Business to the Buddha

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  • Aarti Amma







    Domestic helpAarti is in her mid 50’s if not in early 60’s. She came and settled in Mumbai when she was in her 20’s, with 3 kids and a couple of cloths that is it! She worked as a domestic help, her husband did different jobs. They taught their kids lived struggling with the ups and downs of the city. This struggle for them was “life” a survival stint.

    When I think about spiritual solutions to many problems, I have not thought about life from their level. At that level of existence survival itself is a blessing. Survival is the whole objective of life. When I am writing it I feel, the place is changed but we are still living in a jungle where animals are struggling for survival! The reasons are different though.

    So, our protagonist survived in city. Of course, one of the kids spoiled himself but other two are graduates. The best thing about this struggle is – one owns a house at the extreme end of the suburban city. Well, where is the house is not a question, one must be proud of the growth in 30 years from few cloths & nothing much to two graduates & a house in Mumbai – commendable!

    This is what I like about capitalism (no not entirety of capitalism!) – work hard and reap the rewards. I like the concept of financial freedom. Aarti and her family is still trying to get in the zone of financial freedom (even many of us).

    Aarti Amma has taught many lessons – one of them is hard work and other is managing relations. Both need a consistent practice, I am on it.

    Image for representational purpose, source Shunya’s notes

    Related blogs

    When will we stop?

    When will we stop?

    Dichotomy on happiness…

    Dichotomy on happiness…

  • Conditioned mind







    In our last meeting Professor Mankad suggested to try some Chinese, we went to a Chinese restaurant at Dadar bang opposite Shiv Sena Bhavan. I agreed, as for me this restaurant was new, earlier when I lived in Dadar the restaurant was named Chandragupt, not specialty Chinese restaurant. A very good service and good food as well. During the lunch we spoke on different topics and my earlier posts have some as the blogs on the same discussions.

    While discussing and before leaving the restaurant, Prof Mankad did a simple experiment on me. He took a piece of paper and wrote “All in the the family”. He asked me just read it. I read it “All in the family”, he asked me read it again. I read it again and again for good about 5-6 times for next 30 seconds – “All in the family”. All the time when I read that I was asking if the words I am reading are right, in terms of legibility! Reference check image

    ReadingIn the image if you notice the first THE is not clear. So, I had various reasons to ask questions about words and spellings. So, I was digging the hole at the wrong place. Prof Mankad was enjoying it. So after a while I said there are two THE in this sentence, one on line 2 and other on line 3, “I noticed it but thought it was by mistake”. He smiled little more. I also made little more observations. This all went on interestingly, the waiter kept on watching us.

    So, Prof Mankad concluded, Pravin, you saw what you wanted to see, not what exactly is there. This is the problem with many of us, we are conditioned according to our choices and opinions. We need to be open to possibilities. Last week when I wrote on served by biases the idea was same, to highlight this problem of conditionality. Just to conclude with example (reference Times Now debate – that I overheard) – yesterday night heard Indian Rail fares will be increased. Until last year when UPA Govt raised fare 1st time in 10 years, BJP questioned and called names to UPA. Now, when BJP is increasing fare, BJP was supporting it with various reasons & even Twiple (on twitter they are called Bhakts by some people) supporting BJP started supporting the act! Isn’t it surprising! I know there would be instances when people will say – ok! this Govt is not as corrupt as the UPA was, we can live with it! The only reason for that will be – because it is the Party which I support, has done the scams. This is the way we think and act based on conditioned mind.

    The same happens with innovation efforts in the company, people are so biased and conditioned that they ignore simple things (as repeated THE). For such cases organizations need external consultants for advisory.

  • Served by biases







    Though the technology has made things / opinions / news available and discoverable, however this has resulted in information overload as well. This information overload has made us divide, restructure and focus on what we (as an individual) want to read, know and learn. Look at the image, for example from The Indian Express news site. There are many such examples, where we are served by biased news (in India many people call it paid media). Recently, Network18 group was acquired by Reliance group.

    What you want to readThis content customization or focus (in marketing called as targeting) of each one of us is actually alienating us from many realities. Reason for that is – we either do not know what actually happened but are bombarded by the other side with their perspective. In that case responsibility lies with us to know or try to understand what is actually happened. Thanks to the customization and therefore negative information we have already received from our “sources” we do not know what is right and if something is serious. I have been occasionally termed biased when I tried to provide different perspectives. Tough time! one has to live through it.

    Take an example of environmental damages. If you followed environmental cause related opinion makers you could know something wrong is happening, but if you are just following weather reports – you would say everything is ok! this year this typhoon, tsunami, hurricane, earthquake happened. Why? Well, have we asked these questions? Can we identify or try to search for the reasons for such changes in environment? Monsoon in India is delayed this year, can we ascertain reasons; and if we can avoid the reasons.

    We make our economics / political / national / Environmental opinions based on such biases. Take an example of economics. Capitalists’ project their system is right, socialists (communists) projects wrongs in the capitalists approach and vice versa. Is there a possibility when we think and design something which tries to bring good from different systems? Think, open your mind and look at the bigger picture. Should not we ask ourselves – are we served unbiased information or we are seeing what powerful people want to show us.

    Disclaimer – The author has no intentions to tarnish image of Indian Express/Network18. It was the easiest available screenshot for providing author’s perspective.

  • Reservations! No, it’s about Inequality







    One of my friends commented on Facebook as priority #1 for New Govt of India – Abolish Reservation! Here are my 2 cents on reservation (e.g. reservation in Govt jobs, education et al) and how it should change.

    Indian reservations system is grossly misused, people assume it to be “entitlement”. An entitlement for even those whose parents have become somebody e.g. IAS from nobody.

    Reservation system was brought in to reduce inequality. This inequality at olden days was among caste based divided Indian citizen. In last so many years division is somewhat reduced however now the divide is evident among those oppressed communities as well for whom primarily the system was created.  The system needs to be rationalized. Just to give you an example – Devyani Khobragade is from reserved category. She became an IFS with the same reservation system – why was she given reservation when her father was also an IAS officer? The purpose of reservation was to uplift lives of the oppressed, now few of the oppressed have become oppressors as well! Any class 1 officers son or daughter shouldn’t be considered for reservation.

    Two different stories where I dont deny reservation –

    Budia Damor was my classmate in 11th – of course he was from reserved category – he did not have books. He was from a village named “Gram Aali” on Mandav road near Dhar. A village with population of about 300 (in 1995), yes in India there are villages as small as that. He was committed and he needed help. Besides Govt scholarship and reservation – I thought what best I could do was to give him some of my books, I did it. There are many such people. They need helping hand.
    I also remember Shaku Bai – our maid. Very committed, hardworking and responsible person. She had 5 kids, 2 or 3 of her kids were studying in a govt school in some tribal area, living in Govt hostel. The biggest asset for her in that hostel was – at least the kids are not starving! Yes this is the situation in many parts of India.

    building bridgesShe lived in a hut (what you just can imagine in photos, drawing only). She was expecting her 6th child- my mother helped her a lot. After delivery 2nd day she was at home to do work, baby with her with only few cloths my mom gave her. My Mom, didnt allow her to do anything, gave cloths for the baby and gave her gyan on family planning et al. I must say she was very committed, hardworking and responsible, may be I don’t have more words for her appreciation. We need to help them. Not Devyani Khobragade for becoming an IFS on the entitlement of Shaku Bai or Budia Damor.

    I see reservation for bridging gap of inequality – so if a Brahmin boy is very poor a chance for his upliftment should also be considered. Keywords are – upliftment and bridging the gap of inequality – Not scoring political brownie point.

    Though when I’m writing Brahmin I personally have serious objections with Indian caste system.

  • Faith







    “Gamblers are the biggest believers!” Prof Mankad told this to me. He asked “who do you think are the biggest believers? They have faith, next time… if not this time one more time, next time fortune will be mine. They believe that one next time; they have faith.”

    When I heard this, I promised Professor Mankad that I’ll learn the games played in gambling. This is seemingly contrary to what we have heard – gambling is not a good thing! On the other hand gamblers can be the biggest believers in the world! I wonder if there is a God he must be sitting in some casino and helping someone make fortune! Isn’t it?

    I had been thinking of writing a blog on our that small piece of chat, and I received this small story – modified a bit.

    FaithBar

    There was a town; often visited by many traders and nearby villagers during the weeks for all sorts of trade. In that town there was a church, but no bars. A person saw an opportunity seeing many visitor in town but bar. Hoping that after a tiring day people would come and just chill in the bar; so quenching thrust with booze was huge business case! However, this person could find a place only opposite the lone church of the town! He started his business there.

    Church

    People from all walks of life visited his bar, not only after a tiring day in the market but also after their prayers and other casual visits to the Church. Earlier only Church used to a common meeting place for town dwellers as well as for villagers from far and wide. Now the bar had taken over. The church was a serious matter and bars were for fun and frolic. Even for heart broken people it was a place to forget the pains. The heart broken had route as – message to Gods in the church with emotional stories, after the painful saga go to the Bar for comforting oneself. The church authorities were pained with this challenge from a competitor just under the nose. They prayed daily against the bar. As fate could have it, the prayers were heard sooner rather than later – the bar was struck by lightning and caught fire.

    Bar owner sued the church for the cause, as an action by their prayer. The church authorities denied all responsibility!

    So, the judge commented – “…its difficult to decide the case because here we have a bar owner who believes in the power of prayer and an entire church that doesn’t believe in it.!!!”

    At times you find somethings at the most unexpected place!

    Disclaimer & sources – The author does not intend to hurt any sentiments, and does not question the authority of the churches [he has his STRONG opinions though]. The author does not want to claim any Intellectual Property Rights – Copyright – to the story [even though he has modified the story].

    Images [used for purpose of representation only] source

    Church – http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/St._Andrew%27s_Forane_Church_of_Arthunkal.jpg

    Bar – http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/NfRrEUz62Lw/hqdefault.jpg

  • Content marketing – A hedonic treadmill!






    I while back I wrote a tweet. This tweet was about content marketing. Content marketing is becoming so widespread and a demand for digital marketing that everyone is writing something “important” for getting a gaze of the prospective client. How does it work?

    Content Marketing
    Content Marketing

    Say I write on Social Media Marketing, I keep on bombarding my content on Slideshare, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, post blogs, infographics, case studies and Quora (there seems to be no end to the list) etc etc just to get Google/Yahoo/Bing notice me and my content. Whenever a prospect searches for “Social Media Marketing” my name should figure out in the results in say first page.

    It seems this is becoming a race to remain relevant. To be more precise an exercise to just remain where we actually are! Over time, we would realize that we are not at the driver’s seat in “content marketing” type of exercise. The algorithms of Google/Yahoo/Bing are driving us. Instead of we doing what we want to, we are driven by the “outer factors” to take action!

    Let us take an example of a treadmill, the treadmill moves irrespective of man walking – yet goes no where. Who is driving that treadmill? Not the man walking on it. I have written earlier about this blind race we all are running, but have we ever thought where are we going? Are we actually seeing or just blindly running on a Hedonic treadmill?

    I think – like anything else – content marketing is going to follow laws of diminishing returns – we’re on a treadmill (of content marketing), we don’t know how to stop it. We don’t know when will we get satisfied. But it’s for sure we are on the path of diminishing returns having more of something doesn’t make us happy (content).

    Hedonic treadmill is a concept for our daily life just came across this interesting article on Jumping off the hedonic treadmill here

    Related – 1. Why are you doing what are you doing? 2. What more you need? 3. Entanglement of a langot 4. Race – never ending

    Related – 1. Why are you doing what are you doing? 2. What more you need? 3. Entanglement of a langot 4. Race – never ending – See more at: http://business2buddha.com/#sthash.9eIArC2R.dpuf
    Related – 1. Why are you doing what are you doing? 2. What more you need? 3. Entanglement of a langot 4. Race – never ending – See more at: http://business2buddha.com/#sthash.9eIArC2R.dpuf

  • Why not define smaller things?







    Last month I met Prof Mankad. I always think whenever I meet him I should record our conversation. He is indeed a library of knowledge in himself. We discussed about our education system besides many other things (blogs written last weeks) Purpose of education and Showjumping. Dr Mankad told me – “one of the real problems with our daily life is our weird definitions e.g. success. We define success as owning that BMW. Until we get that BMW we don’t feel content. Thus, we avoid being satisfied, we do not live a fulfilling life. Though as an individual we can, but the weird definition makes us estranged from many small things.”

    Vada Pav
    Vada Pav

    He further shared an experience. One of his friends landed in India from the US (at about 12:00 AM or 2:00 AM). Next day 6:00 AM he was at Prof Mankad’s home, and asked to just accompany him. They drew to Karjat had some special Vadapav of that place and drove back to Mumbai.

    Well, all this made me question few very basic things we generally overlook. We do not think much about basics of life, but still have some preconceived notion about those things. As Dr Mankad shared example of success, another example is beauty. I watched this video in my MBA Marketing class. Our definition of beauty is weird watch this <2 min ad of Dove, to understand how our perceptions are defined; at times created. Many girls want to be fair, those who have curly hair want straight and vice versa!

    How often have we thought on these seemingly simple, stupid, strange yet serious questions. What is the meaning of Success (for me or you)? Does our definition of success change over time? what is the purpose of life? Why are we studying (at least when in college)? How will I/you know when I/you reach the target (a 100,000 INR or 10,00,00,000 INR), the goal is always a moving one! What is the benchmark? I think we need to just pause at times, and think how we want to shape our life, what is important for ourselves at least that instance, isn’t it? I think that is what enlightened masters call “living in present”

    Related – 1. Why are you doing what are you doing? 2. What more you need? 3. Entanglement of a langot 4. Race – never ending

    Race – never ending
    Why are you doing what are you doing?
    Why are you doing what are you doing?

  • Why do we educate our kids?







    Rat raceWhen I visited my sister last time, I asked her this question – What is the purpose of education? She is a teacher, she was the best person to ask this question.

    I felt pity on my nieces, so I asked this question. My nieces (one just 4.5 years other 10 years) go to school even in April! I went there to spend some time with them and they went to schools! This is their age to try new things – painting, playing different sports, learning some music. Let them find what they enjoy doing rather than forcing them to sit in the classroom in the summers.

    My sister’s answer reminded me of Prof Mankad’s Macroeconomics class of my MBA. His exams used to be unique (not disclosing it though). His reasoning for such unique exam was- Information is accessible now a days; I want you to think, I want you to cultivate abilities to connect the dots of various subject matters you come across and develop ability to make decisions, opinion and inferences. These theories should not be crammed. You can make these graphs / search them any day / any time while you work. Practice of using these theories in making your opinions etc is what I want you to develop.

    Surprisingly, many Google search terms “Exam paper of Professor Mankad” and “Exam paper of Prof Boman Moradian” have ended up on my blog post. Here I never wrote about what they ask in their exams. I feel strange some students search such things also!

    So my sister – who teaches Science – answered – “I want students to see things for themselves, to experimeReady to Racent; science is something which will help them develop analytical skills”. My sister and Prof Mankas’s answers were not what I see the approach of marketing any school – B-School to Medical School to the Public school for K-12 levels. Our B-Schools & Tech-Schools talk about post education Salaries as benchmark for success! In fact, IVY league guys went to jails because of bigger crimes e.g. insider trading; and if not in jails they caused more troubles to an average human being than a pickpocket who also goes to jail for small crimes for troubling one average human being at a time.

    Why should we educate kids? Don’t you think that the purpose of education be set first. At least we have been doing this for executing businesses well. At least ask the kid what he/she wants to do – after a certain age – instead of making everyone an Engineers or Doctor?

    Related blogs – Showjumping, Race – never ending, Entanglement of an undergarment, Neeraj in Kabir’s style

    Image source – Alka Arya’s article http://hillpost.in/2012/04/revised-rate-race/44257/

    Here is what I found on LinkedIn – Engineers in India

  • Moral markets!







    Do markets have morals? When I read Mr Rajeev Mantri’s article “The morality of markets” (Link) in the Livemint, I asked this simple question to myself.

    Various things came to my mind – i. financial meltdown(s) there are numerous examples of past; namesake recent one in 2008 ii. real estate bubble (again namesake – Mumbai, I have read of similar bubble in China) iii. stock market speculations (working on scrips – I think in India markets traders call it scrip चलाना) iv. crony capitalism*. All these thought made me think the title of the article itself is an oxymoron.

    I am not against free market economy, I am neither a leftist or socialist. When it comes to economics (and politics) I prefer to take the middle path. Just to give you a perspective on why I am not completely agreeing to the point of view of Mr Mantri, watch the following video (reference – my Oct 2013 blog – The Price of Inequality) –

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

    Capitalism has its own’s problems, and morality is questioned more often in those economies – be it environmental damages, besides few points I raised above. I believe we should not assume development that happened in the US/Europe as the only way to grow and to prosperity. In fact, we have written records of prosperous India even before anyone knew of USA. We have history of Utopia – Ram rajya. How was it achieved? Do not you think we should try to study that as well? There are more ways than the Left and Right approach we take.

    Coming back to the article of Mr Mantri – he concludes with India having billions of dreams. I do not doubt but here my difference with our own culture comes as a stumbling block. I do not appreciate the Caste divide and therefore disagree with Mr Mantri there – there seems not to be many diverse dreams. For ages we stifled dreams by asking kids to follow a craft or business of his family caste system of old days. These things are bringing me to some circular logic – where I suggest to study old Indian economics and refute social Caste system. What is circular logic? Listen to this song you would understand – (apologies those who dont understand Hindi, it is in Hindi) –

    [youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mchDikR-AAw]

    paisa kamane ke liye fir paisa chahiye.

    Paisa kamane ke liye fir paisa chahiye – Golmaal hai bhai sab golmaal hai…

    An English translation of this song in some future blog.

    Note – * Crony Capitalism – “Gas wars” a recent book in controversies is in my reading list.

  • Indian Elections – Criminals in politics






    When Anna said once – “I don’t agree to party politics.” I didn’t understand that. During election days I was being very hopeful on good candidates from the opposition parties and hoping they would make it one sided whitewash of ruling parties. Unfortunately I was too optimistic about Indian political system. There are many tainted candidates from all parties who have been in power for so many years. Just to give you a perspective

    Criminals in Election

    Source – ADR report first 6 phases Link

    Note when my friend Vaibhav called to suggest write on elections I said no. He suggested don’t write favoring any party. So this suggestion boils down to what Anna Hazare said. A good way to make Indian political system accountable is voting a non criminal, non corrupt and good candidate at each constituency. Then forget he/she is from which party.

    This will eventually force everyone to put forth better candidates – educated and worth voting for.