The Dog Psychology

Yesterday, I had got a very weird thought. Its, what if I would have been an illiterate and if someone would have given me a book of some Noble Prize winner Author? How would I have reacted then? What would have been the meaning of that book to me? What would have I been done with that book?

This thought wrestling was going on while I was standing at one of the road in the evening. While this thought wrestling was going on in my mind, I was still concentrating upon the happenings of the road. Suddenly a very beautiful imported car passed through me. And that car was being followed by a dog barking maniacally. Perhaps any Noble prize winner author’s book would be holding same meaning to me would I have been illiterate like that of the imported car holds meaning to that barking dog.

But then another thought popped up in my mind. It was how a dog would be reacting when it sees a new model car on the road. Does the new model car hold any importance to them and they changes their barking style or it’s just another car over which they would have to bark fanatically.

I think the Dog psychology holds true in many of our actions which we think is very humanly.

Agree to Disagree

Sometimes there are incidents which apparently seem to be bringing no any significant outcome. But a little close understanding of the incidents brings out something which is unique and treasuring. I was mollycoddled with one of the person whose enthusiasm is quite contagious and thought is so spontaneous and deep. What is most salient is his way of handling things. He always sees things as a case study and any case study cannot have one standard solution and every solution is correct. So there is never any incident of disagreement with any one. The same was the case when I was talking to him. While talking, he never has crossed my thought but only has said his point of view. When one is speaking from his heart, it’s always better to not disrespect his thought even if there is some disagreement. No one can be such a lowbrow to speak such trumpery. And he was doing the same thing with me. I really liked that. After quite a long talk with him on various matters, the net take home for me was :-

1. See situation as case study, you will end up with the best solution after a little brainstorming.

2. It’s not always a good idea to disagree. Learn to agree to the agreement or agree to the disagreement.

Religious Confusion

This is the first time when I have been in any foreign country. This was Thailand. A beautiful island country, blessed a lot by the kind nature. This beautiful country is situated in western half of Indochinese peninsula and the northern two thirds of the Malaya peninsula in Southeast Asia. Formerly called Siam, this country is surrounded by Burma (Myanmar) on the north and west, Laos in the north and northeast, Cambodia in the east and Malaysia on the south. Thailand is still practicing constitutional monarchy. This country is highly influenced by the new religion of India as more than 95% of the population here are Buddhist (Buddhism has been started from India, so a liberty can be taken to call it "The Religion of Indian Origin"). Though this country is worlds’ second largest tungsten producer and third largest tin producer, but the main source of income here is tourism.

We were having our National Sales Conference there. We were there for 4 days and we literally had utilized those 4 days in a real good sense. We were in Phuket, a port city of the Thailand.

There were lot more things to notice, but the most striking feature that has attracted me was the improvisation of the religion here. For any place to be a tourist spot, especially cross country tourism, it needs to be open about sex. Thailand is not any exception in that. Cyprians here is one of the major attractions for tourists. Sex sells here and its legal. Make no mistakes, even the girls in the flash trading are also Buddhist, rather modern improvised Neo-Buddhist.

I happen to be sitting in one of the road side bar of Phuket’s most happening street “The Bengala Street” enjoying my drinks and observing people around, a beautiful girl came near to me and asked if I can buy a drink for her.

Oh why not.

And I didn’t have taken much time to order a drink for her. She was one of the bar girl, employed there to entertain the customers. She accompanied me and started talking to me. After knowing my intention of not flirting with her and just enjoying drinks and observing the happenings around the street, she diverted her talk from initial flirting with me to knowing me and my country. This again was a gesture of showing extreme professionalism since I buy drink for her, she need to accompany me till my drink finishes off.

I asked what she is doing apart from this bar job; she said that she is studying political science in one of the college of Phuket. She is doing this job as she can make easy money here for maintaining her lifestyle. When she came to know that I am an Indian, the very first reaction she had was, “OK so you are from the place of Lord Buddha”.

Yes, but what religion you are practicing?

To this she replied that she is ardent Buddhist and she wish to spend her later life in understanding the dharma.

Considering the fact that Buddhist are very much ascetical about their Dharma, I quoted one of the teaching of Lord Buddha, that is know as “The Four Great Vows”, which has been written in “The Dhammapada”:

“However innumerable beings are, I vow to save them;

However inexhaustible the passions are, I vow to extinguish them;

However immeasurable the Dharmas are, I vow to master them;

However incomparable the Buddha-truth is, I vow to attain it”.

And asked, if what she is doing is right as per Buddhism?

She replied that everything which is required to bring livelihood of any individual is supported by Buddha. And anything which brings pleasure to the life of others is not insane.

Wow, this is another definition of Buddhism. And this definition was definitely been developed by that lady immediately.

The most important understanding here was, every religion give enough space to their follower to mold it as per their own convenience. But the only thing which cannot be molded is faith, faith over the Dharma, faith over the philosophy and faith of the teachings of the religion. Though this was an individual opinion, but opinion develops from the community and surroundings. So this may be the understanding of her community. So there would be lot of people who would be having same thought about religion.

Sometimes we make pre-mature opinion about anyone without trying to understand them. We often have a habit of considering ourselves smart enough that we think that just by seeing the cover of the book; we could reckon the content of it. The same was my thought process before talking to that bar girl. I thought that she is meant to be flirted and such kind of girls are completely dumb-ass and know only the language of flesh-trading. After talking to her, her name was Amy, she proved my thought very immature. She really was smart and intelligent enough to prove anybody wrong who are coming there with a pre-occupied opinion, like me.

Martyrs of Inhumane

Another week in village. Another nascent experience of true India. The India which always attracts me the most. Attracts to know, attracts to understand and attracts to feel it from the within.
This time I was in Bastar District of Chattisgadh. This district is famous for its beautiful Bastar Art on wood and wrought metal and infamous for Naxalite movement. I had always thought of traveling those areas which is severely hit by Naxalism. Not that I want to be martyrs for unnecessary reasons but to experience closely the life and livelihood of the people who are part of or support this philosophy. Unfortunately I had not been suggested to travel in those areas. Since after 3rd week of every month, the Naxalite movement takes an unusual pace in these areas. I don’t know the logic behind this. So I planned to travel Kondagaon, a small and beautiful village of Bastar District, also a place where military forces had made camp for fighting with the Naxalite movement.
After finishing my work there, we were coming back from the hilly roads. It was sunset time. After spreading lights to the world where people of country feel that there is deep darkness due to the nasty Naxalites, the Sun was heading towards another world to spread its bright light. I had never seen such a beautiful sunset in any crags land. The blue sky was turning into saffron color as if it was spreading a beautiful bed sheet for its son Sun to sleep in the night after doing an arduous work of spreading brightness to the world. I was almost spellbound to see this beauty of nature. The car was running with its usual speed. Suddenly I saw some cheering crowd in an empty piece of land at left side of the road. I asked my colleague about this crowd and their cheers, he said that "cock-fight" is going on.

Oh, I would like to see that. And we went near to the crowd, made some place in the inner periphery of the circular crowd to see what is happening in the well of this circle. There two big roosters were fighting very badly with each other. Entire crowd was cheering and shouting to excite those roosters. Those roosters were fighting so violently that it once scared me. The claws of those big roosters were having a very sharp one edged blade tide with it. While fighting, they were using the blades to hit each other. Lot of small denomination of money was flowing in this fight as a part of betting. Some were winning, some were cheering hard to let win the loosing match.

The crowd was cheering, bloods of those roosters were fluxing, money was flowing, roosters were using different techniques to kill each other, some were winning some loosing and the ultimate winners were the owner of those fighter roosters. So inhumane. And finally that happened which was expected by the crowd. One beautiful red colored rooster died in this violant fight and the black colored won this fight. That red rooster while dying brought a smile over the crowd, a smile of satisfaction, a smile of “Paisa Vasool”.

A village may be considered as a silent, serene place to live but there are lot of violence happening there and lot of unknown martyrs are giving their life to make the day of the villagers. Martyrs of inhumane acts like that of that red rooster. My all the sympathy are there with you, you brave red rooster (RIP).

The Wings of Money

India… A country… rather a journey for us to understand, learn and experience its vividness. It is said that Indian Economy is govern mainly by the agriculture sector or rural India in a more panoptic sense. But how the rural economy works is the major question?

I am traveling a lot of villages these days as a part of an initiative of our company to go rural. This had given me an opportunity to observe closely and get a first hand experience of the rural part of our country.

For any economy to function, there need to be a market for the purpose of giving runniness to money. The Rural Indian does understand it better. Hence every village of country is having a system of weekly bazaar. This weekly bazaar generally is organized in the Gram Panchayat head quarter village. Every Gram Panchayat is covering approximately a population of 5k. The number of villages ranges from 2 to 10 in every Gram Panchayat area. These weekly bazaar sells every thing which would be helpful to run a rural life and includes household items to the agricultural products, fertilizers, pesticides, vegetables, clothes etc. On the day of bazaar, you go to any shop and they would hardly give you time to talk. They are so busy with the fundamentals of rotating the money that they would tell you to talk to them some other day, if you are not there to be the part of their economics process. This is the day of the week when the money from the household moves to the sellers and makes them suddenly rich person for atleast a week time.

But how they are using this liquid money further? This is the question which sometimes enamors me the most considering a huge amount of money which flows from one hand to other in these weekly bazaars.

I was traveling through one of the village called “Kanharpur” in the Churia Tehsil of Rajnandgaon District of Chattisgadh. It was 11 O’clock in the morning when we reached this village. The entire village was looking abandoned at that time. I asked some people sitting below the trunk of one of the huge tree at the entrance of the village about this. They said that yesterday was the bazaar day in their village and every body are tired enough that they are resting in their house.
Of course handling huge money as per the rural standard definitely brings a kind of strain in the muscles of the people. The mental muscles.
But another question was what next they are going to do with that money? Are they going to invest it in their agriculture or land or they are going to save this money in their bank?
That person answered, “Why don’t you go to some house of this village? You will get answer of all your questions”.

That sounds good. I went to one of the window kiosk kind of shop located inside the village. There a kid was sitting in the shop. I asked that kid to call his father or any other elder member of the family. He went inside the house and called his father. A middle aged person came to the window. He joined both his hand and said in chattisgadhi language, “Sir, I am a bit high and I would not be able to talk to you right now. Kindly forgive me” and went inside the house. I asked my driver, who belongs to Chattisgadh, about what that person has said. The driver told us to get into the car and said that you will find entire village drunk today. Also, every house today makes best of the best food as per their standard. This is because of the fact that they have made good money yesterday due to the weekly bazaar and this is the best way they can celebrate the money. Eventually these people makes money every week to celebrate one day.

“Strange. But what will they do after that? How would they operate their regular life once they fall short of the money?”

“Sir they would wait till next bazaar to make money again. This is how rural life operates. They are not worried about their future or savings. They have very less expectations from their life. They actually live in the present moment rather than thinking for their future. And this attitude of these people are well being used by the zamindaars of the villages”. This is how money makes a complete cycle with creating a little productivity to those who actually had set the money to rotate and gives maximum benefits to those who are not directly involved in the movement of money. And in this order, keeps the villages and villagers of our country as it is, without making any significant change in their life. The hard earned money flows from one hand to other without generating any value to those who actually push it to flow and rotate.

Eventually this is the case with most of the villages of India, the actual driver of economy. The drunk driver.

Knight-errant Night

Sometimes it seems like our life has become so monotonous that its monotony starts killing us. During that monotony period, we could be able to explain our whole day or life in just 3 or 4 lines. But a time comes when your life become so action packed that you actually live every moment, cherish every moment and say “statue” to time to let it freeze in those moments. After a long time, the same thing has happened in my life during last fortnight. I was so much busy doing lot of stuff that I really don’t have got time to think about anything else but about the every passing moments. And to the top of it, every moment was so special that I would wish to hit a REE button of life to experience those beautiful moments again.

One such occasion was joining an official ceremony of our office to honor those who have done something different from their routine work. The appropriate word they say is “Out of the box thinking / working”. This occasion was organized in the lawn of one of the tranquil and swish hotel of Mumbai. About 250 people were there to attend the ceremony. All came by invitation with who’s who of the organization. They were those 250 people of the organization who have been selected by a selection board based upon their work. All achievers. Everyone was in their best of the best dressings with essentially suits of clothes. The occasion was so formal that even those who are popularly known for their smutty jokes were talking some sense. There was a big stage for felicitating the winners. It was huge 60 feet by 40 feet stage with lot of decorative and magical lights. Two huge screens were there to capture closely and show every emotions of the people. It was really a “WOW” moment for me to be a part of that ceremony.

And finally a time came when our name has been announced by the anchor. As we were proceeding to the stage, the two huge screens were showing our work that we had done to increase the image of the organization into the market place. The anchor was harbingering us with the best of the best phrases and vocabulary. While the certificate was handed over to me, the entire lawn was reverberated with the applause. Though applause sound lasted for merely few seconds, as we were among the last to receive the award and everybody was tired of clapping, it gave me a rarefied pleasure which perhaps is beyond the explanation. A great pleasure was that those who were applauding for me were selected succeeders of the organization. And getting praised by the winners is always a special thing. It was a night which is hard to forget till the end of my life. This one night had developed a kind of covetousness in me. A covetousness to come here again and get clapped again by selected achievers. I know I need to work really hard to climb that 60*40 feet stage again. But for that bizarre stage, I would not mind working hard and doing some “Out of the Box” work.

A Topic To Write...

I was reading some book and then suddenly I got this idea. The idea was, there was nothing great in that book. I mean, there was nothing that makes the Author distinguished individual in the world. There was nothing great if someone is writing some story on two architectures who made their name in the world and one at the end leaves his job and became painter with the intention of self – actualization. But, it becomes a great philosophical epic novel. And if someone is writing about Indo – Pak partition or about series of incidences of his college or his call center and becomes best seller. Even I can write that.

Then what I was waiting for? Why didn’t have I wrote till now?

Perhaps, these Authors are having some topic to write but I don’t have one. Or perhaps I couldn’t be able to identify one. Till the time I do not identify any topic to write, I need to keep reading and keep appreciating works of other people… without criticizing them.

The Real Life Hero

There are times when you learn a lot from the stories spreading around you. The only important thing is, keep your senses open for the happenings and you could be able to pick stories around you and the learning incorporated in it. The same thing has happened today. The story goes like this:-

I am generally a very lazy guy. I do not act upon unless it costs me the life. This is because I am a bit careless about myself. But this implies only about my personal life and I am not much careless about my professional or social life. Since long I was finding that I was falling thin in my wardrobe and I seriously needed some good clothing for myself. But because of my seer laziness, I was just trying to push this requirement for every passing next day. And then it started affecting me in a way that every morning after bath, I was literally searching for some good cloth to wear in my wardrobe. Finally I decided to purchase some good cloth to avoid this morning hassle of mine. So I went to one of the big store of Raipur and purchased some clothes. There was this store boy who was helping me find suitable clothes for me. His name was Gopal. After I finished purchasing clothes, he suggested me to give these clothes for stitching in the showroom only as they were providing their customers the facilities of tailors also. I owned his suggestion but with a condition that I need all these cloths after a week. He committed that he will take follow up with the in-house tailor and would deliver the apparels on the stipulated time.

After a week, on the given date, I reached the store to ask for my clothes. That same guy took the bills from me and went to the in-house tailoring factory upstairs and came down in 10 minutes saying that he is sorry that he could not be able to fulfill his commitment of delivering the clothes on time as some of the finishing work is still pending. I just lost my temper and vehement over him as if he could not be able to fulfill his commitment than why the hell on earth had he committed? This was Saturday and on Sunday this showroom remains close. So I would have to wait until Monday to get the stuff delivered. When he saw me loosing my forbearance, he said that he would request his tailor to finish the work by Sunday and he himself would come to my house to deliver the clothes. I knew that this guy is still making a mendacious statement and he is saying so just to console me. Things were not in my hand, so I left the store after giving him my address.

To the surprise of my life, I got a call of Gopal on Sunday morning. He said that it would take another 15 minutes to finish the work and latest by an hour he would visit my house with the clothes. Exactly after an hour, I got a knock on my door. I opened the door and saw this tall and smart guy Gopal. He was carrying two packets having all my clothes. This was one of the happiest moments of my life. Not because I got all my clothes, but because of the fact that this man had finally fulfilled his commitment screwing his Sunday, just for the sake that he should bring a smile over my face and most importantly to avoid any thought in me that Gopal is a guy who don’t know keeping promises. I was overwhelmed. Man you’re this small gesture had really brought a good smile over not only my face but my heart even. I said Thank You to him and after getting this big Thank You, he really felt very happy. He just turned around, kept both his hands in his pant pockets, held his head high and moved away as if he actually had won a battle and now going proudly into his house back.

What I liked the most is not that he brought my clothes, but the fact that this guy knew that though he didn’t have fulfilled his commitment on time but still did not have taken much time to finish the task. Though it cost him his week end for which now he would have to wait for another week time.

Every one of us is facing such situation in our life when we makes some commitment to someone but could not be able to fulfill due to some involuntary or intangible hurdles. But what is most important is that how fast we overcome the hurdles and take decisions fast to make the task finished without further delaying it. This is not to show the world that see I am almost well on time but to tell our own inner soul that this is what I am.

A big learning for me. Thanks Gopal for the clothes and for this lesson as well.

To Make a Brand - Make It Available

While writing the legendry book “Origin of Species”, Charls Darwin had put forward a phrase “Struggle for Existence”. Though this phrase he had put forward in context of explaining the evolution of species on Planet Earth, but holds true in every aspect. This is true especially with respect to the corporate world.

Since the time I have been transferred to Raipur, I am literally trying to understand one thing that how and why some product is not doing well in other part of the country is doing extremely well here in Chattisgadh? In search of the answer of this, I am trying to spend more time with the trade to understand the evolution of product to brand.

Products basically can be differentiated into two category :-

1. Product for Mass

2. Product for Niche.

If the product is for mass, it is definitely the Rural Market of the Country which makes it brand. This is for the simple reasons that still more than half the customers and consumers are residing in the rural part of all the developing countries.

While trying to understand what influence customer to buy and use any particular product, I really have lost all my little knowledge. Even people cannot be able to explain the fact why they are using any particular product. They are really not very much aware of the attributes of the product. At least in the market where I worked this holds true. It is only a habit which leads them to buy any particular product and make it a brand and then a big brand. But how does this habit towards any product develops? In the market where I worked had given me a very unique answer to this. It is not heavy marketing support, not the great multiple attributes of the product, not the multiple utility of the product, not even the heavy media spend influence the buying of the product by the customers. It is only and only a right price point product available in right place at right time for right period or band of time decides the movement of product from the shelf of the stores to the house of the customers. And with its continuous availability at the stores first takes the “Share of Shelf” of the store to “Share of Spending” of the customers to the “Share of Mind” of the consumers. This at the end, over a period of time makes any product a big brand. And if one need to break the existing line of Share of Mind of the existing product, will have to play very skillfully. This would happen if one could be able to take the same path of Share of Shelf to Share of Spending to the Share of Mind of the market and the customers & consumers. Means will have to wait for the exact time to make a right move into the market to take a competitive advantage over the competitor product. Or else to create a situation where the stock weight of the competitor product gets thinner and that of new product improves.

Though the market experience for establishment of the product into the brand looks very easy but it takes not less than 2 – 3 years to make any product a brand and not less than 5 – 6 years to displace any existing brand which actually have became brand in shorter span of time. Perhaps for any brand longer than 10 years of brand span, it takes more time to displace it.

These findings would be premature but I am still in the process of learning and understanding things better.

In Search of Nirvana

I was a part of an occasion at one of my close’s house. The occasion was the annual idolization of their community’s deity popularly known as Kul Devi. This isn’t first time when I am attending such kind of occasion but this is first time when I actually was thinking the need of creating lot of God. I really don’t know whether God were existing in this celestial world or its just we visualized them and created them.

Once upon a time, we were just newly derived organism on the planet Earth. Then we became Aryan, Dravidian, and Mongolian. We then said that there is some supernatural force which governs life in all of us. We called it God. We explained that there some Demon do exist which forces us to do diabolic act. Then we defined ourselves as Hindu, Muslim, Christians and Zoroastrians which were archaic religions. This differentiation of ourselves was totally based upon our own comfort level. Even this classification of ourselves didn’t satisfy our soul so we made comparatively new religions as Buddhism and Jainism. We invented the term Nirvana but were always running here and there from one place to other and from one philosophy to other to find the real meaning of the word. We didn’t find it. Some people said that they are the reincarnation of Lord and had established themselves as self praised God. We seek their help to explore ourselves and experience Nirvana. Even this didn’t vindicate us and we seek help of people who said that Love is the way to reach the God within us and they said that Sufism is one way of reaching Thou. But we didn’t find it even by that way.

We traveled thousands year journey of being organism to human and then to religion. Even this was not enough, so we classified ourselves into small society or “Samaaj” and appointed our own God as per our specification and our needs and named them “Kul Dewata” or “Kul Devi”. We explained that up above the sky there is Heaven where all the Gods live but fails to explain how much above. We said that there is Hell deep within the Earth where all devilish forces reside but failed to explain how deep. We made stories about our self made Lords. But don’t really know from where these stories came. Who witnessed the period and how it had been encrypted passing through a time band of several thousand years and finally had came to fully conscious humans.

I think its all in the brain. That our imagination is so much wide. Perhaps a thousand years down the line we finally would identify that WE ARE GOD. That every individual is kind of reincarnation of our imaginary lord. That whom we consider God were those who identified Nirvana in themselves. That even today there are people who are finding Nirvana in themselves but do not shout about it at the top of their voice to say this, the same way our primitive Gods did.

Till the time we understand it, we would keep creating some more complex differentiation of ourselves.