Kal, Aaj aur Kal

Year: 1970

Location: Bus Stand in village of Konkan

Dattu Joglekar had come to see off his son, Vishnu. He had nursed him, since the day, Vishnu was born. Today, Vishnu was leaving for Mumbai to join a textile mill in Mumbai. It was Vishnu’s decision and Dattu had supported him completely. Dattu himself had come to this world just a couple of years before Indian independence. His father’s generation had sacrificed their lives, fighting for independence, with the hope that Dattu’s generation will have better future. But things didn’t change much, even after independence. Dattu spent all his life tilling fields and rearing cattle. He worked hard, but financially he was not able to earn much. That’s the reason, he didn’t want Vishnu to follow his footsteps. So when Vishnu told him his decision about migrating to Mumbai to work for textile mill, Dattu readily agreed for it. Mumbai was the city of dreams. Many of his friends had migrated to Mumbai, a decade ago. Those friends used to tell him about stories about Mumbai. The glamour surrounding Mumbai city had enchanted him.

Vishnu touched his father’s feet and said “Baba, you take care of yourself. Every month, I will send a money order. I promise, I will send enough, so that you don’t have to now work on the fields. I always want to see you happy. Also, Mumbai will give me a good opportunity to grow. All our dreams will come true soon. We will pay off our debts. I will send letters every week. I promise, I will come to see you during every Ganpati and Diwali festival”. Dattu felt proud of his son and blessed him. He embraced him and Vishnu got into the bus. Bus went off the dusty road on the way to Mumbai.

Year: 2000

Location: Chatrapati Shivaji International airport, Mumbai

It was late night, but still area around the airport was awake. As such, Mumbai never sleeps, but airport is a place, where mixed feelings can be seen flooded everywhere. Some people are seen anxiously waiting for their relatives and they would love to see “time” flying faster. Some people come to see off their relatives. They want “time” to wait for sometime, so that they can spend some more “time” with their loved ones. Vishnu Joglekar had come to see off his son, Arvind. Many years back, he had come to Mumbai. Initially, he found very difficult to adjust this new environment. It took 6 months to find a house in Mumbai. Finally, he managed to find a small rented place in chawl in Girgaon. More than half of his salary went for paying rent. A small amount of his salary, he sent to his father. Life was very different here. He had to work hard in the textile mill. In order, to earn some extra money, he took a part time job at nearby shop. His family grew, but his earnings remain the same. Couple of times, he was tempted to go for a job opportunity in Middle East, but he postponed that plan further. After many years of hard work, he managed to save some money. He used all that money to buy a 1BHK flat in Borivali, of couse he had to take some loan too. His dream to own a house was accomplished. His son Arvind also didn’t disappointed him either. He was bright student in school and graduated from a reputed college. Last month, Arvind got an opportunity to work for an investment bank in US. Vishnu was very happy. He proudly called up all his friends and relatives, informing them about this good news. He was a proud father. His son was moving to US, a land of million opportunities.

Arvind embraced his father and said “Pappa, you take care of yourself. Every month, I will transfer money in your account. I promise, I will send enough, so that you can retire soon. I always want to see you happy. Also, America has loads of opportunities for me to offer. All our dreams will come true soon. We will pay off our remaining home loan soon. Everyday, we will meet online and chat. I promise, I will come to see you once in couple of years”. Vishnu felt proud of his son and blessed him. Arvind entered the airport lounge, waving his hands. Couple of hours after that, the airplane took off from the airport.

Year: 2040

Location: Kennedy Space Center, Florida

The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC) is the NASA installation that has been the launch site for every US human space flight since 1968. Arvind was feeling very proud today, he was first time visiting a place. He had read about it in his science books. Neil Armstrong must have boarded his maiden flight from here, he thought. Many years back, he had migrated to America. He was paid in dollars, but life here was equally expensive. He did well in his job and rose to high positions in his company. He recently bought a luxurious penthouse in prime location of New York. But things were not same, as it was earlier in US. Hit by recession and frequent wars, life had become bit insecure here. He could still see 9/11 terrorist attack in his dreams. He was very lucky enough that he had not reached office on time, but still remembers whole structure coming down like pack of cards. Time flew and also technology advanced too with time. Few years back, new planet “N18 Galaxy” was discovered. Humans went there and set up their colonies. To support those colonies, demand for more people increased. People were now able to travel in space seamlessly. A year back, his son Larry told him about his decision to migrate there. He had got a good opportunity to work for on that planet and many of his buddies were moving to that planet too. Arvind couldn’t have ask for anything more. He always wanted his son doing well in his life and “N18 Galaxy” was planet of billion opportunities. Life there was much safer than the earth.

Larry embraced his father and said “Dad, you take care of yourself. Your credit card bills will be taken care of. You can spend as much as you can. I always want to see you happy. Also, “N18 Galaxy” is the future. All our dreams will come true soon. We will talk on satellite phone everyday. I promise, I will come to see you once in five years”. Larry wore his space suit and said “Good bye”, before entering the training facility. Week after that spaceship took off to th new planet.

Survival of the fittest

“You can help me. Whatever comes out of these gates, we have a better chance of survival if we work together. Do you understand? We stay together, we survive.” roared Maximus Decimus Meridius to his fellow gladiators. He was the General, who had commanded some successful campaigns earlier, but now he was an ordinary gladiator just trying to survive. He was standing with other gladiators waiting for the gates to open. No one knew what was going to come, when the gates will open. The gates opened and chariots came out and encircled those groups of gladiators. These chariots moved in perfect sync and gradually moved towards firing arrows in the direction of group of gladiators. But gladiators formed a circle inside a “circle”. As the chariots moved closer, they found the weakest link (instead of becoming a weakest link); they attacked and destroyed their enemies.
The noose of recession is getting tighter day by day. “Worse is yet to come” declares every other newspaper and everyone is feeling this pressure. We are all gladiators now. Individually as a person or as an employee of the company, may be as an employer of the company, as citizen of the country or as a one of the nation of this world, we all are gladiators. The gates of recession have opened unexpectedly and the chariots of economic crisis are hovering around us. All the calculations have gone wrong, the graphs of growth are touching ground zero and everyone is clueless, pondering over the situation “What will be the next?”
The future depends upon the overall attitude, how this situation will be handled. This has happened in past, but sometimes it was wisely handled and situation improved. Other times, it created a platform for the World war. In the times of globalization, if everyone tries to find a short-cut to survive, he might survive for some longer time, but finally he will get sucked in the tornado of this ongoing crisis. We must learn to stay together, if we need to survive. Individually we must prepare ourselves for the worst conditions. Mentally prepared and strong person is always stronger than able-bodied person, because in crisis he exploits his strength and works to overcome his weaknesses. One good thing about recession is that it treats everyone equally. During the boom, there are some princes and there are some paupers. But in recession, everyone is a pauper. So the pauper, who takes the risk in right direction, becomes the prince when the economy recovers again. Boom and bust cycle can be compared to the day and night cycle. During the day, we work and when the night falls, we relax our body and mind by going to sleep. This recession everyone needs to go into hibernation for some time. By hibernation, I do not mean inactivity, it means ideating over future market requirement. There exist simple rule in the economics “Give the market what it wants and market will give you what you want”. Necessity creates a market and market starts growing. In this competitive world, everyone tries to feed the market as much as it can. Eventually, overfed market suffers from constipation, and this is what we call recession. But there are still some segments of market, which are still hungry, only thing needs to be done is to find those segments and feed them so that we can survive.

On an organizational level, layoff is not a permanent solution. It will help to control the situation temporarily, but when the market bounces back, existing staff will find new opportunities. Cost cutting is better solution. The employees are wise enough to shoulder the responsibilities, if they are taken into confidence and made to realize current scenario. Investing on training the human resource is always a better option. It’s like preparing soldiers for future war. So when the economy recovers , the employees are ready to take the challenge and execute the projects effectively. Infosys and Wipro were growing companies during the last recession. While the whole IT industry downsized their experienced staff, Wipro and Infosys hired experienced people and encouraged them to train the freshers. The profit margins were not that great during that time, but they ensured that they survived. This created a layer of managers and software developers, who were a great asset to company, when economy boomed last few years.

On the national level, the government of every nation should undertake some economic reforms. The bailout packages must be designed in such a way that it not only helps the industry, but it should also a help those workforce that are working in that industry. Many people claim that Mr Rajiv Gandhi was the man behind the IT revolution on our country. But in reality, the economic reforms in form of tax sops to IT industry undertaken by Dr Manmohan Singh in 1993 boosted the IT growth in India. The Government should encourage and help the start-ups in form of tax benefits, so that these startups can survive this crisis. Who knows that today’s start-up can be tomorrow’s big industry player in the market. Countries like Pakistan, who are on the verge of bankruptcy, should ensure that they don’t create an atmosphere of war. If the war breaks out, these countries will be erased permanently from the global map.

This recession is a blessing in disguise for every person, every company and every nation. Only it depends upon their attitude, how they handle this crisis.

Tale of two Cities

       Once upon a time, there were two cities – one was global city, while other was polar city. Both of them had everything in common, only different was their destinies. Their destiny was decided by the people that lived there. In both the cities, there lived people from different race and religion.  But still it happened that one city became prosperous, while other city eventually turned into a graveyard. 

        In global city, people had seen conflict before. They had seen death and destruction before. They thought they needed a change. They needed such a change that will bring peace and prosperity.  Thought process started and when it starts, it always gives some direction – may be right or may wrong.  Some people there thought that that it’s no point scratching the old wounds, they will only bleed.  So they worked hard in every possible field, they could think about. Harder they worked, their needs increased. To meet those needs, the need for professionals rose. This forced others to follow them. It was a chain reaction. Eventually everyone was busy and their stomachs were no longer empty. They had no time to fight with each other. Leaders, who ruled the city, were the only people, who felt insecure. The leaders were held accountable for every decision they took.  So the leaders worked hard and they competed with each other to perform better. This lead to the growth of the city and city became more and more prosperous. 

      In polar city, some people from every community felt insecure and threatened. They felt that people from other community will encroach in their territory, contaminate their religion and race.  To make themselves secure, they spread the feeling of insecurity amongst the members of their community.  They eventually became leaders of their community. Now they felt secure because now they had support of whole community to protect them.  But the people of each community felt insecure and their leaders blamed their people  and warned them about some ‘consequences’ that they will have to face , if they don’t wake up soon. One person can think, but mob doesn’t. The conflict started and the people “woke up”, only to sleep forever.  They fought to preserve their culture, eventually they ended up spoiling the reputation of their culture. They killed people from other community.  Blood flowed like water and those who left behind died due to hunger and poverty. 

     We, as citizens of the world are now left with one of these two choices. Technology has advanced. It has a capacity to save a life of dying person, but one button press can detonate the nuclear bomb that can turn living people into dead. Culture is not about how different we are and religion is not about how different our God is from others. We can become a global city, move forward on the path of progress. If we follow the path of polar city ,  whole world will be polarized in different directions and when they will meet , they will only fight. Choice is yours.