Gandhi’s “Mission statement”

Let the first act of every morning be to make the following resolve for the day:

• I shall not fear anyone on Earth.
• I shall fear only God.
• I shall not bear ill will toward anyone.
• I shall not submit to injustice from anyone.
• I shall conquer untruth by truth.
• And in resisting untruth, I shall put up with all suffering.

As captured from http://www.franklincovey.com/msb/inspired/gandhi

The business of a business is to do business

This is what i heard a Goldratt certified trainer in India state with a roaring voice during an industry event where he was invited to speak. He then later on went to literally reprimand every business-owner among the audience who spoke about “values”, and “helping to make a better world”, and such similar moral objectives of running their business. I was among the ones who got a good blowing. This was 5 years ago.

The roar of his voice shortly gave way to the call of my heart over the months, even as i “got” the idea behind the “Theory of Constraints” rather well. I was back to doing business for “good of others” with huge goals and aspirations from life, constantly trying to instil values of “high-thinking and simple living” among my people. Running my company like a “co-operative” or as a Section 25 company were ideas on which i had spent hundreds of man hours (no kidding!) researching, discussing, reading and evolving a model.

The state was such that in all these high aspirations i forgot that i had a goal of running the business well, and earning money for its growth, for the growth of employees, and for the sake of the area we worked in. “Remaining consciously small” was the mantra i again followed for years. Ofcourse, i must state that this mantra was adopted after 2-3 failed attempts to scale, through the way of building partnerships along the way.

Looking back now, “staying small by choice” was more out of the frustration of not having the abilities of a good CEO to enable scaling up the enterprise. However, it was not with such deep introspection that i decided to join an Owner-Manager Program with CIAM. It was just by chance it came along, and i liked the idea of a few entrepreneurs sitting together and talking about business challenges.

“Do you know most of you sitting in this room can get salaries way more than what you pay yourself? You are all at best “self-employed professionals” – “glorified freelancers”, who do not like to be held accountable and be reporting to a boss“

The primary goal of an entrepreneur is to grow the enterprise. If you like doing “creative work”, go work in a creative agency; don’t run a business. If you like to do “social good” work for an NGO!”

This time, it was Rattan Chugh, the former CEO of Fidelity India, and currently a faculty at CIAM, who made this highly provocative statement. My world really came crashing down. I WAS DEEPLY DISTURBED. Once again “Small is Beautiful” by Schumacher and “Small Giants” by Bo Burlingham was ringing in my head. Further – “i am NOT an entrepreneur – what bullshit. Entrepreneurs are entrepreneurs even if they keep the business small”, is what i wanted to get up and shout back at him.And what about “values” of running a business? Huh? Well, i tried to argue back a bit with him, but Rattan was least interested in debating with me endlessly.

Out for lunch, i caught him again. And explained passionately how Nescafe should not be making “coffee sachets” (passionately shaking one such sachet in my hand), as they are brutal to the environment.”I never said have no values, or do not care about your employees, but your business purpose is to grow the enterprise and make it better”, he re-asserted what he was saying.

I was quiet. He was right! All the years of hiding behind “being small and sustainable” (as much as i could manage) was giving way to a “sense of failure” in achieving growth for the enterprise. Not only had i been horribly irresponsible with my own finances, i’ve costed the company as well with my inability to do what was needed to grow the enterprise.

If low cost staff augmentation was what was needed to be done, it was needed to be done. But no, i had my values about India growing up the value chain; and looked down upon companies who did this. Forget what i did to myself financially, by not going this route, i also frustrated the good employees by not being able to afford better salaries for them.

India would have been a better place, with a more successful Srijan – driven by values, and yet using market opportunities to create an even bigger success story for an open source company, and by doing wealth creation for myself, my people and my company.

Doing what is needed of a CEO is the need of the hour, no matter what the skills, or the lack of them, are. A business model needs to be created for finding more clients and serving them well. Induction more and better people needs to happen, if i find myself, and the current partnerships inadequate to grow the enterprise. The enterprise called Srijan must grow!

Find ways to do so. Find ways to pay yourself a market salary, Rahul!

We have something unique about us, and this must succeed.

On Satanic Verses, A thousand Ramayans, Banning the Ahemediyyas and other controversies

In response to tweets about – no reactions from the Media on the ABVP ban on Sanjay Kak’s screening of a movie on Kashmir versus the apparent overdose of dialogue on Rushdie being denied welcome to India, i wrote the following on a blog post.

By doing this i am hoping that the author of the blog will see the other side

# When recently a version of the Ramayana was removed from the DU syllabus there was a HUGE ruckus in the same media that you are calling #Islamophobic and that they have disappeared See:

# MF Hussain has been painting Hindu gods and godesses in the nude for *decades* now; i am certain that it has been hurting the sentiment of some just as the reading of Satanic Verses would have hurt some; However, it was not until the recent “reactionary” rise of a hard-line right-wing hindus in the middle of the last decade, that he had any trouble painting such.

# Recently a Keralite writer has written a book on re-interpreting Draupadi’s reltionship with Krishna from the Mahabharat, and represented it in a very sexual manner. The book has NOT been banned, in spite of protests

# Imam Bukhari recently disrupted an exhibition of the Ahmeddiyas and asking them to *not call themselves muslims* http://www.indianexpress.com/news/ahmediyyas-let-them-be/853910/2

Isn’t the ABVP incident that you are referring to falling in the same category? BTW, there was hardly any reaction from the liberals you are referring to on this incident as well. So your notion of categorising them in one class, and one behaviour is inaccurate.

You may agree that most reactions such as banning books is *most often political, than righteous*. Given that the judgment of right vs wrong cannot be given to a government, there needs to be freedom to express anything.

It is self-defeating for people to say anything but things that build bridges and that heal people. This is a problem of the human race. Yet, such self-expression, and even if it takes connotations of provocation, cannot be responded with *banning* and *taking away the right to speech*. The latter is probably worse than the former because it eliminates the chance/opportunity to have a dialogue and bring change. It draws lines of me vs then, and people tend to join one or the other party, thus further creating divisions.

From within the Muslim world, perhaps there is only a *vocal minority* which has strong opinions on the reading and sale of the Satanic Verses, while respectable scholars like Maulana Wahiduddin Khan’s voices are made meek, and unheard. Who is right? Why should the Maulana’s opinion and sentiment be made out to be less important than those of the ones protesting?

“Imported Threat” to the Andaman – Spotted Deer, Elephants, Crows, plant species

They’re beautiful but within themselves they carry the seeds of destruction.

Spotted deer were introduced to the Andaman Islands either in the early 1900s or the 1930s. The exact date doesn’t matter, and nor does the actual number. What matters is that, in the absence of predators, they have multiplied and spread, swimming from one island to another. In each island their population has shot up, and they browse relentlessly on the seedlings of the forest trees that regenerate there. They avoid browsing on only two of the hundreds of species of trees found there. Forests of Pongamia (pongam) monocultures are taking over the coastlines, and Lagerstroemia, leafless for most of the year, is taking over the once lush rainforests of the interior. If left unchecked, the fabled forests of the Andamans will, sooner or later, be a thing of the past.

Options for control

What can be done to control the deer? Sterilisation is too expensive and chancy. Translocation is possible, but to where? Back to mainland India? Which Government will bear the cost? The logical solution is culling, but then we have to deal with the vociferous animal rights brigade. Apparently the ‘right’ of an individual animal is more important than the unique ecosystem it destroys.

After almost a decade of inaction and hoping that the problem would go away, the Andaman Administration has written to the Centre, asking this animal species be declared vermin in the islands. Now it’s the Centre’s turn to avoid taking any action. Somehow the matter is too unimportant to find a place on the agenda of the National Board for Wildlife, whose members’ only preoccupation seems to be to avoid controversy and hence ensure their re-nomination onto the Board. Even declaring the deer vermin is not going to solve the problem of how it is to be removed from National Parks where shooting is banned.

The deer are only one of several problem animals. The most spectacular are the 30 or so elephants that were released on Interview Island about 50 years ago, when the logging company using them went bankrupt. They debark and knock down the trees, killing them. The deer then make sure that no regeneration takes place.

A few years ago, an offer was made by the Berlin Zoo to translocate these elephants to mainland India, provided they got a couple of young ones for the zoo. Again our brilliant environmentalists leapt into action. The elephants would feel cold, and they would miss the society of their peers! This seems to be less desirable than dying of starvation, which is what appears to be happening now. Anyway the offer, tentative as it was, has since been withdrawn.

Complete article at: http://www.thehindu.com/arts/magazine/article2840068.ece

Google Analytics cuts off J&K from India’s map

Google Analytics' map showing J&K cut off

Learning Societies Unconference; Mumbai; 28 Feb to 04 Mar 2012

I’m applying for attending the Learning Societies Unconfernce to be held near Mumbai between 28 Feb and 04 Mar 2012. The 3 questions they asked me, and my responses.

 

Please describe yourself and your own learning/unlearning journey in a short personal note (up to 500 words) which can be shared with the larger group. *

My internet social profiles say: “Entrepreneur/ Drupal, Open Source evangelist/ Green activist/ Pilgrim/ In pursuit of a purposeful life”.

I’ve been an entrepreneur for most of my working life. Have mastered the art of *delaying gratification* (even though it is beginning to hurt the financial planning for the family a bit), i’ve learnt to *live fairly frugally*. Actually, i’ve always had an intuitive pull towards frugal and sustainable living; about sharing and co-ownership; towards spiritual values. This pull led to a search for the divine fairly early on in my life, leading first to a crisis/depression, eventually resulting in a *search* for health, wellness, and a *deep seeking*. I still do not know what i am seeking; what i am after – so end up calling myself a *pilgrim, in pursuit of a purposeful life*.

Yet i know where to look – sustainable farming, renewable energy, meditation, Gandhi, writing of life, travelling, photography, advocacy, a bit of coaching, employee-owned companies, and entrepreneurship.

 

What kind of learning communities and learning experiments have you been trying co-create? *

“Beyond Tech” is an initiative i’ve seeded at Srijan to help bring diversity and breadth to people. http://www.srijan.in/beyond-tech. This year my goal is to startup two more projects:

a) invest in a large piece of land in the mountains alongwith Navin Pangti – with the objective of forming a base for experimentation with *BioChar* for increased organic agriculture productivity, for regenerating degraded forests around using “seedball sowing”, and eventually creating a sustainable local economy with an element of eco-tourism.

b) create an e-commerce property to bring give market access for natural and wellness products to self-help groups and social communities around the country

What questions, topics, workshops, proposals, projects, invitations, etc. related to unfolding learning societies would you like to contribute and further explore in this unconference? *

The two projects listed above. BioChar is of keen interest to me given its tremendous benefits in increasing agricultural produce naturally, and its tremendous potential in acting as a *carbon sink*. As an example, 1 ton of BioChar = 3 tonnes of CO2.

My salary over the years

Most people consider asking how much they earn an intrusion on their privacy. We all find it difficult to share our salaries – sometimes  a) *out of guilt*, and  b) at other times *out of shame*.

Since, i wrote this article inviting entrepreneurs to see themselves as investors, and start drawing a salary as close as what the market may pay them (instead of sacrificing it for constantly and feeding their business), i thought i should share how i have drawn my salary over these years.

2002-03:	Rs.10,000/- (Feb 2003 to May 2004)
2003-04:	Rs.15,000/- (June 2004-March 2005)
2005-06:	Rs.30,000/- (April 2005-Sep 2005)
2005-06:	Rs.40,000/- (Oct 2005-Sep 2006)
2006-07:	Rs.61,500/- (Nov 2006-April 2007)
2007-08:	Rs.63,000/- (May 2007-March 2008)
2008-09:	Rs.71,600/- (April 2008-Sep 2009)
2009-10:	Rs.1,00,000/- (October 2009-Sep 2011)

The last salary that i drew in Aug 1999, as an employee was Rs.28,000-30,000/- – while i do not recall accurately – it was in that order. And i reached this salary again, after about 5 years of being self-employed. And even after this, the salary growth was too low.

My peers, those who chose to stay on India (very few did), were earning atleast about 2 times my salary drawn in 2009-2010. And by the way, the industry would be willing to give me much more than that for the skills i have/had gained over these years of running an IT services business. I created a decent brand, delivered fairly visible projects with decent amount of quality, and created a nice team of open source enthusiasts. A fairly successful, even if a smallish business, over the years.

So, if you are a young entrepreneur just starting out, here’s my message :: while you must sacrifice and *delay your gratification*, there is no reason for you to be unjust to yourself, and worse – to your family.

Learn from my mistakes if you can, and constantly strive to give yourself atleast close to a market salary. You can evaluate this, by interviewing your friends and peers, and by searching on job sites for people with similar profiles to yours.

And when your business starts succeeding, give yourself a hefty raise, and year-end dividends – that would be the incentive for delaying your gratification early on during the initial years of the business.

The Indian connection with the Shaolin Temples in China

In 495 AD, the Indian monk Ba Tuo, or Buddhabhadra, came to China teaching a form of Buddhism known as Xiao Sheng Buddhism. He was given land at the foot of Shaoshi mountain by Emperor Shao Wen and founded the Shaolin Temple on this land.

Source: http://www.usashaolintemple.org/chanbuddhism-history/

And how about CROMA? Are they serious about their website at all?

One worse than the other! I just blogged about the pathetic state of Airtel’s online transactions; and went to Croma’s website – the big electronics retail outlet by TATAs to search for a *steamer*. Well, it took them 96 seconds for a search across 130 pages, to tell me they did not have it. What a shame! Someone please tell their agency about Apache SOLR search, or route them to Srijan Technologies to help them out with it.

Is Airtel serious about it’s online payments?

Is Airtel serious about its online business? Is IBM serious about having its systems running? Just went to book a broadband line for my home (disgusted with the lack-of-transparency from MTNL in its billing), and this is what i got – “Unable to process your request. Please try later!!!” bah!