The biggest secret behind Facebook’s success revealed

The greatest of all inventions that humans have made till today have been successful because they address our fundamental needs. Humans are hungry for appreciation. We want to flaunt our achievements and hide our shortcomings. Since childhood, a baby who hasn't yet learned much tries to grab attention of the people around. Once she grows she wants her mom and dad to praise every little move she makes and every little word she utters. In school, she wants a pat on her shoulder and a star in her book by her teacher. As grown-ups, we want people to like our opinions, our decisions, and our ideas. We strive for acceptance and approval. We make friends who like us and search for our soul-mate who acknowledges our actions towards him/ her and gratifies us with something we call love. Once we have children, we want them to be proud of our achievements. In our old age, we tell our heroic stories to people around us to gather appreciation and to satisfy ourselves that we led a fruitful life. We want lesser regrets and more contentment. And even after our death, we still want people to talk good about us; hence, we only write our achievements on our tombstone. Have you ever seen someone’s tombstone saying - killed 5 people and robbed 13, or had 27 enemies and no relatives? We all say - lived like a hero and died like one.

“There is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than for bread.” - Mother Teresa

Basically, what we look for throughout our life, and even post that, is appreciation and gratification.The biggest reason why Facebook has become a household name is it offers instant gratification. The best part is that it doesn't take much to gratify others. In fact, all it takes is a quick click of a button and that too for no cost at all (technically there's a negligible cost involved in the internet connection that you pay for, but you get the point right?) Facebook helps us share our selected and filtered thoughts and actions not to the world, not to a large unselected set of people but to a group of people that we carefully choose by being "friends" with them. These friends become our fans as they get to know about our selected achievements. Facebook has given "grass is greener on the other side" a whole new meaning. Each of us feel that our friends are great achievers and we are surrounded by amazing accomplished people when in fact they are the same people who surrounded us even before Facebook was invented. Now you would argue that other platforms such as Twitter and Google Plus also allow for the same gratification. But your premise is just partly correct. On Twitter, anyone can follow you, so if you're followed by your enemy, he/ she can write comments that you have no control over, and so is the case with Google Plus. But with Facebook, you first choose the people to be your friends carefully and even if a friend turns into a foe, you can delete his/her comments or simply"unfriend" him/ her and restrict that person from responding to your updates. I wish real life were so easy! 

Facebook has become the place where you feel good about yourself and where you get news about your friends and family easily. There is a reason Facebook has never introduced, and I reckon will never introduce, a “dislike” button. If it does, the dislike button will belittle our thoughts and actions due to which we will not want to go on Facebook anymore, because it will just be a replica of our real life. Currently, people are addicted to Facebook because of the single-most yet most impactful reason - instant gratification! Do you think you’re addicted to it too?

Confessions of an irresponsible citizen

The following is an incidence that happened in my life recently. It’s a true story (wish it had never happened, though, and even if it did, wish it never ended the same). But as they say, some things are meant to happen! It has taught me a lot in a short span of 30 minutes and the memories will stay with me for a long time – which is a good thing as it’ll help me be more responsible. Without adding more to the suspense and without further ado, I’ll directly jump onto the story.

There are some guys (perhaps girls too) who drink too much and can't handle it. It was a usual day and I was on my way back home. It was about 6:30 pm. While crossing the bridge in Dadar (one of the busiest railway stations in Mumbai) I found a drunken guy wandering around. He looked disgusting in his worn out clothes and one could make out that he was drunk by just going near him. He soon suddenly began stalking a girl. He was trying to grab her attention by walking closely behind her and occasionally staring at her from the side. She sprinted, changed her route, slowed down and tried everything to dodge him, but he continued. He followed her to the ticket window and waited while she took her ticket. At first, I thought he perhaps knows her and she’s just angry at him for something he has done (may be a sad love story), but soon I realized that that wasn’t the case.

I began following them closely to see whether the girl knows him. After she took the ticket he continued following her. While getting down the stairs she gathered enough courage to turn back, yell at him and warn him that she’ll call the police if he didn’t stop stalking her. That’s when I was sure that he was a random stranger harassing an innocent girl. I sprinted and tried getting hold of that guy, but to my surprise, both of them disappeared suddenly. I felt really ashamed of myself. I didn’t realize what impact my ignorance or indifference can have on someone else’s life. The girl was going through a mental trauma, or perhaps much more. She (and may be many such girls) would be scared to move out on the streets because of such horrendous experiences. That guy might have left a lasting scar on her mind. The next time she walks on that bridge, she might never feel secure again. I could have helped her but somehow just didn't want to get into a mess. Somehow I felt I'm responsible for what happened to her. She didn't have to go through it. I could have helped but I chose not to. I was really disappointed in myself – felt like an irresponsible citizen.

Luckily, just minutes after that, I came to the platform to catch my train and saw that guy following another girl. I began chasing him this time. Coincidentally, a female police officer walked past me just about the same time. I told her about this guy who’s drunk and is following girls. She found him and realized that he's drunk. She thanked me for bringing it to her notice and dragged him away (hopefully to the police station).

By handing him over to the police, I might have saved a few other girls from getting traumatized but I feel utterly humiliated that I couldn't stand up for a girl who had no choice but to go through this. I respect all women and after this incidence, I’m sure that I will never let this happen again. Girls deserve to be treated with high respect; it's high time we (filthy) men understand that. If you’re a guy reading this, please make sure you don’t repeat the mistake I did and if you’re the drunk guy in this story, then I hope you get locked up in jail! If you’re a girl, please make sure to immediately report such an incidence and make people around you aware of what you’re going through. I’m sure many people around you would understand your situation and react appropriately........wish I had!

Budding entrepreneurs in India - the ChangeMakers!

The current economic situation in India looks gloomy. Civilians don’t trust the politicians and there is visible unrest among everyone but there’s no single person or a group to be blamed (though some people might beg to differ here). In this situation I feel there are primarily 4 categories of people in India:

• Ones who can’t do much – people living in abysmal conditions in rural areas or slums. All they can do is to plan hand-to-mouth survival strategies and thus support anyone who provides them basic assistance.
• Ones who can do but under-estimate their own capabilities as well as responsibilities. This is the largest group of people and these are people who need to enter the group 3 if we need to see India succeed on the global platform. They feel they have no control over the current situation and they’re in no way responsible for it – which isn’t true. The current flock of problems India is facing isn’t only because of the politicians or bureaucrats or the so-called money hoggers but because of the society as a whole, its people and their mindsets.
• There is a small group of people whom we love to call entrepreneurs or social activists. I love to call them the ChangeMakers! (The term is not coined by me but I love the thought). There’s a reason why I’m merging the 2 diverse groups together – because both sets of people wish to challenge the status quo. They don’t like the current situation and they make a genuine effort to change it. It doesn’t matter if they fail/succeed, the attempt to change is all that counts. I salute these extraordinary individuals who have the balls (pardon the expression) to stand up and change the way of life around them. In this group I’m counting only those millionaires/ billionaires who use their position to make a change such as Azim Premji with his Azim Premji Foundation or Narayan & Sudha Murthy with their Infosys Foundation. In addition I would also like to include the roadside vendors, the panipuri walas, chai walas and thousands of them who make a living despite of their hapless conditions. 

The most recent but a thriving addition to this group are the owners of upcoming micro enterprises some of which are tomorrow’s crème de la crème. They’re all today’s seeds which, with the help of proper nourishment, will grow up to become trees that will bear fruits for the entire society. I’m thrilled to see some of my friends join this incredible group of people – Akhil who co-founded Contreezy, Vishu who co-founded KisanFirst, Rishabh who co-founded Troopp & Hangrr, Rushi who is a director at Simplicity Creations, Ruben who has earned great respect in the social activist group - to name a few but there are so many more. People like these are the ones whom I look up to and get motivated by. They are the ones who dream big and have the courage to follow their dreams without getting bogged down by social dogmas.

• Lastly, the ones who can do a lot but lack the will to do so. They include the corporate giants, the politicians, the policy makers and the like. They lack the motive to make a change. These are the people who can bring about a change the quickest if they decide to do so, but it’s less likely that they will.  

(Click on the image to enlarge)

India has yet to realize its full potential. The change has begun, thanks to the ones I refer to as ChangeMakers. Currently, India has many people who want it to grow but without hampering their own ulterior interests as well as a growing number of people who now want it to shine and are ready to take leaps of faith. The optimist in me says that India will shine one day, and the day is not too far. Nothing comes easily and if it does, it’s probably not worth it! My eyes are fixated on these ChangeMakers, are yours?

How context shapes a perspective

What you see is what you believe. But seeing something is sometimes not enough. You need to know the context behind that something to know the truth.

Allow me to jump to an example. You get down from a train and see a crowd encircling 2 guys. Let’s call them guy A and guy B. You move towards the crowd to find that A is thrashing B and B is crying, is begging for help and has begun bleeding. No one is coming forth to help B and you tend to feel sad for him. Right now you’re on B’s side and want to jump in and protect him from A because A is the villain. Hold that thought.

This time let’s take a more relatable example. Suppose you switch on the news channel one day and a famous politician in your country is being alleged and questioned for corruption. You always thought of the politician as non-corrupt but this recent news has shocked you and you now doubt his honesty. The next time you cast a vote, you do not choose him. Do you think you made the right decision?

This is how mindsets are shaped. We believe what we are made to believe. We tend to reach conclusions too fast and thus ignore the truth. Consider company A’s revenues grew by 10% this year and company B’s revenues grew by 40%. It’s obvious that the first thing that comes to our mind is that company B was more successful this year. But we fail to consider the context. Perhaps company A’s revenues were $10mn previous year, so this year it has reached $11mn whereas company B’s revenues were $10,000 previous year, so this year B has reached $14,000. We’re comparing company A’s growth of a million dollars to company B’s growth of $4,000. Clearly, growing by a million is much more laudable than growing by $4,000 (I agree it’s contentious that who’s more successful here but that’s not the point!). The point here is that we feel 40% growth is better than 10% growth, but it may not always be the case.

We shouldn’t jump to conclusions with half information. Half information is often more dangerous than no information. And this is where most journalists shape the perspective of the viewers. Media usually molds the views of an entire nation. It’s supposed to be as unbiased as possible and should be responsible enough to find the context and authenticity of each piece of news. But media in most countries doesn’t operate in this way. They show us information which is not the whole truth and hence is misleading. I’m not saying media is always deceptive and misguiding, but it surely does have the power to do so.

Now let’s go back to our examples. In the first example, you want to help guy B, but you want to clarify first before jumping in. So you ask an onlooker and he tells you that A caught B touching an adolescent gal inappropriately in public. Listening to this your perspective changes dramatically and all your sympathy for B turns into animosity. Now you want to support A in beating up B. This is the perfect example of how context shapes one’s perspective. (In this scenario, supporting either of them is wrong as A should have informed the cops and handed B over to them instead of taking things into his own hands.) Through this example, I didn’t want to justify each person but instead wanted to portray how our emotions drive our thinking without getting to the root of the situation.

In the second example about the good politician turning corrupt, the truth could be that his colleague from the opposition party staged this whole story to win the upcoming elections. The politician in the story was actually an honest person but he was made to look like the bad guy by the media and thus ended up losing your valuable vote.

So the next time you see something or learn something, try to understand the context behind it and not just believe what’s presented to you, because what you see can be a well constructed deception!

Why do we always look outside for mistakes?

*Disclaimer: This blog, like most of my blogs, contains ideas, behaviors and expressions having an Indian audience in mind. Readers from other cultures may have differing views and behaviors.

Most of us have paid a bribe at some point in our life, yet we point fingers at others and act absolutely innocent when the topic of corruption arises.

We say our politicians and police officials are highly corrupt and incompetent, but we fail to realize that they too are a part of our community and it’s the entire community that needs to change.

Recently, we witnessed protests held at various parts of our country to improve safety for women in our cities but aren't we the same people who stare at a girl who is low-clad and blame her for being provocative? Why shouldn't a girl be allowed to wear what she wants when a guy can shamelessly urinate openly on the street?

We say our surroundings need to be kept clean and hygiene must be imbibed in our way of living, but we ourselves end up littering roads, blaming the municipality for not having enough garbage bins.

We all believe that casteism and racism need to be eradicated but end up mentioning preferences of caste (and even sub-caste) in online/offline matrimonial profiles.

Everyone believes we should help the poor and it’s immoral to look down upon them, but when approached by a beggar, we cringe, deride or even abuse them.

We feel other’s children are always making a mess or need to be controlled but when it comes to ours, they are just innocently playing around.

We yell out loud when a driver in another car drives rashly but when we do it ourselves, we say we’re in a hurry!

We get angry at anyone else who lies to us (in fact we preach to our kids to never lie) but all of us end up lying many times in our lives.

Why do we keep justifying our own actions and continue excusing our misdeeds? Why can’t we accept our mistakes and try to change instead? Why are humility and readiness to change so rarely seen these days? 

None of us is perfect and everyone has his/her merits and demerits. Let’s accept the faults and celebrate the virtues. Isn’t accepting failure the first step towards success? What do you think?

A joke called Mumbai local train

Millions (and by millions I mean more than 7 million) of people use the Mumbai local trains to commute every day. Statistically, trains in Mumbai carry a whopping 265% of its capacity during peak hours and this results in what is known as Super Dense Crush Load of 14-16 passengers per square meter of the trains' floor space! If this statistic doesn’t sound whacky enough check this one out - more than 10 people die in train accidents every single day(don’t trust me? check WikiPedia). 10 fatalities per day is not just a statistic but a brutal reality that a common man has to go through while travelling in Mumbai local trains each day. And these mishaps have become such commonplace that the people travelling everyday consider it a rule of thumb - this is how it is and if you have to survive in Mumbai, you have to go through this! Everyone feels it should not be the way it is, but no one knows what can be done to avoid the same. People who travel can't do much, and the people who can (politicians/ bureaucrats/ policy makers) don't feel the pinch because they don't use these transport mediums. 

People in Mumbai are called true-spirited citizens because they move on with an accident or an incident with great comfort and they (apparently) don't get bogged down by such harsh realities. But the truth is people in Mumbai do not have an option! It's more of a compulsion than a choice. People choose to commute in the trains because local trains are the cheapest, fastest and most connected transport system in Mumbai. Eric Hoffer once said – “Every new adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem”. Imagine the self-esteem of millions of people who have to “adjust” every single day of their life to travel through these Mumbai local trains. If only they had a choice!

Check out these videos i found on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=1eAP-BoxVkg&feature=endscreen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BL93N6dfXLk

The true Indian culture

It's such a beautiful world. You give something only to get something more. You spread the warmth and it comes back to you in innumerable ways. More so from the people from the countryside. 

They are so humble, helpful, thankful, innocent and caring that they fail to be anywhere close to diplomacy. They give others selflessly and expect nothing at all in return. This of course, is a generalization of the majority of the people from such regions and excluding a rather savage people. The humanity in the urban locales is reducing as fast as the trees in these areas. On a lighter note - I feel the warmth of the people is directly proportional to the trees that survive in their area; although, no offense to people belonging to desert areas!

If you wish to see the real India, i would suggest you go to the interior rural areas. That's the true INDIAN culture. The culture that can now be seen in the urban counterparts is as fake as the makeup that the women in these regions are laden with. The hospitality that you'll find in any house in the rural areas is incomparable to any top tier hotel anywhere in the country. The basic difference lies in sharing your already minimal resources. Let me paint a brief picture - 4 people sit cramped up on the train seat meant for only 3(sometimes just 2) people. We, the urban people, call it insanity and stupidity or even tackiness, but they call it sharing. And the reason for the sharing is that each one of them cannot afford the seat for more reasons than one.

We usually call people before visiting (or what we call it as crashing into) their homes, but if you go to countryside, everyone's door is wide open. They welcome visitors who come uninformed and treat them well. And I think that's the true Indian culture and not the one that we try to imitate looking at westerners.

Luxury means different to different people. For some it is buying expensive toys which their kids hardly play with or buying expensive fancy foodstuff that their kids or themselves end up wasting more often. But for many in India luxury means buying a Rs. 5 vadapav for their kid or buying fancy, attractive and dirt cheap stuff in the train. 

It's about time we start preserving the true Indian culture, which is on the verge of extinction much like the 1400 and odd Indian tigers. The tigers' extinction can be debated as a natural step in ecological evolution but the extinction of our culture is a mere reflection of our naive attraction towards the relatively younger cultures. Instead of being proud of our achievements and our traditions and spreading them across the world, we are pacing towards being western (or as we call it - being "global").

India's growing population - asset/liability?

A year ago, i had the privilege of reading a book titled 'Imagining India'. I am not a voracious reader, and if i count the books i have read until now, perhaps the number might be lesser than my fingers (excluding those of my legs). But after reading the book i was sure of one thing - those were the best ~80 hours spent until now. Yes, i did take ~80 hours to read it, don't judge me on my speed; I told you I'm a rookie. 

The book was a breath of fresh air amidst all the criticism and pessimism that we are surrounded by in our country today. Most of us had(and still have) this notion that the root cause of all the problems in our country is our ever growing population. True that, but it's also true that it will be one of the mysterious weapons that will help us fulfill our dream of becoming the world super-power. If right now you're thinking I'm just a foolish optimist and if you don't trust me, grab hold of the book - Imagining India by Nandan Nilekani. I gladly endorse this book and if you're skeptical of our country's growth, it's a must read.

This book motivated me to go onto Google and search for current as well as future unemployment- and population-related statistics of India. To my astonishment, Nandan was right, and our government has realized the same potential in our youth, too. Let me jot down a handful of statistics that amazed me : (Click on Read More to read more...)

Life in Mumbai - Survival of the (Un)Fittest!

Firstly, most of us think the term 'Survival of the Fittest' is coined by Charles Darwin who authored the Theory of Evolution, but in reality it was Herbert Spencer, a British philosopher, who has coined this term.

I have been born and brought up in this blissful city (or that is what we want to flaunt it as) called Mumbai. The word Mumbai is derived from the words Mumba + Aai, which means mother Mumba (Koli goddess) in Marathi.

Mumbai has been the financial and entertainment capital of India since a long time and today contributes approximately 5% to the GDP of the country. It houses various important institutions such as Reserve Bank of India, Bombay Stock Exchange, and National Stock Exchange and is the hometown of the most famous institution in India - the Bollywood.

Now you must be wondering why am i giving you such information that you can also find on more authentic websites such as the Wikipedia and the like. The intention is not to provide information, but to show what people around the world perceive the city as. A person who stays in the city for a long time will know what the real shape of the city is.

I will try to describe a day in the life of an average middle-class person who stays in the city and wants to lead a decent livelihood. This description is not representative of the masses in the city as more than 60% of the people stay in slums. There are also around 8-10% of the people who lead a much prosperous life in the same city. This is an example of a day in the life of a person who is familiar to all the voices of the city. Also, i will refer to the below example as a person (she) but it doesn't necessarily mean it's an example of a woman's life because that's not the basic motive behind the exemplification; please don't read much into it.

The person wakes up at 6 in the morning in her not more than 500-600 square feet house. She drinks milk (tea/coffee) that is not according to the health standards followed in the rest of the world, but she doesn't care. Most of the houses do not have a 24x7 supply of water, so most of the people (as well as this person) bathe with the water stored in small containers. She gets ready and leaves home in a hurry (people in Mumbai are always in a hurry). She waits for an auto-rickshaw but none of the unengaged rickshaw drivers want to take her to her destination. With no choice left, she then waits for a public transport bus in a never-ending queue and after much effort gets into an overcrowded bus. The bus either takes her to her office or to the nearest railway station. During her journey, the bus is stuck numerous times in unimaginable traffic (you should see the traffic to know it). She then gets down from the bus and runs (literally) to board a public transport train. 

 The trains in Mumbai are so crowded that a cockroach might change its travel timings to avoid the rush. She gets into an overly crowded (which is an understatement actually) train and reaches her desired station soon. The trains in Mumbai carry more than 300-350 people in a single compartment, whose seating capacity will not be more than 60-70 persons (no kidding!). This happens although the difference between 2 trains at peak hours is not more than 2-3 minutes (on the clock). Conversations among people in Mumbai about the train often sound like - "Tomorrow I have to catch the 8.43 am Churchgate(a station) local." or "if i don't catch the 9.57 am CST(another station) i will miss my 10.28 am Borivali local."  

When she gets off the train, she smells like a pig who is back from its wonderful time at the nearby muck. No perfume or deodorant can sustain the test of Mumbai local trains (perhaps that's one marketing strategy that a perfume company can never use). If her office is near the railway station, life is heaven for her. If not, she has to repeat the auto-rickshaw and the bus cycle. She reaches her office in that messed up state at, let's say, 9.30 am. Let's not get into what happens at her office, because that is well-known to people across locations. During lunch she goes to her office canteen that serves abysmal routine food.

If she carries her own lunch and thinks she is eating healthy food, then she is living in a state of enigma. Because the food in our country does not pass any quality check before reaching the common people and much has been said and known about the quality of the food, i don't want to get into that.

She leaves her office to repeat the same commute cycle in the evening, just that now she is tired of working more than 9 hours in her office and is in a cranky mood (most of the people in Mumbai go through this cranky demeanor every day). She gets irritated with people pushing her around in the trains and buses and with small things that would otherwise have gone unnoticed. She transfers this frustration onto other people and the crankiness is highly contagious. The streets are now full of hawkers who want to sell all kinds of things from vegetables to cutlery, from toys to books, from street-side junk food to mobile phone accessories and list goes on and on. They yell at the top of their voice to publicize their products because that is the only mode of marketing they know of. Amidst all this craziness she reaches home and her spouse is equally frustrated of his day. Her kids are complaining, and so are her parents, her neighbors, her friends and even her dog. She eats her dinner watching the television, which shows her a parallel world that is filled with things that she wishes to have in her life. She complains about her pathetic life and blames everyone around her for the same. She waits and dreams for tomorrow when her life will take a 180 degree turn and she'll live her life happily ever after. But tomorrow never comes. The next morning she wakes up at 6, and the rest - you can guess it.

This cycle repeats every day in the life of more than 10 million people residing in this blissful city and they (whoever they are) call it the dream city. Wow, what a dream to have! I have mentioned a day in the life of an "average" person, so you can imagine the ones living below poverty line. Thus, I feel the fittest of the people live in this city and the ones, not-so-fit, are just surviving.