Dream ..

Today I woke up at 7:30 in the morning; it was bit early for me as usually I am not able to get up until 8:30 every day. I saw a dream today of flying Kites along with my brother at our older residence which I’ve not seen since last 16 years.

The amazing part of the dream was that I can still recall all the names and faces of my friend in the locality. Our competitors in the kite flying competition were still the same set of people and even the landscape around the area was visible in the most trivial details.

I felt very nostalgic after seeing such a dream as I have not touched kites from so many years and it used to be so much fun. I started thinking about those old time friends which I have literally forgot for so long. The dream reminded me of Basant Panchmi , the festival of Kites when everyone use to fly kites all day and prepare for it for a complete year.  

But the most interesting and surprising part of the dream occurred in reality, It was when a friend of mine told me that today is Basant Panchmi , I was really surprised by such a coincidence , Dreams can be so enigmatic.

May be that’s why I woke up at 7:30 am as that was usual time to kick start the Kite Festival.

Peer Pressure ..

How many times it happens that when we make decision, we try to enquire about what others are doing. It can be termed as lack of confidence but most of the time it is Peer Pressure. “Peer pressure can happen when we are influenced to do something we usually would not do, or stopped us from doing something we would like to do”.

When we talk about the art of decision making and psychology behind it, I believe that peer pressure has the most significant influence behind our decision making. We may live our own life but the rules of the life are mostly defined by the people with whom we work or study. The reason is simple, we spend a significantly high portion of our time with them and hence their personalities and reactions affect our decision making process.

The more important the decision, the more is the peer pressure. Infact even the decision of selecting a job or going for higher studies is sometimes influenced by the peer pressure. People constantly fear that they will be judged by other people on the basis of their decision.

A study was conducted in a Top Business School, the students were given a set of activities, after the research was over the researcher told `They can't really step back and take a critical view, They're totally defined by others and by the outcomes of what they're doing.' . This is one of the main reasons behind the herd behavior what we see a lot of times.

The question again arises, what’s the use of all this education and knowledge if we can’t even make our own decisions.

About Bollywood Stars and Power Politics ..

Sports, Politics and Acting are arguably the three most glamorous profession in the world . Few of the people in such profession keep shifting to other professions to keep their name and charisma alive .May be the fame and attention are the most desired elements for people who have achieved a lot in their career or life and they keep doing different things to seek attention to remain in limelight or Page 3 of the newspapers.

It was not surprised to see Sanju Baba agreeing to contest elections from Lucknow when he is nowhere related to the issues or politics of the place. One of the prime reasons of the actors entering politics is their dwindling acting career which can no more guarantee them the popularity of their past. Likes of Rajesh Khanna ,Govinda,  Vinod Khanna , Darmendra etc all have tried their hand at politics with little success at the fag-end of their careers . What differentiates Sanjay from other politicians is his checkered past and his experiments with AK-47 which may not help him in becoming the Nawab of Lucknow but can certainly revive the ugly stories of his past.

Lord Byron says “What is fame? The advantage of being known by people of whom you yourself know nothing, and for whom you care as little.” But in this world of people seeking power and attention, the charm of fame will remain as the illusionary power which will keep driving the people to fall for it.

About the Slum dwellers and the Millionaires..

Slumdog Millionaire, a tale of impoverished Indian slum dweller who goes through troubled time but went on to become a millionaire by winning the game show “ Who wants to be a millionaire “. The movie showed abject poverty and humiliating conditions which will make you say the F word umpteen number of time .It’s a typical Mumbaiya bhelpoori with emotions of anger, pity, disgust, romance, action, evil, lust, crime all mixed together with music and a happy ending, good enough to be seen once but is no different than lot many other bollywood movies. 

Bollywood has a habit of over doing things, shows stuff which seems larger than life and involves far too many coincidences which are hard to believe, this time it was Hollywood to follow our suit and people just loved it.

If we actually go to dhaaravi, the second largest slum in the world, it houses a population of nearly 2.5 million people with an average density of population as high as 17000. Life is tough there and people are living in horrible conditions but things shown in the movie looked a bit over stretched. No wonders the film is doing great in western world. They are allowed to see what they proclaim India is about and it was not surprising to see the long list of awards and recognition the movie has got since its release.

I went to many movie discussion forums to get the feel of the opinion’s about the movie, people from different parts of the world are claiming that the movie shows ‘Real India ‘ , which may be a truth for about half of India but is definitely hard to swallow.

The main issue which remained unhighlighted in the movie is about the great divide between the Slum dwellers and the Millionaires. The country which boasts about the richest people in the world also houses the poorest amongst the poor. India’s Gini Index has increased from 34 in 1950 to 38 in 2000’s; it clearly shows that the wealth is getting concentrated among far fewer people than desired, certainly a cause of concern and requires some action.

Satyam Satya …

The recent fraud disclosure by Mr Rama Linga Raju of Satyam Fame just reminds me of one of the classic dialogues of the movie ‘A Beautiful Mind ‘where John Nash (Russel Crow) says “Terrified. Mortified, Petrified. Stupefied... by you “. It really makes me think about the possibility of a new crisis involving ‘Auditing and financial reporting’, which can be prevalent in many more listed companies?

The fraud of this nature was simply unprecedented in Indian history when a BSE 30 company has been fudging its balance sheet by reporting higher profits for years together and the system was unable to detect it. It may cast a dark shadow on the standards of accounting and auditing in India which was once seen as one of the better regulated market in the emerging world.

What was really surprising and a mystery was ‘How can Mr Raju alone do all the innovative accounting without informing or taking the senior management in confidence’ and bigger surprise was how could a company as big as Satyam operating on margins of 3% when the industry margins were hovering around 30%. The basic model of all big IT services companies is same and there is no considerable difference between the bench strength, the billing rates or the salaries of the employees.

Only the future will decide how will this lone incident affect the Indian IT companies , future of beleaguered Satyam employees , financial condition of various institutions like ICICI Prudential, Fidelity , Citi , LIC etc who have considerable equity exposure in Satyam and the confidence of FII / Mutual Fund about investing in Indian capital markets .

Some companies should be allowed to go Bankrupt..

Bankruptcies are normally associated as terrible news, something which disturbs the whole system and causes lot of unemployment. The biggest setback a bankruptcy causes is the lost of trust, the whole credit crunch situation has arisen due to this lack of trust among financial institutions to lend to each other. Year 2008 has seen all kinds of bankruptcies; some of them like AIG were saved by the timely bailout packages announced by the state while some were not fortunate enough.

As the company were going bankrupt so were the people of USA, as per a estimate the number of people filing bankruptcies in USA has exceeded I million in 2008 .

 But not everything is bad in bankruptcies and it is actually an integral part of the system. In case the company files bankruptcy it goes to the court of law where it is either liquidated or restructured based on the type of filing. Some companies should be allowed to go Bankrupt due to the following reasons: -

1.       Survival of the fittest: - If some product or service is not required in a certain scenario, than its best to shut down the shop rather than pumping money to keep it on artificial oxygen. It gives way to better technologies, keeps the research and development department on toes to improve upon the existing products.

 

2.       Reduces Inefficiencies: - Incorporating a company is easy but running it efficiently requires planning, implementation, technology and management. If any of it is missing, it’s better that the one who is more capable takes over. A recession actually removes lot of inefficiencies from the system which were developed due to excess demand.

 

3.       Fights Moral Hazards: If the government just keep saving all the companies from bankruptcies, it will create a moral hazard of lax regulation and control.

 

4.       Risk Management: - The stake holders learns a lesson of risk and return, otherwise everyone will take more risk to maximize returns. The risk management of the company should be properly thought of before taking critical decisions.

 

5.       Lax corporate governance: - Many a time in cases of bankruptcy, the corporate governance is the major issue. The management bonuses and salaries should be in line with average and should be appropriate as per the current financial condition of the company.

Biggest lesson learned in 2008

Last year when I read the book “ The Secret “ , heard the audio book by Brain Tracy ,all the mysteries of life became so clear , and during the course of one year I have realized that it’s the power of sub conscious mind and belief which drives everything in life . Indeed it was the biggest learning in last year. When I was 6 year young ,one of my primary school friend told me a trick for getting up at right time in the morning “ He told me to pray to the pillow to wake you up at the right time and it will help you “ . When I tried it, it worked for me but I thought that it’s just a coincidence and I doubted that power which I realize now was nothing but power of super conscious mind.

The most important lesson learned are:-

1.       Genius trust and believe in their insights. They trust their creatively and intelligence,

2.       All creativity is the way of improving the existing way of doing things .The more we use the creativity; the more we will improve it. The subconscious mind and data works on it. It brings us idea which lies outside our individual expertise. That’s why most of the major breakthrough coming from individuals who do simple things. See things from different perspective. It is even  capable of goal oriented intelligence.

3.       Bible says “ to those who are positive and excited and moving towards the accomplishment of their goal , they get more ideas , more energy and more creativity to those who are going nowhere , those who have very few ideas and goals and even the energy they have gets drained away and they become tired ,depressed and fatigued “

4.       Most of the inventions and discovery are made word perfect very first time. We can program our goal in mind and fire our mental torpedo and it will find its own target.

5.       The winners accept and believe that they are fated and destined to be successful and everything happened was required to give them learning which was valuable to prepare them to archive their purpose. Everything is happening for success. Every defeat has equal and opposite advantage, just have to look out for it.

6.       When the answer come from insight, immediately act on it. The more rapidly you act the more ideas you will get.

7.       Any thought, plan or idea will become a reality through our super conscious mind, whether its positive or negative .Sooner or later develop the habit of what you want to happen to you. Systematically remove all fears or negative thought from mind. It’s the most important powerful source in our mind.

8.       Discipline, Perseverance. Persistence, Control and determination about the goal is required for making our dreams into reality.

Soporific Value ..

Just a few years back Anchor came out with the advertising campaign which claimed that their tooth paste is vegetarian. It gave great boost to the sales of the Anchor as people assumed that the other tooth paste might not be vegetarian. This is how improved information can increase the perceived value of the products and services.

Nowadays there are all kinds of information written on the packets of different food products which ranges from the calorific values in kilo calories to the vitamin content in milligrams as the customer is educated and knows what exactly he wants.

I have always felt it time and again that some food products are more sleep inducing than others and hence if have some idea before consuming that food about the effect it will have on us we can very well avoid certain types as per our requirements. This information which I think is quite necessary to be put on the packets of eatables can be called as the soporific value of the product. Soporific value is essentially the indicator of value which informs us that X food product when consumed in Y quantity will cause Z effect on your energy levels and sleep after consumption. I don’t know if this calculation is technically possible but it surely doesn’t seem very tough to devise.

Such information would certainly help people fighting to stay awake for an important meeting or presentation after lunch or students like us who find it even tougher to stay awake in classes.