The Commander and His War

The commander knew that war was upon them and the enemy was close. Direct confrontation would lead to the massacre of his men. He ordered a retreat and his men did not like it one bit but commander was not in the war for liking it but to end it and win. He knew he needed his men for a more decisive strike.

The enemy army marched and the commander handed over the retreat to his deputy and left to go and gauge the enemy numbers and their capabilities. The commander left with a group of 20 men and saw the horde but realized that this was not a seasoned army. It was a well fed and well trained and well paid but most of them were young and inexperienced and they were going to die by his designs. The enemy armies were travelling fairly light for the speed and they had to go through the forests for their fuel and food requirements. The commander saw that as a weakness.

He ordered his small team to set up nasty traps across the forest and keep falling back. Nature provided many treats to a trained warriors. Many of the treats were poisonous; though they did not kill they would certainly make the enemy very sick. Psychologically broken soldiers were easier to beat and break.

As the enemy forces marched into the forest, they were met with the smell and sounds of the forest. They started to rampage for food and fuel and hoarded on both. The commander and his men watched and silently fell back and continued using their knowledge to make the forest look safe and appealing to the enemy.

Hide something in plain sight if you don’t want it found, the commander had been taught by his teacher.  The enemy army slowly got sick and slowed down. The commander sent for his most trusted friend, a doctor to aid the enemy. The doctor entered the enemy camp and helped the cause of keeping people sick. The medicines from the forest were doing their job. Nature had provided the doctor with ample ingredients to help further his cause.

The enemy general was losing valuable time and men. An armchair general, he had no idea of how combat could change. The doctor advised him to leave the sick behind and move ahead. As the enemy army moved ahead, it lost great numbers to disease and pain. The commander and his 20 men were merely helping this cause and more of the enemy fell sick, the more they got slower and many more were left behind.

The enemy general sent a message to the king with the progress. The problems of the king and his general were merely beginning. The king left the confines of the palace with a horde of soldiers. On the way they passed villages that put up no resistance and also helped them. The king had his ego boosted with the praise of the villagers and moved ahead. The commander was a veteran in war and had foreseen this and asked the villages to help the enemy but with designs of his own. The poisoned food and water started affecting the king and his soldiers but at a much slower rate than his general.

At each stop the sick soldier were taken care of by the locals, the very same people the soldiers were to massacre. The king finally caught up with his general and took charge but the army was demoralized with sickness and had lost the will to fight. They were merely following orders and self-preservation forced them to be ready for war.

As the sky darkened and the enemy armies camped the commander and his men decided to deliver the decisive blow. The dark night and the loss of will to fight meant the enemy army was not as alert and the commander and his men slipped into the enemy camp and kidnapped the king and his general. They used the gifts of nature to drug them and took away their clothes and weapons and killed them and buried them deep in the mountains and burnt and destroyed the clothes and weapons and retreated bad to their homes.

The commander sent word to his king that peace talks could begin and the next morning with no king and general the enemy armies looked lost. When the messenger walked in with offer for talks there was confusion and when the enemy commanders finally got to the table they found no cause to wage war as the proposition was to live and let live and join and become stronger.

The commander went back home to his family and his king was happy for not having to wage a war that would cost a lot more in money, his people and their happiness and peace. The king was now ready to let his son, the commander, rule the kingdom. His son was living what he as king and teacher, had taught him over the years.

Internet: A Multiplier Effect

This post is part of contest Internet is Fun on  Indiblogger.

I remember the day when the internet for us Indians meant going to the cybercafé and later getting a home connection with a modem that made high pitch screeches while connecting from the home computer on a desktop that make the laptops of today like a size zero version of the earlier desktops.

Along the way we changed the hardware and the way we connect to the internet. From the earlier modems we progressed to high speed connections on cable networks provided by state owned enterprises such as MTNL and BSNL or the friendly neighbourhood television cable service provider.

We then had the mobile revolution and we pushed wireless internet boundaries from GPRS to present day 3G and 4G networks. Mobile phones went being mere phones to always connected mobiles devices on all the available platforms such as Android, Blackberry, Apple iOS or Windows.

Today internet access on your mobile is a requirement that supersedes the calling and talking function. The SMS generation has now mutated to a Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp or BBM generation and has got people networked intricately.

My relationship with the internet began on a exploratory note, went to a high because of the amount of data and information it held and settled at blogging and slowly tapered off until I rediscovered blogging and went from being a less connected ghost of a human to a always connected blogger, all thanks to my Android phone.

Today the need to stay connected and network has increased due the how we interact with each other and the distance between people. I have friends in various parts of the world, some I have met and others I have not had the opportunity to meet but we are connected by the internet. Some have become very good friends even though I have never met them.

All the friends I made through my life, online or real time are available on one or the other network and that requires me to be connected from a mobile platform.

As a blogger I am not just a writer but I equally enjoy reading blogs and mobile internet has been a boon since we can access it while travelling and read and leave comments.

There are times I disconnect but when I do get back on the online wagon, I have much more to share and the warmth of familiar faces and friends does show in their questions. Between the old world where connecting with people was difficult and with the new world connected with the internet and mobile technology that has effectively killed letter writing on paper, I choose the latter for its speed of connectivity.

With every good thing there is something bad that tags along but if one looks at the positive aspects of the internet, it sufficiently covers for the negative aspects. I am not sure how the technology is going to change and what new things will happen tomorrow but mobile internet technology and the internet as a whole has surely strengthened the freedom of speech.

The medium is powerful and far reaching and we have seen the impact of it in the uprising in the Arab world or the anti-corruption crusades in India. One look at the present day elections shows how internet is changing the landscape for candidates. The life story of candidates is usually on the internet for people to read and decide. It may not lead to overnight change but the voice of the common man or woman has found itself and is being heard.

The internet has also made it possible for the offline fun to become partially online with all the details of a good movie or good restaurant available for us to use and decide. I wonder if the world can truly go back to being less connected.

Retail Revolution and India

Retail industry in India is still mostly unorganized. The local shops or kirana stores still holds its sway in the retail marketplace. But organized retail is slowly crawling into reckoning. If this report in DNA is to be believed; ‘India likes buying certain products only at organised outlets’ ; then packed foods and branded goods are the places to bet for organized retail.

This does sound good but there is a hurdle in this picture. The local shops or kirana stores have got a head start in knowledge about customer need and preference. To illustrate we need to look at what Dominos and Pizza Hut do presently. When you call for a pizza to be delivered home, they ask you for your phone number and that helps them know who is calling and from where and what the customer ordered in the past.

This data is useful but yet we could change our tastes so past purchases are indicators but cannot clearly predict future purchase. We may want to try out a new dessert or pizza and that cannot be revealed in this data. The organized retail faces the same problem when it comes to branded products or packaged goods.

I may buy one product in the supermarket the first time but the second time I may change my preference and may want to try a new product.

The edge the local shopkeeper has is the discerning data where he knows what individual customer usually buys and a fair idea what the customer wants and this helps him suggest new products. He could entirely suggest an entirely new brand and due to a personal relationship and we as customers are more likely to take the suggestion even if the product has a higher price.

This situation is not limited to just branded and packed products.

Suppose you need rice or wheat or pulses for the next 2 months. Most Indians go to a specific shop and being loyal customers, the shopkeeper knows and presents their specific variety of product. We buy the variety we have been loyally using and go our way. If the price has increased and we want to have reduced price to fit our budgets we look for the next best option. This is more of a test to find if the product’s quality and taste matches the earlier product which has now increased its price. The price of the product is a consideration at this point in the decision to purchase.

We either settle for the new variety of the product with the reduced price or go back to the earlier product and laws of economics kicks in and we reduce consumption.

The other service that the local shopkeeper gives is quality check process. Suppose the rice or pulses that you got did not meet your expectations, most small shops in India take it back and try and rectify it. This has been the case even with coconuts. This is entirely due to a personal relationship with the shopkeeper.

The larger retail stores buy in bulk and adulteration is easier.  The purchase officer in the larger format may not be able to spot a mixing of 2 similar kinds of rice in a 500 kilogram purchase if the lower quality is about 20 to 50 kilograms. The smaller shops specialize in this niche and have used it to their advantage.

Home delivery of products was a service the smaller shopkeepers were already providing if there was a certain bulk order that which is usually the case with rice and wheat and products that you buy and store for a month or two. This was a norm even before the large retailers set foot in India.

The advent of the telecom revolution in India has made it even more difficult for the big retailers to break into the market. Presently, many of us merely place a call to our specific shopkeeper and state our address or name and the quantity and the shopkeeper knows what he has to deliver to us without our physical presence at the store to identify the quality of the products due to the fact that a personal relationship has been established by regularly buying from specific retailers.

A real life example is when my mom wanted medicines and I was at work. I called the chemist and gave him my name, address and my mom’s name as the patient and asked him to deliver the usual medicines in the usual quantities. He looked as the past few purchases to confirm the list and the quantities and gave me the amount of the bill. On his own assumption, he sent the delivery with the exact change. I then called my mom and told her to keep the amount ready to the nearest hundred and that she would have the medicines in 30 minutes.

This whole transaction happened on the phone, in under a minute and over time he now has my phone number and address and the medicines that are usually brought and also gives me the service by delivering it at my place with the exact change ready. I could very well be in another city and yet this transaction is possible due to the fact that the chemist and I are familiar with each other.

The small retailers have taken the transaction payment to another level. Regular buyers are allowed tabs and can pay by cash, cheque or credit card.

With Near Field Communications (NFC) it could further tilt the scales in the favour of the small retailers.

The problem the small retailer faces is the discounting part. The bigger retail players have been able to reduce the maximum retail price and thus calling it cost savings. The bigger retail players are able to do that as they buy in bulk. The small shop owners can get together and attempt the same.

This problem is complicated further by the presence of online retailers. Presently most of the online retailers in India stock things such as shoes, watches, electronics, computers and its peripherals or clothes. The online retailer is able to save on the cost of physical shop and passes the savings to the customer by drastic reduction of prices.

Presently, all three formats have had some success in eliminating the wholesaler from the supply chain by approaching the companies directly.

The online retail market, if it catered all packed goods, could force both, the physical small shop owner and the large format retailer, to reduce price and eventually all market sellers would have to sell at the same price. This can happen if the online retail market gains size.

The benefits of this competition are to the consumer because price could cease to be the point of difference and quality of product and timely delivery of products could take centre stage.

Why Purushartha?

The etymology for the word Purushartha can be Purushasya Arthaha iti Purushartha. This is one of the etymologies. In all evolution only man has been given the power to decide, choose, or even alter or create. Only man can change his destiny with his own actions and free will. Destiny or Prarabdha is nothing but past actions that decide ones present and any action in the present has its effect on the future. There is a flow of actions and consequences and one leads to the other. This is what ‘Purushartha’ signifies. Today’s Purushartha is tomorrow’s Prarabdha. It is this that separates us humans from the rest of the animal kingdom. The rest of the animal kingdom is driven purely by instinct while man has a choice to decide as to what his response should be. This not only makes man superior in terms of the thoughts but also in terms of actions. Man has been given the intellect which helps us decide on actions to be taken and also reflect on past deeds. Purushartha is a free will offered to humans to better or build on past actions. This gives us the opportunity to make our future a brighter and better one.

The fruits of ones actions can be seen only in the future which in time becomes the present. The past was the present sometime back and eventually the present will become past and future will take on the mantle of being the present. In this never-ending circle of time man has to keep doing actions that will make his future a better one for him and all those around him. Man’s contribution to society is equally important because what he gives to society has a much longer life than man himself. Histories have been made by people who have contributed to the greater good of the society and each and every man has the power to rewrite them with his own ink.

To a lot of people the question might come as to why ‘Purushartha’ to which I say is there anything in the world that man can’t achieve? This leads to the next logical question what can man achieve? The answer to this lies in each man and his inspirations. I say inspirations because motivations are external and dependent on events and people. Inspiration on the other hand is self centric and each one is the creator of his dreams and paths to achieve it. Inspiration is more regulated; it brings with it a sense of responsibility to finish what has been started and also equipoise and clarity to properly gauge the challenges in one’s path. Self effort and free will enable and empower us to do the needful to achieve what we want to. We do not stay slaves to circumstances and fate or destiny. We are given the opportunity to undo what is undesirable and build on the foundations left for us by the ones who came before us. It no longer is an opportunity but a responsibility entrusted to us to further build and leave it for the future generations to build on. We can no longer claim to be isolated in our lifetime for even a man in isolation has contributed to understanding solitude or loneliness. It just keeps getting more and more complex from here for man is said to be the master of his destiny but now he is also contributing to the destiny of others. This interlinking widens ones circle of life and perception. No longer is one bound to just one goal but all goals overlap and meet at some point. Purushatha is this larger goal where one keeps doing what he or she is supposed to but unconsciously keeps contributing to the greater cause. Imagine if we realize what effect our actions are having on the others or the whole of life. Our potential to work not only goes up but we are also aware of the consequences of our thoughts, words and actions.

What we make of our lives is purely in our hands. A lot of people and forces contribute to our life but eventually on the road of life we part ways and we as individuals are the only constant in the whole mayhem. And even we are limited by the great change of life; death. At every stop we meet more like-minded people and we find the journey enjoyable. We also come across the undesirables but it is just a flow. How would we know the desirables but for the undesirables? In a way we should be thankful to them but if their presence limits our progress we should make way through them or move them but not into another one’s path or give them something very difficult to chew on. In a way it’s making a choice, the one thing that makes us different from the rest of the species on earth. Choices have to be made between letting the obstacles keep blocking us or surpass them. In any given situation the choices made will be the ones that will decide our future. Mind you; choice per se cannot be classified as good or bad but choices made can be categorized as good, bad; right or wrong.

The past, present and future are reference points in the timeline. The effect on anyone of them has its effect on the other two leaving an imprint in time. Purushartha is that power to choose what we want to leave for people be it in kind or ideal.

All that is said about free will is still just a drop in the ocean. We as human beings have been given this weapon to recreate life on the whole with its power and any action taken will contribute to it. The action like choice per se is not bad but what its consequences are gives the action the colour right or wrong; or good or bad.

In a more condensed form, Purushartha means:

1. Free Will.

2. Power to Choose.

3. Responsible Action.

4. Self Effort.

But here comes the really appalling truth that to a lot many people to exercise this power is an open-eyed nightmare. This is because it makes a clear divide between the choices to be made. Maybe all the choices can be achieved at different points of time but most of us want to have them all at the same time. In here lies the real obstacle of ‘too much to do and too little time’. It is true that only the action is in our hands; as the outcome we expect may not be as is, as other people’s actions and thoughts overlap or are part of the whole that we want to achieve.

But the question as to why Purushartha alone is the key to success is still largely unanswered. Every human endeavor is directed towards achieving some desired target. How strong the desire is to achieve it will decide the quality of work and also the end product but the fear of failure and fear of losing control are the ones that scuttles the unleashing of full potential. Here we come across the question of what is fear. Fear can be called the state of non-knowledge of a particular situation or a process. It is but a state on mind.  We lack knowledge about the particular turn of events so we are fearful of what the outcome could possibly be. Experience is one way of doing away with ones fears. But here’s the good part, the experience need not be yours alone. We have been deriving from our parents’, friends and also from the life of a lot of other people. What we get is a database of related information that we can analyze and use and deploy as per our needs. This is so because of the very nature of the word ‘Experience’. On breaking it up we get 3 words:

• Ex

• Per(il)

• (Ess)ence

On reading it now we get a word that broadly means how to get to the essence without having to go through the uncertainty of not knowing or the fearing failure in the task undertaken. Fear, like anger makes the mind go awry and dissipates ones energies. The mind runs amok and could also become fatalistic in its approach and expects failure at all junctions. Since this is unnatural state of being the mind tries to equalize it by making what we feel as right. Equipoise is as much a necessity in this situation as is action towards correcting the imbalance.

We fear something because we are not ready for the sudden upheaval of events. The only way to beat fear and uncertainty is by having the following pattern of thought. The first step would be Situation Assessment.

In situation assessment there are two aspects:

1. Problem Analysis / Decision Analysis

1. Potential Problem Analysis

The first thing we should look into is the problem and analyse it fully. We should identify bottlenecks and keep them in sight. We should also look into the decisions we took and the rationale behind it. We are to look into what we overlooked previously. We are then supposed to be aware of the new decisions that are taken to rectify the bottleneck. After this comes the most difficult part of potential problem analysis. I say difficult because as human beings if we are over-confident then we short forecast or if we have had a shaky start then we see obstacles at all the turns and over-estimate. It is in this context that problem analysis and past decision analysis help us take the right safeguards to ensure the smooth completion of the job. Potential problem analysis is a yardstick which is used to see how many speed breakers we are going to face on-route.

The second step would be to break the problems into manageable pieces i.e. Planning. Planning is one of the most important jobs before we set out to achieve our goal. The importance of planning can be seen as it is the only step by step account of how we are going to achieve the whole target. Here too, the problem of under-planning or over-planning must be guarded against. This is where the third step will be very useful. It will help us forecast the right amount of all the necessities.

The third step would be to set priorities or prioritizing the jobs on the basis of their importance. It has been seen that the most important actually take very little of one time but the trivial ones take the most. SMART goals are the way of achieving all our dreams. SMART stands for:

• Specific

• Measurable

• Achievable

• Realistic and

• Time Oriented.

The fourth step is to implement the whole plan one step at a time. Here we take care of two things Quality Gap Analysis and Quality of Process.

Creation and destruction require an equal amount of effort. Creation is a step by step process and so looks more difficult and time-consuming. Destruction on the other hand is quick, fast and takes little mental effort, except in the case of extreme attachment to the thing or idea. And since creation is a step by step process there is bound to be places where quality will slide a notch down. This is the place where we need to do the quality gap analysis and test the quality of our processes. Quality gap analysis is to find out what is quality standard we have now and what is the ideal quality standard. This in turn triggers the need to make our processes also match up to the same level of quality if we want to achieve the pinnacle.

Thus throughout we see that even in our day-to-day life we are so action oriented that we have to ensure that the quality levels are maintained, which will happen only when we take a bite as big as we can swallow. Purushartha thus seems to be making its presence felt in every moment of our lives. Universal in its appeal Purushartha or Self Effort or by whatever name we call address it, seems to be the mantra for success in every step of the way.

Hinduism and its Contradictions: The Caste System

In my last post about Hinduism and its Contradictions the idea was to give an idea of how Hinduism is structured on a broad level. But as with any religion, though Hinduism cannot truly be classified as an institutionalized religion, there have been power abuses by a group of people. The Caste System is one of the most prominent abuses of power.

Much has been said and written about the system but yet it is interesting to note that the original idea of the caste system is not talked about for the very same reasons that the system was hijacked; power and control.

I know of 3 places in the Hindu scriptures where there is a mention of the caste system or Varna system. They are spread over texts and one of the explanation of it comes from the Manu Smriti and the Purusha Suktam. In the Purusha Suktam it enumerates as to which god’s or human body part the 4 castes represent. The Brahmins came from the face, Kshatriyas from the arms, Vaishyas from the stomach and the Shudras from the feet.

The other place where we see the mention of the caste or Varna system is the Bhagvad Gita. In the 4th chapter 13thverse the god incarnate character Krishna states that he created the 4 castes. But goes on to complete the verse by stating that only the quality of the human being and his action decide his caste.

 

Janma or birth is not a criterion for becoming part of a particular caste.

The birth criterion was and has been used by many with so-called references in the literature to justify their lordship over the others. Today this error is now being exploited by the politicians to merely create a wedge between classes.

There is more than one instance of a person having risen to the status of legends by their actions and qualities though they were not born in the higher caste Brahmin families.

Valmiki, the author of the Ramayana was a highway robber and changes his ways to turn into a poet.

Ved Vyas, the author of the Mahabharata was born to a fisherwoman out of wedlock.

Vidur, the minister in the Mahabharata was born to a maid and Ved Vyas and went on to author Vidur Neeti.

Vishwamitra, born in the Kshatriyas race and waged war against the sage Vashisth but later gave the world the Gayatri Mantra.

Some of the greatest poets of Hindu literature were never Brahmins by birth. Sant Tukaram and Kamban (who wrote another version of Ramayana) are two of them.

The caste system was merely an economic model. It was distorted by a few to control the weak and meek.

If the qualities that identified castes were strictly adhered to then Brahmins were teachers and the restrictions on them were that they could not refuse knowledge to the worthy, could not hoard wealth and property and had to live on alms and grants. This exempted them from compulsory draft in the army and taxes.

Kshatriyas were kings and administrators who had the responsibility to keep the people of a state safe and keep the economy healthy.

Vaishya were the traders and industrialists who created wealth.

Shudras formed the base of a pyramid. They included farmers, sculptors, architects and every other service industry member. Without this base there would be no rational method for the economic model to work.

The caste system is prevalent even today, though in a different form. Every corporation and government is built on the delegation of activities. We are using knowledge and qualities of politicians and employees to be able to identify their strengths and weaknesses and the work that needs to be allocated to them.

There is no denying that the caste system was misused and people were exploited. Nowadays too it has been used in some places to create a cocoon of exclusivity and it continues feeding the wedge between classes and cannot be undone unless the facts are clearly understood.

Lies are blatantly used to mislead people and unless there is a study and understanding of what the caste system was truly meant we would forever think that the Shudra was a low caste. Can we today imagine a world without farmers and agriculture or artists that created beauty on canvas and stones? Or can we deny the beauty in the poetry of Ramayana and Mahabharata on the premise that their authors are not Brahmin by birth?

There will be an argument that the Manu Smriti talks of caste segregation but the Manu Smriti is a Smriti and man created and has to change as society changes. Today, we reject or amend old archaic laws since they hold no real meaning in their original form and interpretation. The same is also applicable to the Manu Smriti, our laws and constitution.

Hinduism and its Contradictions

To begin with this post I must point out that the term Hindu does not exist in any of the ‘Hindu’ literature. The original term attributed is Sanatan Dharma, translated literally it mean timeless duty.

The term Hindu is Persian in origin. Persian traders saw people living on the banks of the present day Indus River and referred to them as Hindu. The Sanskrit name for the Indus River was Sindhu and the Persian language did not have an ‘S’ sounding phonetics. The name Hindu stuck and became a way of identifying a large group of people politically and geographically.

Most of the concepts of Hinduism are open to interpretation. If one reads the literature one realizes that Hinduism is not a religion but a way of life defined by cause and effect. There are no list of dos and don’ts. Most people are confused when they come across such a list in some parts of the Hindu literature. To truly understand how these are suggestive and not a diktat, one has to understand the basics of Hinduism.

Most of Hindu literature is classified as either Shruti or Smriti.

Shruti is essentially generic and global in nature and are those teachings that are passed on as what is heard and said to be god’s own words or natural teachings.

Smriti is human interpretation and understanding of teachings and is a scholarly work and open to interpretation and change and critique. Most importantly it’s changeable and one can and should reject it if it’s not applicable.

The 4 Vedas (Rig, Yajur, Sama and Atharva) are the only ones that are classified as Shruti as they have no definite authors but are a collection of verses that were originally passed from teacher to student.

Upanishads too are sometimes classified as Shruti simply because they are passed from teacher to student in oral form but these too had a human interpretation as the teacher added his understandings to it.

As contradictions go, this is one of the first. Most of the Vedas and Upanishads were passed on from teacher to student in the oral form and in time they were all written down and this brings the human element even in the Shruti section of the scriptural wealth.

The rest of the work is classified as Smriti and this is entirely man created and the work is open to critique and change.

This is an important distinction as it empowers one to question the Hindu scriptural wealth and change or reject the scriptures if they do not apply in the present day context.

Branding and its Value

I read in the blog, BrandCaféAsia that ideas come first and then brands develop. This is true.

But, once brands develop and mature, there is a problem of a different kind. Once the positioning is done, there is a problem with the way the brand matures. Mature brands are stuck in a mode or in their original positioning and it takes a lot more to give it new direction and it is not always as successful as the original idea. This new direction is also expensive as it has to be well advertised.

The new outlook for the brand has some drawbacks. The new outlook could potentially alienate older customers who were loyal and are observing the transition. The other problem is that the new target audience could prefer the old outlook. This creates a graveyard for the brand where it is going to slowly die.

This unfortunately is the situation with UB Group’s Kingfisher. The airline has been faltering badly and the brand’s tag line, “The King of Good Times” is no longer linked to a prosperous and growing business. With the 24 hour news media reporting non-stop, we now know that the group as a whole is in a lot of debt and not exactly healthy.

The Satyam saga where the promoters pledged majority of their stake and the subsequent fraud into the software company and the investigation lead to another issue. UB group and other companies had to show how much of their shareholding was pledged and with whom.

These two events brought the elephant into the room. Kingfisher’s debt restructuring that has happened twice till now has only served to fatten the elephant and the erosion in the brand value is apparent. If the situation is not turned around, the goodwill of the brand and the holding company is going to erode and in the event of a sale, the value would be greatly diminished.

The scenario is more complex given that the Kingfisher brand was mortgaged with State Bank of India (SBI) so if there is proven erosion of brand value then more collateral would be needed. If Kingfisher brings more brands under this collateral, what would be the bargaining position of the company given that some of its prestigious brands are under mortgage?

This logic though that other brands can be brought in for collateral is not as simple when it extends to other brands of the UB Group. If the company decides to mortgage its scotch brands then the brand is not just a standalone unit. The brand is inextricably linked to its production facilities and one cannot merely separate the brand from the place of origin and production. This is due to international regulation that have classified scotch as that produced in Scotland.

Given this unique situation, many of the companies that hold such brands have a situation that requires it to generate a cash flow in excess of its required outflow. Brands linked to a region and production processes become more valuable over a period of time and have a history and brand value that cannot and should not be tampered with. Much like scotch, some brands have to mature slowly and stick to one direction to be able to get their coveted and valued position.

Hopefully the King of Good Times will soon, truly be the King of Good Times.

The French Connection

In my post titled, The Plane Truth, I had surmised that the Dassault Rafale could be the winner of the 126 MMRCA (Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft) required by the Indian Air Force (IAF) for modernization.

The French government, in its bid to win the contract, has cleared full technology transfer of the Dassault Rafale to India, including that of the RBE2-AA Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar which includes the full transfer of all software source codes.

Access to source codes allows Indian Air Force (IAF) to re-programme the radar or any sensitive equipment if needed. Without the software source codes, the Indian Air Force (IAF) would have to specify mission parameters to foreign manufacturers to enable configuration of the radar, seriously compromising security in the process and being stuck with limitations.

The other reason this deal went to Dassault Rafale is due to another problem the Indian defence forces are facing. The Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) is the replacement for the aging MiG-21 that the Indian Air Force (IAF) flies. The Kaveri engine was to be the one that was powering the LCA but the engine has not performed to expectations and is still being tested and worked on.

The LCA is now being powered by engines supplied by General Electric (GE). With Dassault Rafale, if the Indian government is able to get access to the Snecma M88 engine and its variants, it would be a huge jump in the ability to produce and replicate engine technologies and apply the technology to develop newer engines indigenously.

With such a deal suggestions come in fast, on what is a better choice. The suggestions are from companies who competed but were not shortlisted and also external experts and media. One suggestion was that the American contenders were better. This is probably true but strategic requirement and long term investment required India to tap into a promise of full access to technology. How much India gets out of the deal is still open to debate but that is the nature of most businesses and a country’s strategic needs are no different. I think the line Ronald Reagan used in reference to ones allies is most apt here; trust but verify.

India has to trust that it will get 100% technology transfer that France promised but the verification will take some amount of time.

The other 3 serious contenders in the deal were the Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet, Lockheed Martin F-16IN Super Viper and the EADS Eurofighter Typhoon.

The US companies walked into the tender process with serious limitations that the US government had imposed on technology transfer. For a better perspective, the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, the frontline stealth aircraft in operation for the US is not sold to the UK, an all weather ally of the US, due to technology transfer and export restrictions imposed by US Congress. Today the production of the F-22 Raptor has been stopped as the F-35 Lightening Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) is undergoing flight trials for induction into the US air force.

Much like the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, the Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet and Lockheed Martin F-16IN Super Viper could not have transferred some of the technologies to India due to technology transfer and export restrictions imposed by US Congress.

The EADS Typhoon promised India access to the research and production of future tranches of the Eurofighter Typhoon. The question that should be asked has to be asked is when will the research and development and production of the next tranche of the Typhoon begin. The present tranche has to age in terms of technology or put a profit on the books of EADS to warrant the initiation of the next tranche of Typhoon. This is not going to happen in the near future considering the technology of the plane, the economy of the region and that there are no plans by any country other than India to invest in a major airforce overhaul in the immediate future.

There is a question on why the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) was not taken into consideration. There are 2 reasons for it:

1. It is yet to be inducted into service and is behind schedule and

2. It is a single engine aircraft

The other most commonly raised doubt is why India did not wait for a fifth generation fighter aircraft. India is already part of a deal with Russia to develop a fifth generation fighter aircraft. The Sukhoi PAK FA is to be developed as a single and double seater fighter aircraft and is a development collaboration between Russia and India. This gives India access the Sukhoi PAK FA and its variants.

The Rafale is expected to replace the aging MiG-21s and the Mirage 2000s. The Rafale and the Tejas LCA are expected to the add strength to the IAF.

The Traveller and The Inn

For a traveller the inn he stays for the night is his home. For this traveller in search of answers it was no different. He was one of the many that walked in through the door. He was different though. Most wanted to see things and places and usually asked about all of it when they walked in. The traveller just wanted a room and made it clear that he was here for 2 days. That was 23 years ago. As with a traveller with purpose all he had were just necessities and the inn matched his style, frugal and secluded.

The traveller was out in search of answers but he never got them, he never needed them after his time in the inn. All due to a voice that hailed him from the gardens. The voice of a woman whose eyes shown with life and vibrancy that made him wonder if he was dreaming. They both talked a while and he asked her what the hamlet was all about and she offered to show him around.

Her noticed her awkward walk with her support stick and it made him sad as it would make her a weary soul at the fag end of the day. He declined giving excuses but she would not have any of it. The eyes and walk had taken his time but as time flowed by he also was aware that he was with a beautiful woman and her life spirit made her even more desirable and as interesting. Her easy laugh and her ability to laugh at her own walk and pain made him extend his stay a few more days. And few more days have since passed in the calendar. But the traveller was particular in one thing; treating her no different from others he knew and dealt with.

Tea was served to us by the woman of awkward walk of the inn. “The penguin’s gait”, remarked the lady. The traveller spoke to space,” Love has a vicious control over us, strange it is that we never complain about it.” And the traveller walked up to kiss the penguin, his wife of a year less than his time of stay here.

The traveller still paid rent but each year it was raised and till date he has not defaulted. The traveller was a selfish man, it was for him that he stayed there and settled there since so long. He knew what the inn keeper felt for him and what she liked about his being there. He knew she wanted to be treated as an equal and someone to love her rather than shower her with hollow sympathies.

My stay had come to an end there; it was a fruitful and fulfilling one. On the appointed hour the inn keeper asked me if I knew what made the traveller stay back so long. I replied, “He found his destination in a person than a place. I believe its time I found my inn keeper too.”

I had made the woman cry but I had no remorse about it for I knew the tears could never be of sorrow. The inn shall always be in me for life, for all travels. I walked out into the mists leaving behind the inn turning to see just a faint outline of the place that I regard as a temple; of peace, love and companionship.

What or Who is God?

GOD, the word is just 3 alphabets but the importance is such that crusades have been undertaken on the basis of just this one word. Much literature has been written to make the common man understand what or who god is. Most literature has talked about achieving Nirvana or Moksha or Realization and called it an experience. The other side of the coin talks of him or her in one or the other form with qualities attached to the form, like Christ or Buddha; qualities found in all humans.

This ‘concept’ of God has long been the bone of contention between the believers and non-believers in god. I emphasize the word ‘concept’ because that is what god is all about. As the character Morpheus says in the movie The Matrix, “The Matrix is everywhere. It’s all around us. Even now in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes.” The concept of God is much the same. It is the feeling you have for your and even other kids, for the thousands that die in an instant in a tsunami, the spirit of giving that makes us donate a part for a good cause, the feeling of dread that stops us from poisoning the mice that invade our house or killing them after they are captured. God is that what you feel during Christmas, it’s that feeling that no person should be hungry or without a shelter, it’s the feeling that no human being should suffer at the hands of a tyrant or dictator. God is in the anger you feel towards people who do not respect life.

You may not believe in god as in visiting the church or a temple or mosque, but rarely can man disregard goodness. A fireman may not believe in god but he believes in human life and it value and why it should be saved for which he puts his own life on the line. God is not a concept that is limited to the confines of a church or temple. It’s when we protest against the hacking of trees; some reasons may be selfish, as we want the world to be better than ours for our children, and some for the greater good of humanity. All these too can be called God. So it matters not whether we go to church or a temple and bow our heads paying our respects to the higher power, but it matters more how we actually live and act out in this world. A person believing in Good but not in God and strives to bring out the Good through action is a far better person than a person who believes in God but does no Good or add value to humanity.

People call this higher power by different names, God, Nature, much of which we have no control over and never understand when it’s going to strike, Destiny or Fate; the list is endless. In years to come we are going to keep adding to this list. Some people think of the concept of god as a guardian; some others as an accountant who is looking into the accounts of our life and deciding if the liabilities or bad aspects we have gathered outweighs the good. Others regard God as a friend. For each person who lives, there is a unique understanding of the concept of God.

Let us look at it from another perspective. That we are all limited by death is a fact we cannot deny, and death can strike us at any given point of time. In that respect our hands are tied. We are not sure of what is going to happen the next moment. We sleep at night, but there is a possibility that we may just die in our sleep. Something or someone decides that we have to wake up the next day, and our personal worlds take shape the moment we open our eyes and wake up. God is even in the acceptance of the futility that we are not all-powerful to affect change in all aspects of our life or the world around us.

God or nature discovered we call science, because we can classify it and give it structure. The undiscovered part we feel the need to define and classify, so we try our level best to find those answers; but until then we call it God or Nature or Fate or Destiny, so one can say that the word God is open to interpretation and individual tastes and like and dislikes too.

To conclude, ‘God’ is not the booming voice from the skies, sometimes it’s the meek voice of a child, the squeak of a mouse and many such apparently insignificant things. Since we all value life and have a discrimination of good and bad in us, we all can call ourselves as believers of the same concept but in different lights and its is no fixed rule that only one the ones who do a particular deed are said to be believers of God. There is really no necessity to be bowing before a cross or an idol of a god to be called a believer. Being a good human being is what really counts and accepting that each one is different is an extension of the same. At the end of the day it’s the values that count not the god that we believe in or the church or temple we frequent.