Diwali – The economics of oil lamps

I was curious to know how much a family used to pay before the invention of electricity in the late 19th century.

A few data points which will help you connect the economics of light that we have been enjoying in the last 125 years.

1. One oil lamp consumes 15 ML of oil per hour.
2. One oil lamp lumen is around 10 lumens.
20 oil lamps for 4 hours per day for lighting a basic house requires 1.2 litre of oil every day or 36 litres of oil per month.
3. Cost of lamp oil per litre is around 180 rupees.
4. Thus the oil bill per month with just 200 lumens of light at home for a month will cost 6000 rupees.
5. Oil was not cheap in the olden days thus it used to form a substantial part of the family expenses.
6. The design of chandeliers was to increase the total lumen in a hall by aggregating 30-100 oil lamps.

Some more data:
1. A 20 watt LED has 1600 lumens equivalent to 160 oil lamps.
2. 160 oil lamps will consume 2.4 litres of oil per hour at 180 rupees which equals to 432 rupees per hour.
3. A 1000 watts per hour (1kwh) of electricity costs less than 10 rupees and 20 watts will cost 20 paisa.

Now you connect the dots and get your imagination to work. 

#economicsinnovation #data #electricity

October 12, 2021

Wishing all of you and your families a Happy Diwali!

For our global friends, we celebrate Diwali in all Indian states, but for different reasons. In North India, Diwali symbolises Lord Ram’s return to Ayodhya, while in some other parts of the North, it celebrates Mahaveer’s achievement of Nirvana. In this way, Diwali means something different to each member of our community.

In the 30 days leading up to Diwali and the 3 days following the same, India is met with an unmatched festive spirit. During this period, Navratri, Dussehra, Ayudha Pooja and Durga Pooja are celebrated for 8 to 10 days all across India.

We celebrate our three powers through three goddesses:
1. Physical Power represented by Kali or Durga
2. Knowledge Power represented by Saraswati
3. Economic Power represented by Lakshmi.

With the festival of Diwali, we celebrate Goddess Lakshmi who represents economic power, by decorating and lighting up our houses to invite her into them. We invite Lakshmi into our homes, to fill them with prosperity and knowledge, and to monetise all our knowledge power.

#diwali2021

October 12, 2021

Today is World Environmental Health Day.

Today is World Environmental Health Day.

While the world celebrates this day, I was thinking about the connection between nature and humans.

Nature designed humans. Humans subordinated every resource and species of nature.

The human body is a marvel of nature. The design of the human body is optimally right.

It is not the strongest.
It is not the tallest.
It is not the fastest.
It is not the longest living.
It is not the fastest learner – actually slowest – a child takes over 12-16 years to become a fully grown adult.

But still the human body rules the animal kingdom.

Is good design all about right proportions and measured steps of growth?

#environmental #design #health #nature #wellbeing #designthinking

September 12, 2021
August 12, 2021
August 12, 2021

Third podcast on Das Lakshan Parva

Virtue 2 – Uttam Mardava (Supreme Humility) – Reverse of Arrogance/Ego. I know it all vs. I need to know.

Das Lakshan Parva is a Jain festival that marks the celebration of 10 Virtues over a period of 10 days.

#leadership #inspiration #daslakshanparva #learning

August 12, 2021

My second podcast on Das Lakshan Parva

Virtue 1 – Uttam Kshama (Supreme Forgiveness). Forgive and Forget.

Das Lakshan Parva is a Jain festival that marks the celebration of 10 Virtues over a period of 10 days.

#leadership #inspiration #daslakshanparva #learning #jainism

 

August 12, 2021

True LeadershipFirst podcast about Das Lakshan ParvaTrue Leadership

10th September 2021 is the beginning of a Jain festival called Das Lakshan Parva – a festival that marks 10 Virtues over a period of 10 days.

I used to visit the temple during these 10 days with my father and listen to a few lectures at the temple. The lectures would make me feel good but I could not draw any connection between them and my daily life. A few years ago, I was searching for a framework from Indian scriptures in relation to where deep knowledge has been made repeatable. I found the answer in Paryushan Parva, where Jains celebrate 10 principles of a high-performance life over 10 days when they are completely committed to learning.

In this series of audio podcasts, I will try to cover the 10 virtues similar to habits of effective leadership on a daily basis for the next 10 days.

Here is the first podcast about Das Lakshan Parva – https://lnkd.in/gWh7Xykk

#leadership #inspiration #personaldevelopment #learning #designthinking

August 12, 2021

True Leadership

As we are celebrating Intellect Fest, a month-long celebration of our people, potential, passion, products, technologies and markets at Intellect, I have found myself wondering what the meaning of True Leadership is, and the following is an excerpt from my diary, on the purpose of a True Leadership Mind.
 
Each part of the body has a purpose; our legs are for mobility, eyes for seeing, ears for hearing, nose for smelling, lungs for breathing, heart for energy distribution, kidney for blood clean up, and liver for energy storage etc. But, what is the purpose of the mind? 

It has many functions, but if we need to define the function of the human mind in less than 5 words, then it would be – to solve a problem. Our mind works as a problem solver, that solves problems one after the other with agility, from simple problems like what to eat, to problems that concern larger populations. 

I realised that whenever Manju shared her problems with me, my mind was quick to suggest an immediate solution to the problem. Her purpose of sharing the problem was just to make me aware of what her mind was occupied with, but I would constantly perceive it as an opportunity to help her. With genuine care and intentions, this behaviour of giving unsolicited advice quite simply led to undesired conflicts.

I was watching the series ‘The Crown’, and I liked one of the Queen’s statements, where she said “Doing nothing is most difficult for an executive”. Our minds are hardwired to provide solutions 24*7, so trying to not come up with a solution when faced with a problem is not always easy. 
 
In the journey of self-discovery and awareness, the key message is to stop thoughts, observe thoughts or spend time in shunya. Are these not similar to saying stop problem solving?
 
In the context of management, true leadership is about enabling teams to solve their problems. The problem that leaders must solve is to spot and choose the right problems for their teams to solve.

#IntellectFest #DesignMind #Leadership #IncredibleIntellect

August 12, 2021

Teacher’s Day

Today is Teacher’s day. It’s a day when we celebrate ‘learning’ and catalysts for ‘my learning’. A teacher is the primary person responsible for learning.

Sometimes we miss the teachers from our peer community where we learn the most.

Besides this we need to celebrate the ‘lifelong student within me’ – curiosity.

A teacher is a student first.

Gratitude to all my teachers and peers with who I am continuing my learning journey!

#learning #teaching #education #students

August 12, 2021