Business to the Buddha

Month: February 2016

  • Flawed business model

    There was a company Kingfisher Airlines which owed 7000+ Cr (70+ billion INR or well over 1B USD) to a consortium of banks in India. The company could not pay its debts; its owner/company recently was declared ‘willful defaulter’ by few banks. Now, the owner Dr Vijay Mallya is shifting to England with all funfair.

    Indian Big Corporations debtThis event and the total debt (sourced from a LinkedIn post above) makes one seriously think – is it true that “The wall streets fraud” as Bernie Sanders US presidential candidate has said earlier? In India, we have very contrasting examples – one side there were many farmers who were committing suicide because they couldn’t repay loans and on the other side we have banks with NPA (Non Performing Assets) & professionals who do “Corporate Debt Restructuring” resulting in many if not all NPAs in future. At present Indian PSU’s NPA is more than their Market Capitalization.

    Isn’t it “a subsidy transferring wealth from the rest of us to a select few” as the article rightly says?

    Just imagine – the debts given above, tax evasion, Satyam case and many other cheating happening not just in India but in almost every corner of the world. For me ‘wall street’s fraud’ is just a metaphor, there are many more frauds we are confronting daily. I have written on a few earlier – Volkswagen & Toshiba, Rajat Gupta and Moral Markets! to name a few. Are we really maturing as human race? Or we have become more deceptive and satanic?

    Just another example is the double speak of developed world on saving the earth – read Profit over the Planet.

    The point, after lamenting so much is always – how do we solve these problems? Only way I see is spirituality – Paris attacks – solutions please moving towards being saint in suits rather than Thief in Tuxedo.

    Related blogs – What are you searching for?

    Image source – LinkedIn post of Mr Hariprakash Visant

  • Pets

    “Pets” as a topic to a blog sounds weird, especially when it is put on a blog site titled – Business to the Buddha. Well the topic reminded me of my old blog – Master is servant’s servant, Lessons from Twitter etc.

    The defiDognition given at Dictionary.com for Pet is – “a domestic or tamed animal or bird kept for companionship or pleasure.” Can we push the envelope of this definition and define pet without the word ‘animal’? Because we see many people also behaving like animals – anti-social ways and as pets (perhaps like sycophant) both! Though, I feel when animal’s show affection it is not necessarily sycophancy the way humans do. Well, if you ask a person who shows the characteristics of a sycophant, he/she would say – in business/professional life one has to do it. Wonder if the other is not a professional (perhaps not a successful professional).

    In my case Internet and specially Twitter sounds more of a pet than any animal. Or its the other way round – I am a pet of Internet / Blogging / Twitter et al.

    Pet reminds me of my very first and only pet a dog – Snoopy – I had when I was 12 years. It was more of a responsibility for my mother than for me. Snoopy was more of a toy to me; a cute little 7 day old pup. My mom told me to leave it with its mother because Snoopy is too young. I agreed and that ended my small stint with a pet. However, that small period taught me that animals too have emotions & their requirements. Affection of mother was more important to Snoopy than anything else. Alsroseo, my pleasure was not the only thing that was important, it was wish, willingness of that small dog was equally important. Mostly we forget the second lesson in our interaction with fellow humans too. That turns out to be possession. The other person becomes a pet & your affection becomes a cage for him/her. This I am writing on Valentine’s Day, so hope few people will learn some lesson from here. Furthermore, if people learn from pet’s that love does not necessarily demand anything in return or any favor we would have a better world.

    Happy Valentine’s Day.

    Spread love to every living being and everything equally. World would become a happy peaceful place automatically, isn’t it?

    Image source – Dog – http://www.furballfitnesspetcare.com/ Rose – http://flowers-earth.blogspot.in/2012/04/rose.html

  • Kingdom of God!

    It was 2010, I was completing my MBA. We friends went to watch a movie ‘Tron‘, a movie by Disney. I was wondering about a few things while watching the movie. One, everyone is trying to make the world a perfect place and two, there is a fight leaving the place as it is or worse than what it was earlier. Why?

    I believe the reason for this is everyone has his/her own definition of ‘perfection’.

    Matrix was destroyed 7 times (in the movie The Matrix). What was the reason for creation of the Matrix?

    To make the world a perfect place. Why destruction?

    In terms of chemistry and dialog of The Matrix Revolution – whatever we do entropy increases. Entropy means “uncertainty of outcomes”.

    The next question arises – why is the trouble with increased entropy and a perfect place?Kingdom of God

    On conceptual levels of any reasonable human being, perfection would result in definitive outcomes. The trouble with that ‘reasonability’ is – perfection is a relative term. Relative concepts create conflicts. What is perfect for me could not be so for you.

    I learnt it from Prof Lopez. I asked for answers and once he told me – “Pravin, exactness is a cage/prison” once you are exact you would not move.

    Trust, this makes the idea simpler.

    The life loves simplicity! How many of us must have felt this. Be it relationship, be it conversations or understanding anything.

    Jesus said the kingdom of god belongs to the children; why because they do not have any filter to make opinion about the world. They see things ‘as is’. The lesson is about 2000 year old, alas! we are struggling hard to make the world a perfect place to live in. Result we making the world more complex, more sophisticated and therefore we are increasing its entropy. Moreover, on a philosophical level, peace lie within us and once someone is peaceful with oneself the place becomes perfect without any chance outside. Kingdom of God lie within us.

    Image Source – http://genius.com/5188338