Just Looking: 11/01/2009

Monday, November 9, 2009

Jaane kyon dil jaanta hai…tu hai to I’ll be alright!!!

Dear Friends…

I am on Pune expressway in my car and writing this…the FM is playing in the background and so as please excuse to find some random lines popping up in the midst of this short essay.

So here it goes…

Friday was an extraordinary day because I met you guys at Sports Bar.

14 years passed since we graduated but it felt as if we were re-assembling in college after a 3-month summer training. The 3 hours spent together were refreshing, really refreshing - I mean it. Everyone was cool, wild and whacky - as they have been since when we knew each other.

(Ghode jaisi chaal, hathi jaisi doom…O saawan raja kahan se aaye tum???)

If somebody had told me in 1995 that I would never work for a single day in advertising and would be working in education 14 years later…I would have smirked. And who would believe that Manish would be managing India’s biggest superstars or that Nidhi would be managing Unilever brands and that Sam would be a Professor of Social Marketing in Canada and that Vandy would be training to become an IB School teacher!!! Coool….!!!

What was even cooler was the fact that there were absolutely no airs or discussions about jobs, designations or salaries. We met like true blue lukkas, exactly as we were 14 years back. Felt like nothing has changed really.

So what did we talk about? Here’s a sampler…

Maly and Manish – The music is so loud…lets get out of here!!!

Tarina – Ninad, you promised me you will name your daughter Taru…

Sam – I don’t like wine…I get a stomach upset

Manash – He he he…look look, Indie has lost his hair!!!

Nidhi – If you have hypertension, then do the Bhastrika part of Sudarshan Kriya with less force!!

Indie – I am planning to write a film script man…magar time hi nahi milta!

Vandy – Sam will look the same like college, if he dyes his hair!!!

(Some relationships are eternal…just like gold – A Union Bank hoarding on the Expressway)

All the girls (should I dare say women???) looked awesome…they were just the same…bubbling with laughter, cracking jokes and poking fun at one. One word I sorely missed from their mouths was “chutya” (I guess that is too much to ask from these working mothers…). I have been married and so are you all but there we no uneasiness in the way we interacted…cheeks were being pulled, hair was being ruffled, hands were being held and warm hugs were being liberally doled out (lucky us).

I also realized that many of you are now at the cusp of something transformative in your lives. I could feel the buzz when we spoke. I felt you guys want to do things that impact your hearts, not your careers alone. Good.

I am always ecstatic at such events, I don’t know why. Nostalgia gets my adrenalin pumping - whether its school friends, college friends, going to places where I grew up, old songs, old movies, anything where my memories are tapped…must be the age-factor.

(Jaane kyon dil jaanta hai…tu hai to I’ll be alright!!!)

Thanks guys for coming and providing your undivided attention from work, family, kids, traffic, deadlines, etc.

You rock.

I love you all.

(Wake up Sid, har dishao se aa rahi hai saada, sun sako agar suno…)

We Create What We Want

We get what we want, or what we don't refuse. We accept the fact that we will always have poor people around us, and that poverty is part of human destiny. This is precisely why we continue to have poor people around us. If we firmly believe that poverty is unacceptable to us, and that it should not belong to a civilized society, we would have built appropriate institutions and policies to create a poverty-free world. We wanted to go to the moon, so we went there. We achieve what we want to achieve. If we are not achieving something, it is because we have not put our minds to it. We create what we want. What we want and how we get to it depends on our mindsets. It is extremely difficult to change mindsets once they are formed. We create the world in accordance with our mindset. We need to invent ways to change our perspective continually and reconfigure our mindset quickly as new knowledge emerges. We can reconfigure our world if we can reconfigure our mindset. - Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Laureate

Meditation: Knowledge v/s Action

I am more emphatically interested in meditation than in discussions. These discussions are just to give you a push, to satisfy you in an intellectual way, just to give you a feeling that whatsoever you are doing is very intellectual, rational.

It is not.

So whatsoever I have been saying is in a way quite opposite of what I have been trying to pull you into. My approach as far as these discussions are concerned, is rational, just to satisfy you, just to give you some toys to play with so that you can be persuaded into something else.

That something else is not rational, its irrational.

Our meditation is just a jump into irrational existence. And existence is irrational, it is mystic, it is a mystery. So please do not cling to what I have said to you; rather, cling to whatsoever I have persuaded you to do.

Do it, and someday you will realise that whatsoever I have said is meaningful.

But if you go on clinging to what I have said, it may give you knowledge, it may make you more knowledgeable, but you will not attain to knowing. And whatsoever I have said may even become a hindrance.

- OSHO

Why Agriculture is Critical for India's Progress?

We talked of IT. What is IT? It is the arbitrage between the per hour rate in the US and India. We have gone from zero to $20 billion in exporting software, employing about 1 million people in 10 years. These million people changed the brand of India, consumption pattern and gave us the confidence that we can do everything.

The arbitrage has narrowed but is still there. It will disappear in a few decades by which time our software exports may be $100 billion. From a million people, it will benefit 10 million people. If that is what has happened in software, imagine what will happen in agriculture.

Let me give you some numbers. Take potatoes, the most common food across the world. From Bill Gates to my driver, everybody eats potatoes. Now, plot the prices. Farmers in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar get about Rs 4-5 a kilo; in the Middle East, the wholesale price is about Rs 25-30 a kilo. In the US, Sam's Club, it is Rs 90 a kilo. In Europe, it is Rs 110 a kilo. The arbitrage is 1:20. If we get our produce right, and if the US market is opened up, you will be surprised how quickly we reach $20 billion.

The food market is much bigger than the software services market. And the money goes straight into the hands of millions of farmers. The spinoffs are enormous -- jobs, houses, durables, a whole new consumption boom will start in rural areas.

- Mukesh Ambani

For full interview pls log: http://www.rediff.com/money/2007/jan/19inter.htm

Truth is a Pathless Land

I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. That is my point of view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or to coerce people along any particular path. If you first understand that, then you will see how impossible it is to organize a belief. A belief is purely an individual matter, and you cannot and must not organize it. If you do, it becomes dead, crystallized; it becomes a creed, a sect, a religion, to be imposed on others. This is what everyone throughout the world is attempting to do. Truth is narrowed down and made a plaything for those who are weak, for those who are only momentarily discontented. Truth cannot be brought down, rather the individual must make the effort to ascend to it. You cannot bring the mountain-top to the valley. If you would attain to the mountain-top you must pass through the valley, climb the steeps, unafraid of the dangerous precipices. - Jiddu Krishnamurti

The Elegance of Simplicity

Simplicity is of great value. There is also a sense of elegance, of the appropriate, of balance in being simple in a country where the majority of people don't have enough. Excess is a vulgarity in India. Politically, socially, economically, excess is in bad taste. There are greater chances of corruption if simplicity is not followed. Let us remember that simple things do not lack quality. Simplicity does not mean deprivation. A mundu veshti can be as beautiful as an expensive Kancheevaram silk. The simple weave of an ‘ordinary' Santhal sari can be exquisite on its own. Beauty or pleasure need not be equated with money. Something beautiful need not cost thousands of rupees. Somewhere this debate must come back to public life. It is a fact that what we do and say is a political statement, as is our lifestyle. In a country where you are fighting for systems that work, governments that are accountable, laws that work, infrastructure that functions, we need to share our national resources responsibly so that opportunities become available to more Indians. - Aruna Roy

Just Looking

Monday, November 9, 2009

Jaane kyon dil jaanta hai…tu hai to I’ll be alright!!!

ifidontwhowill?

About Me

We Create What We Want

Meditation: Knowledge v/s Action

Poverty and Humanity

Why Agriculture is Critical for India's Progress?

Truth is a Pathless Land

The Elegance of Simplicity

Non-violence unexplored

Blog Archive

Just Looking

Monday, November 9, 2009

Jaane kyon dil jaanta hai…tu hai to I’ll be alright!!!

ifidontwhowill?

About Me

We Create What We Want

Meditation: Knowledge v/s Action

Poverty and Humanity

Why Agriculture is Critical for India's Progress?

Truth is a Pathless Land

The Elegance of Simplicity

Non-violence unexplored

Blog Archive

Subscribe To