October in photos- Birth, Religion and Evolution!

As the month of October draws to an end, I thought of putting in the highlights of the month through some photographs that I had taken during the month that had a distinct religious flavor this year.

Banga Samaj Puja-Udaipur

The family puja at Bindu Bhawan-Udaipur

Bengali Laxmi Puja at Bindu Bhawan-Udaipur

Pigeon Eggs

Baby Pigeons

The month culminated in an event that we all at Blue Caramel can  learn a  lot from. It so happened that a pigeon laid two eggs in a flower pot that unfortunately had some saplings of green chilly. My initial urge was to put the eggs onto some other place but I refrained from doing that as I saw the pigeon couple putting in all their efforts to safe keep the eggs. Braving the chilly winds at night and also the blazing sun during the day, the mother pigeon kept on with the work of keeping the eggs warm with dedication. And lo voila, over a period of time, the eggs hatched into 2 baby pigeons, who are now a joy to watch. The moral of the incident is if you are loyal to your goal and work with dedication towards it, then no power on earth can stop you from succeeding in getting your desired result.

Lord Ram, Ravana and Dusshera!

Yesterday, Dusshera was celebrated with all its gaiety and religious fervor all over India. The great Indian epic Ramayana and mythology states that it was the day on which Lord Rama, the prince of Ayodhya vanquished his mighty adversary King Ravana of Lanka who had kidnapped his wife Sita in a bid to marry her. The Ramayana and the festival of Dusshera has a number of things to learn from, for all of us. The top 5 in my opinion are:

1) A Commitment is a commitment- In Ramayana, Lord Rama, without bating an eyelid agrees to go on banishment for 14 years as his father King Dasharatha had promised his wife Queen Kaikayi to fulfill any demands she made as a boon. Lord Rama knowing the importance of commitments and their fulfillment saved his father from disgrace by gladly owning up the seemingly difficult demand that Kaikayi made. A commitment is a commitment and commitments are NOT to be Broken.

2) One for all and all for one- In a team or a family, the famous lines of Alexandre Dumas in his classic "The Three Musketeers" have utmost importance. One for all and all for one, re-emphasizes the fact that when the going gets tough, the members who are together so that everyone strives to achieve more also share each others burden and the worst of situations become that much bearable. So, during Lord Rama's banishment not only his wife Sita went along with him, even his brother Laxman also came along. Bharat, the son of Kaikayi, who forced Rama for the banishment too renounced his throne and acted as a guardian of the throne in absence of his brother, Rama.

3) Do good to others and build good relationships coz networking helps- When Sita was kidnapped by Ravana and taken to far off Lanka, Rama and Laxman instead of becoming helpless and clueless started  their pursuit to bring back Sita with full earnest. In their quest, they were helped by an assorted force of monkeys, bears and even birds. These creatures helped Rama as he had helped them in various forms previously like in the case when he helped the monkey king Sugreev to regain back his kingdom from his evil brother Bali. In today's world, the importance of networking is paramount. Ekla Cholo Re is good but you need to have the backing of others to succeed.

4) Withstand pressure and you would be a sure winner- Ravana used various pressure tactics on Sita so as to force her to marry him but she withstood all the pressures. When the monkey god Hanuman went to Lanka as an emissary of Lord Rama, he was captured by Ravana and was put under immense duress. His tail was even set on fire. Inspite of such pressures, Hanuman did not loose heart and infact turned the tables on Ravana and burnt down his golden city with the same blazing tail that Ravana had set on fire.

5) You are doomed when your ego gets the better of you- Everyone of us has an ego and everyone of us likes the ego to be massaged. But the problem is when the ego gets the better of us and we become oblivious to the obvious. Ravana was actually a very learned man and in fact was from the elitest of the Brahamanas. He was a multi faceted personality very good in arts, literature, administration and warfare. He could have been a very good human being but ended up being a monster as his ego became his master and he took everything and everyone else as granted. Hence, it is fact that doom starts when your ego gets the better of you.

For all us at Blue Caramel trying to follow these qualities to the proverbial "T" would go a long way in becoming a better professional and more importantly a better human being.  

Durga Puja-The Worship of the Mother Goddess

The time of the year has again come when all of India fervently worships the Mother Goddess, Ma Durga.  Also known as the "Nav Ratris" or nine nights, this time besides the religious angle is also a time of merriment, a time to rejoice and have a good time.

Mythology states that in the olden days, the Puja was held during the months of March-April but the Puja during the months of September-October was started by Lord Rama of Ayodhya during his fight with the demon king of Lanka, Ravana. An interesting trivia about this Puja was that is is believed that the Puja was performed for Lord Ram by none other than Ravana himself, who was a Brahmin of the highest order as there was no other able Brahmin priest available who could perform the Puja with all its rituals. The fact that Ravana readily performed the Puja for Ram, even after knowing that it was being performed for Ram's victory over him, brings forward a virtue, the virtue of giving priority to duty over everything else, in this case even one's own life.

The format of the idol which is usually worshiped during the Durga Puja is known as the "Mahishasura Mardini Roop", the manifestation of Shakti or Power which the Mother Goddess took to vanquish the demon king Mahishasura. Along with the main idol of Goddess Durga mounted on a lion killing Mahishasur, are the idols of Goddess Laxmi, Goddess Saraswati, Lord Ganesha and Lord Kartikeya. Each of these deities are a manifestation of some virtue for example Goddess Laxmi signifies wealth, Goddess Saraswati signifies learning, Lord Ganesha signifies wisdom and Lord Kartikeya signifies organisational capabilities.

So, if someone looks at the summation of the "Mahishasura Mardini Roop" and its significance then the point would become very obvious that if one wants to overcome difficulties in life then one would need to have concentrated physical as well as mental powers (Ma Durga), wisdom (Lord Ganesha), financial resources (Ma Laxmi), unquenchable thirst for knowledge (Ma Saraswati) and organisational capabilities (Lord Kartikeya).

All Blue Caramelers need to strive towards gradually imbibing the virtues as signified by the Durga Puja to be somebody in life. Even the virtue as displayed by Ravana of giving priority to duty over everything else, if properly inculcated by all in Blue Caramel, will surely lead to more professional glory....

Time is Money!

The easiest thing to waste is time, this saying though heard very often is hardly heeded by most. As the month of October completed its first week and we at Blue Caramel had our Quarterly review session, it was observed that some individuals were whiling away their time and in turn whiling away the company's resources as well. The easiest thing to do with such individuals is to phase them out from the organisation but we the Blue Caramelers have decided to give them a last chance to prove their detractors wrong and retain them in the family, The Blue Caramel family.

The importance of time has been revered by all the successful people in life. Dhirubhai Ambani, the founder of the Indian business conglomerate, Reliance was once just a petrol pump attendant in far off Aden. He could have whiled away his time there but he had the foresight and guts to turn his hardships into opportunities and the petrol pump attendant gradually became the owner of one of India's largest petrochemical refineries along with diverse interests in textiles, power, finance, telecommunications and so on.

Bill Gates, of the now world famous Microsoft Corp is a college drop out. People in that age group have impressionable minds and he could have whiled away his time as well but he put his mind into the work in hand and transformed Microsoft into a global giant with Paul Allen.

Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne started assembling handmade computers from a garage, Ronald Wayne left the company soon after but the Steves continued and the rest as they say is history and  Apple Inc today is one of the most valuable brands in the world.

For all Blue Caramelers the thing to understand is that to maintain status quo is the easiest thing, while away time is probably easier, but the opportunity lost by these (in)actions have long term repercussions in one's life because flowing water will always come down and hence one should not always float with the tide.    

Pride

As the month of September and the 3rd quarter of 2012 draws to an end, I am in the process of taking a stock of things that happened or did not happen in the Blue Caramel universe during this period. Today being a Sunday, I also indulged in some serious book reading and also scanned through the newspapers of the last few days and came upon a movie review of "Fire in Babylon", a documentary film that documents the rise of the West Indian Cricket Team from novices to legendary world beaters. The journey of the incredible rise started when the team members all fought together for the "Pride" of the team and their respective countries.

The West Indies Cricket team for long was a favorite whipping boy of the cricket playing nations. The team was also subjected to racial taunts and discrimination. There were times when they were verbally abused on the cricketing grounds itself with chants like "Go back to the trees again". Then something happened. The late 1960s saw the West Indian cricketers fight back. They started retaliating in pure cricketing terms to cricketing power houses like England and Australia. The submissiveness that they showed to theses countries especially the old "masters", colonial England gradually gave way to a certain level of cricketing aggression.

They started not taking things lying down. The genesis of this feeling was a sense of "Pride" which all the West Indian cricketers of that era started feeling for themselves and their team. This feeling catapulted them to "Invincible" levels, when during the 1970s, other teams shuddered at the very thought of playing against the Clive Lloyd captained West Indian cricket team.

The lessons that all Blue Caramelers should learn from this is that for every difficult situation in life, there are two types of people available- 1) The Trier and 2) The Crier. It would have been very easy for the West India team to have cried hoarse about the injustices (both actual as well as perceived) melted out to them and try to garner sympathy of the others. But as true champions instead of "Cry" they worked hard on the option of "Try". They focused on the job at hand with a renewed sense of pride and commitment and succeeded in shutting up the critics and their detractors with their performance on the field.

In the last 3 months, there have been cases of individuals in Blue Caramel highlighting both the "Try" as well as the "Cry" phenomenon. Triers are champions, they will always have the backing of all. But for the criers, who would like to have a cry baby tagging along forever?? 

T20 World Cup Sri Lanka- Super Eight

The T20 World Cup cricket is being played in Sri Lanka in which the various cricket playing nations are slugging it out to be the World Champions of the shortest form of International cricket. After the preliminary rounds , the super eight level is presently on, in which the top two teams from the four groups that had initially been formed at the start of the competition play each other after being divided into 2 groups. The top 2 teams from each team then move into the semi finals, the winners of which then fight it out in the finals.

Anyway, the main aim of my post is to highlight a certain point which I am sure would be very useful for all Blue Caramelers, a point that is exemplified by the erratic performance of Team India, the Men in Blue. The team which has world beaters in their own right, players like Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina, Gautam Gambhir, Virendra Sehwag, Harbhajan Singh and R Ashwin has been playing without consistency. After struggling and beating minnows Afghanistan in their opening match, Team India played out of its skin to annihilate defending champions England in the subsequent match, only to be demolished by a below par Australia in the first match of the super 8.

When you are in the flow, you need to make every moment count. Luck and fortune are very fickle mistresses, so you need to make hay while the sun shines and deliver your best. Team India reached the pinnacle of world cricket when it won the world cup 50 overs championship and also reigned supreme in the world test rankings. But as the saying goes, you need to run twice as fast when you are at the top, just to retain your position and that is where India seems to be failing.

So, all Blue Caramelers need to understand that Well Begun is Only Half Done, it is not until things END WELL that THINGS are actually WELL.

Ganesh-The God of Wisdom and Remover of Obstacles!

As the month of September roars on, all the offices of Blue Caramel has seen a flurry of activities but not actual results. The proverbial "blank shots" have been fired left, right and central. An important development from the Udaipur office has been the re-induction of Ms Heena Pathik. Heena who used to be associated with us at Jaipur, has now resumed duties at the Udaipur office. Sanjay, Santosh and Mehul are yet to draw first blood in this month, which in a way is the starting point of the many important festivals that Indians celebrate in a huddle, starting with Ganesh Chaturthi.

Ganesh Chaturthi is celebrated to commemorate the birth of Ganesha, the Hindu God of Wisdom revered as the Remover of Obstacles. Worshiping Lord Ganesha at the start of any auspicious work, it is believed, leads to the successful culmination of the same and hence the deity has a place of great prominence in the hearts of Hindus all over the world. The story of Ganesha is a very unique one. Hindu mythology states that Lord Ganesha, who is depicted as a deity with a human body with the head of a tusker, is the son of Lord Shiva and his wife Parvati. According to a legend, Goddess Parvati created a child like figure by sculpting clay and sandalwood paste and then infused life into the child. The child so created was entrusted upon by Parvati to guard her and protect her. When Lord Shiva came to see Goddess Parvati, the child oblivious to the fact that the mighty Lord was in fact the husband of Parvati and in turn his father, refused entry to him. This enraged Lord Shiva and a vicious fight began. The child or "Gana", a semi divine figure, who was outclassed by the powers of Lord Shiva, nevertheless continued to combat the mighty deity, as he put his responsibility and commitment to his mother over anything else. Soon, in this battle of the unequals, Shiva beheaded the child.

When Parvati came to know of this, she flew into a rage and the grieving mother took on her husband. When Shiva understood the series of events, he too admired the dedication and loyalty of the "Gana", his child and was filled with remorse. As he had beheaded the child, he got the head of a tusker and fitted it onto the child's body and then infused life into it. The child sprang into life albeit with the body of a child and the head of a tusker and was named "Ganesha".

The story of Ganesha has a lot to be learnt from for the Blue Caramelers.
1) Dedication and loyalty that Ganesha showed to fulfill the commitment that he had given to his mother is something that should be imbibed by all.
2) Ganesha continued to fight against Lord Shiva fully knowing that he was fighting against all odds. But the important thing is that he kept on fighting.
3) Last but not the least is that the dedication and unwavering focus on the committed job at hand coupled with a never-say-die-attitude was even recognized by Ganesha's adversary Lord Shiva and eventually Ganesha was rewarded and he become a divine deity "Gana+Ish (lord)" from being an ordinary semi divine "Gana".