed a lot in the past few years?

Not really. If you see lap times they are similar to what I was accustomed to. Over all I have a good feeling. My goal is to maximise what I have and get the best out of the car and if I can do that I am doing the best I guess. The reaction from fans have been phenomenal. The Tata Group, too, has been supportive of me all along.

What are the organisations or charities that you are currently involved with?

I am a trustee of the PSG Ganga Naidu and Sons Charities, formed by my great grandfather Sriman Ganga Naidu in Coimbatore some time in 1947. Through the organisation we provide free education and free residential support for girl students, especially those belonging to the backward and the underprivileged sections of the society. It is presently has a strength of about 2500 students, 175 staff and an orphanage of about 60 children.


Riots Rock Muzaffarnagar

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  • Friday, 15 November 2013 14:17

Misappropriate Behaviour Started Fights?

RIOTS \\ Days after the Muzaffarnagar riot, which left 44 people dead and several more injured, people in the affected area started revealing the allegedly ‘real incident’ which triggered the violence. According to media reports, the riots allegedly started when a 17-year-old minor was stalked and harassed by a Muslim boy identified as Shahnawaz, a resident of Kawal. Later the girl’s brother and a relative allegedly beat Shahnawaz to death. Soon, a group of Muslims allegedly attacked and killed the duo within 45 minutes of Shahnawaz’s death on August 27, 2013. Allegedly, the deaths triggered a riot between Hindu Jats and Muslims. When Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav met the alleged girl she reportedly handed him a letter revealing her tale. Earlier it was reported that a controversial video, which showed how a group of men killing a boy, triggered violence in Muzaffarnagar. The video, which was circulated on social networking sites, reportedly was shot in Afghanistan or Pakistan. Meanwhile, the Uttar Pradesh government submitted a report in the Supreme Court stating about the total loss that the state faced due to the riot. The report says, “There are 26,909 stranded persons in Muzaffarnagar and 14,920 in Shamli. In these incidents, people from both communities were killed and several people were injured. In these incidents, the families of such persons were targeted who were residing in those areas in limited numbers. Their houses, places of worships were subjected to arson, damage and demolition,” added the report.


First Indian Beauty Pageant Winner

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  • Friday, 15 November 2013 14:08

Faces Racism Slurs

CONTEST \\ In September, for the first time in its 100 year pageant history, America’s top beauty queen was a woman of Indian origin. Nina Davuluri, a 24-year-old from New York, who wants to be a doctor, performed a traditional Bollywood-style dance during the contest. Even before the contest ended there were a plethora of “hate tweets” circulating about the contestant. “I have to rise above that,” Davuluri said at a news conference. “I always viewed myself as first and foremost American.” While many American saluted Davuluri’s victory, some online commenters described the beauty queen, a practicing Hindu, as an Arab, and one that looks like a terrorist. One user said, It’s called Miss America. Get outta here New York you look like a terrorist. #bye #americanforamerica. A person who apparently tweeted from Kansas wrote, Are you serious??!!! The Arab wins??!!! This is miss AMERICA!!! Not miss Arabia!!! Miss Kansas is in the army and is a country girl!!! C'mon. Others, like Jezebel, a feminist blog, denounced the comments, saying racists are being racist because Miss America isn't white. This world is so ignorant. #MissAmerica Indian or not had every right to gain the title of MissAmerica. This is why I want to leave America! chimed in @Cjlovebug. Davuluri competed on the platform issue of “celebrating diversity through cultural competency. I’m thankful there are children watching at home who can finally relate to a new Miss America.” The University of Michigan honor student will also serve as the official national goodwill ambassador for the children’s charity group Children's Miracle Network Hospitals. Along with her much-prized title, Davuluri won a $50,000 scholarship to pursue her education.


Syria’s Civil War

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  • Friday, 15 November 2013 13:21

UN Report States Use of Chemical Weapons

CIVIL WAR// The revolt against the regime led by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad continued in September 2013 with world leaders gearing up to step into the civil war. Experts looking into the matter believe that several reasons led to the situation especially droughts, mismanagement of natural resources by President Assad, who subsidised water-intensive crops such as wheat and cotton farming and promoted bad irrigation techniques. The drought allegedly displaced 1.5mn people within Syria. Added to that, thousands of displaced immigrants travelled to Syria for safety after the Arab Springs. In this year allegedly 75 per cent of farmers suffered crop failure and moved to the cities. They all moved into urban areas that were already experiencing economic insecurity due to an influx of Iraqi and Palestinian refugees. As the civil war escalated, United Nations report on the usage of chemical weapons alarmed most of the developed nations of the world and talks were on to “disarm” Syria of its chemical weapons. Leaders in United States and Russia said they will try to revive an international peace process to end Syria’s civil war but only if they can reach agreement to disarm the Assad regime of chemical weapons. US secretary of state John Kerry described as “constructive” talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Geneva as the two countries seek agreement around disarming Syria of chemical weapons. United Nations envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, Kerry said the US and Russia were “working hard to find common ground” to resolve the wider civil war in Syria. “President Obama is deeply committed to a negotiated solution with respect to Syria, and we know that Russia is likewise,” the US’s most senior diplomat said at the UN headquarters in Geneva. The two foreign ministers agreed to meet on the fringes of a meeting of the United Nations general assembly at the end of the month to revive peace conference talks on Syria known as Geneva Two. Kerry and the foreign ministers of France and Britain also said they would not tolerate delays in dismantling Syria’s chemical weapons and would press ahead with a strong resolution in the United Nations Security Council to enforce the disarmament plan. “It is extremely important that there are no evasions,” William Hague, the British foreign secretary, said at a joint news conference.

Referring to President Bashar al-Assad, Kerry said, “If Assad fails in time to abide by the terms of this framework, make no mistake, we are all agreed—and that includes Russia—that there will be consequences.” A major question, however, is whether the United States and its allies are pursuing the short-term goal of dismantling Syria’s chemical arsenal at the expense of their ultimate objective of pressing Assad to relinquish power. The schedule for eliminating Syria’s chemical weapons is ambitious: all of them are to be eliminated by the middle of 2014. And experts say that meeting such a schedule will depend heavily on the cooperation of the Assad government.

Laurent Fabius, the French Foreign Minister, insisted that there was no contradiction between the disarmament goal and the longer-term diplomatic objective, because removing Assad’s chemical arsenal would undermine his military position and would eventually smooth the way for his ouster.

“It will be a weakening of his position,” Fabius said.


Indian Godman Booked For Sexual Assault

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  • Friday, 15 November 2013 13:13

Asaram Bapu Allegedly Attacked Minor

ASSAULT // India’s self-styled godman Asaram Bapu managed to land himself in yet another controversy when a 16-year-old girl student of his gurukul alleged that he sexually assaulted her at his Jodhpur ashram in Rajasthan early in September. The godman had purportedly threatened to eliminate the victim’s parents if she revealed the incident to anyone. A zero FIR accusing the spiritual leader of rape (as defined under the new definition), molestation, illegal confinement, criminal intimidation and acts intended to insult the modesty of a woman under the IPC and sexual assault under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act and certain offences under the Juvenile Justice Act was registered. The judicial custody of self-styled godman Asaram has been extended for another 14 days in the sexual assault case against him. Asaram will have to stay in jail as the hearing on his bail plea has also been adjourned. The hearing on his bail plea will be argued by lawyer Ram Jethmalani. In mid-September a lower court had rejected the bail of 72-year-old Asaram.


Varsities Must Increase Appetite for Risks”

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  • Friday, 15 November 2013 13:07

THERE ARE several aspects to a university becoming world class. The most important aspects of these are—faculty, students and the research and learning that occur as a result of the interaction between the two. The university facilitates interaction between teachers and students resulting in research and higher learning with active involvement and support of the industry, community and the government. Thus, the quality of faculty and students that a university has is crucial in making it excel. Conduct socially relevant research and make students socially conscious. It is the quality faculty and students that ensure quality research, which is an extremely important component for a university to be classified as world class. Today education and research go hand in hand, as textbooks become obsolete even before they are printed. Excellence in research comes from establishing practices like a strong performance incentive in the form of grants from both industry and government for the faculty. These incentives however, must be tied up with accountability. The societal relevance of the research and students that a university produces is being recognised as more important criteria than the kind of jobs that the students land. Universities around the world are recognising that they need to be committed to carrying out research, projects and higher learning that benefits society. Billions of dollars may be poured into research, but if that research is not helping our society to prosper, then it is really not worth it.

The second point is to give autonomy and support to visionary founders. Universities in India are relatively young compared to universities in the West. So, in a way we are still trying to figure out our path. Universities require visionary founders and management who must have autonomy to chalk out the course for the university. This is how many top universities in the US were founded. If you look at corporations in India, this is how they have found a place in the international arena. Just 20 years ago, there were no Indian companies big enough to figure in the international reckonings even in the field of information technology. But today many top IT companies in the world are from India, thanks to their visionary founders, resources and freedom to compete in the market. Similarly, if some of the Indian universities with visionary founders get the right opportunity, they have the potential to emerge as the best in the world. Increase appetite for risk.

Indian institutions must increase their appetite for risk in order reach an international stature. This risk-taking percolates to different levels. It means encouraging entrepreneurial initiatives, putting in place some sort of a tenure system with performance linked promotion and tying up faculty compensation to grants. These are some of the standard practices that US universities employ to ensure they have dedicated faculty. At a vision level, I would like to quote our Chancellor Amma: “Learning and research should be important for life and not only for earning a living. It is very important to give a wholesome, holistic, well-rounded training to students so that when they graduate, they have the right perspective which brings them a lot of fulfilment in life.” What we also need is social vision. Sensitisation of students towards societal problems and the community around them is important. They have to realise that money is not the only factor that makes a difference in life. Getting involved in the problems of society and looking at ways to improve the situation at the grass roots and solve reallife situations is important. It is these students who will develop affordable healthcare for people who cannot pay high medical costs and address problems of environment, energy and water. The thought process that needs to go into such innovation comes only from interaction of the university with society. Hence it is one of those issues that should be given top priority.

My advice to the students would be to work as a team; in the modern context, working as a sort of a team is important. Our students take action in the face of uncertainties and don’t approach a project or a problem with maturity. The whole approach of the education system seems to create only students who can sit in front of computers as glorified typists, and textbooks become obsolete even before they hit the stands.

Teachers and students look for world-class content through open source as an alternative. Rural internships, implementing theoretical knowledge into practical situations and risk-taking abilities through innovative projects as suggestions to overcome the problem of making our graduates employable. Computer languages, algorithms...they constantly change.

Students need to keep pace with changes and develop an attitude to learn continuously. They should not be apprehensive of new situations that need innovative solutions. Also a problem to lament is the fact that creativity has made a silent exit from the educational system and so has the concept of entrepreneurship. The current educational system focuses on how efficiently to solve an old problem rather than finding out creative ways to solve new problems. Human beings are endowed with creative intelligence, which they should put to good use.

Once a student completes his or her education, the employment field is no longer segmented into mechanical, chemical, electrical or information technology. All that matters us whether he or she could solve problems and, problem solving becomes much easier when it is approached in multidisciplinary teams. People of different capacities should work together as a team to solve common work problems. A country like India needs to develop the culture of working together. We should not become a mediocre nation. Attend as many workshops and meetings and present papers and participate in debates.

Such conferences act as platforms, which gave birth to new ideas. Students should also get into the culture of research. For Western universities, our country offers opportunities for finding out solutions. The nature of the country’s problems is something countries in the West had not yet experienced. Indians should wake up to the need of finding out solutions for their problems and not wait for others to give them solutions.

The question now is can private universities help? It makes perfect sense for private universities to be teaching factories.

First, there is an ever-growing demand for higher education. Around five million Indians enter the 15-to-24 age group each year. Many more of them are interested in a college degree today than in the past. Public universities are in no position to absorb such large numbers of college-ready young women and men. Private institutions have inevitably stepped in to meet this growing demand.

Second, there is little teaching at most public institutions making students spending a fortune on private tuitions.

It perhaps makes more sense for students to pay higher tuition at private institutions with the expectation that they will actually get to attend lectures on a regular basis and perhapsacquire the necessary knowledge and skills to be meaningfully employed.

Third, appearances do matter. Step into the campuses of public institutions and then visit their private counterparts. Public institutions don’t have the feel and sense of modern educational institutions. Spider webs in classrooms and passages, broken furniture, empty laboratories and stinking toilets can hardly inspire the new generation of students.

Fourth, except for a few, there is no exit option for the majority of Indian students. More than 1 lakh students do head abroad for higher education but this number is quite small as a share of the total number of students entering college each year. Most of them have nowhere to “run” and must choose between crumbling public universities and shining private ones. Sixth, many students entering college, as well as their parents, do not have any real idea about what college education is all about. They are only too relieved and happy that some sort of foeducation is available. Private institutions can get away with providing bread crumbs to the less-informed and starved.


Tools of the Trade

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  • Friday, 15 November 2013 12:46

Here are some of the toolkits in social media space that will make your task that much simpler

Making the decision for your organisation to be on the social media bandwagon is really the easy part these days, a no-brainer even. It’s when you get down to business do you come across one of the most unrecognised hurdles of social media management—picking the right tools to manage your social media efforts. Too often have I seen folks getting hung up on evaluating tools to figure out what is the best tool for the job… and before they know it, days (if not weeks) have passed, and they’re no further down the road than the day they started! To remedy this situation exactly, we have compiled a list of tools—a social media toolkit, if you will—to get you started down the path.

HOOTSUITE:

HootSuite does two things, and does them extremely well—monitor all your social media feeds in one application and schedule your posts across a range of platforms and from a number of accounts in advance. Start using HootSuite and you can preprogramme your posts to follow a structured, automated and efficient workflow. Clearly, the ability to structure your post frequency means that HootSuite works better for businesses focused on pushing out content and “thought leadership” style posts to their audience. The product by itself has multiple levels of membership—both free and paid—but you can probably get away with the free version for a while, at least. Just keep in mind—this tool is clearly foroutbound communication, and does not replace good ol’ human interaction with your audience!

SOCIAL MENTION:

One-way conversations rarely work, right? It is equally important you are listening not only to your audiences but also to the social web at large, and Social Mention lets you do just that—monitor news sources, web sites, blogs or microblogs and a lot more—for key terms that may relate to your brand or industry segment. Each of these terms is measured in terms of the sentiment associated with the mention and who or what the source of these mentions was. Not only does this tool give you a high-level view of how your brand is perceived socially, it also gives you direct insight into opportunities where your brand can engage with individual influencers to set right misconceptions or quell rumors before they gain traction. Naturally, Social Mention suits businesses with some degree of social media presence—if you’re just starting out on the social media journey, none of the metrics will show any meaningful data. The best part? This is a free tool, so you can start using it from day one with no additional outlay.

TWEETREACH:

Active on twitter, and plan to run contests and other user engagement campaigns on the micro-blogging service? Tweetreach can then identify the reach and exposure for the hashtag you’ve selected for the contest/event —what this will do is show you not only what size audience the contest has reached, but the ability to see who has interacted with your hashtag or brand (i.e. retweeted and mentioned).

For a similar monitoring service for Facebook/ LinkedIn, consider Social Bakers, which offers competitive social media intelligence at substantial cost saving compared with a dedicated social media research agency.

GOOGLE ANALYTICS:

Your website is a key component to your social media measurement, and the level of insights that Google Analytics reveals about your site, your categories/sections and the audience is unparalleled, and not just because this tool is a free offering.

With Google Analytics, you can create custom reports and even track specific customers, and gather valuable information about which posts or pages attract the most visitors, and get social analytics for insight on how they interact, and more critically, whether your social media efforts are paying off! Of course, if you’re advertising on the web, the tool can also measure how much you are selling online and how well your ads are performing.

And that’s it—with this pick of tools, you have enough to get started to interact, listen and monitor your social channels. Of course, you can look at the excellent compilations in the links below for further tools for your specific needs once you’ve gotten your own social media workflow in place.


Facebook Feet

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  • Friday, 15 November 2013 12:40

The Saga of the Facebook Feet Photos and the Tales They Tell

IF YOU’VE EVER posted a photo of your feet on Facebook, chances are that you have been reminded of those famous words from the Hindi film Pakeezah while doing so: ‘Your feet are very beautiful, don’t put them on the ground’. I say this with a-bathtubis- a-swimming-pool kind of conviction because I did: for the longest half a minute that my slow internet connection took to upload the photo to my ‘Profile Pictures’ album, my eyes played ping pong between two things–the photo of my feet and my ‘real’ feet, peeping out from behind the laptop. The camera had inflicted a version of persecution complex on me for decades: I am terribly nonphotogenic. Even my feet had not been able to escape that curse.

It was one of my first profile photos on Facebook, a time when I was faceless and thus optically anonymous. I had few ‘friends’ then–I hadn’t yet begun to say ‘yes’ to strangers. My ex-classmates from school and university were curious to see how I had aged. A photo of my foot, in spite of no anti-ageing cream ever applied on it, would be of no help to them. I now find that there are only three ‘likes’ below my feet. This is the moment I regret being human. If I was a Hindu goddess, there would be 83 million ‘likes’ on the photograph, a version of the virtual pranam. My mother, Facebook-illiterate but ever the curious onlooker from behind my back, asked whether I considered my feet ‘special’ (she always uses the word in quotes), special in the way Goddess Lakshmi’s is, she whose footprints are drawn in Hindu households in Bengal on Lakshmi Purnima night.

Over the next four years on Facebook, I found many kinds of feet, but it was of my mother’s mention of the goddess’s feet that came back to my every time. For all these feet that I spotted on profile and cover and Timeline photos belonged to women alone. What were the men doing with their feet? I asked a friend who works for Facebook. ‘Playing footsie,’ he replied with a winking emoticon. The mention of male feet immediately takes me to Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, where Crusoe, alone on the uninhabited island, discovers Friday’s footprints before he actually sees the man in person. And then there are Velutha’s feet in Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things. The absence of photos of male feet in my Facebook news feed directed my attention to the kind of men Friday and Velutha were: perhaps only the feet of the marginalised male could be made visible in the arts? The amateur sociologist in me reasoned– perhaps that explains why the fetish of foot binding, also called ‘lotus feet’ is meant only for Chinese women, not their men folk.

Facebook feet told stories. In late July this year, Alexandra Pringle, Editor in Chief at Bloomsbury Publishing, posted a photo of her feet resting on a table. Her nails were painted in a shade of red, a large cushion rested against a wall, a patch of sunlight fell on her legs–she had titled the photograph ‘Afternoon, Early Evening’. There were two comments below the photograph: ‘Nice case of the welldeserveds’; ‘Great toes’. The first was by a man, the second by a woman. In my mind, the photograph arranged itself in the mental folder that I have tentatively titled ‘Holiday Feet’. A fortnight later, a day after Indian Independence Day, I found a similar photograph: this time it was Trishna Chaudhuri, a teacher in The Sri Ram School in Gurgaon, who had put up her feet on the table in her balcony. The photo was titled ‘Brishti, garam chai and the newspaper’ (‘Rain, a cup of steaming tea and the newspaper’). Both Pringle and Chaudhuri’s photos of their respective feet were coded in leisure, a literal putting-my-feet-up.

Exactly midway between the time of Pringle posting her photo and Chaudhuri posting hers, Sukanya, one of my closest friends from school, had posted a photo of two pairs of feet from a recent holiday– my friend in her sandals, her daughter in her running shoes. I found this to be a subgenre of the Facebook foot photograph–in them, the steppinginto- my-shoes is tweaked to indicate a bloodline, a genealogy that can be traced through similar shaped feet and toes and nails. It’s a genre that never fails to stir the wannabe anthropologist in me–is that a part of the genetic inheritance, I ask myself, similar feet in various sizes that turns my computer screen into a shoe store. In one such photograph posted by the journalist and writer Smriti Lamech, she, her mother and five year old daughter are wearing silver anklets. This photograph of the ‘happy feet’ of three generations of women, where the feet are resumes of age and economic class, is the best ‘happy-family’ photo I have seen on Facebook yet.

The genre also includes photos of footwear, often of the kind that reminds me of Ernest Hemingway’s famous six word short story, ‘For sale: baby shoes, never worn.’ Chandini Santosh, a poet who often writes about her homebound lonely life, once posted this as a Facebook update: ‘So I am taking my stilettos to the beauty parlour, sigh. At least, they should have an outing.’ Photographs of shoes, one half of a pair, sometimes with the wearer’s foot in them, make Cinderellas of many Facebookers just as red altapainted feet make brides of women in our Facebooking imagination.

Recently, I found two interesting ‘Cover Photos’ on the Facebook page of Radhika Iyengar, Features Writer with Platform Magazine. In one, taken in Uttarakhand, a woman’s toes, with silver toe rings on them, peep out from under her red sari. She must be from a village, I conclude. In the other, a slipper with red marks on it is lying on sand, possibly a sea beach. In this too, the identity of the wearer is not revealed. That is, in my reading, a kind of subversion of Facebook’s privileging of the face. (Some day, I would like to post a photo of my bandaged feet as my identifying photo.)

Type ‘feet’ in your Facebook search box and you will find ‘more than 1,000’ results. It’s a buffet: happy feet, six feet under, fancy feet, feet fetish, kiss your lady’s feet, cute Indian feet, Soft Indian feet, Indian sexy feet, and so on. When I type in my password to enter Facebook these days, I often think of the ‘Please remove your shoes’ sign that stands guard in front of our places of worship, and when I log out, of my Facebook footprint.


THE MANY HUES OF LEADERSHIP

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  • Friday, 15 November 2013 12:30

How Anasuya Gupta transformed CICO Group, an 80-year-old construction chemicals company against formidable challenges—little business experience, a huge personal loss and tangible scepticism from those around her

The article got us thinking: all things remaining the same— customers, products, employees—does a company change when the gender of its C-suite does? Especially, when there’s more Venus, for example. To answer that, we couldn’t have hoped for a better story to tell than that of Anasuya Gupta, managing director and chairperson, CICO Group, a Delhi-headquartered construction chemicals company. In March 2008, Gupta had to take over the company after her third-generation entrepreneur husband Amit Gupta passed away. Needless to say, it was an incredibly difficult time for Gupta— faced as she was with personal loss, two young children grieving their father and an established business that was jittery about its future. Yet, Gupta, essentially a homemaker till then, has done much more than just douse those fears. In the past five years, that she has led the company, it has been on a consistent upswing— both in terms of business growth and operational efficiency—thanks to the many qualities Buchanan mentions in her story about good leadership; qualities that Gupta seems to have in heaps. In fact, Gupta caught my attention precisely because she demonstrated a key qualityBuchananmentions— vulnerability—with such ease at the Dell Women’s Entrepreneur Network in Istanbul where I happened to meet her in early June. Instead of first telling me about the huge business impact she’s had in the past five years (including doubling the company’s turnover, and completely buying back its private equity investors’ share), she spoke candidly about how she had personally navigated the ropes of business, including coaching her male colleagues on why they couldn’t use the ladies bathroom! Hers is an interesting journey on many accounts, and a worthy case study of transformative leadership. Read on to see the changes she brought on at CICO Group, and how:

Professionalism Discipline

I believe women are detail-oriented; sometimes, to the point of micro-managing. I’m like that too. In contrast, my husband’s policy was “Let Go. Let Be.” I have a certain image of what the office should look like, and that our employees should be well presented. I once even told one of our male employee to shave. In fact, I brought it up at a town hall meeting, saying untended facial hair was not acceptable. Each employee is an ambassador of the company, and each one must look professional. My daughter is constantly mortified that I say these things but it’s important to articulate, I think. Also, when I joined the business, I made a decision to make a few people redundant because I knew they would be roadbloacks in the journey ahead, including a few people who were very close to my husband. My husband never let go of people—ever. People just chugged along, sometimes without adding to their skills, or improving themselves. I view it differently. We have to demonstrate we are a highpotential company. So, when you condone under-performance, you’re setting the wrong culture. What’s the incentive for somebody to be an outstanding performer when even mediocre performers get the same benefits? It was important to be meritocratic and professional. We’ve tried to attract some really good talent, and bring in new people. In the past five years, we’ve also moved from Tally to ERP. We created a proper HR function. The biggest pat on my back really was when CICO won the Best Professionally Managed Organisation in our category at the 5th CIDC Vishwakarma Award 2013. I didn’t go up to the podium to receive the award though. I sent my AVP because I said if we’re getting an award for being a professionally managed company, a professional should go up to get it. This gentleman was so embarrassed. But I told him I was applauding from the audience, and he had to go up. I wanted to send a message to the company that we are a professional organisation, and that is something we deeply value.

Collaboration & Teamwork

One of the first things I noticed when I came in was that people didn’t work in teams at all. They worked in silos, and decisions were taken individually. The left hand didn’t know what the right one was doing. There would be instances where we couldn’t execute efficiently on orders because the chemical needed wasn’t available in the country. I understood what was wrong when I began asking basic questions—had the sales team spoken to the production people before taking the order, or why didn’t we get a particular business after qualifying for its tender specifications? Had anybody talked to sales to find out? More often than not, the answer would be no. I began to fix that. Today, we work in teams. For example, we have a pricing committee now unlike before where only one person would decide the price but when we went out into the market, we couldn’t sell because that price was too high. Yet, it was impossible to get the head of pricing to be flexible. Coming down on price was a big no-no. Now, the pricing committee has three people; and one person from sales has to be there for meetings so we get a sense of the market. It’s important to get all viewpoints, and it’s so easy to do that in the era of BBM and WhatsApp. It takes two seconds to ask—can we go up 50 paise, or come down a rupee? Forget functional teams or managers, even I don’t take decisions singlehandedly. I may agree to disagree. And, sometimes I might push a decision through. But, I listen to all viewpoints, and then take a decision. My husband had the advantage of the company being on his fingertips and he didn’t need to reach out as much for advice. I’ve managed so far only because I asked a lot of questions. A key advantage of being a woman is that we have the strength to say, “I don’t know.” A lot of men don’t do that. I find it very easy in meetings to say—can I get a minute to call my office and find out, or that I’ll come back with the details later. I owe this ability to my B.Ed. education. During that training many years earlier, I was taught that if you go into class, and a child asks a question, don’t camouflage if you don’t know. Don’t fudge an answer. Tell them you’ll find out and let them know. That’s been a big lesson in my life. In any case, nobody knows everything; we’re all learning all the time.

To me, this honest give and take of views and ideas is so critical a need for running a business that I’ve ordered round tables instead of the rectangular tables we have in our conference rooms. In a circle, you feel everybody’s voice is equal, as it should be. Otherwise, the notion of the “head of the table” creates a wrong impression and builds unnecessary hierarchies.

Ambitious Buy-Back

Fortunately, things have changed a lot in the past few years. When I took over in March 2008, we had a turnover of `38 crore. We have nearly doubled that and closed FY2013 with `65 crore. Also, we have managed to buy back the 45.33 per cent share that private equity investor Actis had in our company. They had come on board as investors in May 2000. Buying back our share was one of the biggest challenges I’d set for myself when I joined.

I would keep telling our employees that I want this to be your company entirely, and we must meet that objective together. So, we did our first buy back of 22.67 per cent in May 2010, and followed that up a year later with 11.33 per cent in May 2011. Our final buy back of the remaining 11.33 per cent happened in August 2012. I was certain as soon as I joined that I didn’t want to be questioned about the way I wanted to grow the business, or having to report to our investors. I wanted the company to reflect our voice, to be a vehicle for our ambitions. Today, our 200 people are located across five manufacturing units in Gurgaon, Haridwar, Kolkata, Chennai and Kasna. This isn’t an industry dominated by women.

I’m often walking into conference rooms and seminar halls full of men. The DWEN conference has been such a rarity—I’ve never seen so many business women together!

Diversity & Sensitivity

I think the men have adapted very well to the changes that have taken place in our workplace. There is definitely more respect for women. This is a brick and mortar company. I remember when I came in, I would see people call out to even women with a casual “aye”. I made it clear in an open forum that this was not okay to do. There’s no abusive language anymore. Because women weren’t in leadership positions in CICO before, people didn’t have to watch their actions as much. A more civilised, sensitised workplace is important to me. But, to be honest, I’m not always conscious about being a woman first, and then an MD. The gender ratio has improved at CICO since I have joined. I’ve made efforts to do that but it’s been difficult. I got in a lot of women at first but I have to confess I got tired. So many women I brought in disappointed me; they didn’t seem to have their priorities right. So, I decided, “Ok, let the men come in.” My intentions were good but I got disheartened. So, I gave up for a while. Now, I’ve restarted the process because when women are focused, their results are much better. For example, there’s this young girl in my office—28 years old who is part of the sales force team. She’s from West Bengal, and is posted in Gujarat right now. She uses a moped, and has done a tremendous sales job. She’s been a great inspiration. I thought if we could get a few more women like her, the impact on the organisation would be huge. So, now, I’ve started looking at positions where I think women can really be very successful. See, you can’t completely negate or deny the social context. There are some roles, areas, or factories where I don’t think sending women would be wise. This time, I’m not going to give up easily. It might not work out but I don’t want to have regrets that I didn’t try. As Sheryl Sandberg says, “Don’t leave before you leave.”


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