Jalebi & Life....

The thought that MY building lift is better than the other one I had gone to a friend’s house – triggered many more thoughts…

What is this all MY – MINE about and what all affinity to things. When me, myself is a temporary creature on this earth. So in a way I am not owner of anything; I am just a traveler.

Although, I have never (never is a strong word, should be carefully used) felt attracted to things (or to say for last 15-16 years or so). As I had great desires of buying good phones and may be cars before 2006.  

So do I become a saint if now I like experiences better than things or I like doing things for others and making a difference to others’ life and that gives me more happiness than buying “stuff” for me.

I do like traveling and that’s one thing where I like to spend money. Ok..Ok – yes I like Jalebis too.

The learning of last 15-16 years has been immense. The journey is full of amazing and outstanding experiences of meeting some great people – these include age of 3 years to 90 years; people from all walks of life; people in different continents; some great leaders; some great teachers; some great players; some great entrepreneurs; some great drivers; some great handy-men and many many more kids from who I learnt everything about life. This learning is so enriched that it gives me ability to work with any age or any person from a child to a CEO or a head of a state.

In these many years I also assessed and coached many leaders (including 100 of CXOs) and the surprising part was I was the learner in this whole process whereas the assessee and coachee felt that they are learning a lot. What a double edge sword it is- learn while you earn.

The crisis of Corona (Covid) has transformed every one globally – the impact is still happening and will continue for some more time. The only thing which can help right now are the “positive relationships” we have around us and how we are able to contribute meaningfully to others (keeping ourselves safe and healthy). I speak to almost 4-5 people on average as a practice for many months now. The reason is that people are not having anyone to talk to..or to share feelings with. The conversations could be with anyone – clients, team, driver, watchman, shopkeeper, auto guy, amazon deliver person, zomato guy, my favourite Jalebi wala, friends, relatives ;-) 

I feel we all have come to earth to do our karma and we do it to best of our abilities. In addition, if we can do anything meaningful for someone else and bring little happiness and smile to them, we have made some difference to humanity. 

One more thing, I find is that I never feel I am very busy as I always tell everyone I am always free. I feel its all in the mind and may be God helps me to find time.. The only gift we can give to others is TIME. It DOES NOT always cost money to help others.

There are challenges and many of us have much more than others. However, most of the people reading this are blessed as we have a house, food, internet, mobile/laptop to read. There are so many, many more whose challenges are much bigger than us. Just think !

So if I don’t eat Jalebis in one week – how I can help someone with their basic food needs.

The difference of needs and want ; necessity and sufficiency; greed vs need.

So enough of gyaan… either you find a good jalebi wala and eat it or help someone ! 

Its up to us how we want to reflect back on our life at an old age – Either saying..Yeah I tried or I wish I could have! 

God bless you all, those who made an effort to read..my sweet (Jalebi thoughts). Love you all !

 

India - Needing Transformational Change

 

The focus of my life has always been on creating positivity and positive changes and helping myself and others to believe and practice it.

I always felt India and we Indians need to transform for the better and have been writing about the same for last 12-13 years. Many times it is construed by others as not liking own country and highlighting negatives.

It was felt and assumed that this crisis of Corona will bring positive changes to society and people and there will be transformational changes, not only in India but globally. However....

However, largely we Indians have short memory and we are back to becoming greedy and selfish as soon as things are little better. Being selfish is not wrong for a short-while; however just thinking about Self does not transform societies. When we speak about such behaviors its not claimed and assumed that goodness does not exist in India. Due to the goodness of the positive forces, society is still sustaining itself – otherwise it would have crashed much earlier.

The basic life challenge of AIR, CLEAN WATER and HYGIENIC FOOD has been highlighted earlier in many of my writings and many of experts. Its still not available in NORMAL times in India and the struggle is now much more in CORONA times. Where almost there is civil war to get basic oxygen. This is level 1 of Maslow and we in India have continuous and regular struggle for level 1.

However, during Normal times also – air is one of the most polluted in the world and clean water is luxury of few (someone said next world-war would be for Water) and food is so widely spoilt by chemicals and fertilizers, that more than half of it is at the dangerous level of creating health hazards. These are basic need of human life.

So if development is making more buildings and creating wealth for few and then saying that “India is shining” then it is OK for few more years before which a social revolution will come. Greed of many has been impacting people, society and nation.

We are creating a nation where basic TRUST is lacking between people – farmers do not trust government; common people do not trust each other and government and the overall society has a FEAR of getting more and more for self. TRUST is the basic foundation of any relationship and society and that is lacking and is going down over the years. The basic structure of society is still a challenge.

The people who are our rulers are creating divide and fear among people. The population is ever increasing – adding pressure to infrastructure (health, food etc). However, it’s a vote-bank for the political system, so no action can be taken. The difference between Haves and Have-nots is increasing at a faster pace...

EMPATHY – again a must for a positive society – hardly exists in India. We have lot of sympathy but rarely empathy.

Societal transformation in any country begins with the intent and then planned actions. Despite being an optimist, I do not feel that there will be a great deal of transformation in India at societal or national level. Even the disasters like Corona have been showing the basic structure of Indian societal system.

What we can do – is to do our Karma and keep making small changes in the society around us- beginning with our home and helping our children and children & youth around us to motivate to “make a difference” to others (being selfish to an extent and then helping others).

At this moment, I really wish that everyone is healthy and and is able to make positive change in self and others and GOD help us in this journey.

Positive Society needs:

1. Human Connect and Empathy

2. TRUST

3. LOVE

4. People doing their own Karma well

5. Compassion

6. Belief in self and others

7. Empathy

8. A desire to make better future for next generations - Sustainability

God bless everyone !

The changed world - 2020

"No matter who we are, no matter how successful, no matter what our situation, compassion is something we all need to receive and give." -- Catherine Pulsifer

Change is a continuous process and part of evolution of humanity and world. Almost one year back, world faced a challenge and in a way united the world (in form of Corona Virus). The impending changes it brought all across the globe has been immense.  This note is largely based on observations from India.

It has impacted almost everyone – to some in small ways (rich people whose profits are little lesser but life is fine) and many others in big ways (who lost business, work, jobs and ways of livelihood and life). However, the pandemic can impact the health of everyone – rich and poor in similar ways. 

The initial phase was of shock and blame game and then the humans came back to what they called – “new normal”. The same greed took over sympathy of earlier pandemic times. People started making money on the sanitizers or masks or availability of ventilators. Some people showed sympathy with poor and helped (very few showed empathy – as empathy is a way of life and not just a show-off). Helping others is way of life and can not be just a photo-opportunity.

For most of the governments across globe – it was also an unprecedented phase where they also struggled in managing the crisis. 

Most schools, universities and educators immediately learnt the way of teaching online. It was easy for young educators and little difficult for the older ones. The job of school heads became more complex. However, more or less the teaching is happening (not sure if students are learning much, though). Now everyone is exhausted – teachers, students, leaders in schools and colleges. However, its going on to just make sure syllabus is completed. There was a news article that a large number of school leaders in UK are resigning as they are feeling too much pressure. Still studies are being conducted on the impact on mental health of kids and educators. After speaking to a small sample – I could gather that all of them are really feeling exhausted and de-motivated.

The so-called e-teaching platforms started selling to parents and kids (this is much more in India). The focus again is on fear of lagging behind (without these you can not be intelligent or get marks). They want to make sure that they make money on the fear of losing out.

The psychological change is the biggest one – where there is less focus (as most organizations want to make more money – in the “new normal”).  Human is being left to fend for themselves – those who give us revenues and add value, can stay and rest can leave. Some companies are helping the people and many others are showing-off that they are. Large part of companies is not much bothered the human part (Human is just a resource for them). There are so many webinars being organized – like there is no tomorrow. Not sure on what’s the hurry. This is the time to practively manage own-self and help others in whatever way we can. Its not easy - but its not difficult too (just that one has to think beyond self). Relationships have been impacted in a big way - as humans are confused on how to act or think, at times.

Political people are using this time to settle own scores – they spread fear when needed; make changes to suit them (mass rallies in Bihar, India are one example). The information is suppressed and lies are spread.

Medical staff and resources are stretched to a level like never before. They request and plead with public to follow rules (masks and social-distancing) – but people follow examples set by the leaders. People want to live the same life as before – festivals are important, birthdays are important, marriages are important – but health of self & others is not so important (there is a myth that the virus can not impact us). People are just moving around and meeting people without any purpose (as if this time will not come again). The civic ways of managing self and caring for others are hardly seen.

Vaccine is the next step – where the clarity is not available at the moment and also false promises are passed-on to public. In India, it was also used to ask for votes in Bihar. Anything which is scarce, may lead to chaos initially. There will be preference for the privileged class and poor people chances will be towards the end.

The impact of this change will last for atleast 10-12 years for a large part of population and for some it could just be few weeks (as soon as they get own vaccine). The loneliness, stress and mental discomfort has impacted a lot of people. There is sudden emergence of so-called counsellors, mental health specialist, happiness guides (to make money out of the crisis). 

Initially it was felt that this pandemic will transform the world and people to be more compassionate and empathetic. However, it was just a short term dream. Humans by nature have become greedy and individualistic to a large extent. There are people who have become much richer in this pandemic (but they don’t have any desire or will to share the wealth). To suit their convenience they start calling it new-normal. This is not NORMAL. Its a crisis and must be managed like that.

“The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others.” – Albert Schweitzer

The complex world we created!

While growing up in early 1970s and 1980s, we were always amazed by anything new which was introduced to us as kids – be it color television or walkmans or pagers and later in end of 1990s the mobile phones. The technology and communication devices have improved a lot.

We as kids were given enough time to explore life by playing with simple materials in parks and in farms or near the beach for some and there was adequate time for families and friends and community played a greater role. Though there were pressures to study and get more marks and also there was limited jealousy when the neighbor bought a car. However, the difficult times were resolved together by the family and friends and the community at large. There were no malls or gadgets and people mixed with each other.

Having witnessed riots and student agitations and some disasters closely in India – gave me conviction that together as community is always better than individualistic wins.

The last 20-25  years have seen a dramatic rise in availability of technology and comforts (which money can buy). However, in name of development the worrying and noticeable challenges which emerge or remain now include the following:

• The families and friends are more distanced by the technology (rather than bringing them together) – human connect is slowly been taken away by emojis
• The pressure on children in societies like India have increased more
• They are being taught the way we were taught 30-40 years back and still the focus remains on marks – rather than learning (some countries and regions like Europe developed the education systems to suit the learners needs and created advanced and child-friendly learning practices). In countries like India focus has remained on only assessments.
• The materialistic world has taken over the need to have minimalistic or realistic needs
• Greed and fear has transformed humans to become more & more selfish – so much so they widely abused the environment to make “money” (not realizing basic life is getting compromised). People are shown fear of God - rather than showing Love for God.
• The complexities have created more mental diseases (in addition to complex and newer diseases – like Corona virus, HIV etc)
• Gap between poor and rich have been increasing
• For a normal human being –its becoming more difficult to live and survive as life is becoming more complex for them (both technological and societal). Elders struggle with inability of using technologies
• Loneliness is the biggest problem worldwide
• The social media which helped humans – have started exploiting human mind by showing what they want to show and controlling the feelings of human (creating more and more divide among people). It has created so much stress for people rather than helping.
• Politics have become more dirty and complex and the “so-called” democracies still divide people on caste, religion and languages
• Human life is cheapest in some countries and societies
• Human is still struggling for basics in many societies like clean air, clean water and hygienic food. People are becoming helpless and more and more people die because of pollution in large cities in countries like India (so called 5th economy of world)
• Nature has been widely destroyed without any logic
• Trust, Respect and Love is becoming a rare commodity
• Women & girls still feel unsafe in countries like India
• Religion is still confused with Spirituality
• Developed nations want to sell their arms and ammunition than helping developing countries on improving environment and basic life

It does not mean that nothing good is happening in the world. There are many and many good deeds being done by people – which gets clouded by the media and the negativity shown in social media.

The life which was enjoyed in simplicity and humanity has become complex. The race has taken over the desire to be “ME” rather than “WE”.

I really wish and pray for a better, simpler and loving world where there is mutual trust, respect and love – inspite of differences and diversity. I wish for that simpler world where human connect is better cherished and respected. In 2020, life of more than 40 people should not be lost in a large city like New Delhi by actions and spoken words of weird and shrewd politicians (this is not 18th century). Women and girls should have fearless life of equals.

Artificial intelligence can not help. Smart phones can't help. These are helpful tools - but should not be allowed to control humans.

When I write such articles – people think I am scaring them by showing the dangerous world. However, the intention is to help people and self differentiate by what’s good and what’s not (and choose what to read, listen, hear in social media) – finding true happiness for self; giving joy to others and doing something meaningful – so that the world we leave for our future generation is better !

I am still hopeful !

India the Golden Bird...! ?

India had been known as a golden bird in past. The main reason was availability of natural resources, which attracted Britishers and others to India in past.

Over the years, things improved by the development phase of the country where emphasis on industry and globalization helped achieve some goals. The primary strength of the country – Agriculture, being ignored by all and now most of the agriculture land is being converted to buildings (mostly where there is no need and oversupply). However, for last 20 years the focus changed and the so-called development is hurting the country, rather than helping.

The challenges which country is facing and will face in near future and which may have wide spread societal impact would include:

1. Rising Population – and its stressful impact on all infrastructure. Unfortunately, have not heard about any program from government to work in this direction.
2. Poor quality air, water and basic food
3. Outdated education system – still focusing on marks and rote learning than skill building
4. Lots of graduates but missing skills and talent
5. Rising Personal interests and greed, leading to poor societal values
6. Increasing gaps between rich and poor
7. Safety of people
8. Lack of direction in policies - e.g Ignorance about tourism potential of India as a big industry
9. Lack of any “nation connect” among citizens – still castes, religion, region, languages being discussed and widely talked about.
10. Complicated processes to do business and focus on money alone by businesses
11. Fear among people – one of the biggest reason for the way people behave in general at home, in organizations and in society.
12. Politics should not enter some basic areas as Education, Sports, Personal choices

These challenges, some of them, might become huge monsters and will reach a point of no return. 

Time to now think seriously and act ! Watching as a spectator will not help.

How nature failed in India!

Today being the World Environment day – 100s of messages are being spread in social media and I am sure 100s of announcements will be made to save the environment.

Quoting from the Nature Journal, 2019 –

“Humans — rather than a giant meteor or a super-volcano — will be behind Earth’s next mass extinction. Future population growth along with economic development will be humanity’s fatal flaws, bringing about “unprecedented levels of extinction risk. Human population growth has increased by 130 percent in the last 50 years, putting incredible pressure on the natural world, according to the site.

“The ever-increasing and unprecedented extent and impact of human activities on land and in the oceans over the past few centuries has dramatically reduced global biodiversity, There is overwhelming evidence that habitat loss and fragmentation, over-exploitation of biological resources, pollution, species invasions and climate change have increased rates of global species extinctions to levels that are much higher than those observed in the fossil record.”

The phenomenon called “development” by killing natural resources is evident globally and no country is left-behind by that. However, will my limited knowledge and discussions with few experts over the years; the maximum harm is being done in India and few other countries like China.

The biggest failure for us in India is neither we have realized that rapid population growth and pollution are biggest threat to survival in the country nor we acknowledge that this needs to be tackled at war-footing. As the resources are limited and being depleted. Number of trees per person in India is among the lowest in the world.

The farms, agriculture land and trees are being totally wiped out for so-called development of constructing buildings. The greed of everyone is such in this whole mass-murder of natural resources that policy makers and implementers, builders’ mafia and everyone involved is continuously and alarmingly exploiting these resources for their own benefits.

Just one example to see is that Gurgaon the most polluted city in the world in 2018 has a limited and small stretch of Aravali forest and hills nearby – which may give them some breathing air at times – but the Haryana government has the audacity and foolishness to pass an order in 2018 to allow construction in that area (whereas Supreme Court of India marked it as a reserve area). The people who are supposed to take care of the environment are the one’s who are taking lead to destroy it. In past there have been 220% rise in breathing related disease in this NCR region.

Anyone who travels by highways in India can vouch that rapidly nature has been widely killed across the country for construction.

The disaster in Uttarakhand near Kedarnath few years back was a result of this greed and uncontrolled constructions by removing essential forest and mountains.

Its actually such an alarming situation in India that repeatedly it is highlighted that world’s top most polluted cities are in India and the resources like water will soon become scarce.

I am not sure what kind of disaster are we waiting for in the country to happen. It will not happen over-night as the citizens of the country are not even aware of the alarming situation and even if some of them are – they hardly take individual or collective actions to save the nature from being exploited daily and every minute.

It should start immediately at individual levels, local communities – with government taking policy and implementation role. Otherwise we do not need any rocket-science to prove that extinction of human race will start from India soon – if not started already!

So rather than circulating the messages on World Environment day and liking them – act now as an Individual ! Not from tomorrow – now and immediate…