Singur Nano story - Was Bengal ready for it?

This blog is written and owned by Saurabh Gupta
Nano (Lakhtakia) has remained in the news channels, summits and discussion forums worldwide for various reasons; be it the cheapest car tag, car for poor tag, India's technology showcase tag, Tata's promise to poor tag or the dispute over the farmer's land.

This story brings in the foreground the other side of the emerging Brand India, where some States are not ready for the change or atleast the political leaders are not ready for the change. It's the beauty of democracy which gives us the right to get the public cooperation and turn around things, and India is a living example of this concept. I would also like to bring up that if we really want things to move as planned by the government then we should move to the concept of Communism like China, but do we really want that? I would vote for 'No' as we cherish Freedom - freedom of words, thoughts, ideas and we believe in the same. I am sure that Tatas would have done great job for the future of Bengal, no doubt about it but is it only Future that we should invest in? I want to quote an example out here to give a lateral picture of what I am thinking - I always used to curse people who steal National property but never thought why they do the same. Some do it for fun and I still curse them, but there are some who are hungry and hunger comes before National identity; they steal because they are struggling with their Present. They laugh at these speeches because they are not sure about their Present and leaders are busy planning for Future. The leaders are putting money for Future but are they fulfilling the dreams of the Present? I don't know the answer to this question because all of this is politically driven but I think its a good mathematical problem as to what proportion of the national funds should be used for Future and what for Present?

Let's discuss Singur plant story, Tatas are finally planning to move out of Bengal and Singur plant is shut. Somewhere over the net, I read that its a black day for Bengal and India, and I will say Yes & I might support No too. Ratan Tata said it right that if Bengal doesn't need them then they will go away and they stood by their words. It's the decision taken by the State of Bengal to not support Tatas and they will see impact of the same in coming years, but who knows they might be happy with it. Mamata might get people's support and become CM, people would feel happier with no industrialization in the State and Tatas would get a better deal in other State. So, in the end everyone might feel happy, except the current CM who wanted the change but didn't check whether the time is right or not. You can't bring a change until the time is right. Among all of this chaos ,what will happen to the youth of Bengal. What about their Future? No issues, people move to other places if there are gaps in the system. IITians used to move to US in 80s & 90s for the same reason. People from all over the country come to Maharashtra for the same reason. We might see the Bengal government after 15 years cribbing about brain drain problem. But what should a good leader do in between all this bullshit?
Some weeks back I was given a brain teaser, when this whole Singur issue was connected to Indian partition issue in 1947. Jinnah's role was assumed to be played by Ratan Tata who is interested in Nano project only, Nehru's role was assumed to be played by Mamata Banerjee who is interested in West Bengal only, Nano plant was assumed to be Pakistan which either stays with Bengal or go away (with Ratan Tata), West Bengal now was assumed to be India and Mahatma Gandhi's role was assumed to be played by Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. I didn't know that answer then as I wasn't sure whether moving out of Bengal (or parallely having a separate country) was a better solution or not, but in the end its about safety of our people and in democracy people come first. So, Bengal people decided against Singur and Tatas are out. People call 14th August 1947 as a black day for India and we are still fighting because of that one decision. Gandhi in 1947 was looking for peaceful lands which didn't turn out as planned. Same might exist over here too, but living in the same land and fighting is not the solution. I don't know whether it is right or not but I am sure that there exists many dimensions to this whole story.

Will this have impact on India shining story?

Answers turn up to questions now

This blog is written and owned by Saurabh Gupta
Dynamics of the world economics is at the verge of changing and it will impact, in a big way, our age old thought process and the way we used to solve problems. The failure of US financial system questions back the authenticity of all the answers and solutions known and taught for decades. This situation also questions back all the notions told in the existing lecture series, workshop sessions and other study material.
Now, a kid can question back in the class that if a 150 year old bank can collapse with all the smart people around, then what is the guarantee that the theorems taught in my class will solve the world problems; and we should stop faking that we know the answers. We should look for new approaches, then simply looking up to some one to come up with answers. We can crib for almost everything around saying that this is the way this business is run, but we are living in a time where history is written and we should learn from it.
You might find these words bookish but this is my solution to the problems around, and if you think other wise then it's good too because any successful economy requires two types of people - Leaders and Followers. People in between these two categories create problems in the system.

Things around are about to change; many big giants will go down and new empires will emerge. It's not a time to feel bad about the lost money. Soon we will see many new empires defining new rules and changing world dynamics.

Lets see how things shape up ......

Feeling that you have a thought to add, go for it!!

Skip weeds on the boulevard of dreams

This blog is written and owned by Saurabh Gupta

When we start our journeys on the so called less traveled road, we meet lots of people; some learned faces, some worried souls, some shrewd minds and lots of successful bastards who tend to slow our journeys down. They might be narrating their success stories or telling us the lessons that they learnt along their ways to success (which can be very different for us), but most of them try to convince us that their paths were tough. They knowingly or unknowingly pump in lots of negative energy in our positive system.

We all have met these kind of people at some point in our lives and we chose to ignore them because we knew that they would distract our visions. The difference in this case remains that we choose to go to these people and hear their success stories, which is nothing but a carefully edited piece of the same age old story, decorated beautifully to sound attractive. We will refer to these successful bastards as weeds for time being as they suck in our positive energy. :)

It's our fault that we go to weeds and ask them about their paths. At the end of the story, we feel that it's really tough to move ahead on this path and before we even understand the positive energy within us is sucked. On the contrary, a real teacher/mentor helps us feel good about our passion and guide us with the next steps, but a weed makes us feel small about our plans.
These weeds forget one important point while naratting their stories which is that we all are traveling or we all chose to travel on this road because we all were looking for absolute peace of mind and a solution for restlessness lying deep within us.

An important lesson learnt in the early school days, of ignoring people who try to distract us, still holds true. These weeds (successful bastards) confuse us by their manipulated arguments (changed over time) but they forget that it was the passion that took them where they are, and not all the stupid arguments that they give. It happens with people when they succeed and we should not blame them for that. Every successful individual looks for audience to listen to his /her success story, be it Donald Trump or Richard Branson. It also happens because once a person becomes big then his/her focus shifts from idea initiator to business prosperer. When they started their journeys they were like us - Wanderers, but they remain no more like us.

It's like asking a rich person about how he became rich, and he would tell you the story of his hardships because he needs someone to prove himself that his journey was tough. History is written by successful people and that's why I always question it's authenticity. We should always remember that it's an absolute journey of ours where we stand alone all the time.
It's the journey against time and ambitions and we should not distract our visions because some successful bastard said that it's not the right way; because when we ask some one, the journey becomes relative. We are born with a road map and we all understand our paths, and if we hear from deep within, we will all know the answers. It's the question of not getting distracted by weeds and keeping faith in our destinies.
If you don't feel for this post, or don't understand it ..... don't bother - it was never meant for you. :)

Who cares about all that bullshit anyway!

This blog is written and owned by Saurabh Gupta

We all must have read or heard somewhere about the ‘India becoming a Super power by 2020’ story or debate and interestingly some of us do believe in it, and rest of us don’t give a damn to it… who cares about all that bullshit anyway!

Why do we need all these Multi National Companies, Investment Banks and Consulting Companies that pay us some percent of our efforts as salaries and get work which is worth 10-20 times? Why can’t we get the ball rolling from India so that all the money comes to us only? Why does every IITian and IIM grad aim for NYC, London, Hong Kong or Sydney placement - Google, Microsoft, BCG or JPMC? I guess everyone has his/her reasons for choosing a particular career path and that’s what freedom is (Freedom we all are born with!) but let’s not go over the Idealist discussion board and all that bull shit, but one thing is for sure true; these best of the class companies have given us an exposure of money and an understanding of being big, have given a push to our lifestyles to take it to the current metro style level where extra adrenaline is something that flows in our veins all the time.

We are in a sense hypnotized by the new buzzing fields – Consulting, IBs, KPO and IT and we have started cruising towards them. What bothers me the most is this sheep mentality which stops us to become visionaries or future faces of the country. Then there comes that very thought with which we all are born, live and die each day. Who cares about all that bullshit anyway!

I won’t make huge remarks or right wrong statements out here but, will love to discuss what, I think, can lead us to our destinations. I know that most of you are not going to like my philosophies, ideas and thoughts but I am not here to write cute bullshit love stories or some masala news; I am aiming to target the 5% souls who I think will represent the Indian future.

To initiate, let’s discuss about the direction where the cream of Today’s India is cruising. It is dreaming for all the best packages, and tends to oversee what it is not shown. These dream Jobs of top notch college grads (JPMC, Google, Microsoft, Mkz, and BCG) come along with huge pay checks and learning opportunities. Some of us choose to learn the lessons first, by joining a good firm and then applying those lessons in future to reach our destinations. We all are free to choose any path but what ends up happening with most of us is that we become slaves to our luxurious lives, expensive wines and discothèques which these jobs give us as drugs. This insecurity later dissolves our magic energy and we end up missing the Ship; the Ship to Ithaca. To add to all this, we don’t give a damn to this missed opportunity as those magic words help justify what we did - Who cares about all that bullshit anyway! We are smart enough to come up with philosophies to justify our paths.

What I think is that we need to learn the skill to move up the ladder from the Pay check collection department to Pay check generation department. A total generic line, heard 1000 times and that is most ironical that we all hear it, understand it and choose to skip it. J

It’s not like we can’t do it or haven’t done it before. We have our superheroes that too are ‘made in India’. Indians have shown the potential of buying the most promising brands of the world and expanding in the territories where even big players of the world find hard to enter. With TATAs proving the potential of generating dream car for Common Man and Reliance proving potential to go over multiple dimensions, we are all set with our set of role models; and we need to move ahead of the cribbing part where we say that we need people to lead us. We can choose to say the famous, carefree, lovable slang - Who cares about all that bullshit anyway! J

Who will lead the way? I have met many people with innovative ideas and most interestingly, you can notice that we all have the entrepreneurial capabilities and live with an Idea down in our heart. We need people to set examples, proving that going for your own startup is not a risky career option and is a career which generates careers. This is the only solution which can lead India to the place where we want to go – India becoming a superpower.

I still remember the preparations for the 2k millennium parties and the discussion forums, groups declaring that India will become Superpower by 2020. I am pretty much sure that we are on the right path but I see couple of problems with the path; and the solution exists in the society itself but what we need is an army, to live with the dream and spread the magic.

India has a group of big house tycoons and thousands of budding entrepreneurs. These big tycoons will set the stage but one who will lead the future is our 20s age group crowd and we need to shift their focus from followers to leaders. I am not here to blame any one as all of my friends say that they are happy with their packages and the path they are moving towards and those who are not, are preparing for GMAT. A great way to cash in huge pay checks but surely, some of our youth (~5%) need to turn towards the Entrepreneurial path to ensure that we sell things in every dimension to the world and get in as much pounds, dollars for the country as possible.

It’s not like that those who are leading us don’t know all this. It’s the list of day to day problems that they all are busy solving and I agree that we can only think about future when we are happy with our present. The problem is that we are missing a CEO, visionary who can work over numbers for the overall growth of the country not only to make us self sufficient but to become Super Power.

I think the American President and his team is smart enough to invest in the Present and Future. I saw an opening for the Asia Pacific region Lead of Ashoka who will report directly to the US President. What I understood is that the American CEO is monitoring what world is moving towards i.e. they are keeping a tab on the future. We all have heard the famous dialogue of the movie ‘Wallstreet’ – Every battle is won before it’s ever fought. It’s the information that keeps you ahead of everyone around and that’s something that Americans know really well.

We need a CEO for India who can think over new dimensions to monitor where the world is moving and gauge where it might be in next 25 years, and this way we will exactly know whether our future investments are going in the right direction. Is it that simple an equation? I don’t know but I truly believe that the concept at the heart core level is as simple as concept of Gravity then why can’t our leaders do that. I think the answer to this is simple too. If you are frustrated and know the answer then stop cribbing and go for it. Anyway, there were lot of revolutionaries before Bhagat Singh too but he didn’t crib and tried his way of solving the problem.

I agree to not cribbing and moving ahead, but how can I also ensure that not only 5% but 10% population is motivated to generate jobs, salaries and go for the less traveled and over hyped road, but a thought comes up to my mind too.. Why the hell do I care about all that bullshit? Who cares about all that bullshit anyway!

Apologies - Out of Touch and ME Confused

This blog is written and owned by Saurabh Gupta
First of all, my sincere apologies for remaining out of touch with the blog for quite some time (almost 4 months). I have been doing some research of the real world but somehow couldn't find time to scribble it down. I have remained really confused for a while now and I am still confused and all these days I was looking for a reason to continue with writing. Today, I thought why not share my confusion and some thoughts I have been struggling with all these days.

Also, I should admit few things before going forward with the post - the definitions written, concepts documented, ideas implemented, situations known, problems discussed and the solutions proposed so far by renowned writers are not as simple, easy and straight forward as they might have described. People describe all of these concepts in the form of simple words and justifies them with examples but in reality time justifies these concepts in some situations and at the same time completely discards others and so there is nothing right/wrong when described. No matter how big, famous or learned a person is, even he/she is bound to commit mistakes and those may not be mistakes while the event happens but becomes one when repeated or over a period of time. They write different concepts and try to work out a model for these concepts but there is nothing UNIVERSAL.

I am struggling with some thing like UNIVERSAL definitions of all these situations/terms, something as simple as concept of GRAVITY. Defining situations, problems and solutions becomes tricky and hence it seems like all of these are man made concepts and hence should not bother a focussed sole.

Like how can we define a 'Problem'? - Something which bothers a person or something which can disturb his/her easy life. Here comes the confusion - I am trying to define everything in terms of words and FOCUS is also a word and when I try to define it, something else confuses me. Also, I am confused with the complexity of time as problems change with time and so is their perception.......

This confusion, if discussed with some one, is beautifully described by him/her, but as I mentioned in the first paragraph of this post - solutions defined by people are either people dependent or situation dependent and are also always function of time. I believe these concepts are UNIVERSAL and hence need to be defined in a language which is independent of time.

We need to come up with a concept like say Concept of Fixes (for eg.) which would say that people look for the first or the second exit while in a problem, but they are in a problem because the situation is described in their mind by some thing else and which is something similar to GRAVITY. Lets call it XETA till next post. But, is it in the mind frame that is the problem or is it some thing else which is actually trying to stop him/her to generate positive energy in the world?

In the next post, I would like to discuss how I think the cell phone would look like in 20 year time frame and how will we do our day to day work.

Till then help me define problems, solutions with some other language - I don't know either.