What not to miss on Basant Panchami January 28, 2012
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Think wise and become beautiful
Today is Basant Panchami – a festival celebrated to the worship of Goddess of knowledge and learning, Mother Saraswati. In today’s write-up let’s get acquainted with the significance of this festival through the props as we see in the pictures of Goddess. Mythological portraying of Goddess Saraswati depicts her as a woman wearing white colour dress ornamented with white pearls while she is sitting on a white lotus. She holds white colour flowers in her hands and she holds a string-instrument called Veena.
The White Colour :
The most prominent feature in the Goddess’s portrait is the white colour. White embodies faith and signifies success. A white flag represents peace and truce. White means safety and usually has a positive connotation. White is associated with hospitals, doctors, and sterility. A colour indicating transcendence, a new-born child is usually wrapped in a white colour dress and when the soul departs it is also covered in a white coffin.
In profession and business, white is associated with transparence, fair play, cleanliness and simplicity. It’s the color of snow and demonstrates cool temperament. White is an open canvass for unlimited imaginations; angels ( paris) in stories for children are usually imagined wearing white clothes. In management parlance we differentiate jobs basis colours. The nomenclature goes like this white collar jobs, blue collar jobs etc. White collar work means a high level of education and a flashy job profile. A job that might need formal attire and would fetch high salaries.
White is associated with goodness, purity and is considered to be the color of perfection. White is the colour of truth and wisdom. It is the wise who wins and the successful is one who has power. With so much of a significance to this colour, the Goddess of wisdom inspires us to acquire eternal knowledge and divine wisdom.
The Lotus :
Lotus is a spiritual symbol in various cultures across the world . In Hindu, Buddhist and Egyptian religions, the lotus is considered a sacred flower. It is a symbol of growth, continuity. It also represents life and its buds symbolizes unyielding potential.
We all know the proverb that a lotus blooms in marsh. A symbol of purity and resurrection the lotus blossoms pure from within untidy waters. Spiritually speaking the human journey transacts from a contaminated world of thoughts to the enlightened state of oneness. In the same way as the lotus flower goes through its growth phases : emerges from dirty water to become a beautiful flower.
To the common man this flower suggests success under difficult situations. Your current circumstances do not decide your success or failure. In fact it is your current state of mindset which defines the future course of your life. Think wise and become beautiful. The lotus makes its way through water and rises above its surface with glory. It remains in water but is not incapacitated by it. You might have been born to poor parents or you might find yourself in the state of a mess but as the lotus suggests, you surely have the chance to bring out and see the beauty of victory.
Hamsa (The Swan) & the Peacock :-
Goddess Saraswati is portrayed sitting along with a white swan on one side and a peacock on the other. A white swan represents purity and an uncompromising attitude for virtues. It is known to have a tremendous amount of discriminating power. The swan’s beak is very sensitive – it can even separate the milk from water. A lesson to be learned is to learn to discriminate the right from the wrong and always be on the correct path. On the contrary the bird Peacock is profusely influenced by weather conditions & shows versatile swings in its moods. It dances in ecstasy when the spring beacons and it cries in agony when it is separated from its mate.
The Swan represents the head and the peacock indicates the heart. Goddess Saraswati teaches the human beings to keep a perfect balance between the head and heart. It educates us to lead an emotionally intelligent lifestyle.
The Veena –
This sitar like instrument symbolizes harmony in life. The music of life will sound melodious only when it is in rhythm. It is basically the music inside our mind which soothes us and not what we listen through our ears. It is the cumulative sound created by our thoughts and actions which create the music in our universe.
Whatever we feel delivers sorrow or happiness. We become what we think. The veena with Goddess prescribes us to be in sync with positive and powerful thoughts. Let the music of success play inside your soul, only then you will be able to attain it practically.
The Book :-
A book in the hands of Goddess does not just underline the importance of acquiring knowledge it also admonishes us to learn to assimilate as much information as we can. This is the internet world and information is power. In order to be successful it is imperative to always be online with the latest in technology and wisdom.
On this day of Basant Panchami I pray to the goddess to bless the complete humanity with the divine wisdom, success and greatest happiness.
By : Ajit Varwandkar
Feedback : md@fsindia.in
Even a ten rupee bill can guard you September 24, 2011
Posted by aglakadam in Jara hut ke, Life and all.4 comments
I never preserved purchase bills till this incident happened with me. A few years back I was in Mumbai and moving from Bandra to Borivali in a taxi. Somewhere on the way, mid afternoon, our taxi was subjected to police checking. Probably there was some crime suspect likely to pass the way and as such each one commuting on that particular road was stopped at the check post. Everyone was asked to produce a proof of identity and whereabouts. It was a tough interrogation. I was asked about the reason why I was in Mumbai and from where I was coming and where I intended to go. Fortunately I had saved the prepaid taxi bill procured early morning and also the hotel bill where I had my meals. These two slips helped me to prove my innocence and we were allowed to go ahead on our way. Many of us who were not able to prove themselves were asked to stay back! (what happened next to them is not known to me, anyway).
I learned a very important lesson to preserve the bill till we reach home. Most of us when we go to a mall or railway station or a hospital, invariably we park the vehicle in the designated parking yard. I have seen people throwing away the parking bill, the moment they cross across the parking barrier. To all such people I suggest “pl do not consider the ten rupees parking bill as scrap, this can be of great help someday for you.” Yet another phenomenon I have come across is that the bill collector at the parking yard is keen to collect back the parking bill from us at the exit gate. The only intention is to reuse and misappropriate. Friends please beware of such miscreants, never give away your bill to potential misuser’s. This is like mineral water bottle, please crush after use and ensure no misuse in future.
Though bills are ephemeral still they provide a lot of education to us. Recently I had breakfast on a highway motel. After the breakfast I was given a memo kind of a shabby sheet with the bill amount scribbled on it. When I asked the billing counter in-charge to give me a proper bill he immediately replied “Sir, what amount of bill do you need?. Surprised and unhappy at this comment, I quizzed him : “What do you mean by what amount?” Whatever amount I am supposed to pay, please provide me a bill for the same amount. The person across the counter apologized, “Sir, rarely I come across people like you, mostly I am asked for a pukka (proper) bill only when someone has to misappropriate and make a claim somewhere!”
Friends I think people in general need to be more alert and better sensitive about bills. A friend shared with me that in a big town when he went to a restaurant to have meals with his family he learned a new lesson. While ordering the food he was cautious about the figures mentioned on the right hand side in front of the dishes in the menu card. However after the meals when the waiter served the bill there was at least 20% deviation in the amount charged vis-à-vis the price mentioned in the menu card! When queried about this to the hotel management they informed that the new menu card was under print and in some fine print somewhere on the menu card it was mentioned about the pro rata changes in the item rates. Not confirming your bills with the services / goods received can be injurious to your budget.
I sometimes see people extremely careless about their purchases. A laundry owner cry’s his woes, “Most of the affluent customers tend to miss out on their bills when they come to collect their belongings!” We have created a special indemnity clause for all such forgetful customers. After the burglary one gentleman was not able to get insurance benefit only because he did not have sufficient documentation required to support his claim. Raja, an employee with an insurance company, bought a computer from a local vendor but did not preserve the invoice. After a few months when he approached the service center for after sales service, he was refused by the service company because he could not produce the proof of purchase!
I share an anecdote here. “Two friends from Delhi once went to London for an excursion. They were moving around in a rented car on city roads. While at the air station they paid their bill for the fuel and got the ‘money paid slip’ in return. As they moved out of the fuel pump the bill was thrown out of the window by one of them. To their surprise they were immediately followed & intercepted by the traffic police and fined for loitering the streets! (Something we can never imagine in our part of the country!). What happens next was a sure setback for the London police. The car riders paid their fine to the police and in return the police exchanged a bill for the fine amount. As they say old habits die hard, they moved ahead and the penalty bill was tossed out of the window again!
Lessons for Excellence :
- Big lessons are hidden in small incidents; we should have an eye to grab those.
- Bills are important, not just from registering your expenditure in the profit and loss statements but also to make your life easy.
- Never temper with your bills, preserve them for some time period at least.
- Always ask for a bill even against a small purchase, you deserve it.
- Always check your bills for authenticity.
Ajit Varwandkar
Email : md@fsindia.in
OBAMA renames OSAMA as DEAD BODY May 2, 2011
Posted by aglakadam in aglakadam, Life and all.Tags: dead, death, life, obama, osama, saddam
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A prince gets married, the bad guy is dead. Looks like good times are back again on earth.
OBAMA declared the death of OSAMA. A flood of searches on google and other engines are showing lacs of results. Live Videos of Prez Barrak Obama declaring the end of Osama Bin Laden is being flashed by various media channels. Huge celebrations seen in USA. I guess this is just like the victory of Lord Rama over Rawana. How so ever strong financially or politically you may be, if you are not on the right path you will lose it all one day. Saddam Hussain was one such personbality who thought he could defend himself by secluding in an underground multilayer safe container.
Britisher’s rules India and did a hoste of cruelties on (Hindustani) human kind .. but their era also had to come to an end. I remember Lt swami Chinmayananda used to say “remember this will also pass away” .. holds true for a good time or a bad time both…. if it is a tough time .. remember this is not for ever, if it is a good time for you, remember that the time may change any moment….
The day a human being stops breathing, people rename it as deadbody. All living beings from any nation, any religion, any colour, any sex, any caste gets the same rename “dead body”. From Benazir to Satya Sai Baba.. every one gets to come to an end in life. The day you change from ‘is’ to ‘was’, your name changes from whatever it was to “dead body”.
Just like the game of Chess, when the game is done, the King & the solidiers rest in the same set box! Life is like this.
Earlier the lesson learned, better and more fruitful for all of us. Let us learn that the sole purpose of this life given to us by GOD is to lead a happy life & make it a place where each one of us can live happily. If you are one such personality you will be always remembered as a great human being. You will be renamed not just once, but twice…. First rename surely would be dead body but finally you will be renamed as a “great soul” …
Friend’s shed your ego’s, start leading a positive life… be happy always and keeep every one around you you happy.. wish you a very happy second rename…
Ajit Varwandkar
email : info@fsindia.in
Promotion wise and Product foolish! April 2, 2011
Posted by aglakadam in Life and all, Management, National Issues.Tags: aglakadam, cricket, fundamental, kotlar, lesson, life, Management, principles, product, success, win, winner
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With the World cup final on cards, the cricket heat is on its peak. The semi final between India & Pakistan was seen as a mega event by most of the Indians. Cricket stadium of Mohali were overcrowded. The stand tickets were sold at an astronomically high price tag, just imagine Rs. 1500000/- for a ticket worth Rs. 15000/- only! Nothing ‘black’ about it; the sale was all open and widely available! A few tickets were sold with a commitment that they would get the seat from where Amir Khan would be easily seen enjoying the match! What a wonderful selling point!
The world cup cricket actually has been a mega market for a variety of products in the country. The semi final and the final matches are avenues for stock clearance for these marketers. From beer to chocklet’s, from posters to t-shirts, everything consumable found a huge market on the day India & Pakistan played the world cup semi final match. I am told there was a tea vendor who earned a revenue of approximately Rs. 200,000 in one single day! This amount is more than what he actually earned over a business period of six months! He was smart enough to cash the opportunity and had operational 5 tea stalls around the stadium!
Make no mistake about it, cricket rules Indian masses & markets! Whenever cricket is played, India has a large congregation of eyeballs. With so much of prospective customer density per unit cricketing hour India has the ability to brand and sell almost anything under the sun which may include the wada pao to car, ice cream to pickles, mobiles to cars & from dreams to hope! There were sellers who could sell vehicle parking space with pseudo safety. In Mumbai there is a child care center which earned huge revenues, because parent’s wanted to handover their kids in safe hands when they were actually enjoying the cricket match!
There is a flood of TV commercials & news paper advertisements while cricket is being played these days. Almost every consumer product was seen attracting a buyer. Offers were plenty. Almost all celebrities on the media got an opportunity to endorse a brand or two! Social networking sites saw their revenues shooting up beyond the roof! Off the ground retired players like Anil Kumble was selling Wipro’ Santoor brand or performing as a specialist anchor on a television sop and in the stadium hundreds of brands were being promoted by the playing cricketers themselves! Even the grass on the ground near the pitch was painted with brands!
Not just in the stands and on the media, a lot of sales happened on the internet aswell. ICC had so much to auction while the cricket tournament! From the coin used for the toss in the match to a cricket bat signed by the players, everything was on auction! I understand that there were thousands of bidders for everything that was on sale. A 200 rupee ball with which the match was played has been bid for almost 10 Lac rupees!
Many online sales sites made huge bucks out of the cricketing fever. Live score on SMS was sold like a hot cake which converted into revenue in millions! There is a famous story about a small girl in US who found two interesting shape stones while coming home from school. She thought of selling it and put the photographs of these stones on the online trading site ebay.com. She was surprised to have a few bidders for these stones, that too for 3-4 dollars! Direct cash out of raw stones!
When Indian and Pakistani cricketers were playing on the ground there was a fortune teller who was selling future to the audience! Local news from Mohali tells that even God was on sale! Two cricket enthusiast ladies were tricked by some vagabonds outside the cricketing event. The ladies were told that if they close their eyes for ten minutes and chant a particular mantra, God will help India win the match! While the docile ladies closed their eyes the guys made themselves rich with cash from the ladies purse!
Smart marketers these days have ventured to defy the fundamental principles of marketing. Philip Kotlar identified “need” as the core origin of all sales but this is not true now. Today we see products being pumped into the households for no need absolutely! Take a trip to a mall or a multi brand retail outlet and see people shopping purely out of “impulse” instinct! The attractive displays and the exciting offers compel an individual to own a product which he/she my actually not need it. Only back home one realizes that the purchase could have been very well avoided or lived without! On such occasions like cricket tournaments products are sold more by managing & manipulating the impulse and less by way of satisfying the need!
The lesson learnt is that everything under the sun sells! Infact you can sell nothing and still earn money! You are just required to have a proper mix of product packaging, branding and placement! Be there at the right place at the right time and sell whatever you want to, even your used slippers!
Such mega events like cricket tournaments in India attract a lot of good and bad sellers in the market place. It is not just possible to stop people from selling incorrect or inferior products / services. Such sales eventually results in the erosion of general trust but who cares! The seller as well enters the short term market with a short term agenda. Fast buck is all that is looked out for.
“Market’s tragedy is that we get sold too soon and wise too late.” If you intend to make money don’t let this opportunity go away. The only need is to have the saleable idea behind the product. Never will you find such a place where anything & everything sells! Go and get your booty now. On the other hand if you are a customer, better to be a good buyer & identify the right product. Never get carried away by the place, price & promotion of the product. Don’t be promotion wise and product foolish.
Ajit Varwandkar
Email : info@fsindia.in
Ready for the warm, prepared for the cold January 15, 2011
Posted by aglakadam in aglakadam, Life and all, Management.Tags: aglakadam, change, counseling, prepare, proactive, success, time, varwandkar
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Small things matter much, specially under extreme situations. I am sure all of us must have experienced at least one such situation in life & got a lesson out of it. Imagine that you are travelling in a train on a cold winter night and the window has a slit which allows the cool breeze rush inside! The kind of cold torture one will have to go through will chill you even in your imagination. True, minor actions (or inactions) can have major implications!
Its really the tough art of extrapolation to foresee extreme eventualities and be prepared for those. In cold countries houses are built in such a manner that the snow does not stay long on the roof, the cold breeze does not enter the rooms through pores or slits, the water supply is through conditioned pipelines so that the water temperature is maintained. Not so in India, because we rarely face these extremes.
Recently most of India has been in the grip of a cold wave. As per a news release, over a period of seven days at least eighteen deaths across the eastern India had been reported because of cold! India is a typical hot temperature land. Summers are mostly pretty hot in most of the regions. Winter is generally not so cold and that’s precisely the reason that many people are not really prepared to take on the extremes of winter season. Surely those who died out of cold would have been the poor ones who did not have enough to manage clothing and medicines to prevent from cold. However the point is that even the well to do and affluent houses are not really well equipped to manage the rare extremes of seasons in India.
We the people on earth are very good at managing inventory of our proactive preparedness. We prepare ourselves on a demand basis. We tend to be more prepared for what is most repetitive in nature and least prepared for what is less frequent, though may be devastating at times! For example earthquake! So much of building – construction is piling up across the states in India but very less of this infrastructure would be equipped to take on a rector scale of 6 plus points! Yes
earthquake does not happen every month, but how can we forget that when it happens, nothing remains the same there after!
What applies to India happens even in the other parts of the world. By the yardstick of infrastructural growth, London is one of the most advanced places in the world. However even in London there are so many lapses in preparedness. You will be
surprised to know that most of the metro rail services in London, even today, are not ready to take on extreme heat, because they do not have an inbuilt air-conditioning system! If the peak summer temperature reaches 35 degree centigrade plus in London, it becomes so uncomfortable and suffocating that people are forced to avoid the use of metro! Thanks to the global warming & climate changes, off late the administration authorities have ventured into replacing old air-condition less compartments with the new well equipped coaches!
One more example of the short sightedness & lack of preparedness is the fate of most of the railway platforms in India. Over years India has seen an ever increasing traffic demand and as such we were forced to add more and more number of bogies to every single train. Eventually at most of the railway stations in India, the last few rail coaches have to rest bare platform. Passengers go through a risky endeavor to alight & board the train in all such bogies!
The message which I intend to drive at is that we should be prepared for all kind of situations. As is said, we should hope for the best but be prepared for the extremes! This applies to every wake in life. While we get ready for the current challenges, we should also have an eye on the likely hood of probable extremes. Had we been better prepared, might be a few deaths out of cold would have been avoided, people in London would have been better off in metro even in hot summers, the pains of thousands of passengers alighting and boarding the last bogies of Indian Rail even at relatively smaller stations could have been ameliorated, some loss on account of earthquake could have been avoided. The only mandate is not to write-off the probability of extremes and be well prepared. Eventually it pays.
Ajit Varwandkar
Managing Director
FS Management (I) Pvt. Ltd.
http://www.aglakadam.com
Email for feedback : info@fsindia.in
Is your resolutions week after a weak? January 8, 2011
Posted by aglakadam in aglakadam, Life and all, Motivation.Tags: aglakadam, change, inspiration, lesson, life, Management, psychology, resolution, success
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Its now a few days post the euphoria of new year 2011. Many of us did venture into getting into a fresh resolution or repeat of previous years resolution with a fresh enthocism!
On the eve of New Year many of us are tempted to think “seriously” on the new year resolutions! Whether you’re looking to make a big change, or just tweak a few little things, the new year gives you the perfect opportunity to reflect on your behavior and resolve to do better going forward. To identify a “fresh” new year resolution is not a big deal but to make the new year resolutions stick for at least 365 days is a million dollar challenge for most of us!. With the holiday & festive spirit around our moral gets uplifted and we resolve to get rid of something that we rather would not have had in our lives otherwise; something we know in the heart of the heart that it is wrong but we still continue doing it!
As per one survey of all those people who make new year resolutions, only 76% try to keep those; rest are those who make New Year’s resolutions but won’t even make the first step toward achieving the goal. Clearly, according to these statistics making and keeping New Year’s resolutions is not as easy as it seems.
A friend of mine briefed that the previous year he read some articles and found some useful tips which made his resolution stay for a bit longer duration but eventually his old self took over and he broke the promise. He said the culprit was lack of willpower and the strong influence of a few of his friends on his decision making criterions!
Surely only a few people do stick to what they resolve as a new year resolution through out the year. If you are one of such lucky person who can manage to keep up to your words. Great!!! Kudos, to you. There are most of those who can not keep up with their new year commitments. There are a few of these people who are really sorry for not being able to keep up their resolutions for long and struggle to make their new year – new resolutions stay around for as long as possible.
In this write-up I intend to help all such people keep up with their resolution this year. I feel this could be a great holiday gift for them!.
Well friends, how did you set your new year resolution this year? I am sure you did a search on face book, twitter or just googled it! However before making a right resolutions search, it is more important to first, believe in yourself that you are going to make your new year resolution stick, no matter how many times you tried and failed in the past. No matter what your resolution is. Be it quit smoking, lose weight, make more money. A word of caution here is that your new year resolution should not be just a fantasy but a realistic architecture of your aspirations and dreams.
Here are some tips to make your resolutions stick (even if you may have lost the spirit ) :
Make your resolution realistic and achievable. If you feel it is too big to handle then brake it into small projects.
Keep your number of resolutions low. Just a few resolutions will be easier to keep – and to keep track of – than a long life-changing list.
Be specific about what you want. “Loose weight” is a good one, but exactly how many kg’s would be a better resolution to track
Be specific about how to achieve your goal. What to achieve has been arrived at, but the road map on how to go about it should also be read along with the resolutions.
Have a iron strong willpower. Without the will you will not be successful anyway.
Create a support group of likeminded people and work in a team. For example if you wish to learn car driving this year, search for a friend who has a similar wish. Work together. Join a driving school & pay the fees in advance, they will ensure that you achieve your goal!
At times it also works to have a mentor/coach or some one to hold you accountable for your success and failures. Give the mentor all the authority to poke you or punch you, whenever you deviate.
Daily affirmations and visualization : It is must. Write your goals on the mirror. When you see yourself in the mirror every morning, just re affirm, it works & is long lasting! Try it. A friend of mine used to write the new year resolutions on the roof above his bed! He wanted to be reminded before and after his sleep!
Today there is an application for almost everything, from losing weight to finding a job. One can use any such application as an help to keep on the New Year`s resolutions. Social media is one such tool and can be a great support in enabling you to keep up with your new year resolutions.
Please note that a small BREAK should not be construed as a full stop! If you have to stop for a while, don’t consider it failure; just start up again. There are times in life – for days or even weeks – when doing anything related to a goal or a resolution would take a back stage, work or family would come to the forefront. In such times just put your goals on hold till the time that you come back again & pick up your wish list where you had let it off
Are you ready to ensure that your new year resolution lasts a year round this time?
Ajit Varwandkar
FS Management (I) Pvt. Ltd.
Email : info@fsindia.in
