Business to the Buddha

Tag: Ganesha

  • Ganesha to a devotee







    Lalbaugcha-Raja-VisarjanI wrote once on Ganesha festival (read here – Death is inevitable) of Maharashtra, similarly there is a Goddess Kali festival in West Bangal. What lesson I learnt from these festivals are death is coming, best use of your life is whatever best you can do NOW!

    The festival celebrated in its current form bothers a lot of people, I am one of them. I am not against festivity, I am against politicizing the festivals and making them vulgar to some extent. I saw people drinking in these places (in general drinking in temples etc is not considered good in Indian culture), playing strange songs instead of aartis etc. I was planning to write on the same, however I received a Whatsapp message from my friend Bhushan Chavan, so here is the message audio. This message fully syncs with my thoughts. I am trying to translate this Marathi message in English.

    Ganesha to his disciple – “You came! come first sit here peacefully. Take a normal breath in.

    Dont just start asking for your wishes by giving me Prasad of banana & modak. To be more precise dont ask/wish for anything this year. Dont even ask [not sure if thats what it means] for what happened to the wishlist you left here last year. Because as many wishes I fulfill your list keeps on increasing!

    Now, I dont want a bigger tummy than this [reference modak, sweets making Ganesha more fat]. Instead of wishing something, please do the otherwise, please fulfill few of my wishes. Check if you can do that.

    This year, do not think bad for anyone else. Dont ask for donation money [Marathi “Vargani” is Hindi “Chanda” is English “donation”. I am learning Marathi 😀 🙂 ;)] in my name.

    Dont spend sleepless nights, even if you don’t sleep – don’t drink, if drunk do not …. [could not make out this word]. I do not want 300 gram Gold necklace. If you can, please reduce volume of the speakers. I cannot stand the songs with vulgar lyrics, even I cant stand the vulgar dance of yours. It is impossible for me to stand your 10 day showoff in the name of a festival.

    I am folding my hands and requesting please wake up, be cultured, leave this faking and selfishness.

    Some times be honest and do this – be inebriated in humanity, philanthropy. Put in your 100% in your activities, keep away from the self proclaimed godmen. Instead of living on their foundations, live on your own confidence. Instead of losing your self confidence, live the God within you. Instead of winning world by terror, win it by love. Instead of flattering/serving rich people, try to help the poor/needy. Instead of becoming wealthy by materialistic things, become rich within [I wonder if Hindi/Marathi word “man” has equivalent English word].

    Now see how much you can accept, do not go empty handed [not sure of this part though].

    I bless you that instead of asking every time; you try and give more often and experience the contentment in that act of giving.

    We’ll meet again!”

    Image source – http://www.newhdwallpapers.in/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Lalbaugcha-Raja-Visarjan.jpg

  • Death is inevitable







    For Humans – Death is inevitable; there is no hiding from this truth. For Companies – Only the paranoids survive!

    Well, it was a coincident that my previous blog was on death and the season of Ganesha festival (an Indian festival) arrived.  This Ganesh festival I had seriously thought about the Indian culture, festivities and the small – often overlooked – lessons. In India every good work starts with invoking Lord Ganesh, even prayers, pooja etc starts with first invoking lord Ganesh and then the other “main” pooja’s.

    The festival of Ganesha is a period from Ganesh chaturthi to Ganesh Chaturdashi a ten day period often in September month. During this festival, families and societies bring idol of lord Ganesh, worship the idol and within a couple of days immerse the idol in water. Similar to what happens to us – we are born one day and would be cremated one day.

    (source - http://www.thehindubusinessline.in/2004/09/28/stories/2004092802271700.htm)
    Visarjan procession in Mumbai

    Every year we follow this cycle of birth and death with our God. A God revered so sincerely that every things starts with his name – Shri Ganeshay Namah. Hats-off to this culture which has this concept of death embedded in its roots so truthfully. I think we should understand that death is inevitable and learn some lessons. (The Buddha saw this once and started his quest.)

    I started looking beyond my grieving moments and towards businesses. What I realized is that ‘the reality‘ of death applies to even companies too! As innovation consultants we used to share statistics on survival of companies. Out of Fortunes list of 1920’s and 30’s many companies do not exist now. Take an example of Kodak – a very innovative company –  filed for chapter 11 recently. If we just take Kodak as an example – Xerox was born out of Kodak’s lab. Xerox created such brand image that Photocopy became synonyms to Xerox. HP with its printing challenged Xerox. So the cat and mouse run of companies is on. The conclusion I made was if companies do not reinvent themselves, those are likely to die over a period of time.

    Last weekend I was attending a course meant for board members or to make people capable to contribute to boards. In the course (Retd) Maj Gen Mhaisale shared some HBS and McKinsey reports about shrinking life time of companies. Earlier average life of companies used to be about 40 years now it has shrunk to 16 years (in some countries 6-10 years too). Take the same example life span of Kodak was about 100 years, Xerox about 40 or so (please don’t take these life span as sanctity numbers)!

    Interesting part is a contradiction that human life expectancy is increasing and average life span of a company is decreasing. There is a lesson to learn – either be paranoid (as Andrew S Grove said in his book – Only the paranoids survive) and keep on reinventing your company or – death is inevitable!

    Related blogs – Death

    Source – BMG India training material on innovation (created and referred as a trainer) and IoD training sessions

    Image source – Business Standard