A couple of weeks back I woke up, like the rest of the World, to the news of Ramalinga Raju, Former CEO of Satyam Computers, involved in the curious case of the missing Rs. 7000 Crores. I come from the same city of Hyderabad in India from where Satyam had its famed head quarters.
Before this, he was one of the most Respected for his pioneering work in the field of IT infrastructure in India. He had everything going for him. All of this respect and admiration from his fellow Indians vanished overnight, after this news broke. This rivalled with the "Bernie Madoff" scandal as one of the biggest scams to have hit us. Scores of people must have become paupers overnight, because of the crash in Satyam's stock, after this single event. By now many people working in this company must have been having sleepless nights as to when their jobs will be on the chopping block. Many might have contemplated and some might have even committed suicide because of the turn of events.
I can not understand why we do what we do. I am at a loss to understand why Mr. Raju did what he did. May be this can not be explained in simple terms. May be Greed is one of factors and that alone can not explain this. This in itself is a big topic for discussion. But what surprised me most was the news item that some of the supporters were conducting pujas(Prayers) for what is happening to him, because of his actions.
This is really perplexing as to why someone has to support someone else, simply because they belong to their Clan/Tribe/Caste/Religion/Region/Family/Sex/Friends/Country/State, even if they knew that what the other person did was totally wrong. This mentality of supporting someone because they are like them or belong to them, even if they know he/she was not right, is inexplicable/unexplainable. This idea that we have to support our kind under all circumstances is not good for the society as a whole. We cannot build good societies based on these narrow and trivial foundations. What is wrong has to be condemned by everyone and what is right has to be supported no matter even if it is done by your opponent. May be this will happen in an idealistic world but not in the real world. But at least we should hope to build such a society all over the world.
In a Society where you are measured as to how successful you are (how rich you are) and get respect based on that, irrespective of how you made that money, these things are bound to happen time and again. This has to come as a systemic change and will not happen overnight. To succeed by hook or crook, to get ahead in life any which way, becomes the norm. No one has respect for others' time. Always it is the self interest that matters. In general discussions people always say that the Policticians are spoiling our country. But where do these Politicians come from? They are not from the outside world as they happen to be from the same society, unless your country has been invaded and occupied. To expect that the Politicians do good for your country, but we do not change our attitudes, is expecting miracles and miracles do not happen often.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Life and Death
Recently one of my closest friends lost his Mother. She was a strong willed person and I have always liked her. It feels very bad when you lose someone close to you. We do not understand this till it happens to someone we love like a close family member or a close friend. Everyday we read, watch and hear about people dying. We just take them in our stride and carry on.
We are told that Life is precious and we should live it to the fullest. We are told that there are 2 things we cannot escape in life, one is taxes and the other is death. Yet no one wants to die. We all want to prolong our life as long as possible. Does it mean we do not want to face the reality? May be. So much of efforts go into taking care of the terminally ill. My father used to say, we are all going to die one day or the other. It is just a matter of when and how, not if. Yet, all our life, we try to accumulate so much money in our life, which we do not ever need. We come alone and leave alone. It is so difficult for us to let go of things that we like and the lifestyle that we live. May be that is the way our species tries to survive and thrive.
I do not know what happens to us when we die and I guess nobody knows. In this period between our birth and death, which we call our life, we have so many problems to worry and cry about. We feel ecstatic when we succeed and crestfallen when we fail. Yet, I believe that our life is not complete without all these experiences. It is a wonderful life!
We are told that Life is precious and we should live it to the fullest. We are told that there are 2 things we cannot escape in life, one is taxes and the other is death. Yet no one wants to die. We all want to prolong our life as long as possible. Does it mean we do not want to face the reality? May be. So much of efforts go into taking care of the terminally ill. My father used to say, we are all going to die one day or the other. It is just a matter of when and how, not if. Yet, all our life, we try to accumulate so much money in our life, which we do not ever need. We come alone and leave alone. It is so difficult for us to let go of things that we like and the lifestyle that we live. May be that is the way our species tries to survive and thrive.
I do not know what happens to us when we die and I guess nobody knows. In this period between our birth and death, which we call our life, we have so many problems to worry and cry about. We feel ecstatic when we succeed and crestfallen when we fail. Yet, I believe that our life is not complete without all these experiences. It is a wonderful life!
Are we in a depression or deep recession or a combination of both Repression/Decession???
The more I read every day about what is happening around us, the more I am convinced that the next few years is not going to be easy, for all of us. Those who are optimistic about the economy are being called delusional and may be rightly so, looking at all the data that is pouring in every day.
I was watching the CNN show Fareed Zakaria GPS last weekend, which is very interesting and is a must watch for me, whenever possible, in which there was an interview with a Financial Historian and Author of "The Ascent of Money" by name, Niall Ferguson. His opinion was that we now are teetering between Depression and a Deep, deep Recession ( Similar to Japan in the 90s) and said given the choice we would be better of with the latter. I could not agree more.
To confirm what is going on I stumbled upon an article in Minyanville.com, "Welcome to the Depression", by Bennet Sedacca, the link to which you will be taken, when you click on the title. It is depressing to read what is going on, but do we have a choice in this? We are all in the same boat or a Roller Coaster together and let us be ready for the ride of our lifetime!!!
I was watching the CNN show Fareed Zakaria GPS last weekend, which is very interesting and is a must watch for me, whenever possible, in which there was an interview with a Financial Historian and Author of "The Ascent of Money" by name, Niall Ferguson. His opinion was that we now are teetering between Depression and a Deep, deep Recession ( Similar to Japan in the 90s) and said given the choice we would be better of with the latter. I could not agree more.
To confirm what is going on I stumbled upon an article in Minyanville.com, "Welcome to the Depression", by Bennet Sedacca, the link to which you will be taken, when you click on the title. It is depressing to read what is going on, but do we have a choice in this? We are all in the same boat or a Roller Coaster together and let us be ready for the ride of our lifetime!!!
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Being happy is a habit too!
It has been a long time since I wrote in the blog last. I think, You stop doing it for sometime, then you lose the habit. That is it! I can blame it on the habit as the true culprit! Like they say "Old habits die hard", may be "New habits die easy"!!! It is all in the habits that we imbibe, as we evolve in our life.
I was thinking the other day as to what makes us happy. I was not sure. Is it what we do? Is it what we accomplish? Is it how we live? Is it what we eat? Is it what we see? Is it what we hear? So many questions that have no answers. May be all of them together.
Then it dawned on me that being happy and feeling good about your life is a habit too! Just like we do physical exercises for being healthy. But we reap the benefits only when we are consistent. This can only be done when we are persistent and persevere. We need to motivate ourselves into doing this over a period of time. What we are doing here is to train our body to get into a better physical shape. Similarly may be we can train our minds to be happy most of the time, if not all the time. Happiness is in enjoying what you do or don't. Most of the times we feel bad that we are not doing this and that. Why is it that we always to look at things "half empty" and not "half full". For the last holidays we did not go out of California for the first time in many years and really relaxed for 2 full weeks. You can look at this and say we wasted our time by not going anywhere. Why do we have this mindset, that we should be happy only when we do something and not happy when we don't do anything at time. I thought it was relaxing not going out anywhere and just lazing around. I think we should be able to enjoy the inactivity which we indulge in sometimes and not feel guilty. Earlier I used to feel bad that I was not waking up early enough. Then one of my colleague-friends suggested that, may be I should just take it for what it is and be cool.
My father used to say " a healthy body and a healthy mind". I think there is some element of truth in that. Like we train our body, we can train our mind too.
I read somewhere when we base our happiness on some accomplishment we can never be happy. We work hard to achieve something and then we feel happy. But after that event we look to achieve something else and wait for that event to be happy again. This goes on and on till the end. There are moments of happiness when you get something, interspersed with the struggles and frustrations in the periods in between. Why can't we just live the life being content and happy with what we have? We can, but then someone says, "when you are content and happy, then you will not progress in life". I do not for a moment believe, that "no one can be successful if he/she is happy and contented". I believe that you can compartmentalize, where you can be successful and also live a happy and contented life.
I was thinking the other day as to what makes us happy. I was not sure. Is it what we do? Is it what we accomplish? Is it how we live? Is it what we eat? Is it what we see? Is it what we hear? So many questions that have no answers. May be all of them together.
Then it dawned on me that being happy and feeling good about your life is a habit too! Just like we do physical exercises for being healthy. But we reap the benefits only when we are consistent. This can only be done when we are persistent and persevere. We need to motivate ourselves into doing this over a period of time. What we are doing here is to train our body to get into a better physical shape. Similarly may be we can train our minds to be happy most of the time, if not all the time. Happiness is in enjoying what you do or don't. Most of the times we feel bad that we are not doing this and that. Why is it that we always to look at things "half empty" and not "half full". For the last holidays we did not go out of California for the first time in many years and really relaxed for 2 full weeks. You can look at this and say we wasted our time by not going anywhere. Why do we have this mindset, that we should be happy only when we do something and not happy when we don't do anything at time. I thought it was relaxing not going out anywhere and just lazing around. I think we should be able to enjoy the inactivity which we indulge in sometimes and not feel guilty. Earlier I used to feel bad that I was not waking up early enough. Then one of my colleague-friends suggested that, may be I should just take it for what it is and be cool.
My father used to say " a healthy body and a healthy mind". I think there is some element of truth in that. Like we train our body, we can train our mind too.
I read somewhere when we base our happiness on some accomplishment we can never be happy. We work hard to achieve something and then we feel happy. But after that event we look to achieve something else and wait for that event to be happy again. This goes on and on till the end. There are moments of happiness when you get something, interspersed with the struggles and frustrations in the periods in between. Why can't we just live the life being content and happy with what we have? We can, but then someone says, "when you are content and happy, then you will not progress in life". I do not for a moment believe, that "no one can be successful if he/she is happy and contented". I believe that you can compartmentalize, where you can be successful and also live a happy and contented life.
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