La vita è bella

For most part of our life, we run after things that do not last. We run after ‘jobs that pay the rent’; women/men that break our heart and money that doesn’t last. What we do not realize is that we walk through an entire lifetime without spending much time appreciating the gift of “one life” that we have got. Guilty- as charged! Well I am as much a culprit as you all are. Somewhere down the line, we lose focus of the whole point of “living” and spend a lot of time running from one goal to another. Don’t get me wrong, ambitions are a must and one must try and achieve all that one is capable of, but we must also not lose focus of the larger picture – enjoying the life that we have. Don’t leave too much to do for too late, for we have no clue how long we might live. ‘Make each day count’.

Most of you might wonder, why this new found love for life? Are you dying or something? Well, not really. There are times in life when you come across people or events that make you stop and wonder – have I lived my life completely? There are even times when you feel, “I wish I could life my life that way”. Well, I just realized it is never too late to change. Today, I wish to narrate my experiences meeting this Korean guy named Song Angler. I barely talked to him a few sentences and must have met him for a total of 40 minutes, but man! They were the best 40 minutes I ever invested talking to another person.

I was out shopping for china clay tea-set at Shanghai technology centre (known for scores of shops and inexpensive stuff) and I chanced upon this little shop in the corner where the prices were too excessive, considering the neighborhood. I would not find it difficult to accept the fact that the only reason I entered the shop was to check out how this man can stay in business selling stuff that has such a markup as compared to other shops in the arcade. As expected there was no one in the store and the only things on sale were clothes for children – years 2 to 6. What was more shocking was the entire line of clothing was British-Victorian. You had the Scottish 3 piece suits for young lads and dress gowns with accessories for the young ladies. Imagine an entire line of clothing dedicated to dressing up an age group, which doesn’t believe in “dressing for the occasion”. That’s not all; the entire line of dressing was too formal for the age group and was priced on par or slightly higher than adult clothing in the shops nearby. Too many handicaps I remember thinking to myself, no wonder this guy has no business!

Song Angler welcomed me with a warm smile and his first words were “sorry, I don’t know mandarin”. After exchanging pleasantries, I stood there looking at his clothesline and silently judging him for his abject lack of business skills. After noting down a few points on his laptop, he turned to me with a smile and said, “You must be wondering how I do business?” I remember smiling at him as if to say, “I think you are too ambitious for your own good”. He suddenly pats me on the back and says, “Its not just you, very often I keep asking that to myself.” It was good enough for me that finally I could talk to an Asian guy who spoke fluent American English. He said, “Don’t look surprised, I have lived almost 20 years in New York”. Intriguing! How could a man living in the business capital for 20 years, make a rookie mistake of opening up expensive clothing store in China – known for its inexpensive assembly line products. He looked at me and said – “No I am not stupid, I am here by choice and following my dream”. Wow! That must be one hellu’va dream that brought a man settled in New York with a high paying job to move to China.

Song worked for Ralph Lauren-Polo, a designer clothing brand known for its dress shirts and trousers. For 15 years he worked up the corporate ladder to become the chief buyer for Ralph Lauren for Asia market. He told me that he even visited Shanghai couple of times to understand business in China and to use Chinese labor to create a cost effective supply chain for Ralph Lauren- Polo. It was during these visits that he got to know that the fashion industry was on the decline (according to him) and the designer clothes were more about how to increase the bottom-line rather than the pleasure of creating new styles. It was not why Song had joined the fashion industry and that very moment he quit. He goes on to narrate how for the next few years, in New York and Shanghai, he continued on his quest to bring back style quotient into the clothes we wear. According to Song, newer styles must be more practical for the end consumer rather than a means to grab money for the designer. For the next 15 minutes, he showed me the intricate design and techniques of tailoring that he had taught a family in rural China, who were now his suppliers and he had stores open in Shanghai to sell the same. Song said this business was to satisfy his creative quotient and give him the happiness of creating dress fashion for a whole new younger generation (who have lost taste to authentic fashion in the haze of party wear). “Its not for profit, I have fixed sales target and want the quality rather than quantity; also quality doesn’t come cheap” says Song.

I asked him, “Do you not fear the Chinese assembly line manufacturing style. There would soon be inexpensive versions of your clothes-line”. Song says, “ I hope they copy me and make it better. The world needs better clothing style”. I ended up buying nothing from his store, but he still had a smile on his face. He was happy to have shared his passion about clothing with another human being and enriched his life with some basic knowledge of picking up good clothes. Song loved fishing too. He spent most of the time outside the world of clothing with his family, fishing. I am an inventor says Song. I like inventing new things and I am not constrained by the thought whether the idea would sell. As I left, he handed me his card and said, “it was a pleasure talking to you and thank you for listening to me.” I was humbled to the core. I just thought to myself, how many people could claim to be as happy as Song Angler; doing things they love and living life with its full glory. A handful maybe, and I left the shop learning few lessons on life that I do not intend to forget anytime soon. I thought to myself, I love writing and can express myself well on that medium, how much pleasure would I get if I had a job doing what I like. Would I be as happy as Song Angler? Well, let the time decide on that one.

So long….

Freedom ? What were they thinking !!

Its that time of the year when people are out in the street trying to enforce their freedom to oppose even at the cost of some one's freedom to speak. Yes, I am indeed talking about the Sir Salman Rushdie fiasco that happened at the Jaipur literature fest (JLF) last weekend. It got me thinking, even if the Muslim organizations were right in saying that Sir Rushdie's book "Satanic verses" critiqued the practices of Islam and hence caused them immense hurt; were they right in trying to hound him out of the seminar that he was supposed to address. Is this actually a case where freedom to oppose a viewpoint triumphs over freedom of speech or is this a case of misuse of freedom of speech? The more I thought on those lines, it began to dawn upon me that there is a very fine line to distinguish the two and in India we usually don't see the line at all.



Indians are notorious for their hypocrisy. They want the perks of being a free country but still haven't gotten down with the concept of freedom. Incidentally, freedom also has a class bias in India and many times the rich and the mighty seem to be more free than the rest of us down here. The prism with which we view freedom is often political and hence the degree of freedom that we enjoy changes from time to time (based on how far the next elections are and who is currently in power). In Sir Rushdie's case, his plans to address a group of people about his book "Satanic verses" was just too close to elections and hence his freedom of speech got curtailed and the deoband and ullemas enjoyed the higher freedom to oppose. People all around cried hoarse about the unfair treatment meted out to a scholar like Sir Rushdie; even the opposition fought for his freedom of speech - pretty rich huh, for a political outfit that recently hounded noted painter (Late) M.F. Hussain out of India for some paintings that was objectionable according to them. It got me thinking, this is unfair! Are we actually free or does our freedom have political constraints. Can artists have absolute freedom to express themselves or should all freedom be tempered with reasonable restraints.



The maze of thought is very confusing because what rules fit for one case, fails in other cases and there cannot be "one rule for all" and this makes freedom of expression the most complicated freedom to enforce in a multi-lingual and multi-racial society like INDIA. Very recently, the Delhi high court was in the news for pulling up the executives of online content companies like Google, Face book, Twitter, YouTube etc. for showing scant respect for local laws and being unable to effectively monitor the content posted by users on their websites. The case was typical as the websites argued that they have immunity from libel laws for content and monitoring would amount to transgressing freedom of speech of its users. The court put these companies to notice by giving out a stern warning that the websites will be blocked if they don't comply to local laws. No sooner, the headlines read "India going the China way"; unfair? maybe, but certainly not excessive.



In this case, the netizens (as they prefer to call themselves) had taken their freedom too far and sought to use slander as a means to critique. Somehow, due to lack of proper definition, FREEDOM was being (mis)used to justify unacceptable behaviour. There was a big hue and cry when the companies carrying content stated that it was impossible to censor the Internet; yet, at the same time allowing their medium to host caustic views stating freedom of speech and not taking accountability because of laws that disallow libel and slander proceedings against such companies. It basically meant, you are free to use Internet to post anything you want and nothing can harm you as long as you are outside the geographical borders of any particular nation state that you are choosing to slander. This is unacceptable, I mean for God's sake, even the envoys and ambassadors are accountable for the views that they carry and can be declared "persona-non-Grata" by the host country (so much for diplomatic immunity). How can people run away from the accountability and state freedom of speech as a reason?



While I was still concurring with the views of the honorable judge in forcing accountability to the views that one posts online and stating that "No freedom is absolute, it has to be tempered with reasonable restraint", did the Sir Salman Rushdie incident happen. Again, this was a case where the author in question, a noted scholar and winner of Booker prize; had his book "Satanic verses" banned in India in 1988-89. Now, 24 years later, he was invited to a literary fest in Jaipur where he was to read passages from the said book and present his views. It seems that the deoband and the ullemas haven't moved past 1988 and this time wanted the author banned and muted rather than his book. In this case, one party states freedom of speech and the other states libel and slander laws. Dicey eh! You betcha. No wonder we had the Government of Rajasthan cowering under pressure and creating a story or two about terrorist strikes and keeping Sir Rushdie from attending this fest. If you try and go by the letter of the law, Sir Rushdie must be stopped because for one, he plans to read paragraphs from a banned book and secondly his views about Islam was bound to create disharmony in the community. Does it go by the spirit of our constitution? well that's a whole different matter. Indians do not realise one basic thing, we cannot have different laws for different cases, we have to use the statute and temper it with the spirit of the constitution to apply the same law for different cases. Executive does not have this wisdom, as its often laden with the burden to satisfy people's aspiration (however unreasonable), so it should be the purview of the judiciary to take a view in all such cases. Somehow, the executive gets involved every time and the entire drama makes the constitution look foolish.



Instead, the Supreme Court has to read the law and lay down the spirit of the law for all people irrespective of who they are and who they know, to follow. If the executive is in violation of this spirit to gain in electoral battle, it should be termed unconstitutional and the Supreme court should direct the President to dismiss the Government, for an executive that cannot follow the constitution in the letter and spirit (for whatever compulsions) has no right to remain in office. If one such example is made out, maybe we wont have more such dramas being played out in public and maybe people will not mock at the constitution with absolute impunity. On the Republic Day, we had an article making rounds, "Have we failed our constitution or has it failed us?"; I would have no hesitation in saying, we most certainly have failed our constitution and not the other way around.



The spirit of freedom, as enshrined in our constitution and other such documents around the world have the same spirit of accountability. It can be encapsulated by the Miranda rights of freedom to remain silent; and if you choose to give up this freedom, you will be accountable for the words of your mouth. Its as simple as that. It solves both our cases both in letter and spirit. Freedom does not mean Sir Rushdie is allowed to slander any community or religious belief nor does it mean anonymous persons being allowed to post anything on the Internet. It actually means, holding people accountable to the views that they carry. For a truly free man/ woman would not run away from that accountability.



Most importantly, one must distinguish between slander and critique. The judicial contempt laws help us on this one, "ability to critique a judgement without critiquing a judge or ascribing motives". If someone finds a religious practise wrong they must be allowed to critique it without slandering the religion, wholly on merits. If we as a society cannot take criticism and have too many holy cows whom we do not question, then we will have to spend more time filing suits against people for questioning our faith. We must encourage healthy criticism right from childhood and have schools provide a platform to young minds to question everything we do. If we do not embrace criticism, it re-routes itself into our society as abuse and slander. Lets provide a healthy outlet for all citizen to bring out their views and not force them to take anonymous paths to spew venom. Lets truly define and follow freedom in letter and in spirit and not force people to ask "Am I really free in India?"



So long....

Open letter to Arvind Kejriwal

Credits: This was a wonderful post authored by Mr. Anant Rangaswamy. Simply loved it. Will share it with you guys. I simply had to have this post. So here goes....

Arvind Kejriwal has written an article in The Times of India asking people to suggest the way forward for Team Anna. “The anti-corruption movement is at the crossroads today. Where do we go from here? We are conscious that a wrong decision at this stage could prove disastrous for the movement,” he writes.

Here we go, Mr. Kejriwal, if you care to listen.

Remember that you’re the salesman. You have a product and you want to sell it to the political class, particularly to members of Parliament. This is not your usual sale; the ‘buyer’ has no need and no want for the product — which immediately means that in negotiations, the salesman is significantly weaker than the buyer.

If at all you want to sell your Jan Lokpal Bill, what you cannot afford to do is to walk away from the deal; the politician would be delighted. What you cannot do is heap abuse, belittle and besmirch the buyer.

The only way forward is to deal with the situation as a good salesman would.

• Tell your client why he needs it at all: Imagine, 25 years ago, you were a salesman of vacuum cleaners, a product neither wanted nor needed. Think of the Lokpal bill as a product facing similar challenges, and remember that the sale is going to be long and hard. Time needs to be spent on evangelism and education.

• Describe your product in detail to the client: Spend time with parliamentarians and party chiefs and explain why your version of the Jan Lokpal Bill is better than all others, in the same spirit that a salesman of, say, photocopiers educates his prospective customer. Get more and more parliamentarians to buy in. Think of all these parliamentarians as members of the household who could influence a sale – perhaps the party chiefs are equivalent to the head of the household, the final decision maker.

• Build a relationship with the prospect: This is not a quick, uninvolved sale, like a razor blade. The product you are trying to sell is such that the sale process will be long and tiring. Establishing a rapport with the client is an essential ingredient in your chances for a sale. Clients are more likely to spend time with salesmen they like, rather than salesmen they do not like. Get your clients, the politicians, to like you and admire you for your effort and persistence. No salesman worth his salt will rave and rant at a prospect; none can abuse a client and hope to close a deal. Good salesmen will build relationships with prospects they do not like and prospects who treat them badly – because the only thing that matters to them is the sale.

• Do not set unachievable deadlines: The moment you do, desperation will show as the deadline approaches. The moment this happens, the salesman gets more aggressive – and the customer more wary. Remember, in this case, the customer never wanted the product in the first place. The moment the desperation increases, politicians will be relieved – that the endless pressure of being sold a product that they didn’t want will end soon.

• Make the client feel like a winner: Let the client feel that he is a part of making a significant decision that will change his life for the better. Good sales make the client look good, not the salesman. Do not broadcast details of the negotiations when they are in progress, especially when you think you’re winning or you think poorly of your client. The more you do this, the less the client will want to meet you, let alone buy from you.

Fundamentally, in all sales, good salesmen need to establish how much or how little a prospect needs and wants the product on offer. Establish negotiating positions from there.

Team Anna is selling a product which is unwanted – and the negotiating position needs to reflect this truth.

What we have seen since April is negotiations based on a premise that
a) The salesman will convince the buyer
b) That the sales process would be short; and;
c) That the buyers would just keel over and fall when they come to the negotiating table.

That’s our advice. Unlike you, we don’t say this way or the highway. There will be others with other views that reach you as well.

The minimum you have to do is to listen – that’s something Team Anna has proven to be very poor at.

So long...