Practice what you preach!

From time immemorial, the easiest freely available thing in the world, would probably be Advise. Everybody seems to relish giving advise to everybody. The flow of advise is all pervasive. It is not partial to any caste, creed, sex, religion or any other demographic characteristics. It is free and abundant. 

I sincerely don't have any major aversion to people giving advises but then the advises should be such which the preachers of them too should be following. Examples of not practicing what one is preaching is galore in our day to day life. In the international arena, countries that are at the forefront of wars in certain part of world double up as messengers of peace in another. A country which expects other countries not to interfere in its internal matters, in turn shamelessly tries to intervene in the internal matters of another sovereign country citing its national political compulsions. At the national level, politicians that clamor the most for tough anti-corruption laws, anti-rape laws and the like, are usually the ones who try to dilute tough legislation at the time of enacting of the law. Regional Satraps who show themselves as the messiahs of the poor are usually the ones who exploit them the most. While a politician might be apt at giving great speeches about the development of the nation, the matter of fact is, he seldom sees beyond his own vote bank and his local level politics.

Even in our immediate surroundings, we routinely encounter people in our homes, social gatherings and offices, who preach great things but are just the opposite in their own lives. If religious saints preach about the benefits of austerity then they have no business in flaunting the riches that they have acquired in the name of religion. If an elder preaches about the benefits of leading a disciplined life, then he has no business in indulging in excesses be it related to food, drink or liefestyle. Similarly, if a person in a top position in a company expects others to subordinate their own self interests to the greater interest of the company, then he has no business to have expectations that his own self interests would be served by others in the company.

Chanakya's Gems of Life!

More than half of the month of March is gone and I am posting my first post of the month. The reasons are more health related than anything else. My allergy to pollen grains is back with a vengeance and I have been reeling "under the weather". Shinod and Himanshu are back from their shoots in Jodhpur where Santosh has been, at most, steady. The Oriental Palace Resort virtual shoot and video has been quite a hit. Kudos to Shinod for the same. We have made some progress in propagating Udaipur Dopahar's popularity in Udaipur. A tie-up with a leading bank for event based activities neared a climax but the actual inking of the agreement is still pending.

During the course of the aforesaid activities, I came in  touch with a doctor in Udaipur from whom I got hold of a very interesting book by the name of Chanakya's Chant by Ashwin Sanghi. This book recollects incidents from the times of Maurya Emperor Chandra Gupta Maurya and that of his able adviser the wily Brahmin, Vishnu Gupta aka Kautilya popularly known as Chanakya.

In the following lines, I am quoting 10 gems that I encountered while reading the book credited to Chanakya but inspired from other sources.

1) Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead - Benjamin Franklin
2)I am a great believer of luck and find the harder I work the more I have of it- Thomas Jefferson
3) A hungry man is more interested in 4 sandwiches than 4 freedoms- Henry Cabot Lodge Jr
4) If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable- Louise D Brandeis
5) I have come to the conclusion that politics is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians- Charles de Gaulle.
6) Politics is war without bloodshed, while war is politics with bloodshed- Mao Tse Tung
7) The early bird gets the worm but the second mouse gets the cheese-Jon Hammond
8) Worry is like a rocking chair, it gives you something to do but get you nowhere-Dorothy Galyean
9)  Sometimes the majority only means that all the fools are on the same side-Claude McDonald
10) When choosing between 2 evils, always choose the one you haven't tried yet- Mae West.

Champion Captains of Indian cricket- Ganguly and Dhoni

The first cricket test between India and Australia of the Border-Gavaskar trophy 2013 concluded in Chennai and  the Indians thumped the Aussies by 8 wickets. The highlights of this test included a wonderful century by the Aussie skipper Michael Clarke, an impressive debut by Moises Henriques, a 12 wicket haul by Ravichandran Ashwin, a century by Virat Kohli and a superlative counter attacking double century by the Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni .

For Mahendra Singh Dhoni, this first win of the series must have a thing to cherish. Having lost a series against the English and with an indifferent batting form, there had been persistent talks for drastic measures including sacking Dhoni as the captain and even dropping him from the test cricket team, But Dhoni has let his bat do the talking for him and has ,at least for the present, silenced his detractors. A true champion's response this.

With this 21st test win Dhoni become the joint most successful Indian test captain ever equaling former skipper Sourav Chandidas Ganguly's tally of 21 wins. There have been quite a long debate over the years about who the most successful Indian test captain has ever been. Ganguly or Dhoni? If you go by the trophies in the cupboard then Dhoni wins hands down. With a T-20 world cup, a ODI world cup and the title of best ICC Test Team in its pockets, the Indian cricket team under Mahendra Singh Dhoni has achieved things that  it had never achieved before. The previous best being the 1983 World Cup under Kapil Dev.

Then why the comparison between Ganguly and Dhoni?? Ganguly took over the reigns of the cricket team at its darkest hours. The match fixing scandal had claimed former captain Mohammad Azaharuddin and premier cricketers like Ajay Jadeja and Manoj Prabhakar had been disgraced. Cricket no longer remained a "Gentleman's Sport". Ganguly stepped in when an unwilling  Sachin(the God)Tendulkar relinquished his post as Indian cricket captain. The Indian team was in complete disarray. Individual geniuses were there but the team was not unified and going nowhere.

Under Ganguly, legends of Indian cricket like Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Anil Kumble, Zaheer Khan besides Tendulkar all bloomed into their full potential. New finds like Virender Sehwag, Harbhajan Singh, Yuvraj Singh, Mohammad Kaif, Irfan Pathan and even Mahendra Dhoni were hand picked by Ganguly. A rag tag team of talented 11 gradually embarked upon their journey to become world beaters. In 2003, against all odds Team India reached the finals of the World Cup in South Africa. India started beating the cricketing powers like Australia and England in their own dens. The Indian cricket team under the captaincy of Sourav Ganguly was now being feared by the opposition, the world over.

After the end of the Ganguly era, Dhoni inherited a team whose core was formed during the time of Ganguly. Dhoni under his able stewardship was able to guide the team towards further fulfillment of its evident promise. The bad days for Dhoni's captaincy started when the stalwarts of Indian cricket like Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman retired from cricket and the forms of Zaheer Khan, Harbhajan Singh, Virendra Sehwag, Yuvraj and even Tendulkar dipped.

The progress of the Indian cricket team from now on would be the actual test of Mahandra Singh Dhoni's mettle as a captain and leader of men.because in my opinion to channelize the energies of talented people is probably easier than to spot the talents, channelize their energies, make them believe in themselves and urge them to attain greater glory, a task in which Ganguly proved to be a past master. 

February-The Month of my Biggest Baddest Bucketlist and Udaipur Dopahar

So, the month of romance is coming to an end and what a month this has been. The good, the bad and the ugly have all been part of this month, though broadly speaking the goods clearly out-count the bads and uglies.

February has seen some frenzied activities in the Blue Caramel world. The excitement generated by the My Biggest Baddest Bucketlist has been immense world wide and has set the ball rolling for MyDestination.com to become a travel brand to reckon with, the world over.

Blue Caramel has also got into a tie up with one of the biggest local online news sites in Udaipur, Udaipur Times for mutual promotional activities. The concept of My Destination Rajasthan of being "The Local Experts" actually merges seamlessly with the endeavors of Udaipur Times of "Taking Local Global".

Another development has been the strategic alliance of Blue Caramel with a new tabloid of Udaipur, Udaipur Dopahar. It is envisaged that the tabloid will gain from the strategic know how and reach of Blue Caramel and Blue Caramel will utilize the tabloid's entry into each household of various cities starting with Udaipur.

Revenue from core businesses still remain a concern that all Blue Caramel locations Jaipur, Jodhpur, Udaipur as well as Mumbai need to pay attention to, in the coming month.

Bhagavad Gita and Us

The month of romance is coming to an end and several new developments have been the high points of this month for the Blue Caramel family, the details of which I would be posting in a subsequent post. Today's post is based on a famous verse from the holy book of the Hindus, the Bhagavad Gita which has a timeless relevance for all striving for success in one's life.

The Srimad Bhagavad Gita or simply the Gita is the holiest of Hindu scriptures and is basically a transcription of the conversation between the valiant Pandava prince Arjuna and his charioteer, the Hindu deity Lord Krishna. This 700 verse scripture believed to be more than 5000 years old, discusses various philosophies of life and theories that guide them. Amongst the most prominent of all the verses of the Gita is

Karmanye Vadhikaraste, Ma Phaleshu Kada Chana
Ma Karma Phala Hetur Bhurmatey Sangostava Akarmani

This translates to a very amazing philosophy of life which advises people who want to be successful to follow a simple mantra that of keeping on performing one's duties without anticipating or thinking about the rewards associated with them.

To explain the verse stanza by stanza, Karmanye Vadhikaraste, Ma Phaleshu Kada Chana means The right to perform your duties and action is yours but not the entitlement to enjoy the fruits or results of such actions.
Ma Karma Phala Hetur Bhurmatey Sangostava Akarmani means Never be attached to the end result, the fruit of your action otherwise your fulfillment of duties might be compromised.

Putting things into the corporate perspective, all members of the Blue Caramel family, be it in Udaipur, Jaipur, Jodhpur or Mumbai, should keep on performing their tasks at the best of their abilities with an urge to widen their professional horizons without worrying about their career progression. Their career progression is the duty of the management which would be surely done, gradually. Many miss golden opportunities today by worrying too much about impending rewards of tomorrow.

The intelligent would surely get the cue and the fools would really have to be real fools not to get it.

Valentine's Day!

As the world gears to celebrate Valentine's day on 14th February with youth all across having their hearts fluttering in anticipation, I in the course of a discussion with a fellow team member of Blue Caramel, tried to recollect the legend of St Valentine that I had heard a long time back, which had in a way made me certain that Valentine's Day, per say, did not have anything romantic associated with it, at the time of its inception.

Researching through the tales of St Valentine it comes across very clearly, that this day on which Saint Valentine, an early Christian saint was killed by the Roman Emperor Claudius for propagating Christianity as a religion, has nothing to do with anything "romantic". In fact, Saint Valentine tried to convert the Romans, who practiced "paganism" to Christianity. He also encouraged the Christians to get married. This earned him the ire of the Emperor subsequent to which he was executed on 14th February.

In fact, it was the 14th Century English poet Geoffrey Chaucer in his poem "Parlement of Foules", who brought in the first romantic angle to this otherwise solemn day. The rest as the saying goes is history.
Today, Valentine's Day is all about expressing love and being with the love of one's life. Today, the day has more of crass commercialization and materialism than any actual feeling. Markets are flooded with gifts for someone you love and the businesses do a roaring business. Exchanging bouquets of flowers, chocolates, jewellery and the works are the done thing this day.

This brings me on to a question that has been bothering me for a very long time.. The question is, if we really love someone and want to make that person feel really special, do we really have to wait and zero in on a single day in the entire year. Does it really make sense?? But then when the martyrdom of a Saint is what it is actually all about, the only thing that comes to mind is "Oh Valentine!!!" 

Terror, Terrorist, Terrorism-Vishwaroopam

The first month of the year 2013 has gone off in a jiffy and though there have been a flurry of activities in the Blue Caramel world, the results are being awaited expectantly in the succeeding months. The month of January has seen some reshuffling in the political scene of India and the future, though right now blurry, seems to indicate a direct contest between the scion of the Congress party, Rahul Gandhi and the Gujarat BJP strongman Narendra Modi in the coming 2014 Indian general elections.

January 2013 also saw escalation in tensions between India and Pakistan as the two countries were involved in border skirmishes along the LoC, in Jammu & Kashmir. The immediate heightening of tension was the alleged dastardly attack that Pakistani troops carried out inside Indian territory which resulted in the beheading of an Indian soldier and mutilation of another. These acts of "terror" and Pakistan's unabashed support to "terrorism" held centre stage in the Indian media during the month along with the tragic death of the BraveHeart, the fighter victim of the Delhi rape case.

The usual acts of terror by terrorists also hogged the limelight. Naxalites and Maosits killed many in Chattisgarh and Jharkhand but one glaring form of "terrorism" that is becoming more and more aggravated is the "Cultural Terrorism" as aptly pointed out by Kamal Haasan, the Tamil movie superstar, whose film "Vishwaroopam" got entangled in a form of cultural terrorism. The film which was cleared by the film board landed into trouble with certain groups. While one group claimed the film had blasphemous content, another claimed that a Tamil movie should not have a Sanskrit name. The result, the screening of the film was banned  in even Kamal Hassan's home state of Tamil Nadu.

You cannot please all of the people all of the time, even God cannot do so. So, an opinion, advise, a piece of work, writing, film or even cuisine cannot have all takers; Some would like, some would not. But a minority of people with radical views, can they take a multi lingual, diverse, secular country like India for a ride??? Can they spread fear in this way?? A fear which percolates to every layer of the society, a fear which prevents people from writing freely, a fear which prevents people from liking posts on social media, a fear which might lead to exodus of literary and cultural talents from the country??

A minority of people spreading fear amongst the majority, are they are not terrorists?? And the fear they are spreading is it not "Terrorism"???