FUTURE OF FUTURE

What games do the corporates play?

Amazon bought 49% of stakes in Future Coupons Pvt Limited on the  understanding that Future Retails Limited (FRL) would be sole vehicle of its retail business. Kishore Biyani, the Future’s boss, not taking cognisance of it, sells FRL, by now a sinking Co., to Mukesh Ambani (MDA) group, making it a breach of agreement! 

Amazon went to Singapore International Arbitration Centre, the official global body and got an interim order directing Future not to take any further action. Even after this, Biyani & Co. tried to go ahead with the deal with MDA group. Amazon approached the Delhi High Court which ruled that the FRL promoters had willfully violated the Arbitrator’s order. It has directed to attach the assets of FRL, Biyani and other promoters of the Co. 

“The promoters of FRL do not appear to be honest” the Court said & asked why Biyani and other promoters should not be sent to jail ! 

It is another question, why the most powerful Mukesh Ambani group proceeded to buy over FRL when the Arbitrator’s direction was in place. Doesn’t that show its scant respect to the legal bodies? 

Many powerful Corporates across the world  follow the ‘might is right’ policy.

Let us watch the Future of Future. ‘Picture abhi baaki hai dost’ 

LICENSED TO KILL

What you see below is a photo that appeared on the front page of ‘The Hindu’ today. It is on ‘Jallikattu’, a seasonal animal sport in Tamilnadu, When Gujjus fly kites, the Tamils engage with bulls during Sankrati/Pongal. While in Gujrat people fall off the roof and die, in TN they die, gored by the bull.

Jallikattu is one of the cruelest of sports in India. (It is probably the only commanality between a Tamil & a Spanish!) It is all about specially bred bulls let free and chased by people and in the the melee, many getting killed, gored to death by the animal. What a licensed way to die? The news in the photo said, the bull killed two people; one, a bystander. 

Jallikattu was banned by the Supreme Court in 2014, on the appeal of Animal Welfare Board & PETA. But will the pride of Tamilnadu allow such a ban? It was a game in existence for more than 1500 years, people claim. They protested against the ban and a million people assembled in Marina beach Chennai, in 2017, to show the solidarity, resulting in T.Nadu government releasing an ordinance to reinstate this cruel game. Now the state has even annual Jallikattu league matches to boast! 

This year’s highlight, Rahul Gandhi arriving to witness Jallikattu! What a pity? What for? 

Vote bank, of course!

SOME LEARNINGS IN 2020

1. Nothings is in nobody’s control, whether rich, powerful or poor

The people who thought that they had everything in control, had a major shock, given by the Novel Corona Virus which is not even an organism! We took pride in our engineering, medical and space program capabilities. Some of the world leadership did not take Corona seriously and look at the impact it had on the mighty powerful USA and the  European nations. The hubris shown by the rich and powerful got tossed out and man knelt down in front of Covid. For almost an year,  Corona took control of the planet, how is that for a change? 

2. Whatever happens, Life goes on

Businesses collapsed, economy went south, unemployment quadrupled and close to 2 million people died of Corona. People got locked in their homes for months together and doom sayers predicted huge repercussions. However, life went on, with its own ups and downs , and as predicted, about 140 million births did happen in 2020 too.  

3. What you want to achieve in 10 years could be had in 10 months with technology, assisted by a grave calamity

Corona virus brought in plenty of new normals, many of which will stay continued even after containing the disease. Technology, particularly AI, Robotics, Genomics, Drug/Vaccine discovery etc., leapfrogged. What would have taken long to become reality,  became necessity as a result of the calamity - the pandemic and mankind did not hesitate to changeover instantly, swallowing the humble pie! 

4. Learning is never continuous, happens in spurts. 

Yes, learning is life long. The survival of the fittest demands the ability to unlearn and relearn. The frequency of learning also got shortened. However learning do not go like a smooth flowing sinusoidal wave. It is more similar to a centripetal wave with its own fits and starts. 

5. Do not imagine drastic things, it might happen! 

While Corona was in its full fury, people dug out those movies and scientific predictions made years back, of the virus going to impact mankind in these times. What does it prove!  Don’t use your imagination go wild  to arrive at calamitous predictions, surely it could come true. That doesn’t give a sense of comfort to our living, don’t you think? 

6. The more you defy, the more you will get hit

Like Newton’s third law, every action will have an equal and opposite reaction. So with the false pride, the moment one attempts to tie something down in a jiffy, with a greater force it will unravel before him. The proverbial patience and perseverance still continue as true virtues for mankind to manage impactful events. 

7. Do not imitate, be yourself, better that way 

What will make you face high impacting changes is your ability to manage  them. With what quality will you face any situation? To begin with you just understand your strengths and weaknesses, your plusses and minuses so that you will know what to use when while facing situations. This calls for developing and enhancing your intra personal intelligence. Successful people  are blessed with this intelligence in plenty and they will never be pretenders, but originals! 

8. Don’t be strategic, be tactical in tough times

Times of calamity is never meant for long term strategic planning, for you will never know what will happen externally when. In a pandemic time as this there is no point to doing business planning for longterm. You must  be tactical in your thinking do things with short windows. Look at survival as the norm, during tough times. 

9. Only you can love yourself, rest is all show off

In times of calamity, you can save someone only when you are in a safe zone to do so. When you are sinking, if you attempt to save another from drowning, chances area that both will sink to death. So look after yourself first, steady you first, before you you attempt to save another. Accept this global truth and do not try to show off otherwise. Likewise, others will come forward to be of assistance to you only after they feel they are secure. 

10. Keep moving and doing, even within your own space, it is called progress now, and if you don’t, you are dead!

The worst of times give us lesser mobility because we may be entangled in many challenges together, thus, restricting smooth strides. That doesn’t mean that you do nothing to stave it off and sit tight. In your own fulcrum, you should attempt to be mobile, even if that amounts to rotating. You may not have progressed further but as the right time comes, your momentum will enable you to jumpstart in life. 

The only advice is to be ready to face the unexpected. The above learnings will come handy as you come face to face with grave calamities. 

Here is wishing you a meaningful year ahead.

FARMERS’ AGITATION ENTERS 2021

It doesn’t augur well for any country when its farmers start agitating & it goes on for 37 days without reaching a resolve. 

It is farming that started civilisation lest the the ‘out of Africa’ journey of Homo Sapiens would have gone on for ever. The worlds’ economic movement started with farming. On the top of agricultural economy sit mfg. & service. 

Indian farmers independently do not own huge land & there exists less than 5% among farmers who owns agricultural land of more than 10 hectors. So, it isn’t right to call the farmers’ protest as instigated by the rich farmers and the middlemen of the mandi. 

While initiating major reforms in agriculture, the govt. did not take the farmers into confidence. The way in which these acts had come into being, have been very dubious. Autocratic decision making in which interest of the real stakeholder is jeopardised for the benefit of crony corporates, is a dangerous step. 

Tens of thousands of farmers are on the road for more than a month, braving severe weather conditions (with people dying while agitating) should have been seen by the country’s leadership with concern & empathy. Defying the  genuine request of the country’s food providers could only boomerang!

Hope, better sense would prevail

MY LEARNINGS IN THE YEAR 2020

1. Nothings is in nobody’s control, whether rich, powerful or poor

2. Whatever happens, life goes on

3. What you want to achieve in 10 years could be had in 10 months with technology, assisted by a grave calamity

4. Learning is never continuous, happens in spurts. 

5. Do not imagine drastic things, it may happen! 

6. The more you defy, the more you will get hit

7. Do not imitate, be yourself, better that way 

8. Don’t be strategic, be tactical in tough times

9. Only you can love yourself, rest is all show off

10. Keep moving and doing, even within your own space, it is called progress now, and if you don’t, you are dead!

Whatever you wish, may you get it! However, be ready to face the unexpected.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2021! 

TWENTY TWENTY

Listening to the music and getting inebriated with the rounds of vodka mixed with lime cordial on the new year eve party on 31st December 2019 @ Hotel Le Meridien, Kochi; wishing goodbye to the year 2020 and awaiting the clock to chime 12.00 soon, there wasn’t any indication or a thought in me to make a guess, on how bad the year 2020 is going to roll out before us. 

Yes, almost an year later, sitting at home on the eve of Christmas of 2020, thinking really how bad have the year 2020 been, mainly due to Corina virus, feeling sick of the new normals; e-meeting, e-commerce, WFH, Zoom, WebEx, Google Meet and all; I now yearn to get out, travel and see people and move closely to interact with them to enjoy their company that I always naturally did but the wretched news of the virus coming back in different version, is it going to be a repeat of the year 2020, next year too? It is indeed trepidation times........

 

Did anything go right in 2020? The businesses got screwed up, the economy went deep down south, people lost jobs, everyone got locked down for months together, relatives returned from Middle East & other nations after having lost their livelihood, many becoming sick with some dying early deaths and all that still continuing, no celebrations and no get-togethers, with predictions of another wave to come by. Preposterous indeed! 

 

Just before it all began, my daughter and S-i-L shifted to Cochin by changing their jobs, settling down in the modernistic surroundings of DLF township @ Kakkanad with our dear granddaughter, whose company we always relished. While the dreaded virus restricted the movements, taking chance to visit them or get visited by them, of course, with lots of elapsed time in between, kept our happiness alive.

 

By early April, daughter the teacher announced her second pregnancy, which though should have given us more happiness to hear, got me worried initially, thinking of the times that we were passing though. Though my reaction was unappreciated by my daughter; my wife, as she always has been, was more relaxed, not only took the news pleasantly but also spent time in making me understand things in perspective. While externally I did put up a brave face, inside I was trembling, because it added to the challenge that we already have, the 85 year old mother of my wife with us, an asthmatic through-out her life, also who had undergone a mild MI in the last month of 2019. All these kept me indoors most of the time, though at times, I evaded the guilt to meet a client or two in a week, wearing all the precautions of social distancing. Thank God, our daughter delivered a healthy boy on the last day of November, but not before giving us anxious moments due to Placenta Abruption which necessitated a surgery. 

 

By August-September, our son, who is researching on brain sciences in Caltech at Pasadena California, gave us the fantastic news of his article being published by Nature, the mother of all scientific journals, a dream come true for any researcher worth his salt!  Having not seen him in person for close to two years now, gave us such heartburns but my wife’s prompt exercise of engaging him daily on WhatsApp, gave us his (virtual) presence at home practically all the days. He still has miles to go, his guide, the famous Prof. David Anderson, (author: The Neuroscience of Emotion: A New Synthesis) who had been able to get MS Cofounder Paul Allen and entrepreneur TianQiao to support his research with Billions of dollars of endowments, while still grappling with the primitive but representative brain of Fruit-fly and Jellyfish to unravel the process of emotional flow in neural networks, is slowly entrusting the mathematical and computing models of the research to our son’s care. 

 

Good thing it was that my wife started using her time creatively in this pandemic year by deep diving into mural and acrylic painting, going through newer learnings and by coming out with some beautiful creations and exhibiting it online through some leading platforms. Also, following our sons footsteps, she is learning piano and getting it certified by the Trinity School. She has miles to go but her passion at this age indeed surprises me. All the best to her! 

 

Another development is the S-i-L, daughter and grandchildren coming to stay with us. Daughter on post-delivery leave and S-i-L getting transfer orders to go work in Hong Kong by the next year beginning. Suddenly there is lots of people at home and it is noisy but such a blessing with 2 grandchildren around, boy, aren’t we sapped out by the day end?

 

Coming back to self, what have I been doing to match up with the creativity on the other side? Nothing much at all! My book on entrepreneurship in Malayalam which was four fifth done, is still in that shape and the English translation of my Malayalam book ‘Shubhayatra’, though complete, is still to be finally read before being handed over to the publisher. My novel on the splintered ‘tharavad’ of south Kerala have not left my grey-matters to the pages. Am I at my procrastination best? It looks like so. The only redemption is the blog and the LinkedIn postings that I do regularly on matters contemporary…..

 

So what keeps me going? The usual pro bono stuff, the mentoring of the start-ups & early ventures through Zoom and Google meet, the visiting professorship at some institutions and the keynote address at many professional podiums & institutions on varied subjects. Am I making any money? Doing some consulting, I do make some pittance, but when did I seriously look at making money? Ha ha!  Yes, I do enjoy the professionally conducted board meeting every quarter of a leading listed NBFC’s fully owned subsidiary where I am an independent director and that gives my travelling out too, in these pandemic times.

 

As a professional-body man, having been part of leading managerial, entrepreneurial and L&D bodies on the one side and movements such as Rotary & Career counselling Services, servinf differently abled children etc. at the other; all of these happen now on the neo-normal routes (online-virtual). As usual, my hands are full and it is something I actualise, of course, at the cost of my creative writing! There is some national level involvement that I do in the country’s premier L&D organisation too. Here, I must make a conscious mention of my waning interest on the entrepreneur’s body whose chapter I helped found in Kerala. It is  partly due to the fact that it isn’t doing much for the true beneficiaries and partly due to the inwardness of its key players, the body is now slowly progressing into a chitchat club of the rich & famous and that of single malt drinkers! I am seriously thinking on what I should do of my association with it for it having lost its raison d’etre. 

 

So, what is going to be my resolutions for the New Year 2021? Absolutely nothing, I will take everything as it comes by and if possible, I will complete my books. The 61 years of running around is slowly helping me understand the real ordinariness of everything and the insignificance of life.

Sayonara 2020

CLINGING TO THE ‘STATUS QUO’

This was a story told by former Addl. Chief Secretary of Kerala, Late Babu Paul IAS.

When he was the CMD of Travancore Titanium Products Ltd (TTP), while making the rounds of the factory, saw a freshly painted word “Dunne” on the newly calibrated boiler with two dots under it. 

He checked with Chief Engineer as to what does it signify

The chief said, “After calibrating the boiler every six months, we paint this on it sir”

CMD: “But why? Does it mean the calibration is ‘done’? If so, there is a spelling mistake”

Chief Engineer: “Don’t know sir, we have been following it from the beginning”

Surprised at the lack of logic (that too coming from an engineer), Babu Paul checked up on why there is a “Dunne” on the boiler. As he went back on time, he read that the first utility serives engineer of TTP was an Irishman (TTP was commissioned before independence) with a surname ‘Dunne’. So every time after calibrating the boiler, he paint his signature with the date, to indicate the timeline. 

After TTP becoming a Kerala Government enterprise, no one bothered to understand the reason and maintained status quo by painting ‘Dunne’ after every calibration. 

Yes, change is very difficult to happen! And people cling to status quo, even if it defies logic!