Clueless in Consultopia

Leaving Uday Chopra aside, of all the remaining threats to mankind, consultants are the gravest and most undermined danger to humanity. Just like mosquitoes (who suck blood & produce the irritating huuuuuuuuuuuuuuu) enjoy the unexpected and dubious distinction of being the most dangerous animal on the planet, consultants (who suck money & produce the irritating sound of bullet points flashing) hold the dubious distinction of being de-facto heirs to Uday Chopra's throne.

For, when consultants aren’t busy in strategic reengineering of primordial processes, streamlining innovative initiatives, facilitating blueskying sessions on emerging economic paradigms etc. , they are planning something diabolically dangerous i.e. envisioneering Life in Consultopia (Consultants’ Utopia.)

For a few moments, imagine that you are a consultant in Consultopia (sounds scary?)... What would your *normal* life in Consultopia be like? Showcased hereunder is a vignette from the *envisioneered* life in Consultopia:

• You believe in having robust & structured mechanisms for your personal life (whatever that means :-P)

• For wooing women, you don’t read the mushy stuff meant for lesser mortals {e.g. Linda Goodman love signs etc.}, rather you use Michael Porter’s competitive advantage theory and the BCG Matrix as an independent objective source to assess your market position and outwit other guyz in competition.

• You ask for a detailed “Statement of Purpose” from your girlfriend before marriage. {It’s an inevitable part of the blue-tooth enabled best-practices. OK....Ok...i agree that the blue-tooth part is crap..but then so is rest of the statement ;)}

• Your girlfriend is made to sign an independence declaration before marriage. {That she is not related to any of your competitors and is not marrying with the sole intention of stealing private & confidential (googled up) data from your laptop}

• Your wedding card HAS to be a PPT.

• Your wedding card also has a Brobdingnagian PDF attachment for disseminating shared values, vision, mission, and objectives of your marriage.

• You also emboss the standard Boilerplate of your company on the wedding card. {I know it looks weird but consultants HAVE the capacity to do that}

• You hold an urgent (& brief) brainstorming session (min. duration 14 hours) with the girl’s family (on the wedding eve) to discuss the Approach & Methodology of the marriage and strategies to make wedding arrangements more “customer-centric.”

• Due to downstream effects of this paradigm shift in Approach & Methodology, the wedding is delayed by 3 days. {But you are satisfied as you followed the right process. Remember,
  

  It doesn’t matter what the outcome is.....following the process is important }

• You prepare a formal document which lists "roles & responsibilities" of the married couple.

• A SOD (Segregation of Duties) matrix is created to prevent either person from doing incompatible work.

• After marriage, you don’t attend to any problems which are covered in spouse's list.

• Also, you don’t attend to those problems of your list which are not escalated through the prescribed format of “issue-log”

• You don’t eat food unless it is accompanied by a "ready-to-eat" certificate signed by the preparer.

• You disown/abandon food if there is no supporting documentation stating the Approach & Methodology recipe used in preparing it. {It might mean that you waste the food, sleep hungry or order from outside. Leave the inconvenience aside; be proud of the (ludicrous) fact that you followed the right process.}

• Whenever you and your spouse discuss something, children note the discussion as MOM {minutes of meeting}, take counter signatures and file it.

• You don’t like to be called as a father. Your child HAS to address you as Chief Mentor.

• Your child's admission form contains a suo-moto attachment in the form of a disclaimer. {Whereby you declare that you are not responsible for your child's action in the school.}

• If you are relocating/shifting to a new home then you can give your wife a strategy for end-to-end-seamless-transition and *facilitate* the relocation. {But doing any *real* work does not come under your “roles & responsibilities”}

• For your child’s grades, you calculate variances and perform their root cause analysis.

• You ACTUALLY issue a 500 page report (out of which 480 pages contain disclaimers) to your child on how he can improve his grades.

• Your child starts referring Harry Potter, Chacha Chowdhary, Naagraaj, and Supercommando Dhruva etc. as Best-in-breed "thought leadership" publications.

• At your home, an ice-cream CANNOT be bought directly. Competitive bids are invited from neighborhood shops and internet vendors alike. {It might mean that the dessert for Sunday night party arrives on Thursday, but then every true blue consultant knows that “The outcome doesn’t matter, following the process is critical.”}

• At your home, weekend newspapers come from a different vendor {To avoid concentration of vendors. They probably don’t arrive till Monday midnight but then (as you know by now) The process is important}

Did your heart skip lots of beats? Did being a temporary Consultizen scare you even more than Uday Chopra’s face? Don’t worry! There is hope coz consultants seldom practice what they preach :-P So go have an ice-cream at the neighborhood shop (don’t invite competitive bids) and you shall feel better :-D

For once, we agree that our politicians & bureaucrats have given us very little to cheer about (I am being positive), but if consultants have their hands on this world then undoubtedly we would find the existing potholes & mud roads as the roads to El Dorado.

Kanti - The Vidhaata

Nostradamus (1503-1566) - French astrologer who wrote cryptic predictions (whose interpretations are still being debated.)

Kanti Shah – Bollywood director who makes cryptic movies (whose interpretations will be perpetually debated.)

The fortunate few who have drunk divine driblets from Kanti’s ambrosia are well aware about the intuitive prowess of characters in his movies. Who doesn’t remember Lamboo Atta’s forecast (ab bulla dekh, tera aadmi meray naam ki duhaai detay huey teray pass aaeyga or chillaega Bullaaaa Bullaa Bullaaaaa) which is followed by his (invisible) blemish on the overweight goon (having ketchup-blood all over his body) and a miniscule chaaku (see Sidenote 1) inserted in his tummy. The goon somehow reached the “dock of death” (shouting “Bullaaaa Bullaaaa……….” all the way) and died in front of Bulla; thus fulfilling Lambu Atta’s prophecy.

{Sidenote 1: Miniscule chaaku – In other worlds it would have qualified to be a sword, but in Kanti-topia (where even lines between clearly distinct items like - swings & cots is blurred) its just a “chaaku” (probably used to cut the tomato ketchup packets.) Btw: Conservative estimates suggest that it measured 4 feet only (not bad for a “chaaku”)}

Coming back to Kanti-hecies, even sleazy characters of “Free-Entry” predicted their future (Sidenote 2) with such an ease that the intense level of shame experienced by Bejan Daruwalas of the world can be leveled only (years later) when children of Ranbir Kapoor will watch their father using the white towel to seduce mayawati {Neither men & women nor eunuchs seem to be interested in him/her (Ranbir is yet to appear for a gender test), leaving mayawati as the only target}

{Sidenote 2 : Your attention is drawn to one of the opening scenes where Bobby shares her anxiety with her alter-ego – Julie.

“Julie, bahut bada khatra hamaarey sir par mandraa raha hai
Kaheen tumharaa mera hamshakal hona hamarey liye danger saabit na ho jaaye.
Dekho Julie, aaj nahee to kal, meri bhi shaadi hogi aur tumhaari bhi
Kaheen meray husband nay tumhay bobby samajh kar apni baahon mein le liye toh?”

And voila, this statement became the very foundation on which the edifice of treachery, seduction & revenge is built later on.}

For Kanti Shah & Co., materialization of in-movie prophecies is as effortless as hamming by Uday Chopra. However, as many of us know, Kanti’s movies are not confined to mundane dimensions, for those who have the divine vision, they transcend to myriad realms. With a burning desire to understand the esoteric angle of his movies, I started propitiating Kanti (The Vidhaata himself.) After months of persevering penances & meticulous meditation, Kanti Shah blessed me in dream and revealed some of his prophecies embedded in Gunda. In true Nostradamus fashion, these are arcane quatrains. I bow to Kanti (the great visionary) and hereunder reproduce his prophecies:

{Note: Due to the phenomenon of “Sade Sati on Mithun Rasi”, the prophecies were destined to materialize after 7½ years of Gunda’s release. (The astrological phenomenon has been explained in detail in the earlier post titled “30 degrees of zodiac”)}

1) When two men are on duty at night,
One would cast a plot for the ultimate fight,
Shall address other’s sister with words that cut,
For revenge the bald man will indeed headbutt .

Unless you were meditating (in a Jaani-Dushman-ish-Amrish-Puri-Chhaap cave) for the last 18 months and awakened (by an overweight Manisha & Skirt-dhaari-Arman-Kohli) just-in-time to read this post, you would know that Zidane (bald man) headbutted Materazzi in the Worldcup final. Materazzi later revealed that he had (tactfully??) provoked Zidane by using *flowery* language for his sister.

Cut to Gunda (0:57:56 – golden plaza edition), Pshaap Pitaaji reached police station and requested Inspacktarr saab to catch the murderers of his daughter. On being ridiculed by the corrupt inspector, Pshaap Pitaaji delivered the speech of a lifetime (and yeah it didn’t end at “Bulla ka thook chaata hai tumnay, Payshaab piya hai tumnay uska”) The lines which brought about his doom are - “Agar uska ek haath hai teray sar par, to rakh day uska doosra haath apni beti ki kamar par, sula day apni behan ko uskay bistar par”

As ordained, the inspector (Rana Jung Bahadur - bald man) couldn’t bear the abuse on his sister and became Pshaap Pitaaji’s nemesis. He killed him soon after, but not before giving 2 exotic headbutts (approx. at 1:01:00) to fulfill the prophecy. Voila, one of the most (in)famous incidents of 2006. Predicted by Kanti dada way back in 1998. Hail Lord Kanti!!

2) On vast empty lands with a left hand drive
Common man’s car will finally arrive
But there shalt be political muck and rural unrest
Leading the commencement plans to an abrupt rest

With great courage, the left (CPI (M) government in West Bengal) is trying to drive the industrial revolution in West Bengal, and one of the first fruits expected from this industrial tree is the common man’s car (to be produced by Tata.) But, alas, as we know, the acquisition of vast land has (literally) become a “burning” issue and, as of now, all the plans are at an abrupt rest.

Kanti Shah subtly depicted this prophecy through the climax (clash of the titans) scene where Prabhujee took on Bulla (and the Rickshaw co.) Prabhujee entered the vast unchartered territory in his left-hand drive (see photo) Maruti (symbolically the common’s man car till now) and was greeted by Bulla & rickshaw gang (see Sidenote 3) wearing Red (symbolically indicating stop sign) uniform (see Sidenote 4) Bulla represented the political muck and the rickshaw drivers filled the gap of rural localities (no doubt that the 50 odd rickshaw drivers couldn’t hit even one bullet to Prabhujee; the ruralites weren’t trained to use sophisticated guns.)

{Sidenote3: It is reported that Bajaj in collaboration with Nissan will produce an economic car for the common man. With so many Rickshaws (Bajaj made of course) blocking Prabhujee’s path in the climax – Kanti shah gave the hint of a coming rivalry between Tata & Bajaj. 1001 times I bow before the master; his subtlety provokes trance.}

{Sidenote4: The uniform included the once famous white “canvass shoes” which we used to wear for sports period in school. If Kanti’s eye-4-details is to be believed then we need to check whether Lakhani or Bata are planning to diversify ;-) }

3) They shalt speak jolly while standing long hours in pain
And take back the country in forgotten realms of lighter vein
Their eccentricities shalt bring forth a jovial revolution
Those who watch them will be relieved from stress & tension

Back in early 2005, we would have never imagined that a nascent channel (Star One) could liberate Indian Television from the EKS (Ekta Kapoor Syndrome). But contrary to our expectations (and much to our joy) the channel created TTT {The Twin Towers: The Great Indian Laughter Challenge (TGILC) and The Great Indian Comedy Show (TGICS)} to introduce groundbreaking “stand up” comedy in India and helped us in relocating our funny bone.

Through the watershed (standing) introductions of characters in Gunda, Kanti Shah prophesied the introduction of Stand-Up comedy in India. And there is little doubt (if any) that Ehsaaaaaaaan Qureshiiiiiiii (runners up of 1^st season) was blessed (or inspired) by, none other than, Bullaaaaa. Dialogue delivery, looks, or hooks, the protégé tried his best to match the mentor.

With TGILC now converted into a melodramic megalomania and TGICS taken off-air (sob-sob),we need to appease Lord Kanti to come up with a cult epic again.

4) For benefit of mankind, they shalt arrive
With their wings spread high in sky
With one of its part, the great villain will die
Thereafter they shalt be used by common man to fly

Of all the props in Gunda, Deccan Aviation Helicopters were the most conspicuous. They simultaneously had the fortune of accompanying Prabhujee in his entry scene, served as the medium to kill Bullaaaaaaa, provided the background for displaying prabhujee's talk on cell phone, and finally to display credits at the end of the movie. With such an intense karmic relationship with Prabhujee, it hardly surprises that Air Deccan would become the first airline for the “common man.”

However, the company's IPO did not do as well as expected as Bulla’s dirty blood had polluted its helicopter and transferred some of his evil karmas to the company. But Prabhujee later showered his benevolence on Deccan Aviation by inspiring Vijay Mallya to watch Gunda. According to (un)reliable sources, the first thing Vijay Mallya did after watching Gunda is to buy 26% stake in Deccan Aviation. Deccan Aviation's karmic ties with Prabhujee subjected it to the Sade-Sati of Mithun Rasi, and is it a mere coincidence that Mallya bought stake only in May-June2007 when Sade-Sati was about to end (it ended in July 2007.)

5) The great epic shalt have
Mundane items - new and old
And the man with the Midas touch
Shalt convert them to gold

Prabhujee in his human avataar is, definitely, the man with the midas touch. His movies made on low budgets do incredibly well to make profits. And, rest assured, his midas touch is not limited to movies. It is but natural that if god’s incarnation touches any item on earth, then that item becomes blessed. Mere mortals can connect to god through the medium of those items. Gunda being an unadulterated epic made in Prabhujee’s praise, those items which Prabhujee touched in Gunda became sacred. Furthermore it is a divine law that those who do prabhu bhakti are bound to be blessed. And is there a better way to do bhakti than to watch Prabhu leela in Gunda? Those who watched it with complete faith would have understood where to invest their money so as to earn huge gains from the year 2006 onwards. Here we look at value investing, Prabhujee style:

(a) Telecom sector – When prabhujee (a common man "coolie" in the movie) used a cell phone (remember the year is 1998 when it cost half of nepal's GDP even to talk on an incoming call) to threaten Bacchu Bhagona, it looked ridiculous to the atheists. But add the 7-8 year timeline and you understand the prophecy of cell phones becoming available to the commonest of common. And from the prasaad angle look at the shares of Bharti Airtel, they have significantly outperformed Sensex. If you had invested in them on 1st Jan 2003, then till date would have got appreciation of about 4000% (so around 800% on annual basis - not bad ;-))

(b) Infrastructure sector – Conservative estimates suggest that around 50% of the movie was shot in vast empty lands, airport runways, ports, docks, and other infrastructural facilities. Did Anil Singh (producer of Gunda) lack funds for creating proper sets or renting better locations? Nah! It was an indirect indication to bhakts, that in times to come, 50% of our investment portfolio should have infrastructure stocks.

(Incidentally, a set of fortunate foreigners watched Gunda, deciphered the infrastructure tip and started http://www.gundacorp.com/)

Shama Prathna:

What I presented above, was a very limited account of Kanti's prophetic prowess. Probably years later I may realize that this writeup was a sheer unjustice to his works. Most of his works are unfathomable and to completely unwrap the enigmatic cloak shrouding them, we need eternity. For his works are a part of divinity which come from & merge with the ultimate power itself. However mortals (like me) are subject to the mundane laws of cosmos, bound by the ultimate limitations of time & space. I believe, some of the prophecies & observations were novel. There were a couple (air deccan, aviation & telecom) which probably were in public domain. Nevertheless I merged them all to pay a humble tribute to Kanti - The Vidhaata :-)

The Price of Freedom.........................

Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.

-Mahatma Gandhi

Decades ago when Mahatma Gandhi said the above, little did he realize that he was disseminating the future of post-independence India's cinematic chief. Coz it so happened that a certain celluloid demi-god decided to test the limits of freedom but in turn ended up realizing the price of it. The life and times of Yash Chopra reveal to us the tons of truth behind Gandhiji's subtle statement.

Circa 1972.....Tireddd and exhaustedddd after a lonngggggggg outstation shoot, Yash Chopra arrived home to "reunite" with his wife. Blame the limited sources of recreation at that time or the person who named his wife "Pamela" or the "Kaali-Amavas-Ki-Baarish-Wali-Raat" or all the 3 factors, animal instincts took over Mr. Chopra and he was soon inadvertently involved in an act of conjugal copulation. Unfortunately, in a world sans "Mala-D goliyan or Prophylactics", nature had no option other than delivering "the-one-who-must-not-be-named" ( a "creature" frightfully addressed as Uday Chopra.)

(Sidenote1: With "animal instincts" taking over Mr. Chopra that night, it is but natural that the resulting baby {and its actions} has more resemblance to the "animal kingdom" than to the genus of Homo-Sapiens.)

(Sidenote2: When the moral "cop" goes "pop" then "p"opulation is derived from the act of "c"opulation)





Soon after Uday's Uday on 5th January 1973 (the day humanity desperately wants to forget...), Mr. Chopra realized his morbid mistake (usko apni gheenoni galti ka ehsaas ho gaya) and as a propitiation measure, he released his first movie (as a producer) aptly titled "Daag: A poem of love." As the wheels of time moved, "the biggest mistake of his life" grew up into something that epitomizes a crossover between 3 buffoonish baboons, 2 constipated camels & 1 pestering pig. What constituted an indelible daag of love(or lust?) for Mr. Chopra, became a MHCC (Mass Hysteria Causing Creature) for the society.

While freedom is really a good idea, the cost associated with it (i.e. watching Uday on a 70mm screen or even the dwarf 20" TeeVee) is something that makes me look forward to the days of British-Raaj (where censoring was dictatorially easy :-P.)

(Sidenote: I am not too sure whether Gandhiji would have reiterated his quote on freedom & mistake in today's time when the mistakes are as horrifying as Uday's face)

After years of dabaofying poor earth under his bojh, today Uday Chopra (the winner of 28521 FILM-UN-FAIR & 30906 Lo-OS-CAR-mein-karna awards) holds a Masters Degree is Hamming & Harming from LASOM (Lambu-Atta-School-Of-Management.) He holds a niche status and has a cult fan following which (inter alia) includes chimpanzees, buffoons, monkeys, cockroaches, frogs, blue whales and other artiodactyl mammals.

But knowing very well that

the litmus test for fathoming the progress achieved by any civilization is to ascertain the level of sarcasm & satire inculcated in its culture...

India (a progressive nation), contrivingly continued to confer numerous awards to Mr. Chopra.



[Mr. Chopra's better-half contributes to the nation's progress & gives saboot of Desh-Bhakti in the above pic (by mockingly laughing at the medal received by her husband.)]

Time and again, Indians & foreigners (even they are threatened by Uday) have subtly sensitized Mr. Chopra about the mistake:







Today, 34 years (and dozens of dubious awards) later..... Mr. Chopra too has realized the threats posed by Uday, and (in public interest) has come up with a plan which will strike a fine balance between the dual responsibilities he owes as a father (of a mentally debilitated creature) and the visionary of Indian cinema. He appointed consultants to revamp the role of Uday in Yash-Raj Films and has gracefully accepted the proposed transformation of "AS-IS" to "TO-BE" role of Uday.



And we are all glad to know that Mr. Chopra believes in walking-the-talk. As a part of Uday's role transformation, a test run was held in the movie Dhoom2 where Uday was covered in Burkha for a couple of minutes.





Epilogue:

As a benevolent soul, I couldn't bear that Uday's source of livelihood was so drastically jeopardized by the "kafanchor" consultants. I leveraged my corporate contacts & found some sponsors for whom Uday could become the brand ambassador. Companies manufacturing prophylactics have found their new messiah in Uday. Their new ad campaign "Mistakes can be costly, so plan or perish" is expected to hit the media soon :-)





To conclude (In RajKumar's Saudagar-ish tone:)
Sanaatanpur ki aaney wali peedhion kay liye Yash Chopra aur Uday Chopra ki yeh amar daastaan ek bemisal sabak saabit hogi.

PS: Before you decide to murder anyone (including the author)...........always remember.... "To err is human, to forgive divine"

Photo credits: The "Raw" photos were found by google image search. Various websites have been used a source for the input photos, which were later edited by "Yogesh K Sharma" (which incidentally is none other than me :-D )
Before any website decides to sue me, please consider that the photos have been put to non-commercial use and for humor purpose only :-)

30 Degrees of Zodiac

Time and again people (like me) who have apotheosized Mithunda (a.k.a “Prabhujee” coz of fans’ veneration) have wondered why lesser mortals (like Big B, SRK et al.) who have the “just-out-of-a-forced-nasbandi-operation” look on their faces, are being honored by Filmfares, Youth-Icon awards, Madam Tussaud's wax statues etc….?? The perpetual publicity & accolades conferred by media on such “tucchh-praanis” causes intense frustration of a level which otherwise could be invoked only by enduring the forced-screen-presence of a pestering creature called Uday Chopra.

“Why Prabhujee’s radiance is so severely undermined in Kalyug?” was an arcane question which invoked incessant insomnia in me. But thanks to Prabhujee’s eternal grace, I finally discovered the answer, albeit after spending innumerable sleepless nights in corroborative contemplation of ancient texts. Through this post, I share my Eurekaaaaaaa moment!!! (Don’t close thy eyes, coz unlike Archimedes, I am very much covered with garbs)

(Sidenote: When Jaya saw BigB in a closed room with another woman, she shouted….. “E-u-re-khaaaaaaa”)

While ignorant idiots write-off Prabhujee as a loser and celebrate the waxification of the “nasbandi gang”, god has already granted Prabhujee the boon of celestial nectar (“amrit”) by inscribing HIS name on 30 Degrees of Zodiac. For the astrologically challenged, Zodiac is the division of the circle of sky (360 degrees) into 12 parts of 30 degrees each (elementary geometry, anyone??) The 12 parts are commonly known as “signs” (rasis or rashis.) And of the 12 such signs, the third one i.e. Gemini (Mithun) rasi is named after HIM.

Notwithstanding the unwarranted (& perhaps…sponsored) media attention on the lesser mortals, the essential question is… “How many of them will be remembered by the coming generations??” Coz as the sher goes – “Shaam ko raddi mein bikta hai wohi…….jo naam subah akhbaar ki surkhi mein aata hai.” Unlike other celebrities, Prabhujee (being a self-realized soul) never ran after the “taamsik” (materialistic) possessions of this world. The “nasbandi gang” believes in being conspicuous through their presence whereas Prabhujee has mastered the art of being conspicuous through his absence. Mithun Rasi is Prabhujee’s subtle answer to all his critics, through which he is visible to his devotees and invisible to others. (Prabhujee ki leela aprampaar hai………………isliye humey Prabhujee say pyaar hai…)

For the “so-called” rationalists, Prabhujee’s connection with and influence on Mithun Rasi is proved through empirical evidence:

1. Date of Birth – Prabhujee's birthday (for present incarnation) falls on 16th June when the Sun(the significator of soul) is in Gemini. (As per Vedic/Sidereal system of astrology, the Sun is in Gemini tentatively from 14^th June to 14^th July.)

2. Himesh Reshammiya released his movie Aap Ka Suroor on 29^th June. Again a period when Sun is in Gemini. In the movie, HR revealed his true inspiration & source of energy by doing a Prabhujee-dance while he was drunk. (And as we know that only drunkards & children speak the truth…) So now we know the real reason for movie's success!!!

3. Kanti Shah (its a stern slap on the face of humanity that there is no wikipedia page on him), best known for making movies with an esoteric dimension realized the Gemini-Avataar of Prabhujee. Following are instances from his magnum opus GUNDA where the Gemini connection is clearly visible:

• Prabhujee’s opening dialogue (“Main hun jurm say nafrat karnay waala,shareefo kay liye jyoti, gundo kay liye jwaala”) where he claims to toggle between an Luminous lamp on one hand (for virtuous people) and Volcano on the other (for the rogues) represents the inherent "duality" / "dual nature" of Gemini. Quoting the first line from senses-astrology
  "These celestial bodies bestow an element of duality, which emerges on some levels"



• We now examine the intricacies of the immortal dialogue… “Do, Chaar, Chhey, Aanth, Dus…Bas” and its linkage with Gemini. The summation of 2,4,6,8,10 i.e. 2+4+6+8+10 gives us 30 (reflecting 30 degrees of zodiac) and when we further reduce it to single digit i.e. 30 = 3+0 = 3 , it gives us Gemini’s (being the third sign of natural zodiac) conjunction with infinity (0). The 3 represents Gemini tatva and 0 adds the dimension of infinity to it.

The above examples seamlessly reiterate the fact that Mithunda is the essence of Gemini's energy. That he owns nothing less than 30 Degrees of Zodiac is a fact which everybody will have to accept.....sooner or later.

Prabhujee wasn't alloted Gemini arbitrarily. He did "kathin tapasya" for years and used his energies for the greatest good of the mankind. His altruistic nature can be verified from the fact that while the “nasbandi gang” spends time in selling everything from colas to chavanprash and computers to cars, Prabhujee is busy meditating and radiating his energy to the likes of Bill Gates. Yes, Bill Gates’ success primarily comes from the fact that his natal chart (janam kundli) has Gemini as the Rising Sign ("Ascendant" or the "Lagna".) So while people go gung-ho over Bill's fortune, little do they realize who is the one responsible for it!!!

And just when you are wondering that from Bill Gates to Himesh Reshammiya....Prabhujee is doing it all......just wait for the next case and you will start gasping as heavily as Sherry Siddhu would do at the sight of Mallika Sherawat. As history tells us, in his previous incarnation, Prabhujee inspired none other than Albert Einstein. This is corroborated by his natalchart which also has Gemini as the rising sign.

Why all the Gunda-Gemini-Gyaan remained underground for such a long time is another moot question answered by ancient science of "Jyotish." Moon(the significator of mind) in Mithun Rasi was under Sade Sati from 2000 to 2007. But now with Saturn's transit into Leo on 15th july, the sade sati is over. Gemini Moon (representing the mind in jyotish) was overshadowed by the dark Saturn which implies that deciphering the "real intent & mind" behind the works of art like Loha & Gunda would not be possible till Sade Sati's effect are nullified. And it is no coincidence that bhakts have unearthed many of the mysteries related to Mithunda's opuses in the last one year when Sade-Sati was almost waning out.

For atheists, all this is fictitious coincidence. A sham to worship a pseudo simpleton.

But for the bhakts (like me) it is the aurora; beginning of a new journey to obtain innate insights into Prabhujee's modus operandi.......................

Epilogue:

Even after years of extensive research, Prabhujee’s persona & Kanti Shah’s orphic vision remains by and large unfathomable. I plan to make a humble effort to decipher Kanti Shah’s works of art through the 2^nd, 4^th, 6^th, 8^th & 10^th posts of my blog.

All Prabhujee posts are dedicated to the following:

1. Debdutta – An extremely modest & pious individual who showed me the road to salvation by giving Gunda’s Prasad over Orkut. Despite the fact that he is an MBA from IIM-B, his Orkut profile sings praise only for GUNDA. An excellent example of how Prabhujee’s satsang completely dissolves the ego.
2. V (Venky Iyer)– for demystifying some of the esoteric clouds on GUNDA by his FAQs answers in Gunda community and consequentially igniting a spark of prabhu bhakti in us.
3. Bong….Greatbong - For providing the link to Tapan’s blog.
   
4. Tapan – For continuously writing hymns in HIS praise and inspiring us to walk on the path of knowledge.

May their tribe increase......Amen!!! :-)

Consulting FAQs

Every now and then, I bump into laymen (yeah..only *men*.... I sincerely wish I had the opportunity to bump into women ;-)) who keep pestering me by inquiring about my profession. Now I can tell them that I am into Strategy & Operations Consulting, but then it would trigger a domino effect and open the pandora's box of 101 prohibited questions about my profession. While ideally, I would need a PPT to describe my work.....I hereunder make a humble effort to accomplish the insurmountable task of explaining my source of livelihood................



1) How do you define a consultant?

Oh! So you want a *primer* on consultants!!! Well here it goes:

Consultants are dubious creatures who disseminate value propositions to facilitate extensive indulgence in ostensible acts of strategically synergistic value addition, which can seamlessly teleport money from the bank accounts of their clients.

Consultants are generally a cross-over between disgruntled accountants, perplexed lawyers, sugarcoated salesmen & wannabe terrorists, and are best known for their PowerPoint fetish. To cut the flab out, they are pretentious protagonists who didn’t have the charisma to become a terrorist.


2) What is the kind of work that they do?

First things first, they don’t *do* anything. “They just *facilitate* their clients in the wild-goose chase for corporate alchemy.” Having said that, they do lots of things in the process of facilitation…………like LBDN (Looking Busy Doing Nothing), making massive decks containing 3 tons of Harvey balls, 7 tons of chevrons, 21 tons of office clipart and 51 tons of jargon aka bullshit. Their activities transcend beyond decks and include creation of colossal rabid reports (full of googled up statistics & information) contrivingly classified as proprietary & confidential. And yeah, they articulate highly imaginative robust disclaimers to ensure that they are not penalized for duping their clients. However, consultants disagree with the above explanation & postulate that they facilitate inculcation of value habit in organizations, provide end-to-end strategy based seamless transformation solutions, catalyze best-in-breed methodologies and align global initiatives ………….(interrupted by the questioner)


3) Can you explain something in *plain* English?

Oh you mean *Vanilla* English!! No!!! Coz as per the clause 5674.21 of the IGCAC (Imaginary Global Consulting Association Charter), any information on consultants and their deliverables has to be disseminated in an abstruse form that is analogous to 128bit encryption.


4) Ok then can you explain me some of the terms used by you? Like can you tell what is “value”?

Value is the money that goes in consultants’ bank accounts for showcasing commercial sense as insurmountable rocket science and selling utopian dreams as an inevitable business imperative.

5) And what are decks?

Decks are PPTs.


6) And what are PPTs?

PPTs are Powerpoint Presentations or for that matter any presentation to be given to clients to sensitize them about the perils of not having RSS (Robust Seamless & Synergistic) processes. In short, they are an exceptionally sophisticated tool for public dissemination of “misrepresentations.”
PS: PPT also represents the biggest necessary evil of our times - "Power Point Terrorism"

7) Generally who become consultants?

I wish I (or for that matter anybody) knew the underlying reasons or root cause behind the behavioral disorder which transforms an innocuous person into a soft-core terrorist (aka Consultant.)


8) What’s the difference between consultant & terrorists

None. Except that terrorists don’t use PPTs to torture people.


9) What’s the similarity between consultant & terrorists

A lot. Both are driven by extreme self-delusion that they are making this world a better place to live and that their independent & objective *opinion* about everything is correct.


10) Among the two, who is more dangerous?

Considering the fact that consulting is legal, the chances are that your life will be jeopardized by a consultant is much higher.


11) Are all consultants so bad?

No. No……no…way…………most of them are actually much much much more worse than depicted by me. (Big 4 consultants are an exception.)


12) Really? I have heard something on Big4. What about the Big4 consultants?

They are good. Period dot period.


13) Are you from Big4?

Next question please ;-)


14) How many consultants are required to change a bulb?

Infinite. Remember they are just *facilitators* they can give you various 2x2 matrices, myriad thought leadership publications and complex process flow diagrams on changing a bulb. Then they will prepare a 500 page report on change management issues and downstream effects of replacing the bulb. Finally they will create a steering committee and ask it to delegate the work to a SME (subject-matter-expert)

(questioner interrupts and says)…I think I will change the bulb on my own!

(my reply)…Wise Decision :-P


15) If consultants don’t do any work at all then why do companies engage them?

Since the top Brass (the CXO guild i.e. CEO, CFO etc.) of any company delegates all of its work to senior & functional management and playing solitaire / minesweeper on computer can be very boring (especially after losing it for 500 times consecutively... add to this an IT policy which blocks out porn & social dating websites and you derive an ostentatious restructuring plan (or something like that which was created in their desperate attempt to kill time.) So they hire consultants to boost their ludicrous efforts directed towards enhancing corporate bureaucracy to a level that can successfully hide their reality and trick stakeholders to believe that they are actively working to achieve strategic objectives of the company.


16) What if I bump into a “sensible consultant?”

Firstly pinch yourself haaaaaarrrrrrrrd. And if you are confident that the “so called” sensible consultant is not an outcome of chemical imbalances in your brain and you are not suffering from “hallucination” then kindly tell him/her to reveal his “true profession.” :-P


17) What’s the future of consulting?

I sincerely believe that in public interest, consultants would be classified as WMDs by UNO. But why such a question?

18) Actually my son is very imaginative and he is very good at lying! So I was wondering whether he can become a good consultant?

That totally depends on how seamlessly he can camouflage his lies as business imperatives and manifest them through power point.


19) Why don’t consultants have children?

Since they are just facilitators, they don’t do it themselves, they just facilitate :-P
Moreover they are good at giving *disclaimers.* So even if they ever have their own children, they generally disown them through a disclaimer.


20) Where do consultants live?

Considering that they want everything to be RSS (Robust Seamless & Synergistic), their natural domicile is (unmistakably) Consultopia.


21) Why doesn’t consultants’ rubber ever meet the road?

Coz their opinions are subject to myriad assumptions like:

1. There are no Supply chain disruptions in the factory of laxatives taken by George Bush. (coz if he is constipated, he can wage a war against any country including USA itself, which will distort the underlying assumptions of the robust statistical model)

2. The tensile strength of elastic of Warren Buffet’s underwear is intact.
(Just imagine if he takes a wrong decision due to discomfort caused by his underwear.)

3. Polar bears don’t discover contraceptives.
(Coz if they indulge in safe s*x then ecological environment of Artic regions will get disturbed causing global warming and meltdown.)

4. Himesh Reshammiya doesn’t marry Mukesh Ambani

5. Uday chopra doesn’t appear on TV screens for more than 5 minutes a year. (it can cause mass hysteria)

6. No mad scientist resurrects ghosts, mummies & dinosaurs again……..(interrupted by the questioner)


22) How long does it take to think about such disclaimers?

Generally 80% of the project time is spent on articulating disclaimers.


23) Why don’t consultants take responsibility for their actions?

Since they don’t indulge in any *action* they are obviously not responsible.

Remember they are only facilitators.

24) If I bump into a consultant then how can I avoid them??

Err….well if u find a way then please let me know, I will update the FAQs


25) Can I share this information with others?

At your own peril. The views expressed are neither professional nor personal; they are the result of an atrociously arbitrary thought process resulting from severe mental degradation invoked due to power point abuse. The author is not in mental capacity to comprehend what he himself has written.


PS: This post is dedicated to lay*women* who never bumped into me......