Reflections

I heard a brilliant quote from Ayn Rand a few days ago “You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.” The quote can be applied to so many dimensions of the current world and I will try and explore some of them here. continue

If you like your posts, do become our facebook fan. Thanks for visiting!

(Note: This post has nothing to do with strategy. Its a post in the reflections category, and yet hopefully would be worth your time.)

Over the weekend, I visited Pune – one of the biggest IT-related success stories of India of the past decade.  Over there, I went to this ‘Neera’ (a fruit extract which is served cold and acts as a rejuvenator) shop run by a physically challenged person. He was an old man , probably over 65 years of age and I have seen him selling Neera over there atleast for the past 7-8 years. During my chat with him, I asked him – ‘Aap itne saal se Neera bech rahe ho, aapka koi yadgaar khsan bataiye’ (Tell us some unforgettable incident you must have had while selling Neera) . He narrated that incident and then said something that was invaluable in my opinion – continue

(Note: This is by far one of my shortest and weirdest articles, ever. This also might be one of the worst written, most horribly convoluted, obnoxiously pretentious and absurd articles on Strat.in, and well, I’m not forcing you to read it, am I? This is just an experiment I’m trying, mainly because I’m sleepy and cramped and the goddamm berths on AC-III coaches have gotten smaller, and I have a nagging suspicion that while to my credit, I didn’t study at all in IIM-C, I might have missed a few chances to learn as well. Also, this is from the point of view of one of the most significant literary figures of all times (although the narrator kinda changes towards the end), and since I am writing this at four in the morning in a moving train, give me some leeway. Read on if you want, because all I promise is chaos. You have been warned)

“Look upon my works ye mighty, and despair”, said my husband and thought my creation. Fire and brimstone went up as clouds near Indo-china, and brought about the fall of the conqueror of Europe. I know this because I am hindsight personified, just as I was the first with a foresight. Was I a Cassandra? Did I bring about horror and fear and hope. Or was it something in the air that night? A sky like Gogh’s nightmares from an island on the other side of the earth. Did a butterfly cause this sky? continue

We are all familiar with the age old saying ‘Time and tide waits for no wo/man’. We are all caught up in our race against the clock in our daily life. From the time the buzzer of the Alarm croaks until late in the night when the clock/watch indicates that it is past our bed time, therefore we must sleep! ‘Time’ it is an absolutely inherit part of our daily life. It is an irreversible force that carries us from birth to death the natural process called aging indicating that the body clock is ticking. Time is one of the fundamental dimensions of the universe we know. But what is this ‘Time’? For all those Indians like me who grew up watching the mythological soap Mahabharata on television; Time was denoted as a picture of the stars whizzing past as the camera spear headed through space. At the center a wheel that rotates clockwise and a voice that said ‘I am time’. As a child this image had an everlasting impact on my thinking. If I have to visualize time how would I do it? In our conscious mind as we grow up from being toddlers to adults we ‘learn’ to have a measure of time much like learning a language but that is really nothing but a acquired skill. continue

(Just a bit of context: I’m an atheist, however, I do have a keen interest in religion and culture, and have studied different versions of both these great texts. I think the insights they offer into the Indian, or rather, the Human psyche, are as relevant today as they were when these texts were written. What I write is my view on these texts and their purpose, and my intention is not to offend anyone’s religious sensibilities. Also, I highly recommend the epics Mrityunjay by Shivaji Sawant and Chandrakanta by Devki Nandan Khatri, which I myself am reading right now) continue

It had been drilling my mind for a long time now. I had been observing and thinking, but somehow never reached a satisfactory conclusion. The questions kept increasing and the frequency just kept going up as the world was getting destroyed by incessant terrorism. continue

Cigarettes remain the most visible of “vices” in the modern day realm. Tobacco related cancer and deaths are possibly the most well known amongst the cancerous deaths. In fact, cancer is now associated with tobacco to a great extent. Parents dissuade their children and wards from smoking on the basis of the strong correlation (I will not use the word causality for a reason) with smoking and cancer. Governments strongly believe in the correlation too and use various techniques to curb smoking (but never ban it). This mystery seems to baffle both me, and I am quite sure, many of the readers of the blog. What I will therefore try is to try and justify the cigarette, thereby justifying the aberrant government behavior, the existence of the cigarette companies, and some other related matters. continue

‘One has to live in the present moment, because the present moment is inevitable’.- Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

While its true that all that one has with oneself at any given moment of time is the present moment, is living in the present moment a compulsion? After all, the great ones that the history has recorded have always dared to envision the future. Gandhiji must have thought of a free India before embarking upon his struggle against the British. Every great inventor must have had a certain vision, a dream which he/she may have nurtured while trying to conquer hitherto unconquered quests. This puts a doubt in ones mind – what is more important – existence or vision? I delve into this deeper in this article… continue

The Mango Man is back on Strat. In, this time with another post. Read his first post here. | All of us at some point have had our little rendezvous with the traffic cop where you were stopped, allegedly for violating some traffic rule. Many a times we have tried to wriggle our way by trying to veil a bribe to the cop, ‘I was in a hurry sir, perhaps we can settle this amicably?’ an indirect speech. We almost never walk up to the cop and tell him’ take this 100 rupee note as bribe so that I can go!!’ A veiled bribe to the cop is understandable because this involves legal implications. What if the cop is an upright policeman (I must be dreaming but just in case he is) then he could actually charge you with ‘Attempt to bribe’ in addition to the violation of traffic rule (assuming that you did volatile some rule). Rather if you hint at a bribe more like in the form of indirect speech the corrupt cop will sniff the Innuendo (suggestion) behind the statement and accept it. If the cop is an upright guy (have a hope!) he still cannot charge you with attempt to bribe because he needs to prove that ‘beyond any reasonable doubt’ in the court of law. Therefore the art of indirect speech turns out to be a win-win situation for you. continue