Business to the Buddha

Category: Business

  • Entanglement of a langot (undergarment)







    I heard/read a story when I was a kid, I think in some Osho discourse or book. Well, I have been thinking about writing this for a long time, but I didn’t remember the whole story so I called my gateway of last resort (Ramana Rajgopaul uncleji – he blogs here). “Gateway of last resort” is a Computer Networks term, when every other link fails send data packets to gateway of last resort, is how any router is configured.

    Actually, he is very different person – you (I mean, I) can speak with him on any subject matter (from Sex to Super-consciousness). He guides with different points of views and references (he speaks great sanskrit, speaks Shlokas of different scriptures and mind you – he is an MBA from IIMA OK!). By the way he is 70 year young; young because when I talk to him I feel as if I am an old man, he is full of life as young as a 15 year old can be. Coming back to the story…

    Entanglement

    There was a saint, ascetic. He used to live outside of a village as used to happen in old day India. He owned only 2 langots (Nappies, or undergarments), nothing else. One he used to wear while other is washed. As any Indian saint could be – he was fed by villagers. Once, one of his langot was nibbled by a mouse. So villagers gave him cat to shoo away mouse/mice. In some days our saint realized that he needed to take care of the cat and to feed her he needs something. Villagers gave him a cow for feeding milk to the cat.

    Well, now he needed someone to take care of his cow, he hired someone to take care. The story goes something like this – this hired person needed monthly salary so saint started teaching as well. Slowly, this saint – an ascetic – becomes a family man. This langot converts an ascetic to a family man…

    This is how (may be not because of your undergarment) all worldly entanglements are woven around our life.

    Life is like this, we try to do something and end up doing something else. May be to take care of a langot (business, family, self) your whole focus changes. So, take care of your purpose otherwise you would be entangled such that you would run around in paraphernalia than the focus.

    Oh yes, this story reminded me of Novel by Herman Hesse – Siddharth. Ramana uncleji has also written a story on similar lines here.

    Related blogs –

    What more you need?

    Why are you doing what are you doing?

    Race – never ending

  • Happy New Year 2014






    I received this story on whatsapp last week… thought this is good story to share with you as a possibility of new year resolution. It is a 350 word story, so not more than 5 min to read…

    I still remember – Barasti in Dubai, racist behavior of them. Hope we would learn, sooner than later. I further hope that after reading such simple story people responsible for economic crisis, political crisis across world would change.

    The Suitcase
    A man died, when he realized it, he saw God coming closer with a suitcase in his hand.

    God said: Alright son its time to go.

    Surprised the man responded: Now? So soon? I had a lot of plans…

    God said: I’m sorry but its time to go.

    What do you have in that suitcase? the man asked.

    God answered: Your belongings.

    My belongings? you mean my things, my clothes, my money?

    God answered: Those things were not yours they belonged to the earth.

    Is it my memories? the man asked.

    God answered: those never belonged to you they belonged to Time
    Is it my talents?

    God answered: those were never yours they belonged to the circumstances.

    Is it my friends and family?

    God answered: I’m sorry they were never yours they belonged to the path.

    Is it my wife and son?

    God answered: They were never yours the belonged to your heart.

    Is it my body?

    God answered: that was never yours it belonged to the dust.

    Is it my soul?

    God answered: No that is mine.

    Full of fear, the man took the suitcase from God and opened it just to find out the suitcase was empty.

    With a tear coming down his cheek the man said: I never had anything?

    God answered: that is correct, every moment you lived were only yours. Life is just a moment, a moment that belongs to you. For this reason enjoy this time while you have it. Don’t let anything that you think you own stop you from doing so.

    Live Now

    Live your life

    Don’t forget to be happy, that is the only thing that matters. Material things and everything else that you fought for stay here. YOU CAN’T TAKE ANYTHING

    So this new year why not plan to do everything by just remaining completely in the moment. Enjoy the moment and in terms of actions remember Krishna said “do the work and leave results…”

    कर्मणयेवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन।
    मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि।   2.47 – more on this Shloka of Geeta by another blogger here

    Wish you a Very Happy New Year.

    Related blogs –

    1. Illusion of control

    2. Money worth earning

    3. My New Year wish!

    4. Wake up!

    5. Welcoming’12, Seasons of ’11 and accountability

  • World minus some electronic junk







    I am on leave for a couple of days. So, I went to meet my sister. She had been thinking of buying a mobile for a long time now. Not surprisingly she had at least 3 old handsets, besides 1 working handsets. Alas! we bought one for her.  While on our way to purchase new mobile, I told her – “these things are electronic waste you are keeping with yourself, sell old when buying new one”. Question is – is it a/’the’ solution? Selling & the buyer dumping that cheap plastic somewhere?

    I came across this website (Link – https://phonebloks.com/en) and its product – PhoneBloks in Oct. I signed in to their petition and remembered this is a good solution. The concept is very simple, interesting yet seems difficult to realize. Watch video for more.

    This seemingly simple approach can help resolve problem of electronic junk from the world.

    The other thing that came to my mind was this. What if we look at 24 hours of our day as blocks? We make these blocks as personal time, reading news paper, travel to office, office hours, eating out, weekly purchasing, sleeping, socializing, social networks and “rest of the time”. If we fix these “TIME BLOCKS” in our 24 hours wont it make our life easier to manage? Yes it is tough to squeeze in so many thing, however if a company can try it for Phones why not we try to do it for ourselves?

  • Size of the Universe!







    Once I was walking to office. I saw two carts in little distance, both had guava. One had fresh guava and other had relatively not so fresh once. I instantly thought what if these stale ones have insects and small creatures. A guava for those insects & small creatures must be the world in itself.

    I remembered I ate an apple yesterday, what if it too has such insects? Those insects were nothing in front of me, there must be many such insects within me right now! Few of them must be thinking – “I did this great stuff or that great stuff today” et al. Interesting, isn’t it? For me or you – well we do not even know they exist, forget about their ‘great’ actions.

    What if we are such small insects for someone! We are going across the galaxy and lo! this is another something small for someone. Someone who we don’t even know or imagine that he/she even exists!

    We look at the world with our own speck, yes we create our own world, unaware about small or huge ‘other’ around us!

    Related blogs –

    Ego

    Give up Dominion

  • Butterfly Effect, is it?







    One fine day morning, a very strange thought came in my mind. Whatever we are doing, is it creating any problem in the nature or it is development?

    I shifted to suburb some time back, I found that there is relatively less cleanliness in suburb compared to where I used to live in South Mumbai (SoBo). Almost everyday there used to be swapping of the roads and all. By noon you could not find foliage on the roads. Why did this strange thought of swapping came to mind mind?

    In my suburban apartment a pigeon has made a nest with leafs. The same happens & happened in SoBo apartment too. I have seen at least three (actually five) times the pigeon could not properly hatch the eggs. Whereas I believe the suburban pigeon’s hatching could be better. In SoBo, pigeon’s nests were not as warm as Suburban pigeon’s nest is. This is because SoBo pigeon did not get foliage leafs whereas suburban pigeon did! Three times I observed eggs ended with no baby pigeon because proper warmth was missing! Had I done something for the nest, pigeon wont have accepted it. I tried it once threw some cotton to help him/her.

    So both these pigeon’s a suburban and a SoBo made me think – when we do something for “Good” e.g. swapping for cleaning roads, are we really doing something good for the nature? Who knows!

    Is it butterfly effect – no matter how small, an event can change the course of the universe forever.

  • Keynes







    I enjoyed learning economics in my MBA, thanks to Prof Mankad for teaching Macroeconomics as a well narrated story of History of the world. He taught it so brilliantly that we all used to sit, go through the roller coasters up and down the history lane by-lanes and learn the development in economics and policy making.

    Being an average engineer, I too was unaware (still am) about economics before taking the course with Prof Mankad. This was the class where I came to know about John Manyard Keynes and keynesianism. I buy into his theory of Govt intervention (which wont go down well with many capitalists); however the way I have seen recent past is – challenges and largely corruption in implementation. In India, Govt has launched Food Security, Employment schemes – seems good as Keynes suggested, but the money is not reaching the right place.

    Well, I thought to write on Keynes because something moved me deeply in Prof Mankad’s class. That statement itched profoundly, whenever I thought about future that sentence resounded. Prof Mankad talked about Great Depression in his lectures. He introduced us to the Keynes and his idea, opposition to his idea and so on. In the lecture Prof Mankad said – what Keynes was – “in the long run we are all dead”.

    This statement is right however we can think on this two ways –

    1. (bad one) Anyway I will die one day – why worry, indulge and enjoy. [may be Tarun Tejpal (recent Tehelka sexual harassment case) and many others think this way]

    2. (Good intentions) Yes, if I am going to die, everyone dies, so what is the purpose of my being here? Am I like any other animal or plant, or I have some brain, who gave it to me? And so on…

    So, if …in the long run we are all dead… why all this drama (delusion)? in Hindi – यह प्रपंच क्यों?

  • Lesson from the Twitter…







    Twitter is a funny thing, at times, It teaches you some lessons unintentionally. This is what happened to me which made me think – am I writing what I feel is my opinion or I am writing what makes others feel good about my opinions? For a mere mortals – like I am – this question is of existence on twitter. So here comes my thoughts on survival on twitter.

    I wrote last month The Master is the Servant’s Servant. I remember reading this in the Book of Mirdad. Recently, I revisited this line – Master is the servant’s servant and vice versa. In this “virtually socially connected world” There is a new paradigm to looking at this saying of Mirdad.

    During Diwali, I purged my list of people I am following on Twitter. I unfollowed whom I thought I should not follow now. Similarly I looked at the list of people who are following me. I realized, that there was a time when I had more than 250 follower e.g. more than 250 people following me and getting my tweets on their timelines. Slowly this number had declined. Many people did what I did to few during Diwali ‘cleaning’! They simply “Unfollowed” me. So, I was wondering, how come I reached 250+ followers? I tweeted about 1. political opinions, 2. my view on economics 3. spirituality and 4. Business e.g. Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation, Startups, Entrepreneurship & VC/PE deals, Analytics, Big Data etc.

    Actually, many people followed when I tweeted what “sounded” good to their ears. Me being me – later on – I might have written something against those thoughts or something irrelevant to those followers – the simply went. No regrets – actually, that growing number gives you a false sense of pride – believe me it feels like that initially. I realized that ok – writing this or that makes people follow you. Should I start writing in this or that manner? I was getting in the trap of being salves of those few people who wanted to hear what suited most to them. Well, that was what making me servant (of others opinion) and them the master (of my owns opinion).

    So, it is a kind of question of one’s existence. cogito Ergo Sum (I think therefore I exist) or my thoughts echo with thoughts of the People therefore I exist (at least on twitter).

    Anyways the reality is – we are all interdependent and therefore the definition of salve and master is incorrect in itself.

    Disclaimer – I do not intend to demean those 1. who followed me, 2. later unfollowed me, 3. still following me 4. whom I follow, 5. I unfollowed and 6. I am still following etc on Twitter.

  • The Price of Inequality







    I have read Dr Joseph Stiglitz. He is a Nobel prize awarded economist. The book I read first was Globalization and its discontents and recently I started reading The price of Inequality.

    I realized that Dr Stiglitz may not be the so called capitalist economist, he is capitalist but with a touch of a Just and relatively Equal society. So, when I started reading “The price of Inequality” I started wondering what kind of wealth difference exist in the US. Since, I have never been to the US so the picture of the USA I have always created is – no poverty, everyone having enough and more to not only survive but also a lavish life, a home with front garden, a car parking (of course too), wonderful interiors of the home etc. This picture is largely because of the Movies we watch – on a lighter note Hollywood is responsible for that ;).

    Well, while reading the book, I came across a video on Facebook (watch below).

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM]

    Though, some may argue this video is shared for more socialistic reform e.g. healthcare reform, but that is not the point of contention for me. Watch Margin Call to understand the point of view of the bosses of the investment banks – well to sum up “They do not care! Everything will be fine in sometime.”

    My perspective is not a fight on any economic approach e.g. socialism Vs Capitalism, I favor inclusive growth and I believe for achieving that we need to follow a middle path wherein a mixed approach be used.

    Read my previous blogs related to the book – Globalization and its discontents

    Blogs here

  • Big data – lesson on spirituality







    I was talking to my MD – Dr Vivek Damle. I said, Big data is “relevant information provider” for real time. One cannot rely on old data generated by a person, say in 2010, for marketing strategy (I am writing this blog in 4th Quarter of 2013). The discussion went on a very strange yet lovely tangent, Dr Damle said – “… so big data would take us on the road of spirituality, is it? I mean to say – like suggesting us to live in the present!”

    I was impressed with this thought. So here comes the lesson learnt from spirituality and applied to the Big Data and vice versa.

    Big-dataBig data is all about volume, variety and velocity… so data generate say 2 yrs back is likely to be irrelevant for today’s marketing campaign. In coming days or say months – all analytics would move to the real time e.g. at the moment of truth. Spirituality teaches us this very simple lesson (difficult to apply in real life though) – “live in the present moment”. As Master Oogway says in The Kung Fu Panda – Yesterday Is History, Tomorrow Is a Mystery, but Today Is a Gift. That Is Why It Is Called the Present.

    I was thinking – is technology forcing us today to spiritual concepts? Or unknowingly are we moving towards concepts of spirituality through technology?

    Big data can help identify a persons choices and predict his or her future course of action… but what in case of older data? That data would have lesser significance. Take an example in India, Narendra Modi (PM candidate in India from Opposition Party – BJP) for someone was communal few years back now is a hope, why? because perceptions changed. Vice versa for Dr Man Mohan Singh (PM of India). Old data less relevance. If I talk about my owns example of last month – I was searching for rental apartment, not now. The data I created while searching for a rental apartment last month is irrelevant now. The marketing campaigns will be more real time e.g. the present not based on “Historical” data.

    Earlier in my professional engagement as a marketing analytics consultant, we made a predictive model. The client executed the recommendation more than 8 months later. result – failed. no one wanted to take the blame. That’s what is the case is in a fast moving world.

    Live in the present.

    For Business people – try to be more real-time data based decision makers.

    Image source – http://www.greenbookblog.org/2012/03/21/big-data-opportunity-or-threat-for-market-research/

  • Some other day







    I was traveling from Mumbai to Pune for some meetings, in my oblivion talking to my senior and looking at road. Suddenly I looked out of window – wow! I am crossing through a beautiful place. This is wonderful, the waterfall, its open you can look long distance.”

    That gaze was like just sit here for meditation; for those who enjoy involving themselves in some activities they can climb the mountain, trek or kick around their football or cycle in some planes. Those who want to party can take their cans of beverages and drink, eat and be happy.

    I have noticed this occasionally that we just overlook things around us. We are just rushing. Back in the car, I was really rushing to the client meeting, we started talking back about the problem, possible solution frameworks and all.

    At the back of my mind – the thought cropped up – some other day. We do not have time in our chore just to sit and reflect, or sit and do nothing or sit and just be thankful for what awesome things we have around – for example appreciate this place, sound of the waterfall, chirping of the birds etc. We pass our life thinking – some other day. That day rarely comes…

    Some other day – may be today?