ZNMD - A perspective

I saw ZNMD today. A late watch, I must confess. I did so after a public voting by my colleagues and a 7-0 vote in favour of my watching the film. So, I had to be favourably disposed towards the film. I am trying to pen my thoughts post watching the film.

First things first. Disclaimer: I am not a film critic. I am not even attempting to be one. I am not Taran Adarsh, who gets paid to review, by any stretch of imagination. I am only a management guy trying to dabble into things that I should not. I am trying to find management gyan where I should not. Also, the observations here are only and only based on this film called Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara and nothing beyond that. The opinions here are my personal ones and not plagiarised from another source on the internet. You are not expected to agree to these observations as even my family and friends on the internet dont agree with these. So here go some observations:

Men are men and will be men: All the men are same. They believe that they can handle emotional problems on their own and do not need any assistance. Men also believe that giving emotional assistance to another man is not acceptable. Man one says to Man two, you have a problem. Man Two says to Man One - no I don’t have a problem. Man one says ok and chapter is closed. For men friendship is about drinking together, talking about the size of their house and car, and of course women. That’s it. Emotions and such stuff is not for men.

Men and women can’t be friends: The biggest proof of this is that even women believe and agree with this point of view. A woman can’t see his man happily talking to another woman. Man gets ring for his mom, shows to “friend” and she assumes that they are getting married. Am I seeing this from a “male” point of view? Not so sure.

Holiday is not about the location but about friends: I was firstly not excited about the drama relating to change of behaviour after 4 days of deep sea diving. But more importantly, I think you can enjoy deep sea diving in Phuket or the drive in South Africa can also be as scenic. So, I am not rushing to book my tickets to Spain as yet. But yes, it is a good idea to find company (alongwith family) that you will enjoy when on holiday. So, work harder on the friends rather than the location. 

Be careful about your phone usage if you dont want a pink phone: As a person quite obsessed with my blackberry, I was able to quite relate with Hritik using his phone continuously. Just before the moview, my colleagues had kind of warned me that I am likely to get a pink phone. So, I think if you men hate pink phones, try and reduce usage of your phones when you are with family and / or friends. This is an unsolicited advice which I myself will find hard to follow. Still it is an important one.

Fear is all in the mind: it is so true to say that the fear is a human creation. We have fear of all kinds and specially one of the unknown and that of failure. Just need enough will power to conquer fear and explore the capacity of human body and mind.

It’s all written: I completely agree with this. Whatever said and done most things are destined to happen the way they happen. You can only feel good that you are making an effort to alter the course.

Now come the more controversial things

You do need money: You dont have to have a situation where your father died when you were 8 and your mom was in debt to seriously want more money. People of my age have grown up in a “shortage economy” and the next generation has grown up in a “consumption era”. In both the cases, you value money like anything. In the former you want to plan your retirement and in the latter you need to “vacation in Spain”. How much money is enough is a perennial debate and can never be settled.

Apne liye kuch likho: Dont all of us want to “write” something for ourselves and not for others (advertising) only. But when you do that you dont just need financial courage, you also need social courage. When you want to do something different, you have to convince yourself, your family and the society at large. So, do we have it in us to go towards that path of difference. Or will we give up fighting too many battles.

I leave you on this philosophical question..............................................

Can we hang the liars?

“By a lie, a man...annihilates his dignity as a man.” ~ Immanuel Kant

By this, I definitely did not mean that Ladies are freely allowed to Lie and they’ll lose no dignity for it. On a serious note, I genuinely believe that lying is increasingly popular in today’s day and age. This, to my mind, is worrisome as this is not the direction that human race should be moving towards.

A little inaccuracy sometimes saves a lot of explanations. -- Saki

Does the above quote explain the human behaviour in relation to lying? Quite possible. We can find various explanations as to why humans lie. Ultimately, the reason which gives the best answer is that “it makes life easier”. Whether it is avoiding confrontation with your wife in saying that she has put on weight or a casual sms to your Boss saying that the work has been taken care of, lies are used as the instant solution for any kind of problem that exists for you. But this blog is not about human behaviour. This is about my behaviour. To verbalise why I go wild when I hear a lie. And by the time you finish reading, you can recommend me a good shrink.

What we forget that lying could be “instant” but its not “the” solution of the problem. And this is what makes me hate lies so much. You lie and can get away but the problem remains there and you don’t even acknowledge it. And when your wife suddenly weighs 10kg more, or when the work you committed to your Boss does not happen, you don’t even realize that the lie didn’t help you at all.

In most cases, sooner or later, the lie gets caught. As I mentioned earlier, the increasing popularity of lies has resulted in the acceptance of the liars. And that is why people of my breed are fast becoming extinct, just like dinosaurs. Most of the times, we “digest” a lie unless it’s a serious one. Lies lead to breaking of trust in both personal and professional life.

In a professional context once the trust is broken, it instantly results in delay of decisions and action points. You need to make sure now that this particular individual, who lied earlier, is not lying this time. You do all the cross checks before ensuring any action is taken. This means productivity loss as well as duplication leading to higher cost.

A liar is not believed even though he tell the truth. -- Cicero

Do I need more reasons for hating liars? Well, there are more…

One of the other reasons is that I believe that liars are cowards. They dont have the courage to face the truth. Face the reality. They are running away (not to exercise, though). Avoiding work because they dont know what to do. Not wanting to ask anyone because their ego will be hurt. Am I calling a liar an egoist? You may find this ironical but can’t ignore it either. By running away, you are also refusing to learn. You are refusing your own growth.

The next reason why I hate liars so much is that lying is highly contagious. As they say, “When a lie has travelled half the world, truth is just putting on its shoes”. Because of the pleasure of ease involved in lying, it spreads much faster than the truth does. One person lies and others want to jump and copy as the first person got away so easily. This further worsens the matter. Now instead of two liars, you have two hundred liars in the organization, only because the first two got away.

I also think that a lot of times people lie only because they are habituated. “I’ve sent an email”, when you have started to draft it and “I have reached office”, when you are half way through are instances of habits of lying – your current status does not give you a disadvantage, but why not adopt the easiest way is what’s at the back of your mind. This is the worst form of procrastination.

All these reasons, and much more, makes me hate, really hate, liars. I believe that the liars, organization, should be hanged, like in the tribal era, so it doesn’t ruin the organizational culture. It’s also disheartening to say, that I cannot recommend you to completely stop lying today, as we, the human race, are not “truth ready”! And finally, I dont recommend half-truth as an option, because I have stopped believing in “Ashwasthama, mara gaya, nar ya kunjaro” (Ashwasthama is dead, man or elephant). Still, I have to end this with some solution. If I dont I will be called a preacher and not a practitioner. So the final words would be:

Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies. -- Oliver Goldsmith

PS: You can also reach me out at @agrawalsanjeev on twitter