Gems from the Turkish poet Rumi!

What is poison?
Anything which is more than our necessity is poison. It may be power, wealth, hunger, ego, greed, laziness, love, ambition, hate or anything.

What is fear?
Non-acceptance of uncertainty. If we accept that uncertainty, it becomes an adventure.

What is envy?
Non-acceptance of the good in others. If we accept that good, it becomes an inspiration.

What is anger?
Non-acceptance of things which are beyond our control. If we accept that, it becomes our tolerance.

What is hatred?
Non-acceptance of a person as he is. If we accept that person unconditionally, it becomes love.

May 10, 2018

Three new things that I learnt today…

  1. K-pop – Korean pop is getting to the world stage. They used structure to bring a cultural shift within Korea and then made it an exportable industry since 1992. Today it’s a 5 billion dollar industry.
  2. I normally see documentary movies around positive creations or impact. I bumped into a series, “Worst engineering accidents”. Gained some interesting learnings from the stories on anti-patterns of Design Thinking.
  3. In animal species, male can also give birth. With a sea horse, it’s the male who gives birth.
May 10, 2018

Prohibition

I was reading the US Constitution and just 27 amendments have happened during the last 200 years.

One of the Amendments 18, in the year 1919 caught my attention. It reads:

“Making, selling and transporting alcohol within the United States, as well as importing and exporting alcohol to and from the United States and its territories, will be forbidden”.

It was implemented for 14 years and repealed in 1933.

I was surprised that a western country like America did it despite the cold weather. ‘Dry’, the Group linked it to human development and religious values.

May 10, 2018

We are planning a Bhumi Pujan on 18th March, Sunday for ADK Jain Hospital at Khekra.

The planned hospital will be a 100-bed facility for performing up to 100 surgeries per day in phase
1. The building is spread over 41 thousand sqft over 4 floors.

This hospital will pick up patients from up to 80 to 100 km radius covering a population of over 3 million people with the mission of eradicating Preventable Blindness.

It was a dream of Bauji to have a high performing global family with roots of compassion and empathy that connected with the roots of our origin i.e. Khekra, Baghpat district, Uttar Pradesh.

May 10, 2018

Celebrate 2017

Before welcoming and creating a new agenda for 2018, let’s celebrate 2017 by understanding some key moments of
A. Fun
B. Achievements
C. Opportunities of learning – experiences of failures
D. Deepening current relationships and new relationships.
E. Conflicts – resolved and unresolved difference of opinions, perspectives and expectations.
F. Decisions – born out of ‘comfort zone’
G. People who you helped or encouraged to move towards realising their potential.

You can make your own personal PowerPoint presentation with the above key moments for slides as a starting point. This can be a personal record book with pictures included in it as well.

In case you do have a little more time, open the link for an annual review.

Your personal Annual Review of 2017

May 10, 2018

The power of together

I observed that various NGOs are doing selfless work in the development of our society. They are doing this work with very frugal money. Many of them are very creative in using this money for the highest impact.

Most of the time, they are alone. We in the industry have exclusive industry bodies like FICCI, CII, MMA, Nasscom, TIE etc., which provide us with networking platforms for learning best practices from each other as well the opportunities to influence government policies.

I want to know if any such platforms exist for positively impacting NGOs.

Or

Is there an opportunity to create an all India platform on the lines of industry platforms like Confederation of Social Impact Organisations (CSIO) with chapters at district levels in India?

May 10, 2018

My Diary – conflict resolution vsl Legal resolution

During Mission Samriddhi’s Summit 6 at Wardha, I met Shubha from Banwasi Sewa Ashram at Sonbhadra district, UP. They are working in that tribal area among 400 villages since 1967.

I learnt

  1. That for several years, there have been no legal cases from these villages being filed in the court. In case a few cases do reach the court, they are withdrawn and settled within the village.
  2. Since legal cases are a major ‘time, money and energy’ wasters of our society. Their response was very innocent and wise.
    A. Most of the conflicts in the villages start from very small differences.
    B. Villages need a few trustable, selfless people with the ability to listen.
    C. Most of the time ‘the person who is wrong, knows it in his heart’ about his wrong. He can’t hide that wrong within his own set of people. What he needs is a ‘listening’.
    D. Banwasi Sewa Ashram’s experience says that once the ‘Panch’ – respected group of villagers within or outside the village (different from elected representatives) listens to both sides, the conflict resolution becomes much simpler. Both parties can select their Panch who they believe will be fair like the arbitrator system.

To solve large cases in the legal system, shall we start a dialogue on building competency of conflict resolution at the source?

May 10, 2018

Sebastian Kurz and his political achievements

Austria, the headquarters of one of our key customers, Raffeisein Bank, has selected Sebastian Kurz as its Head of State.

He is just 31 years old.

At the age of 28, he became the youngest Foreign Minister.

As a 24-year old, he became the Minister of Integration.

May 9, 2018

Movie Ramanujan

I was watching the movie ‘Ramanujan’ – the person who knew infinity. I enjoyed the movie. It very well captured history.

One thing that touched me more than Ramanujan was his wife Janaki. She just waited and waited and after his early death at age of 32, she completed her life as a widow.

I was not sensitive to this aspect of gender inequality.

May 10, 2017

Tanjore – 1000 years old, highest of its time at 216 feet structure of the world

I visited the Brihadeeswarar Temple or the Tanjore Temple near Trichy. Normally, we go on a temple from temple visit but this temple was more of an architectural marvel. In my perspective, it can match the architectural creation of the Taj Mahal since it was created six hundred years before the Taj Mahal.

A few observations

  1. The largest Siva Temple with integrated Brahma and Vishnu structures. The lingam is a monolithic and 29 ft. tall.
  2. Fully constructed without any binding material like cement or its equivalent.
  3. 1000 year structure built by granite slabs, cut and interlocked to create this masterpiece.
  4. The nearest quarry of granite stones is over 80 kms. Thus, all granite was transported 1000 years back at that time with the available transportation technologies.
  5. The structure is vertically aligned i.e. the center of the Lingam is perfectly aligned to the center of the top stone, a perfect zero degree. The stone at the very top at 200 ft. weighs 80 tons.
  6. This structure was created in just 6 years in 1010 by Raja Raja Cholan.
  7. Tanjore is famous for its unique gold leaf paintings, music and dance and bronze sculptures.
May 9, 2017