Quo Vadis?

I wanted to write a big post about the year and its highs and lows and even got the outline ready but then decided that I will share with you my mail that I had sent out today to all my business contacts. Hi, As we stand at the threshold of a New Year, we may have mixed feelings, some good some bad, but in a few hours we will start the New Year with the greatest gift of mankind – Hope! I would like to share with you two poems from my list of favourites as a small New Year gift. 1) From the Gitanjali, written by Rabindranath Tagore, even 61 years after Independence, freedom is a distant dream for many. Battered, bruised, wounded, scarred be it in Orissa, Kashmir or Mumbai in the past year let our country awake into a new beginning…. Gitanjali 35 1 Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high; 2 Where knowledge is free; 3 Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls; 4 Whe...

As you enter our colony you will be greeted by our live tree, as it is getting taller you can see how difficult it is getting to string the lights! Our star is in the balcony as fear of the rain brought it indoors a couple of years ago and it continues... Our bigger artificial tree, normally we put up two such trees, this year I thought one is enough after all Christmas is not about a plastic monstrosity. Maybe next year I may scrap it altogether Our crib, created by D. A good job I may add. The reason for Christmas... and yet this year it did not feel like Christmas.

I've been tagged! 1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Like the person who tagged me, I haven’t had egg nog. So, I will go for hot chocolate. 2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Back then Santa was fun , but now gifts are only from my loved ones and often from whoever picks me as their Chris Child 3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? We have a real tree that is atleast 15 feet tall and every year we drape coloured lighst on it, but I think that next year I will give it a rest. Christmas did not sprout from a tree 4. Do you hang mistletoe? No mistletoe. Haven’t seen one except in Tom and Jerry, when Jerry kicks Tom under it 5. When do you put your decorations up? Usually at the start of advent, now D does it when she can 6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? Biriyani any time, holiday or not 7. Favorite holiday memory as a child: Going to my grand parents place in Coimbatore and having fun with cousins. 8. When and how did you learn the tr...

Note: This post is my personal comment and it is not intended to hurt anyone. A gloomy market is like a glass half filled with water. It is either half full or half empty depending on how you look at it. Looking at the option of opportunity can make people believe that this is the time for the entrepreneurial jump. Now what are the options available? Plenty but something that has spread like wild fire spanning the spectrum from cottage industry size to a multi crore, multi location even spanning continents, and mass employment providing operations is the business of religion. Your read that right, the business of religion is booming like no other and the CAGR if somebody were to do it in absolute numbers would make many hard nosed business men salivate. But why the business of religion? Simple, for starters you need no investment except oneself, many of the corporations started of f with or by a bright spark. A bright idea and good use of the basic four P’s of Philip Kotler and you hav...

Take a good look at the picture. What does the image of a pointed forefinger bring to your mind? Many things I would guess, but has it ever brought the fact that no less than three fingers are pointing backwards. When things go wrong, the most used or abused finger is this forefinger and the most ignored are the other fingers that are telling an untold tale, the tale of the often silent accomplice. How much of the issue was cause by him whose hand the fore finger belonged to? The question is not, what did I do to cause 26/11, but is there something I could have done to prevent it... Also Indiblogger has come up with a good initiative. It’s called The “ Rebuild India ” Mission. Check it out.

By now the media would have numbed you with their incessant reportage of the incidents of “26/11”. Much has been said and much more will be said by every one who thinks he / she has an opinion to matter. I have my opinions too, but they are not on 26/11. Yes a bunch of motivated, misguided young men created havoc and it spurred endless chest thumping jingoism for all and sundry. We have also heard enough of the “Spirit of Mumbai” that is attributed to the ability to recover each time. Pause for a moment and look at all this with a cynical eye, I did and I think it is silly. Firstly these men have killed around 200 and wounded double the number in the space of 4 days and they are terrorists, hordes of men killed innocents in Orissa with simpler and cruder killing devices and they are rioters or religious zealots. I ask you for the victim cowering in fear is there any degree of terror, do the flames evoke lesser fear than bullets and grenades? Just because they cannot afford to dine in s...