It's a new world...

The world as we have read has moved through various ages over it’s history. There was the Stone Age with the caveman who used to hunt animals and gather food for survival - it was also the “Hunter-Gatherer Age”. It lasted for tens of thousands of years - perhaps millions. The pace of change in the world was extremely slow and things remained the same for generations upon generations of humans. 

But there was growth and man moved to the “Agriculture Age” where he started settling down and adopted tools and land for farming and subsequently trading and exchange of goods. Division of labor set in slowly and there was a time many centuries back when there other socially useful trades came up. The son learnt the trade from the father and it got handed down the generations. A farmer’s son was a farmer and a potter’s son a potter. Accumulated knowledge and an ecosystem which was already established helped in moving further from where the father left it. This lasted tens of thousands of years or more perhaps. 

Enter the “Industrial Age” and jobs were created for the first time - organised labor increased the productivity of the world and it seemed like the perfect way forward for the world. Factories, jobs, training, education has served us for over 300 years. But if you notice, the speed of change increased and the span of stability decreased. In our memories we saw the transition from the Industrial Age to the “Information Age”. A time when machines and factories and capital assets started being valued lesser than the Information that you owned and could distribute. This age is not older than 50 years at most. Millions of years to tens of thousands of years to hundreds of years to 50 years give and take…and we have started hearing of Artificial Intelligence which can start self organising the knowledge around us as well. Blockchain removes the need to verify and validate to a large extent. 

I am of the opinion that we are moving into a new age which I call the “Imagination Age”. An age where you are only limited by your Imagination and if you don’t have one, you are the cursed one. It’s an era where unlimited resources are at our disposal for doing anything that we can imagine. But imagine we must. That is something that cannot be delegated, nor automated, nor process driven. The only way to survive in this age is to believe. To believe that “whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve”. You don’t need a factory to produce, you can prototype and try. You don’t need huge budgets to market, you can use the power of social. You don’t need to run from bank to bank for funds, you can simply crowdfund. You don’t need a conference room and a an expensive conferencing system, Skype and Zoom and FaceTime are accessible to every common man. You don’t need a store monopoly but can do with a web front that anyone can make. The only thing you need is Imagination…the power to imagine what is it you will use these free resources for. 

Junk

Junk is not just in food but in everything that we do. Junk food is that food which gives us calories from only carbs and fat and not the calories which come from Proteins, Vitamins and Minerals. Thus, though working energy comes from both types of foods, the second one gives the energy and nourishes the body in myriad ways as well. When eating just becomes a pastime, it starts hurting. 

Just like food can be junk or nutritious, so can be books and association and conversations....everything. Whenever I am sitting at an airport and I see a 45 year old reading Robert Ludlum, it saddens me because they seem totally unaware of the fact that though the book is fun and is a good pastime, the same things can be achieved along with experiencing personal growth and inspiration and lofty feelings at the same time.

The same goes with associations and conversations as well. Though we do need meaninglessness from time to time to break free from the mental rut, it cannot be the only thing we engage in all the time. We need to choose our association and our conversations which are not in the junk category all the time. We can still build the relationships and have a good laugh and build the bonds while nourishing the mind and the spirit all at the same time.

But the most interesting thing is that making money can also be junk or nutritious. When we pursue ways of making money which serve only ourselves, it is no less than junk food. But when our pursuit of material wealth necessitates personal growth and the benefit and growth of others around us, nothing can be more nutritious to the society and the world at large. 

The body will still run, time will still pass, money will still roll in...the question we always need to ask is how much is the junk component in each and that will increase the meaningfulness of our lives. 

The "Missing-out-the-obvious" Bias

In the course of evolution, we have developed some traits which ensure our well being and survival. But the same traits could be going against our becoming successful. 

One of them is what I call the missing-out-the-obvious bias. Whatever we keep seeing, smelling or feeling for a long enough period of time, our brain starts ignoring it. In a way it's good because that's how humans can remain happy in whatever state they may be. In pain, in poverty, in filth...their brain stops noticing things around them which remain the same. In other ways, it's not so good because our brain also stops acknowledging what's good and happening in our lives. Great kids, house, car, health or friendships. 

But this is specially harmful for our becoming successful. We draw our organisations (calling it BIB or Board in the Bedroom) to be able to plan our course of action, but when we keep seeing the org chart drawn from before, very quickly our brain stops really "seeing" it. Same with our action item list. When we make a master list and just keep watching it, we simply start ignoring it. Or with our self talks too - though when we play it repeatedly, it goes to the subconscious; on the other hand, the moment it starts playing, our minds start wandering to other places very quickly.

And that is why these things have to be converted into living models rather than dead. Every time you draw the org chart afresh, it triggers new areas in the brain; every time the to do list is made anew, new things come to the fore of the mind; and every time the self talk is spoken instead of just heard, new dreams and goals come forth and come alive again...

Why is it so difficult to become a business owner?

One of the biggest difference between doing a job for an entrepreneur vs being an entrepreneur is the way work is created. An entrepreneur is proactive and is constantly thinking about expanding the frontiers of his kingdom and his thinking. Creativity is natural in anything which you love and are passionate about. And this creativity gives rise to new ideas for expansion. These ideas come as hunches or intuition at the most improbable of times. A good entrepreneur does not ignore these hunches but gives them due respect and treats them like bright ideas which need pondering over. And then he converts them into actions to be tried and implemented. If he has employees, he makes them work on these ideas and bring them to fruition. And that is why, when we go to work every day, the boss has a list of things to be done for the short term, medium term and the long term. We get to work on them and fulfil the dreams of the entrepreneur who actually dreamt them. 

On the other hand, for the entrepreneur himself, which is people like us in this case, one of the biggest responsibilities is to create work. It will not be assigned to us. Nobody will come and tell us things to do. We need to stoke our creativity, capture the ideas when they arise, and try them with our heart and soul. And that creates success which differentiates us from the rest of the crowd. If we keep waiting for work to come to us, we can sit idle forever and it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. We need to become good at just sitting with a pen and paper and make lists of things to do - just put down every single idea that comes to the mind. There is magic in making lists. It's that they end up getting done sooner than later only to create more ideas which come on more lists and in turn create a positive cycle of accomplishment and achievement.

Trust vs Information

Isn't it strange that some people speak so less but are so convincing with people whereas others have to do so much work and tell so many stories and examples for the same result? Conviction in a person is nothing but trust in that person. And the more we trust someone, the lesser the information we need from them to believe what they are telling. One the other hand, the lesser the trust we build with someone, the more the information and facts and figures and proofs we need to provide to convince them of our point of view. 

One needs to decide the approach they want to take. Work on collecting data and facts or work on building themselves, their personalities and their non-verbal and verbal communication in a way that trust becomes implicit. The latter is an easier, more long term approach. Here are some things I have found are needed to build trust:

1. Positive pure vibrations that we send out to people  - when we meet people we are very friendly on the outside but what are we thinking on the inside. When we don't genuinely see the good in people, whether we show it or not, it goes across to them through a sixth sense that we all have.

2. Common bonds - human relationships are very much like the covalent bonds we study about in chemistry. A single bond is weaker than 2 bonds which are weaker than 3 or 4 and so on. These covalent bonds in the case of people are common things we have between each other. You and I could both love cars or we could both love travelling to the beach or we could both have a son and a daughter or we could be both from the same state or city or went to the same school or got married in the same year or were in the same city at the same time or whatever common can be among a zillion things possible. The more then common things we find between us, the more we have the "me too" experiences, the more the trust between us. And how does that happen? When we are focussed on making the other person talk more than we talk.

3. Becoming a genuine fan of the other person - most people in the world are poor in one area of life - having enough people to listen to their story of life. Everybody is so busy talking about their problems and their points of view that there is no time to listen to the other person. True undisturbed listening is almost cathartic. Whenever I am with somebody I am just looking to know more about them and how they happened to reach here in their life. Regardless of where one is in life, they have created some massive victories in their life to reach where they are. Walked to school on feet, took a loan to study, overcame a broken household, went through the trauma of failing multiple times or losing a loved one and so on. And when I get them to tell me about their story, one thing almost always happens - I become a true fan of theirs for what they did in their life. I really believe that in similar circumstances I could not have done better. 

And once trust is established, it's a matter of a few sentences to get your point across to the other person.

Trust builds over the years...like with our mentors Manipal & Renuka who have stayed by our side through thick and thin...

Heartwarming.....not housewarming!

We just finished another superb day in our lives yesterday….and what a day it was indeed. We witnessed what love does to a non living thing….it blows life into it. Which is what happened to the brick-mortar-wood-stone house we are just finishing. By itself, it could just vanish from the face of earth and nobody gives two hoots about it. But the way love overflowed through it’s veins yesterday, and with such vigor, it suddenly woke up and took a life of its own. When it received a scrubbing and brooming and dusting and vacuuming and mopping the previous night, it was cold to the touch and hard to feel. But as they kept at it with their hearts, there was that little bit of a semblance of life. As it started seeing the texts and pictures of how it was conceived and how people put their sweat and heart to bring it about, the semblance turned into a flicker. But as the day passed and hundreds of people started coming and pouring their love and their energy and consciousness and the magic of their faith, nothing dead could have remained so anymore, anywhere….and it was a joy to behold. It seems it has suddenly come to life!! We are fortunate in two ways….one in that we will get to live in a house buzzing with the supernatural energy of billions of watts for a few years but the bigger and more amazing second reason that makes us incredibly fortunate is that we personally know every magician who came and did this magical feat which has never been accomplished. Thank you God for this incredible fortune!!!

Are you Fired Up?

We have the privilege of being able to talk to a marvellous human being like Shivaram Kumar because Manipal sponsored him. Some time back, when we were in the middle of a seemingly bad situation (there are actually no emergencies in our business), Manipal connected a couple of us to Kumar. Happy go lucky that Kumar is, he is astoundingly sharp with an intuition which is unbelievably strong. With just our tones of saying hello he guessed our state of mind. Before we could explain the situation to him, he said "...hold on...hold on...I have a question for you guys....are you fired up?". We couldn't understand where this question came in the middle of a very serious topic. We said a muted "yes, we are" and wanted to continue but he just wouldn't listen. The only question he kept repeating is "Are you really fired up?". Finally after 3-4 times we got it a little bit and then he said "....guys...the situation is not important....what is important is your attitude...with the attitude that you guys have right now, there is no way you can anyways find a solution...". We needed no more answers and solutions from him. He answered a question with a question and finished all our questions. Brilliant!!!

Mentoring relationship

I remember the question Kanti asks in his talk - you can see the 270 degrees but who is covering the 90 degrees you can’t see? 

Relationships are like a car service. Even if you don’t regularly service your car, it keeps running fine for most of the time. It feels like stupidity to do the service and spend the time and money in the first place. The only time we realise the mistake is when it breaks down in the middle of the road, in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere and with the family in the car. 

It’s the same with building a mentoring relationship. It’s not much use when things are going fine. Most of the time it seems like nothing much is coming out of the time we are spending with our mentor. But once in a blue moon, once in a few years, we get stuck. In a financial mess, in a decision paralysis, in a relationship mess. We feel alone and lost and so deep into the problem that it seems futile to tell anybody the story from the beginning about how we got there in the first place. And that is when the investment of time and energy into the mentoring relationship comes handy. Just like a savings account. You make the deposits and it doesn’t seem to go anywhere. But in time of real need, it seems like the best thing we ever did. 

We have got a chance to see both kinds of people. The ones who kept investing into it and the ones who didn’t. Both landed into life situations because that’s life. For the ones who were invested, the recovery period was maybe a few weeks or a month. But for the ones who didn’t build that trust and that relationship it was all uphill and gone. Few lucky ones survived their business, their jobs and their marriages. Most didn’t.

With mentors and then mentors of mentors...everyone needs someone watching their back!!

Knowledge Bias

I spent time with a downline today and he was not getting results in his plan. After asking different things, I asked him to show me the plan as if I was the prospect. I was a little surprised at the way he showed the plan. What he showed was what he learned 3 years back in his first stint in the business. Ever since he came back a month back, he has been attending all home meetings and seeing my plan which has almost 100% changed. When I told him where he was making mistakes he was really embarrassed and ashamed of himself. He was wondering how he could continue showing what he was showing despite seeing something totally different in the weeks past. 

This is called knowledge bias and is one of the biggest reasons we fail to learn new things and grow. The moment our brain hears information about a topic it has heard many times before, it simply shuts down. The eyes keep watching, the ears are open but there is no seeing or listening. It just assumes that this information is known and no energy needs to be spent in absorbing more information. The same applies to a training, a product session and a seminar or conference. No doubt we stay where we are and don’t grow. It’s the same with reading and listening to a talk on CD as well. Only 1% of the people who read a book or listen to a talk, really change something from it. Because they go through every book/CD with a programming that this one will give them the key to the next growth wave, the next big idea, the next big inspiration.

What is needed is an instruction to the brain every single time to be open, alert and see/hear everything with a fresh outlook as if it’s the first day of the rest of our life.

Relax...

One of the biggest uses of our body is to focus our mind on it. When the mind is focused on the feeling inside the body and the sensations of our body, the body starts relaxing and surprisingly so does the mind. As the mind starts relaxing, it stops creating thoughts. Our mind is not fully duplex meaning either it can receive or it can transmit. When it is creating thought, it is in the transmission mode. Only when the creation stops does it start receiving and then the thoughts which are floating in the universe can be caught by it...and only in these moments come the best ideas for business....and for life....

It's not about hocus-pocus, it's all about focus...

We being the kind of smart people that we are, the one thing that constantly keeps tugging on us are new ideas for new businesses. A restaurant, a training institute, a new app, a new product development company, a new E-commerce venture and what not. The idea comes, makes home into our being, grows, becomes an obsession in a few days and then slowly dies down. The cycle continues every few days. The only thing that comes out of it is wastage of precious time and focus from what we already have in our hands. One in hand they say, is worth 2 in the bush. 

They say, the more things change around us, the more they remain the same. Having built a successful venture myself, having gone through the cycle of ups and downs many times over and having seen so many people try different things in front of my eyes, I feel I have some authority to talk on this. 

The most important thing required to be understood is what is our goal in a business. In the language of our business itself, the goal is at least, minimum, Founder Platinum (not even Diamond) - which means a sustainable 60-70k a month on an ongoing basis, month after month after month. A cash-flow which is sustainable. 

Just like in our business, in every venture one undertakes, it’s easy to go till 9% because YOU are the only one needed to do 9%. But the moment you start thinking of going 12% and 15% and then Platinum, all hell breaks loose. Because suddenly, it’s not just your commitment that counts. You have to take care of recruitment, attrition, sales, finances, marketing and human resource management as well. Just like in our business. People go 9% quickly and think they will go Platinum in 6 months now but that’s not what happens. They not just need to create a team by “recruiting” the right kind of people, work towards making sure they are able to retain people by working at their need level and personality, handle products/stocks/returns/credit cards, increase sales and build relationships all at the same time. 

The problem is, when one thinks about setting up a 3rd venture (apart from the full time job and our business), it’s very tempting, but one is only thinking as far as building it to 9%. The scaling up to Founder Platinum level in that venture is nowhere in the picture. Nor do we have any idea what it will take. Except our business, in most other business, scaling up takes fixed costs - rentals, salaries, bribes and government fees. And they have to be paid irrespective of whether you are turning a profit or not. 

Yes, if you are building our business as full time venture 1, you can think of venture 2 because that’s how you built the business in the first place. But bring it to that level first - which is at least Emerald and beyond. My upline always taught me….become awesome in one thing first. Make that pillar so strong that it can support every ladder of your life. Success is not about hocus pocus….it’s all about focus!!!

English Vinglish...

I liked watching the movie “English Vinglish”. But the best part of the movie is towards the end when the lead character says two things that are so true to our life

1. “You will be very busy but make sure you create  family. Because it will be your own world within this world. Family is never judgemental. Family is the only one who will never laugh at your weaknesses. Family is the only place where you will always get love and respect....”

2. “ When we don’t like ourselves, we don’t like anything that is connected with our life either. But when we start liking ourselves, the same old world of ours starts looking totally new and we start liking everything about it. Thank you for teaching me to like myself....”

I thought they were so true to our lives and there was so much to learn from it......and how would it be if we could call our teams our family....

Health Blessings...

One of the blessings that we got from our family was the blessing of Biochemic medicine. 

From as far back as I can remember, people used to come to my grandfather every day in the morning at his home and shop both, asking for medicines for various problems. And I remember him making small paper packets and giving to them. 

From forever, for almost every conceivable ailment we had, I remember my mother mixing some of those magical salts and giving them to us and with magical relief.

Biochemic stream of medicine was founded by the same guy who invented Homeopathic medicine. In the quest to find something that everybody can use, he figured that majorly there are 12 inorganic salt compounds that are needed by our cells. In the event of a deficiency of any of them, there is disease. The biochemic salts are so diluted that they can work at the cellular level and when administered, they kind of kickstart the cells to start absorbing the missing salts from the bloodstream. The magic of this therapy lies in its simplicity, ease and harmless nature in case of mistake unlike other streams of therapy. 

Though it started with just helping ourselves, over the years as more and more people got to know about the efficacy of these medicines they started using it as well. And what a blessing it is for everybody who has been touched with it. Nutrilite and Biochemic medicine have been the biggest health blessing in our lives. Together they have saved us countless visits to the hospital and doctors and immense money and pain saved. Whether it be getting burnt or a corn on the feet or the pain of sciatica nerve or the demon of common cold or bleeding or injury or conjunctivitis...the list is almost endless...

Our dream is to spread the joy around the world. And the thing with blessings is that the more you share them, the more they multiply and that is one of the goals of our life. One dream on the dream list is to be able to effect a million cures through biochemic salts and to one day do a TED talk on how something so inexpensive and simple can solve so many irritating pains of life...

Discovering Genius...

There is brilliance and genius all around us and even though it might be right in front of our eyes we might just altogether miss it. People have spent their lifetimes pursuing a field of thought and through infinite patience and meditation arrived at the true essence of knowledge in that particular field. 

In a world of heavenly abundance, we might, for all we know, still be living in complete lack because of our ignorance. We are trying to reinvent the wheel instead of building upon those lives spent already. I believe it is only one’s fortune that they might stumble upon or I might say be led to the work of such geniuses.  And when one does, you feel the same “aha” feeling; the feeling of genius shining through and it feels like you made the biggest discovery of your lifetime. This business has provided us the time, the resources and the flexibility to be able to indulge and discover more and more of these pearls in the ocean of life. 

The following are the works and minds which have given infinite pleasure to me:

Finance:

Harry brown : Fail Safe Investing

Benjamin Graham : The Intelligent Investor

Cycles and Economics:

Martin Armstrong : www.armstrongeconomics.com

Architecture:

Christopher Alexander : The Pattern Language

Child development and growth:

Glen Doman : How to Teach your child to Read

Spiritual insights and ultimate truths:

Rajneesh

Sister Shivani of Brahmakumaris

My mother who is a friend, philosopher and guide

and the biggest of all

Bill Britt, without whose genius our life would have been but running from pillar to post... 

Go Diamond - where your Diamondship dream is cemented...

This article was published in the January 2012 issue of The Lamplighter

Trying to promote the Go Diamond is like showing the lamp to the sun. It is a function that your upline doesn’t have to promote to you….YOU are the one who fights it tooth and nail just to be there!!!

I must tell you about my first Go Diamond to start with. Ever since I started the business, the one function I heard about all the time was THE Go Diamond. It was so heavily promoted that I travelled all the way to Orlando in the US to attend one. My flight got delayed and I was feeling so terrible because I didn’t want to miss even a minute of the function. After travelling for almost 40 hours, I just put on a jacket over my stale clothes and from the airport, directly reached the venue of the function. The first session was almost over by the time and made it and running into the venue who do I get to meet? Kanti and Lata Gala. They were stunned to see me there though they didn’t even know my name by then and I was so overwhelmed to see them that I half the function got over for me just by taking a picture with them. 

My upline had figured a way to get a seat for me right up there on row 2 and those 2 full days, I was on the edge of my seat. I had attended multiple functions and BBSs by then but this was just different. Everybody who was my hero in this business, whose CDs I had devoured day and night would walk up on the stage and give a talk which would enter straight to the heart. No introduction…. after all it was not thousands of IBOs, it was thousands of silvers+ IBOs - you would know every one of them anyways if you are there…..no sugar coating…..whether you like it or not, if you want to go Diamond, you need to do what we tell you….no “feel, felt, found” approach….no making you “feel good”….I was simply zapped!!! I liked it….straight from the hip approach...take it or leave it!! I decided to simply take it...that’s it….period!!! By the time the function was over, I had barely slept for 3-4 hours….sleep was the last thing on my mind….I was ready to Go Diamond!!!

The second Go Diamond I must tell you about was the Go Diamond which became the turning point in our life…..the Go Diamond on 15th and 16th March at the International Expo Centre in Noida!! We had 5 legs attending that Go Diamond and had no idea where the 6th leg would come from!! But that Go Diamond was just magical. We were driving down to the venue in my father-in-law’s car and as soon as we started the car, the radio started and guess what was playing on it - the Rocky Tune!!! Unbelievable….Rocky Tune on India FM channel!!! We reached the venue and when we were looking for parking, the guard somehow thought we were already Diamonds and directed us into the Diamond parking….we smiled and said….next year….and to top it all, we ran into Kanti again and the moment he saw us, he says...congratulations!!! He was breaking so many Diamonds at the time that he mistook that we were already in Diamond qualification….we told him too...Kanti….next year!! Before the function started, we were sure that this function is going to be the magical function for us!!! And what a function it was!! There are functions and then there are FUNCTIONS!!! It was the latter for us!! When Paulraj came and spoke on the stage about how he went back from the Go Diamond and took 2 of his legs from 9% to Silver….it just entered straight into our minds pierced our hearts!!! Lew Riggan came and talked about the heat of going Diamond and how you fake it till you make it and speak it till you get it!! By the time the Go Diamond was over, we knew in our hearts that we were ready…..we came back from that function and started Diamond qualification that year…

Maybe this Go Diamond is your Go Diamond….or maybe you are missing this one because you got lazy and did not do what it takes….but trust me friends….you will not go Diamond without the Go Diamond...

Wired Differently...

The way men and women are wired is very different from each other. 

As far as men are concerned, the way they think is if I get the best house and the best car and the best jewellery and the best vacation for my wife and kids, they will be happy. And that's what they focus on and work towards, assuming it should produce the desired results of approval and appreciation from the lady, which is the driving fuel for the man. This is also the man’s way of showing that he cares for his family. In the process, he ignores the fact that she wants to be noticed, heard and cared for. 

Surprisingly, the way the women see the whole equation is very different. The way they think is - if the guy does not care for me and if he doesn't love me, what's the use of the expensive house and the vacation and the jewellery and the new car? It's meaningless to run after them and work towards them if I'm not even sure that he enjoys, values and cherishes my company. 

The homes where joy resides is where at least one of the wife or husband, or better still both understand this fact and are willing to speak the others’ language....

Facebook

Today morning, like most mornings, as I got up, I did not get out of bed right away. I like to thank the universe for what I have and for the infinite blessings already upon us. I like to see my friends and my family and all the loved ones in my downline and upline in the mind's eye and send forth love and blessings in their direction and feel the goodness that is around us, the beauty that is around us. I like to accept from the supreme power, all the peace , all the love, all the power, purity, happiness that is showering upon us but we can't see because we are too busy worrying about the future or about what we don't have. And that is my internal Facebook account which I like to access all the time. 

I got out of bed after some time and picked the ipad to check on something and by chance Taru's mom's Facebook account was open on it.  As I just scrolled it, I could see updates from Amitabh Bachchan, from all the cousins and nieces and nephews and Narendra Modi....everybody who she likes and appreciates and cares about in the world. It was so marvellous being able to stay in touch with everybody and be able to get a peek into everybody's yester-day and yester-week and yester-month. But by the time I finished through it, the mind had lost all the peace and calm that I was experiencing right before it. 

And that has happened before too. I have 2 Facebook accounts - one for personal friends and another where people in business are added. I have noticed that every time I spend time on my facebook account, I know much more about everybody in the world, but the pictures are all one dimensional. It seems like everybody's life is perfect except mine. It looks like they are having all the fun and I'm the one doing all the work. It looks like what I have is nothing in comparison with what others have. 

I know it doesn't happen with everybody. I know it's not Facebook's problem. And I know it doesn't happen with you. But I like to access my external Facebook as little as possible and my internal Facebook as much as possible. Keeps me more at peace with myself. 

Malarvizhi

The first time I read that name and pronounced it the way a north Indian would....she laughed at it....and I learnt that it’s pronounced as “Malarvili”....meaning whose eyes are like a flower...

Alagiri and Malar used to live in a remote place in the middle of nowhere in Bhadrachalam in Andhra when we first got to know them. Alagiri was working in ITC and they used to live in the township. We started our Emerald qualification and Ramesh sponsored Alagiri in the business - they were old buddies from engineering days. Like everybody Alagiri’s life was the factory and work. But with the business, there was new hope in Malar’s life. When we were desperately fighting for PV, Malar stepped up and Taru travelled to Bhadrachalam - first time all by herself and that too to a totally unknown place - but what she saw on reaching there was impressive. Malar had put up a whiteboard in the drawing room with the names of all the potential customers in that small township and what they could be sold...so much for somebody who just got started. 

We have such fond memories of our trips to Bhadrachalam and towns around.... On one trip they prepared Mirchi Bhajji. Everybody was eating it like we eat Pakodas; we did too. But as soon as the first one went inside, smoke and water started belching out from all openings of the body....we were a sight to watch and understood for the first time what Guntur Chilli meant...

Malar was a dreamer. She is the one who wanted to build the business and pulled Alagiri along. The thing we remember most is her smile...the perpetual smile on her face...and to most questions her answer would just be a chuckle... Though she was so quiet from outside, she was a warrior on the inside. Every month end she would go all the way to Hyderabad, order and collect the products and carry them all the way back to Bhadrachalam...all alone... 

When we went to do a team meeting last month to Hyderabad, she was running high fever and still came to the meeting, just to see us. It’s so difficult to believe that we will not be able to talk to her again and see her again...thank you Malar for the fragrance you spread in our lives...

Serenity

I read this sitting in the doctor’s clinic....touched me....

Fill your bowl to the brim

and it will spill.

Keep sharpening your knife

and it will brunt.

Chase after money and security

and your heart will never unclench.

Care about people’s approval

and you will be their prisoner.

Do your work, then step back.

The only path to serenity...

Many births from one parents

Parents give birth to children only once. And then they destroy them with words that hurt their self image. They destroy them every time they compare them with other kids. When they give them negative about what they cannot do. When they pass their rotten belief-sets to them, limiting their thinking well before it would have rotten anyways. When they try to mold them into what makes the parents look good in the society.

But mine did the opposite. They never mentioned about how I look - I always believed that I was as handsome looking or better than anybody else. They always expected me to be the best I could be and not what others wanted me to be like. They never compared me to anybody else. They never said NO to what I wanted to do in a way that would reduce my confidence on myself. Whether it was going to Europe for the exchange program or choosing the girl I wanted to marry or insist on waiting for IIT and not compromising on it....

They have given birth many times over. They trusted on what I thought about something more than they trusted themselves. They were open to learning from my perspective rather than imposing theirs on me....

And they led me and inspired me to search for the eternal truth of life; to experiment with the unknown; to reach beyond the known....

They gave me many rebirths - for each of the former is a virtual death of the human potential......and each of the latter a certain rebirth of our potential.....

I pray and wish that I can be the parent that they have been to me....