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Q1: Tell us about your journey into management cartoons. I began with social cartoons for magazines and then drew a daily political cartoon for a newspaper from Allahabad during my MBA days. I once again started a daily news cartoon during mid-nineteen for ‘The Daily’, a newspaper in Mumbai. When The Pioneer launched its Mumbai edition, I started India’s first management cartoon column ‘Under The Pyramid’. This was later picked-up by Hong Kong Standard. When The Pioneer closed its Mumbai edition, I continued with the column for sometime for its Delhi edition, but then moved the column to The Financial Express. I also contributed a weekly column ‘Out of the Box’ for The Hindu, which ran till 2003. Later on when DNA was launched from Mumbai, I started a daily management cartoon in color ‘Funny Business’. I stopped doing this column as I was planning to combine my work in the area of cartooning and management in a way that is more satisfying. I started a column in The Chartered Accountant...

Here are 10 Tips to become an Interesting and Unusual Person Be innovative and unusual Any innovation is welcome since it breaks the routine. Connect things and become cross-disciplinary. Discussing a inter-disciplinary topic will make you interesting, a subject like bio-informatics for example will satisfy the ones interested in biology and the ones in technology. Hold Strong Opinions People with strong opinions are liked (or at least respected). Is it because very few people have strong opinions and that makes it unusual? Dash of Humour Learn the art of telling jokes (not an easy art). Become a specialist in a category, management jokes for example. Voice Modulation Use voice modulation to develop an impressive-attractive voice. We are all tired of routine lives. Anything which breaks that routine is welcome. Spicy food after bland home food is welcome. High volume after low volume is welcome, any change is welcome and makes us feel fresh. Be a vulture...

A CEO, A Trainer and A Pranic Healer Though Nihar owns Auralis Consulting but she prefers to write CEO/Director rather than Chairperson and says that she also reports to the Board of Directors & is accountable. I remember long time back I had met a person who in spite of being the owner, used Chief Operating Officer on his visiting card. When I asked him why, he said, “I need to work hard for next two years and then if I am satisfied with my performance, I will promote myself to CEO and so on.” Nihar has been practicing pranic healing for the past 4 years and says that a healer is only a channel of God's divine healing. She is a registered Pranic Healer with Life Positive, India (see the link below for the list). She says, “For a healer it is necessary to practive meditation, to get rid of the contaminated energy gained from the environment and more importantly to maintain the contact with higher souls & God” She says the first thing which is done is to iden...

 Ekaterina Feoktistova  is hardly 23 and has a strong command on French and English (and of course Russian). She studied languages at Belgorod State University for 5 years. While working, she realized that being just an interpreter isn't enough for her so she joined her Masters in Moscow State University with specialization in Public Relations. Her areas of interests are PR in Social Media (also called Cyber PR) and Social Media Marketing. She works as Social Media Specialist at PR Project, a Russian PR agency and is responsible for the blog and Facebook page to begin with.The quality which I most appreciate in Katya is that she has gathered more than 6 years of part time work experience (as an interpreter) along with her academics. Presently also she is managing academics (pursuing a Masters in PR from Moscow University) and a full time job. She has quite an unusual photo added to her profile (with an informal pose). Well if you are tactful and know your limits, getting ...

The Art and Science of Living (and Journalism ) Prakash was part of the launch team of Webduniya (Webworld), India’s first Hindi website. Presently he is the Head of Madhya Pradesh Bureau of a new Hindi news channel to be launched soon. He also posts frequently on Facebook in Hindi (ironies, satires and what not, 5,000 plus friends) and gives preference in replying to the comments posted in Hindi even if they use Roman script. Prakash recently wrote on Facebook, “In our day to day life, we are constantly using products and services created and innovated by others and our life is so comfortable because of sacrifices and efforts of so many people, living or dead. How dare we can be ungrateful?” So true and touching (Are we not ungrateful pigs very often?) Prakash being much older to me, I address him as Prakashji (ji being a symbol of respect in Indian culture, but for readers convenience, I will leave out the ji) He is such a balanced person, successful in all the roles he pla...

Warning If you consider yourself highly intelligent, you can continue (otherwise you are heading for a tough time.) I thought I was intelligent, till I came across the two S’s of my life (Sri Aurobindo’s writings and Sandra Garcia’s Blog). Well, now I have serious doubts, whether I am intelligent enough. Sandra is based in South Africa and has an interesting group on Linkedin called “The Pythagoras Portal” (a blog also with the same name). As stated in the group profile, “The purpose of this group is to produce a testing ground for the new scientific theories, that are received from spiritual communications.” She can discuss meteors, transcendence and cancer with equal ease while I take few minutes to adjust my brain’s settings for the new topic. I address Sandra as the ‘Lady Einstein’ as I have to work very hard to understand the discussions on her group. In any case mixing science with spirituality is like mixing country liquor with whisky and makes for a heady combination....

Bob started playing games with me right from the beginning. When I saw Bob Rees (Likes) on one of my blog posts on Linkedin, I checked his profile out of curiosity. I immediately received an invitation to connect with him and he wrote very bluntly, “You have seen my profile. Now you know the rules’” Of course I had to play by the rules and accept his invitation (By the way, any reader can tell me if there is such a protocol or rule). Though Bob Rees is a Fashion Designer (he calls himself creative fashion designer, are there any non-creative fashion designers also?) by profession, but the child in him is always alive and kicking. A few days had passed and Bob, (keeping his reputation of being called Bubble Bob), had inscribed my name on a bubble foam toy he had created and sent me a photo of the same (see the photo at the end of the blog post) When I told him of my malicious intentions to write a post on him in the series, “Interesting People in my Life”, he immediately...

David Frood, Founder & CEO, The Thinking Corporation, Australia A student of mine told me, “Sir, you think too much.” Well, if you have friends like David, what else can you do? David is the author of the famous book, ‘The Thinking Corporation’ and encourages even corporations to think, forget about people. David Frood is also the Founder and CEO of the Thinking Corporation management consulting, Sydney, Australia. The motto of the company is, “Enabling Innovation for Corporations” David forces his audience to think, no wonder the ‘Think’ company IBM is among his major clients. We share many common interests like walking, travelling and learning. David is a firm believer in God and says, “God understands our prayers even when we can’t find the words to say them.” He emphasizes upon raised thinking levels and quotes Einstein, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” He is a keen follower of Triple P philosophy (People, Pl...

Andrea Sobotka, Animal Spirit Wisdom “I have noticed that the Universe loves gratitude. The more grateful you are, the more goodies you get. When I say ‘goodies,’ I don’t mean only material things. I mean all the people, places, and experiences that make life so wonderfully worth living.” - Louise L. Hay Yes I am trying to be grateful to the God or the higher power and coming across people like Andrea, is making life wonderfully worth living. Andrea Sobotka is an Leadership & Management Specialist and Business Development Consultant. Well that’s the boring, traditional part. The interesting part is that Andrea is also an intuitive and works with animal spirits and animal rescue. She calls herself Critter Doc and has an owly smile ~;o} always ready, between her messages for me. What is animal spirit wisdom, readers must be wondering. I am borrowing few lines from Andrea’s website to explain exactly what she means, “We all are blessed with the presence of l...