Awesome America!

( The picture is by Kishore, shot at the Nandi Hills, close to Bengaluru, India )
Apparently the cool tender coconut, that you find being sold for about Rs 10 a nut on the roadside,in India, has become hot news in the United States.The tender coconut's water is touted as the new fail safe Isotonic panacea and is said to deal with a wide variety of health issues ranging from kidney stones to diabetes to being a rich source of potassium.

The tender coconut is receiving a great deal of attention as it is being associated with a host of Hollywood celebrities from Madonna to Demi Moore. No more carbonated drinks for them, tender coconut water is the new flavour of season.

This has caused a host of folk scurrying to market bottled coconut water post which you will have folk branding the stuff and carrying out a high profile marketing campaign where you will see, guys or better still pretty girls,with bronzed sweat stained bodies & skimpy outfits, amidst a game of beach volleyball, endorsing the new exilir! The process of getting the stuff into little bottles will be patented and will create issues of IPR across the world. There is also sure to be a great deal of media coverage talking about celebrities experience with the tender coconut and its benefits to one's health and otherwise.

All this while, the poor Indian, continues to sell his nut, on probably an old bicycle for Rs.10, on a hot afternoon, to tired pedestrians, by the wayside, storing the shell for firewood and after removing the meat which makes a delightful snack.

I'm amazed at the Americans chutzpah to exploit the mundane and create an industry where none existed, surrounded by hype, hoopla and glitz.The coconut is not new to us, but did we create a buzz around the nut? No way!It, probably been quietly drunk in this part of the world for centuries.For that you need to be an entrepreneur and an MBA from a premier B School, hopefully from the USA!It is also not surprising as why you have boom-bust cycles in quick succession, where virtual industries disappear causing immense pain to the poor bystander.

Carrying out a quick SWOT Analysis, what is the 'weakness' that the coconut water faces? Apparently some Americans feel it tastes like 'smelly unwashed socks', which throws up the fundamental question: 'Why in the first place do they chew on, dirty socks?'

Human Resources & Human Beings!

Are humans resources or are they simply human beings who turn up for work ? Are they resources at the work spot and cease to be resources when they walk out of your office? These are fundamental questions that need to be answered by the 'Talent Philosophy' of an organization.

Many an organization,treat sacked employees very poorly,subjecting them to the humiliation of a body search as well as searching their car and so on. These are departing employees who had probably served your organization for a number of years before you found them incompetent.

The fundamental point is, is an employee as asset. Infosys says that employees are assets and so reflected in their balance sheet. Wonderful, but the problem is when the value of the asset depreciates. What then? Sack them..............

How else would you look at at an employee in an age when everything is to be measured and encapsulated in a 'bottom line'? Many Japanese firms treat their employees as 'investors', where the employee is investing their skills & time with the organization. The perspective now changes, dramatically. It is probably the reason why Japanese firms see longer serving employees.

While I respect American Management practise, I also believe that,we should be wary of blindly following imported practices. Management has much to do with a nations philosophy, ethos and culture. To ignore these is stupid and akin to throwing the baby out with the bath water............

While my line of thought looks utopian, I firmly belive that humans are not only about resources and business and bottom lines!

The Power of an idea!

A dozen ships,five hundred soldiers & a few horse was all that was required for the Spanish Conquistador Cortes to roll the mighty Aztec Empire over, who ruled what is today's Mexico. Just spare a thought, a few straggling barbarians from Spain, pursued by their Governor in Cuba, destroying a solidly established empire with a large standing army backed by experience and wealth. How was this possible?

Montezuma the king of the Aztecs was also their general and high priest. A divine ruler whose decision was final.When Montezuma first heard of Cortes he though he might be Quetzalcoatl, the God of Wisdom, who hated human sacrifice and, according to legend, was due to return to Mexico after being banished by wizards, rulers of the land. This worked to the advantage of Cortes, because it made Montezuma indecisive in his dealings with Cortes. He sent gifts instead of armies to Cortes and his men.This indecisiveness allowed the Spaniards the leeway to consolidate and press on.
It took two years, but in the end Cortes and the conquisitatadores prevailed even though outnumbered a thousand to one. At one point Cortes kidnapped Montezuma and threatened to kill him if he did not follow his wishes. Finally, Montezuma was killed by his own people according to the Spaniards. Cortes and his men looted the country, then settled the country, tore down its sacrificial altars, replacing the Aztec rituals with Christianity, and brought European government to the New World, with immense brutality.

A nation and its culture vanished for ever...................!

The power of an idea is all conquering. Ideas can motivate & debilitate as in the case of Montezuma and Cortes. Don't let the wrong ideas take root in your head and lose a battle before it begins.

There will be people who will tell you why you are not good enough or why you will lose or why you cannot do something.Shut them out!

The tragedy of culture!

Culturally Japan is one of the most 'masculine' nations of the world. This does not mean that they are a macho tribe and menfolk of other nations are wimps. Japanese men have traditionally been the breadwinners for the family while the wife patiently waited at home to welcome an unemotional husband.No kiss, no hug for the waiting wife, all things that you would see in a Hollywood flick. Japanese husbands do not believe in overt affection. How about the Japanese wife? Well, fed on a staple diet of western culture she is looking for more of the hug-kiss routine from her husband.........so much so the the divorce rate in Japan has shot up a whopping 70% the last ten years, the impact of an alien culture on the Japanese way of life. A tragedy but that's how it works.With the physical intimacy the Japanese have also imported American divorce rates.These days Japanese woman are said to frequent special restaurants where they pick men off a menu to talk to. Just to talk to and be praised by..............
Cut to the USA. A bevy of Indian students, treated as illegal entrants after enrolling at a fly by night college and worse being deported to India. The Indian media has gone to town, screaming about the fact that the students have been 'dog collared' with a RFID tag that would be used to track them till they are shipped off to India. How can Indians be treated that way? Not done to us, no way!

What the media seems to have forgotten are the following:

#1. The Indians were illegally present in the USA.
#2. The 'Dog Collar tag' was placed only when the students refused to pay a bond.
#3. Only a small percentage of students have been tagged.

Culturally we do not like to lose face & rules mean little to us, but then the action is in the US of A, where rules are to be followed and in an achievement oriented culture 'Power Distance' is low.

A lack of understanding is one thing, discarding our way of life for another, without serious introspection is foolish!

Mumbai Again!

Yesterday’s collision, between a warship and a merchant vessel, off the Sunk Rock, in Mumbai Harbor is a serious affair. More so because it involved an Indian Navy ship the Vindhyagiri, out on a sortie with civilians on board, on a lazy Sunday afternoon. The Director General of Shipping, has ordered an enquiry and in due course you will probably see the following:
1. The Captain of the Vindhyagiri will face a court martial and be crucified. 2. The Captain of the Merchant Ship will probably, have his certificate suspended and his ship arrested. 3. The civilians on board will be so traumatized that many will not sail again. 4. The company that insured the Merchant ship will pay damages quietly.

The seriousness of the situation is that, damage to a warship, is construed as an act of sabotage against the state, unless proved otherwise. Also the warship is going to be out of action for a while undergoing repairs. It is fortunate that the collision did not result in an oil spill. Mumbai has seen serious accidents too often recently to rest in comfort. Last year, apart from the Chitra-Khalijia collision, a coast guard vessel CGS Vivek sank in the port after it was hit by Panamanian vessel Global Purity in March. On August 31, two ships collided at Indira Docks, the largest dock in Mumbai Port.

Considering the location of the accident, the merchant ship should have had a pilot on board and the Harbor Control should have monitored traffic. Why this did not prevent the accident, is a mystery? Consider the fact that traffic through the Straits of Malacca, off Singapore is much heavier, but traffic control is so good that one has not heard of an accident for a great many years, now. Many of these accidents as well as terrorists landing in Mumabi through sea, are serious pointers that all is not well at Mumbai port in terms of safety and security. Considering that Mumbai is still our commercial Capital the economic fallout would be disastrous if the port is not administered with greater care. Having said that, you will in all probability once again see, the small fish being netted, while the sharks get away!The story of our times...............

Brainless Brawn!

Sometimes, I wonder how I got through school, having spent much of the time outdoors playing one sport or the other and in doing so have played for my state, district, school and club teams.
So the other day when my wife asked me if I had played hockey, I surprised myself in saying no, I had not. Surprised because, hockey was played around me and I had avoided the game...........The thought intrigued me. Why was the sport not on my list? On reflection, I can only come up with one reason. Fear of injury. I can recollect many of my friends being terribly hurt, while playing the game, because rules could not be enforced, at that level & brawn ruled over brain. Being a slight kid, I avoided the sport and the danger of being whacked by a hockey stick on the shin or head.
Is this a monologue on hockey? No it ain't.
The other day, an acquaintance from UP told me he had to sell his 'Haveli' for a song. Why? Jungle Law rules and he would have to face all sorts of harassment, if he wanted the right price. Brawn rules.Thugs running wild in a lawless world.
The point is, if brawn rules brain, then people are going to shy away and zero in at safer avenues. Probably the reason why I stuck to cricket which is not a contact sport and brawn can be handled with a piece of wood and my acquaintance settled in Bengaluru, where there is a semblance of law.
Parallels can be drawn to most places. States, organizations and so on!Organizations without a solid enabling & fair culture is a wonderful playing arena for the Machiavellian manipulator who will run circles around the smaller less scheming folk and will misuse power, real or imaginary.
But then do the brainless brawn have the chutzpah to figure that out? The question determines the success or failure of an entity.........

The smell of success!

An aspect of India liberalizing and going global is the availability of exotic perfumes at most shopping malls. What was once easily available only to the foreign returned is now very desi.So much so, you get to smell, a Davidoff or a Burberry more often and even more so as the disposal income of Indian's rises.
The perfume area is my favourite at shopping malls. I stalk the place and sample perfumes at random & end up smelling like a fruit punch.
Interestingly, I get to smell perfume more often at the campus too.Students seem to be quite comfortable dousing themselves with fragrance for a class!
Great, but what's the bad news. One is that, your perfume might have been at the cost of a musk rat or civet cat.More importantly, research has indicated that, male interviewers are not very enamoured of folk turning up for an interview smelling of Calvin Klein................while female interviewers are more accepting and like people smelling like roses.
what could be the reason? Apparently male interviewers think that the candidate is trying to manage an impression or indulging in impression management, while females are more accepting.
The next time, you are due for an interview, try to determine the gender of the interviewer or else leave the bottle of perfume alone, that is if you want the job badly and are prepared to play the game.Success does not necessarily result from smelling good!

What's in a name?

A few days ago, I was at a kennel set up by a friend. The gent, is a most interesting person. Fighter pilot, commercial airlines pilot and now security dog trainer.He remids me of Capt. Haddock from the Tintin comics. Gruff and irratable, but a wonderful guy. Well, at the kennel, I bumped into different breeds of dogs, and with my limited knowledge about them could make out an Alsatian. My friend kept calling it a 'German Shepperd'. Apparently the said dog is a wonderful security dog & was put to good use in the German army and police during WW2. The British, understanding the efficacy of the dog, adopted it, but anything German, was anathema, in Britain, at that point of time so they simply changed the name and called the dog- Alsatian!

Many years ago, at Mumbai airport, while checking in, I was hailed from another 'Q'. There was this chap, in Bermudas, flowery shirt & cotton floppy hat, with sneakers. He introduced himself as Ram and from my school. I'm particularly bad with names and could not place the bloke. To cut to the chase, Ram had an enormous amount of luggage and was asking if I could check some in under my name to avoid excess baggage for him.He would have to fork out a good deal of cash, for the over the limit luggage. Back in the 1980's we were more innocent and I agreed, but I still could not place the guy, American accent and all...............As we spoke, he said he had just returned from the 'States' and was going home to Vizag, the American twang being unmistakable.

With sudden insight, I remembered his name and asked him if he was called 'Shantaram' back then? His smile was a bit sheepish as he said yes, but he had dropped the 'Shanta' part. Too old fashioned, you see. Going forward, I asked him, what he was doing in the US of A? He said, no, " I'm just returning from a two week holiday!. I live in Vizag." I had great difficulty in keeping a straight face. After we landed, and he got his luggage,Ram said, he would have invited me home, but would be busy travelling on business and hoped that I would not mind............!

So, what's in a name?

Happy New Year!

On Edge!

A sobriquet long lost is that of Bengaluru being a 'Pensioner's Paradise'. What it has gained in glitz, glamour & energy has been at the cost of a laid back lifestyle and a gentle civility.While the rapid and many say rabid commercialisation of this town has troubled many, the recent spate of high profile murders has really thrown the spanner in the works.

An IT staffer slitting the throat of his wife. A BPO employee being brought down in her prime. What next? Invariably the finger is pointed to a helpless police.However a closer look at what caused the killings would indicate a breakdown in moral values rather than that of law and order.

A fairly senior policeman told me " What can the police do if a husband wants to murder his wife?" I guess that is a question that, society will have to answer. A while ago, I had said that Bengaluru will be the next hub for innovation, simply because it offers the immigrant a cloak against failure and so allows greater risk. Unfortunately it is this cloak that allows many to cross the line in crime as well.

There are no easy solutions. Lifestyles that are driven by material needs are the order of the day and I do not see that changing in the near future. A society driven by aspiration is good as long as it is ready to wait for its just reward. The issue is when we attempt to take shortcuts, driven by peer pressure, to find solutions.Could the IT staffer have divorced his wife rather than killing her? Was the process too long & torturous? Instant gratification can dish out immediate penalties, like the gent is finding out in jail awaiting his sentence.But then who can wait?

A friend, while gently stroking his petunia's, peered at the humongous traffic on the adjacent road and sighed.The sigh, told the story of a city lost, to a generation.....................!A city on edge, to another.

Foot in the mouth!

Mired in the 2G scam, rising prices of onions and a moribund lower house of parliament, Congress points man Digvijay Singh, emerged the other day with all guns blazing.He brazenly labelled the Hindutva parties as 'Nazis'.

Not surprisingly the saffron brigade was up in arms and responded with all sorts of counter allegations. If Singh was attempting to divert attention from the various scams' that his party finds itself in, I doubt if he has succeeded.

The interesting point in this whole shindig is why did Singh, compare the Hindutva brigade to the Nazis? The Nazis were socialists, which the Hindutva parties, do not claim to be. The Nazis decimated six million Jews, who were rounded up like cattle, from all over Europe and then either worked to death or gassed in various prison camps ( concentration camps ), not before hideous experiments were carried out on them, in the name of humanity and science. I highlighted 'Concentration Camps', because this was the handiwork of the white apartheid Government of South Africa, before the Nazis came about.The Hindutva brigade in India just do not have the capacity to run such a pogrom, not that they have shown an interest. Also, the point remains, as to who are they going to target in India? Is Singh referring to the well documented religious support that Hitler received in Germany, in decimating Jews?

In the midst of the circus, the Government of Israel, issued a terse one liner....asking ignorant politicians to understand the full purport of the Holocaust and not use the tragic deaths of millions of Jews to settle political scores.

Maybe Singh could take a conducted tour of standing concentration camps in Poland & the erstwhile Soviet Union, with a stop over at Nuremberg, to get a better understanding of what Nazi Germany did.

The trip, during summer in Europe at tax payers expense of course!