Satyam, Shiver-am, A-sunder-am! (a.k.a. Raju ban gaya gentleman.)
Somewhere in India - beginning of a brand "new year".
Part 1 - SATYAM.
Satyam, as we Sanskrit inheritors know, means "the truth". And ironically, it was the inverse of the SATYAM i.e. MAYTAS, where a whole fraud burst at its seams - unable to camel the burden of untruth any further.
While the scale of this fraud is piddly compared to what the Americans have unleashed upon the material obsessed world for over 100 years, its timing coincides with the instant when the House of Cards set up by the American Dream, is on verge of utter collapse.
As we are about to enter into the second decade of the twenty-first century, it is imperative to re-look at some "value sytems" of the last century and reject some notions we carry with us as a "conditioning". It is time to recognize that the corporate analism, splattered by jargonism and ivy league imperialism (whose poster boys are straight jacketed, smug, banker types) is OVER. What I honestly mean is that the Harvards, Whartons, IIM 's et al have been teaching MBA's bullshit for over a century and should be rejected as the preferred educational aspiration of this century. Bullshit - whose Holy Grail was "profit" at all cost. Even at the cost of fudging books, like our very own Raju the Gentleman has demonstrated with his stunning audacity of hope.
It was on these hallowed grounds, that "ethics" were case-studied as "not recalling defective cars even at the cost of a few thousand lives, so long as the cost of recall was no worse than the insurance claims to be paid out" or "test dangerous clinical drugs on poor, Africans (now also Indians)". It was within these unscaleable walls that the movers and shakers of the weapons companies, the unethical pharma companies and the fraudulent banking systems had their moral consciences mass amputated. It was within these greedy peer groups that money flowed, to protect their ilk - most often at the cost of plundered 'middle-class" families.
It is time to realize that the era of that Lord Ford, which started with the T-model and his "have any colour so long as its black", is over (guess which Detroit company is sitting with a begging bowl before Capitol in Washington?) and it is time to look for a newer approach to management and business, in this NEW century. Understandably, we suffer from the hang-over of the brainwashing of drinking too much green stuff for a hundred years - but ten years into the next century, we should not cling on to its addiction anymore and shake it off! It is time to do the things that most MBA institutes/corporate c(v)ultures don't allow you to do - a) care for people, more than profits and b) THINK!!!!!
Part 2: Shiveram.
It's not going to be easy to be honest, when all around we have signals to do the opposite. In fact, it gives me the shivers at the extent of false propaganda around us. For example, you have some of the biggest media companies in the country declaring how their films are a BIGGEST EVER HIT and how many CRORES they have grossed in how many DAYS. Example, GHAJINI declaring Rs. 170 crores in some 10 days. There have been cases of other such ads by publicly listed media companies - but when it comes to actual results on the books, it is nowhere close to these publicly advertised figures. Is this not another form of blatant cheating? If you do the math of Ghajini's numbers, it roughly translates to over 100 million people having seen the film in 10 days i.e. 1 million people per day or 10% of India's population! Seems far-fetched? To me, too!
The sad part is, that our bourses do not have provisions to act against such violaters and worse, the process to judicial recourse is tedious and out of the reach of people who are outraged (and even adversely affected) by such dishonesty. Allowing all and sundry to plunder. Before any top shot says a word against Satyam taking a hefty moral position, let him who has not sinned reach for that stone!
It is high time that a magnifying glass of honesty was handed to all managers and then applied with rigour on all activities. Financial success should cease to be the only yardstick and a more holistic formula for "respect" has to be created and indoctrinated within our society. This is nothing new, its just returning to our roots - where a teacher in a public school was admired more than some two-bit trader with far more money. Wealth and money were NOT the same thing. It's time to re-believe that. It's time to put people first - and not just in some fancy "corporate social responsibility" advertisements.
Part 3: A-sunder-am.
That the last century has been a lost century spiritually, and we have all gone asunder is only evident from our television boxes. Perhaps, the single largest cause of social decay. The amount of time spent by toddlers, children, adolescents and adults glued to gore and manipulation can yield no better results than what we have been dished. Practices such as thinking, creativity, art and originality has been replaced by cookie-cutters, resulting in a world bursting with cookies. It's time to stimulate the mind - the source of original thinking and the reason where our race gets its name - Homo Sapiens. Did you know that "sapien" means wise? and that the only difference between us and chimpanzees is this "sapience"? Looking around, it is hard to believe that we are the wiser race, and if we once were - we have totally gone "a-sunder-am". Time to use the original faculty - of brains. Time to prove that we deserve to be called Sapiens. Wisdom and "cleverness" are NOT the same thing. Cleverness is Raju cooking books, Wisdom is the ability to refrain from such wrong deeds.
And time to say hello to Satyam, all over again. Not as Raju used it to become a "gentleman" - in the post colonial way, but in the way Gandhi applied it to get rid of colonial bastards from our country's colon.
Part 1 - SATYAM.
Satyam, as we Sanskrit inheritors know, means "the truth". And ironically, it was the inverse of the SATYAM i.e. MAYTAS, where a whole fraud burst at its seams - unable to camel the burden of untruth any further.
While the scale of this fraud is piddly compared to what the Americans have unleashed upon the material obsessed world for over 100 years, its timing coincides with the instant when the House of Cards set up by the American Dream, is on verge of utter collapse.
As we are about to enter into the second decade of the twenty-first century, it is imperative to re-look at some "value sytems" of the last century and reject some notions we carry with us as a "conditioning". It is time to recognize that the corporate analism, splattered by jargonism and ivy league imperialism (whose poster boys are straight jacketed, smug, banker types) is OVER. What I honestly mean is that the Harvards, Whartons, IIM 's et al have been teaching MBA's bullshit for over a century and should be rejected as the preferred educational aspiration of this century. Bullshit - whose Holy Grail was "profit" at all cost. Even at the cost of fudging books, like our very own Raju the Gentleman has demonstrated with his stunning audacity of hope.
It was on these hallowed grounds, that "ethics" were case-studied as "not recalling defective cars even at the cost of a few thousand lives, so long as the cost of recall was no worse than the insurance claims to be paid out" or "test dangerous clinical drugs on poor, Africans (now also Indians)". It was within these unscaleable walls that the movers and shakers of the weapons companies, the unethical pharma companies and the fraudulent banking systems had their moral consciences mass amputated. It was within these greedy peer groups that money flowed, to protect their ilk - most often at the cost of plundered 'middle-class" families.
It is time to realize that the era of that Lord Ford, which started with the T-model and his "have any colour so long as its black", is over (guess which Detroit company is sitting with a begging bowl before Capitol in Washington?) and it is time to look for a newer approach to management and business, in this NEW century. Understandably, we suffer from the hang-over of the brainwashing of drinking too much green stuff for a hundred years - but ten years into the next century, we should not cling on to its addiction anymore and shake it off! It is time to do the things that most MBA institutes/corporate c(v)ultures don't allow you to do - a) care for people, more than profits and b) THINK!!!!!
Part 2: Shiveram.
It's not going to be easy to be honest, when all around we have signals to do the opposite. In fact, it gives me the shivers at the extent of false propaganda around us. For example, you have some of the biggest media companies in the country declaring how their films are a BIGGEST EVER HIT and how many CRORES they have grossed in how many DAYS. Example, GHAJINI declaring Rs. 170 crores in some 10 days. There have been cases of other such ads by publicly listed media companies - but when it comes to actual results on the books, it is nowhere close to these publicly advertised figures. Is this not another form of blatant cheating? If you do the math of Ghajini's numbers, it roughly translates to over 100 million people having seen the film in 10 days i.e. 1 million people per day or 10% of India's population! Seems far-fetched? To me, too!
The sad part is, that our bourses do not have provisions to act against such violaters and worse, the process to judicial recourse is tedious and out of the reach of people who are outraged (and even adversely affected) by such dishonesty. Allowing all and sundry to plunder. Before any top shot says a word against Satyam taking a hefty moral position, let him who has not sinned reach for that stone!
It is high time that a magnifying glass of honesty was handed to all managers and then applied with rigour on all activities. Financial success should cease to be the only yardstick and a more holistic formula for "respect" has to be created and indoctrinated within our society. This is nothing new, its just returning to our roots - where a teacher in a public school was admired more than some two-bit trader with far more money. Wealth and money were NOT the same thing. It's time to re-believe that. It's time to put people first - and not just in some fancy "corporate social responsibility" advertisements.
Part 3: A-sunder-am.
That the last century has been a lost century spiritually, and we have all gone asunder is only evident from our television boxes. Perhaps, the single largest cause of social decay. The amount of time spent by toddlers, children, adolescents and adults glued to gore and manipulation can yield no better results than what we have been dished. Practices such as thinking, creativity, art and originality has been replaced by cookie-cutters, resulting in a world bursting with cookies. It's time to stimulate the mind - the source of original thinking and the reason where our race gets its name - Homo Sapiens. Did you know that "sapien" means wise? and that the only difference between us and chimpanzees is this "sapience"? Looking around, it is hard to believe that we are the wiser race, and if we once were - we have totally gone "a-sunder-am". Time to use the original faculty - of brains. Time to prove that we deserve to be called Sapiens. Wisdom and "cleverness" are NOT the same thing. Cleverness is Raju cooking books, Wisdom is the ability to refrain from such wrong deeds.
And time to say hello to Satyam, all over again. Not as Raju used it to become a "gentleman" - in the post colonial way, but in the way Gandhi applied it to get rid of colonial bastards from our country's colon.
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