The Great Indian Jugaad

When the initial foray was being made into the organized retail space by the Indian majors and select multinationals, we witnessed a huge backlash from the mom and pop stores, small vegetable vendors, politicians and some sections of the press.

Two key arguments against organized retail were:

• It would kill the mom and pop stores
• It would kill the small vegetable vendor (both small shops and the one who sells on a mobile cart)

Recently when i was in India, I noticed something strange happening in a Reliance Fresh - a national retail chain outlet near my house. The outlet opens at 8 am every day (including weekends). Between 8 am and 9 am, I noticed the shop was flooded by people who were essentially the small vegetable vendors and the owners of the mom and pop stores. At 8 am when the outlet opens it is filled with fresh vegetables and other fresh products with limited shelf-life like milk. These small vendors over time must have figured out that Reliance has driven suppliant chain efficiencies to an extent where it would be difficult for them to beat them. So they did the next best thing, to empty the shelves in the first 1 hour by purchasing everything and then playing their card of convenience and selling the same goods (vegetables and milk) at a higher rate.

Essentially the same organized retail segment which every one feared would kill the mom and pop stores and the small vegetable vendors is now feeding their lifeline (at least for now).

In the bargain, the main beneficiary of the organised retail segment – the consumer, in this case, is still getting ripped off by the higher prices as products change unnecessary hands before they reach the consumer. This is a discussion for some other day.

The key take away for me was the same set of people who threw stones and forced closure of the retail chain outlets when they first started have now started using them as part of their supply chain. This is what Swaminathan Aiyar calls the Indian “Jugaad” – they always find a way to work things out  :)

Trust - Is trust fundamental for a nation to progress on all frontiers?

Yesterday (June 7th 2010) I walked in to Redbridge Council Library along with my wife and 2 year old daughter. This Library was closed for renovation since December 2009 and re-opened in the last week of April 2010. It is located close (2 minutes walk) to the apartment where we live. It has a dedicated children's area where my daughter loves to spend time.

I walked through the aisles and found few interesting books to read. I walked up to the reception to enquire the process to check out books. The lady was extremely friendly, gave me a small piece of paper and pen, asked me to fill in the basic details like name, address, contact number and so on. It took 2 minutes to fill and another 2 minutes for her to generate a library card for me. She didn't ask me for an ID.

I asked her details on the Library's check out policy. She told me that i can check out 12 books at a time. Each book for a maximum period of 3 weeks. The late fee per book per day is 20p. I checked out three books yesterday. I asked her if i have to pay deposit money. She politely said "no" and reminded me that the money becomes due only when i do not return the books on time.

I went back home and started thinking about the whole experience to pick a few points that we can discuss:
1. Trust was the basic premise over which the membership was granted.
2. The whole experience was a very positive one. It took less than 4 minutes for the entire process from start to finish.
3. The Library is funded by the Local Council from the council tax we pay them every month (Council Tax is equivalent to Property tax that we pay the municipality in India)
4. The objective of the Library is to reach out to as many local residents as possible and spread the wealth of knowledge through shared assets (books, audio and video files).
5. Would the process of asking for a deposit, asking for an ID proof hinder the process of achieving its objective - I think YES.
6. Will a similar approach work in India - I am not entirely certain. The initial apprehension is that people will check out 12 books and never come back. But i am sure you all agree that we need to start somewhere.

Your thoughts / feedback welcome - as always.

Anger Management - Part II

Very very sorry - I could not keep my promise of posting on this topic the very next day. One of well wishers, Aruna, reminded me of this and told that if you do not keep your promise on the blog which is read by many others, then i should not be making a promise at all. I promise that i shall be careful next time.

Continuing on this topic further -
Anger is dependent on so many factors - let me list a few.
1. Your impression and opinion of the person who you see as an instigator.

I am sure you will all agree with this. If you hold the person in high esteem and have a good impression already, your anger will never mount. Surprisingly you will not hesitate to concur with him / her, differ with him/her very slightly, not raise your voice at all etc. you may even give a smile (this has happened with me many times)

2. Your impression and opinion (preformed notions) of the topic which is under discussion

Just like a person with whom you are speaking with can cause the anger levels to flutuate, your issue / topic which is being discussed can also cause the anger levels to vary. For example, for the sake of discussion, if you already a strong proponent of a separate telangana, no matter however convincing the argument may be for a United Andhra, you are bound to lose temper or argue vehemently supporting your stance - this will lead to stress and anger.

3. Presence / absence of people around you during a heated discussion.

This also will have a huge bearing on your levels of anger when things go out of control during a discussion. For some, presence of people will act as a deterrent and for some it will be a stimuli. People who are very egoistic will not treat it kindly when in public and lose their temper easily. While others who are very wary of their personal image tend to control the flare up.

4. State of mind at the time of discussion - no explanation needed for this. You would often see people saying - "Orey vaadu manchi mood lo ledu, ippudu gelakkoddu...". It sums up very well this point.

5. Time of the day - Anger levels are low during morning hours and they are high towards the evening and night. This need not be a thumb rule, but is true in most cases, atleast in my case.

6. Prolonged suppressed feelings of hate and strong belief of being discriminated
Very common feeling between husband / wife and master / servant , employee / employer.
Nothing can stop when the threshold is reached. Anger loses all control.

7. Type of food we eat
I cannot vouch for the scientific reasoning behind this, but it is true to a great extent that people who eat lot of non-veg lose temper more easily, when compared to veg. Similarly difference in salt, spice and chilly, masala intake induce different levels of anger in those people.

8. Alcohol - this need not be explained further.

9. Behaviour of majority people around them (family atmosphere)- This is very true in faction ridden / conflict ridden families, when all we get to see around is shouting and screaming, we accept it as a right method to vent our feelings. lot of kids of today have very annoying temper and anger. They have very little tolerance levels. And i am sure you would have seen it in many cases around u. In such families, anger is a necessary means to win their wish. And everyone there understands it very well.

10. Impact from Visual Media (TV, Movie)
Look at any movie - the hero is shown as venting his anger against the villians and killing them, Even the super heroes - Spider Man, Super Man etc, tell us the same, our Puranas and mythology are also full of such stories of courage and valour but are misconstrued by the young Whta they understand and interpret from the whole thing is that showing anger is not a crime at all and what we fail to educate them is that anger has to be productive and not destructive. Which parent today has time to tell their kids ??? You tell me...

11. Impact and influence from their teachers
Once again we see many examples where teachers who should symbolize patience and compassion and use punishment very sparingly, are themselves promoting this dangerous trait. Their shout and scream at their students all the time is not sending any right signals to these kids. And these kids remember only such stimuli in the long run. Once again anger used destructively.

12. Friends and their influence
if you have more friends who are short-tempered and you will easily become one of them. Obviously if you have to win your way through this group you have to behave like them. What starts off as a way to get your presence felt there, slowly starts affecting your other aspects o of your life as well and other circle of people around u. Even before you know about it, you are deeply influenced.

There could be many more factors.
But then why I am writing these factors? It is because each one of us who is troubled by this state of mind, need to introspect and understand what made him that way, If there any stimuli that are constantly responsible for him to behave like that, is it possible to get away from them or stop them completely.

I will spend some time, in my next part in dissecting this problem further, and trying to arrive at ways to eradicate this from the root and at symptoms,

Please help me with your ideas too...it will be very encouraging.,

Anger Management - Part I

Anger is the worst enemy of any person. We all know this very well and yet we all easily succumb to this temptation day in day out. It is not a vice by any standards, it is just a dangerous state of mind. A state which stays only for a few seconds, but leaves its dirty traces for a long time to come in every life it touches.

So how is that we can keep away from this? I am thinking this loud as among all of us winsix, I am worst affected by this - I am both a perpetrator and a victim to this malaise. Each time it happened I came out much more badly mauled than before, much more traumatized than before and much more victimized than before.

Counting 1 - 10, taking deep breath, walking away from the scene - none of these remedies seem to be practical. It may work only for mild anger situations but not deep anger situations. The only way seems to be complete self control all the time - what I mean here is that it requires complete inner transformation of an individual and not just a superficial makeover which is manifested just at the time of situation. Anger control should be addressed at the root and not at the symptomatic level. Most of the therapies today only address the symptom and not the root. Thus the solution is only short-term and only works occasionally.

Meditation and yoga may work - but i have seen many people who meditate also lose their temper. I am not finding fault with the technique of yoga itself - i am very confident that in the long run it will work miracles. But by that time it yields results, the disaster is deep and irrevocable. Moreover the solution we come up with should be easily understood by everyone and results should be seen much more sooner.

So let us dissect and see what it means by addressing the issue by root. I want all of you to put in your ideas as to whether you agree with my statement. Also each of you let me know what are you ways of tackling anger. We will evolve this into an interesting concept and see if we can come up with something valuable.

I will post more into the blog tomorrow...
Until then good bye guys...

My first blog - Why should we blog?

Many thanks to Nandu - he has initiated a wonderful way of putting to use our urge to write down what we think and in way it is permanently stored for many years to come and even for our kids to see as to what our thoughts were. I am sure i would have felt really excited and thrilled had my dad written any such thoughts that went through his mind in some place and i get a chance to read them.
So then let me make an earnest effort to list why and how i find blogging really useful and healthy.

1. It gives us chance to give shape to our innermost feelings and jot them down.
2. Now a days there is nothing called personal and public - its all in the mindset. So i do not need to care much about the target readers if they can have access to what i write as long as i do not mind anybody reading.
3. You can peek through many different mindsets and understand people much more better.
4. Sometimes writing brings out the best side of a person which is normally hidden because of the introvertedness or some other limitations.
5. If the blogger decides to share some good articles he has in his collection, we can have access to them as well unlike emails where such articles are almost always lost in the maze. It is easier to retrieve from a blog than in an email pool.
6. Even though we may not be talking to each other regularly, blogs will remain as efficient mode of communication between the group members.
7. Once again unlike emails, bloggers tend to be more expressive. while i feel lazy to write more lines in an email, the moment i know i am posting a blog, i tend to more keen to open up more and write more. In a way, it is motivating us to tell more and know more which is good.
8. We leave a trace of our mindset and thought processes to our younger ones. We do not need to judge or debate as to whether it is useful or not for them...just the fact that these writings remain permanent in some remote storage for many more people to read itself is a good feeling.
9. Instead of spending time aimlessly on the internet, blogging is a good and meaningful time spent - better than chatting on the social networking sites or reading movie reviews.
10. This is a positive addiction - where the benefits are immense.
11. When you are hurt emotionally or need to offload the burden of your heart, just go and write a blog - i am sure one will feel very light.
12. If the blogs you write earn attention and fame, then there is nothing like it - there are numerous stories offlate as to people who made their way to instant fame and adulation from their blogs. No not that one should write the blogs with this end result in mind - but be frank - who does not want some recognition out of this habit.
13. Nothing is off the limit for a blog. I tried writing a dairy for the last three years like i was doing at school, but i could not. hopefully i will continue writing on this blog regularly. This will replace my dairy with a permanent footprint for ever.
14. Whether a blog can replace a dairy which is more personal and closer to heart is a debatable thing. but as long as you are an extroverted soul and do not mind to think out loud, it is a safe way and safer place to write your dairy.
15. A blog also allows us to express our opinions freely and fearlessly in all matters of relevance and interest. Shashi Tharoor is a classic example as to how he posts his heart irrespective of the impact his post might create. Infact I somehow feel that some excellent ideas are generated by blogs which are posted regularly - but most of such ideas die a premature death in this gigantic maze of blogs and bloggers
16. Ofcourse last but not the least your english writing will definitely improve, your thoughts will appear more streamlined, your written skills will shape up for the better, your deep down grudges will have platform to express themselves, your innermost feelings will find an outlet and its own set emphathisers, your will find critics to your posts who are ready to dissect you deep and bare if you are interested.

I can write a few more....but it will fall in one or more of the above categories. So i urge all of you to also start writing something.

I know Krishna is a wonderful writer. Praveen too. So they also can start writing somehting. Janani and JP will follow suit.

Universe conspires to make things happen

This is a phrase I first heard from a friend of mine at IBM Kolkata (who incidentally is also a follower of this blog). It is true that if you desperately want something and you turn no stone unturned to make it happen then the universe will do its bit and make it happen. There are many instances where I recollected this phrase in my real life. I would like to narrate one such recent incident to pass on the essence behind this phrase.

Since Dec 2004 I wanted to visit “Sabarimala” (normal civil dress darshan). I kept postponing it till 2008. The Sabarimala shrine is open only for 2 months – from mid November to mid January and then 5 days a month for the rest of the year. In 2008, a group friends tried to co-ordinate dates to visit the shrine as a group, the effort soon fizzled out as some of the group members couldn’t make it. Towards the end of 2009, I was asked to relocate to UK and this forced me to complete few unfulfilled vows. Visit to Sabarimala shrine was one of them. A group of 4 finalised the date, but two had to drop out at the last min, that left two of us to go ahead and visit the shrine. We picked up the window of 5 days in October to visit lord Ayyappa. Our travel journey started in Hyderabad. After visiting Lord Venkateshawara on the hills of Tirumala by foot our journey to Kottayyam was planned by Kanyakumari Express which leaves Tirupati at 11:00 am and reach Kottayam next morning at 6 am.

The train was delayed by, stretch your imagination, 12 hours. I and Ravi reached Tirupati railway station at 11:00 pm and waited for this train on the platform for 2 more hours. The total delay was now 14 hours. We were worried a lot that our planning has now gone for toss. We decided to go with the wind and see if we could make it. As I indicated earlier, the shrine is only open for 5 days and our original plan was to make it to the shrine on the penultimate day. We reached Kottayam at 4:30 pm the next day and went out to see how we could reach Erumeli and then to the Sabarimala by the night. Every one in Kottayam was suggesting to hire a round trip car/jeep. However, we didn’t want to come back to Kottayam from Sabarimala. We wanted to go to Thekkady and then to Madurai before returning back home. The only choice left for us was to take a public transport bus from Kottayam to Erumeli. We were warned that since it was off peak season the frequency of the buses wasn’t good and that part of the journey being a ghat road, would take lot more time by bus than private hire. Left with little choice we started walking to the bus terminal from the railway station.

Some one in his mid 30s clad in a khaki shirt and white dhoti came from behind and asked us if we wanted to go to Sabarimala. We said “yes”. We told him we wanted to go to Erumeli and then to Sabarimala. He said he had come to Kottayam to drop some one and was going back to Sabarimala and was willing to take us to Erumeli, wait there for an hour for us to take bath in the holy Pampa river and have darshan of lord Ayyappa and visit two more temples in Erumeli, before we could continue our journey to Sabarimala. We were overjoyed, but didn’t reveal it to him, bargained on the fare and struck deal with him in a matter of few minutes.

The journey to Erumeli was very scenic as with most places in Kerala. The ghat journey was great with occasional stop over for a hot cup of tea with mouth watering authentic Kerala snacks. We reached Erumeli at 6 pm. Just as we were about to have holy bath in river Pampa, I got a call from a close friend and colleague - Jay from Hyderabad. He had planned to come with us but could not make it, so wanted to check how we were doing. He had been to Sabarimala many times and was well versed with all the places enroute. He advised us to visit three temples in Erumeli and then proceed to Sabarimala. With his timely guidance we had darshan of lord Ayyappa and visited the other two temples in Erumeli before continuing our journey to Sabarimala.

We reached the foothills of Sabarimala at 10 pm and bid farewell to the driver, thanked and paid him more than what we bargained initially. The river Pampa flows at the foothills of Sabarimala too. We took another dip in the holy river before starting our trek uphill. Jay called us again to check where we were and how we were doing. We told him that we are about to start our journey up the hill. He advised us to take enough water and glucose along with a torch as it might be dark over a couple of stretches on the hill.

20 mins into the hike, we realised the importance of Jay’s advise. The hike started getting steeper and steeper and we were loosing our levels of glucose very fast and had to replenish them very frequently. The clear sky, fresh air, water falls, an occasional pilgrim group returning back or on their hike like us and lots of shops open at this hour serving food, lemon soda, tea, coffee and the occasional rest area with planks are memories that will always stay with us.

We finally reached Sabarimala at 12:30 am in the night. We went to the pilgrim centre only to find that no accommodation was available and didn’t know what to do. Just then Jay called us again, this time to check if we reached Sabarimala. It was late in the night for him, but he kept track of us and was helping us at each step. When we told him that no accommodation was available, he gave us specific instructions to go to a particular place and meet a particular person who would help. We had slight difficulty finding the place, but once we reached that place, we were welcomed and shown a place to rest that night. We were very tired and needed this rest very badly. If not for Jay we would have had to spend that night with out proper rest.

The next morning, we woke up early in the morning, had darshan, and then called Jay to thank him for his timely help all through the journey. He suggested that we visit two more temples there, one of the temples has a ritual of rolling coconuts around and making wish for our loved ones, particularly children. We performed the ritual.

We had a sumptuous breakfast and then started our journey down the hill. This time it was more scenic in the broad day light. Lots of pilgrims were on their way back to the foothill as it was the last day of the 5 day window for October.

The journey continued... I will pick up the remaining part of the journey some other time. However, I will take this opportunity to highlight the theme for this blog post.

The universe conspired to make things happen for us at least on three occasions during this journey.

1. Man in 30s clad in khaki shirt and white dhoti comes from no where to help us reach our destination on time.

2. Jay, our friend calls us up, guides us at every phase of the journey and makes arrangements for our night’s rest sitting remotely in Hyderabad at such an hour when most of them would have gone into deep sleep.

3. All this timely help and co-ordination meant that we could complete our darshan of lord Ayyappa before the shrine closed for October.

Try and dig your memory for such incidents, I am sure you will find lots of them. The universe does conspire to make things happen. All you need to do is to desperately want something.

So strive for something so strongly that the universe is forced to conspire and make things happen for you.

Good Luck!

Work-Life balance

My cousin sent me this quote today. I like it a lot and thought of sharing this with you. It comes from a veteran who lived / worked most of his life for Coca-Cola. He worked for Coca-Cola for 35 years and worked his way through to the top before retiring as the Vice-Chairman.

"Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. You name them - work, family, health, friends and spirit - and you're keeping all of these in the air. You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls - family, health, friends and spirit - are made of glass. If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered. They will never be the same. You must understand that and strive for balance in your life."
— Brian G. Dyson