Today is 31st of July and it’s been exactly two months that I last attended office on 31st May, the day I superannuated. It’s been a bit of dilemma – while on one hand the time seems to be flying, especially as I am currently spending some quality family time in Johannesburg, on the other hand it appears ages since my superannuation.

And though I have consciously avoided keeping myself updated with what’s happening at my erstwhile office place, one can choose to be deaf and blind but the same is not completely possible in today’s age of information. I highlight a few facts that have surreptitiously crept into my knowledge:

(1) The department that I headed for many years now bears a new look consequent to a major restructuring. In fact, from an important department, it’s now become a behemoth with number of people more than doubling. My successor seems at least twice as powerful as I ever was!

(2) Axis Bank posted excellent Q1 results for the quarter ended 30th June and the Bank seems to be on its way to regaining its past glory after a series of rather lackadaisical quarters.

(3) Axis share price is creeping back to the past levels of Rs800+ and many of the beneficiaries of the Bank’s ESOP scheme seem to have added considerable value since I left.

For me as a person, it’s been rather a prolonged enjoyable period, as aforesaid and a matter of great satisfaction at the organisation’s improved performance, as how one can totally detach oneself from an organisation with which one had had the association lasting almost 28 years and that was just a start up when one joined it!

Hopefully, it will not be one off joy and my personal affairs as also affairs concerning my erstwhile organisation, in which I continue to have extremely high stakes as customer, depositor and investor will continue to provide me a sustained happiness. I solicit good wishes of my readers.

Axis Bank has posted excellent results for the Q1 ended 30/06/2022. The only point to be highlighted here is that I was with the organisation for only part of this quarter as I retired on 31/05/2022.

When I left my erstwhile organisation to join UTI Bank, as the Axis Bank was then known as in 1994, there was a sort of efflux from that organisation with many of those leaving it forming creme de la crème ( not me of course who was quite junior to be part of such an elite category). However, quarter after quarter after the exit of such talent, that organisation continued with its sterling run!

The above two instances relating to me go on to re-emphasising the fact that organisations are much bigger than individuals. Individuals come and go – sometimes seeking greener pastures, at other times out of sheer frustration and grievance and of course on account of superannuation or retirement- but organisations built on solid foundations continue their run for decades ( some organisations are in centenarian league), facing various ups and downs with resilience.

We should all be seized of the reality that we leave organisations on our own accord for the reasons stated above and in the process, we neither do any obligation or disservice to the organisation. Organisations continue as it is as new replacements come and fill the gap caused by an exit. I realised this much earlier in my career and probably, the clarity of this reality was at least partly responsible for my longevity.

Being in South Africa, two news items relating to automobile sector caught my attention. The first one very positive and exhilarating and the second a bit sad.

Here in Johannesburg, Suzuki is garnering volumes by aggressively pricing its blockbuster SWIFT. However, the model that has caught my fancy is Jimny. It’s very cute, small yet spacious and should do wonderfully well in Indian conditions. As I was contemplating why Suzuki was not launching what could be a game changer for it in India, where it held more than 50% market share, came the news of Jimny’s launch in India. It’s positive, exciting and matter of great pleasure. Hope Suzuki prices it right and we do seem to be having a blockbuster in the offing.

The second news was about Ford rolling out its last car from its Chennai plant consequent to its decision to wind up its India operations. Ford seems to be a some sort of market leader, especially in big SUVs and off roaders in South Africa. It’s Everest ( seems to be same that’s sold as Endeavour in India) and it’s 4X4 beast Ranger are big hits in the local market. I also come across quite a few Ecosports, Figos and Fiestas. In fact, first Fiesta and then Ecosports, when launched, took Indian markets by storm. I fancied buying Ecosports but it had a waiting period of 16 to 18 weeks. It’s Figo also attained quite a bit of popularity and acceptance and Endeavour was really matchless in its class. I don’t know why first Chevrolet ( I enjoyed their Aveo and Spark) and now Ford have called it a day in India, depriving Indians of solid, strong, albeit low on fuel economy American cars.

South Africa boasts of lovely road network, with plenty of off road driving options. Hence, we see lots of big cars on its roads. But sharp hike in fuel prices seems to be pinching folks here and we see lately fuel efficient cars such as Swift doing exceedingly well. Each country will have cars that suit its palate and geography, but India will miss Fords and Chevrolets.

Bye bye Ford! Welcome Jimny!

When the politics, economics, current affairs etc fail to provide any provocation or inspiration, thoughts from Mahatria are always there to spark your imagination for a blog. His recent utterance says:

“In the history of the world there has been nobody like you.

To the infinite of times to come there will be nobody like you.

You are unique, rare, original.

You are a master piece, Master“s piece.”

It’s true that most of us have role models whom we want to emulate. I think our first role model are our parents then teachers and then come our colleagues, bosses, sportspersons, actors, politicians etc not necessarily in that order. While we can definitely pick up some virtues from people we come in contact with and get inspired by, the fact is that each one of us is unique, as created by God. God uses a mould for his creation only once and destroys it after that and therefore, there’s no point to be yearning to become someone else.

I was not born very strong or rich

Nor did I excel in my studies;

I didn’t reach the peak in my career

Nor was I always free from worries.

Yet when I reconciled to be myself

A sense of calm and peace prevailed upon me

Now I live each day as it comes

And enjoy the nature’s freebie!

Thanks Mahatria for continuing to help us in improving our lives.

My memories are faint and distributed as I was very young when my Mama went to US for higher studies. I just recall a few random scenes at Delhi airport. I also very vaguely remember him having married his Co-student, also an Indian from Nagpur and my Nani, my grandmother, hosting a small kirtan at her residence celebrating his simple church wedding in US. He actually married Pragati Buche, a Maharashtrian from Nagpur on 12th July 1968 after a brief courtship and exactly after 54 years, he lost his life partner on 12th July 2022. Pragati, my aunt, lost her battle to cancer and left this world, more importantly her children and her beloved husband, my Mama, her companion of more than five and half decades.

In a sense, they were a made for each other couple- so different- he a Punjabi Khatri and she a Maharashtrian Brahmin – and yet so much aligned and in love. His subtle sense of humour never provoked or upset her, though she’d pretend to be angry at his leg pulling. And they traveled the world over and yet remained simple all their lives – in their lifestyle, food habits and everything else.

While Nagpur was her home, her special love for everything Maharashtrian made their Mumbai visits very special. She loved Panshikar’s food, Waman Hari Pethe’s Jewellery and so many other of such ilk. I personally learnt so much about Marathi language, food and culture from her.
I and my wife looked forward to hosting them at our new residence in Mumbai, but this dream of ours will now remain unfulfilled. We pray for long and healthy life for our Mama, but without his Pragati, our Mami, neither he nor his visits will be same.

We pray for her peaceful rest in God’s abode and her repeated rebirths to be my Mama’s life partner.

Came across a tweet that shared the editorial by redoubtable Ashok H Advani, Editor Business India, regarding the slide of INR vis-a-vis USD. The article very powerfully argues how the outdated Exchange Control is being used to artificial determine rupee’s real value, leading to its great slide versus USD. It suggests that by abolishing exchange control and treating foreign exchange as just another commodity, rupee can be allowed to realise its real inherent value.

It’s a bit of a mystery that for all the openness and democracy, why we still have great secrecy around the functioning of bureaucracy and why even the most powerfully mandated governments, like the one currently in power, are not able to follow the best global policies and practices, the ones that have made much smaller and naturally constrained countries such as UAE and Singapore economic superpowers.

I had once earlier suggested that why in India, post elections, we can’t cut across the party lines to build a super think tank. What if erudite economists such as P Chidambaram are in opposition, Yashwant Sinha is out of favour with the government, Montek Singh advised the previous governments and above all the former PM and architect of economic reforms Dr Manmohan Singh headed Congress led coalition government for two terms? Can’t their inputs and experience be pooled in to devise ways and means of stopping rupee’s slide? Is political agenda in this country above everything? Even national agenda?

We have the wherewithal, capacity and know how. We only need to pool it all together by overcoming our narrow and myopic established positions.

Guru Purnima assumes special significance in our culture and ethos where Guru is kept at a pedestal even higher than God. As a Doha by Kabirdas goes, “ When the Guru and the almighty both appear simultaneously, I will go and bow in respect to the Guru first for I would have never realised God without Guru’s guidance.”

But in a time when spiritual Gurus have paved way for professional teachers, the concept of Guru- Shishya parampara is almost extinct. It’s more so in the professional world, where each new individual at the place of work is either expected to be a domain expert from day 1 itself or is to fend for himself to learn the tricks of the trade. No senior or boss has the time or inclination to invest in the career development or learning path of youngsters. 

I, of course, belonged to an era when the new recruits were given space and time to learn the work and seniors were patient with us. So we had the sense of gratitude towards those who invested in grooming us. But when today’s youngsters pay their obeisance to me for their progress and prosperity, it beats me no end and I can only attribute this to our culture that ingrains such values in us. 

I don’t consider myself worthy of all these tributes paid to me by my several ex colleagues , but would exhort upon all the managers and bosses to carry forward this important legacy of our culture and country and invest at least some time and effort in the youngsters starting their career as part of our teams. No amount of professional success will be as satisfying as a word of gratitude from a young colleague who gains something from such an intervention. This will give us the status of that of a Guru, considered superior even to God almighty, as aforesaid.

#Happygurupurnima

Sent from my iPhone

As many of my readers know, currently I am in South Africa, where my daughter works and stays.

Yesterday she took us to Bela Bela warm water baths, some 200 odd kilometres from Johannesburg. The water there, coming from underground springs, is naturally warm, in fact hot. This is not unique as there are several sites in the world, including those in India, where natural springs ooze hot water. Several such sites are also rumoured to be having therapeutic value as well.

However, what makes Bela Bela unique is channelisation of natural water into pools, thereby converting it into an exciting water park, with rides and wave pools. In the current environment of bitter cold as is normally the case here in winters, splashing in warm waters is a really pleasant and rejuvenating experience.

But this is not a travelogue about my current visit to South Africa as looking to the experience that I am having of the places such as Kruger and Sabby hills apart from Bela Bela, merits a separate exclusive blog. This blog is to share the joy of experiencing Indianness in the hinterland of this remote country. During the course of splashing in one of the pools, the audio system there at started playing popular Bollywood number “ Desi girl” from hit movie Dostana. Seeing the locals as well tourists shaking legs to this number, I couldn’t help but join the chorus too in spite of having two left feet in the matter of dancing. More importantly, it was that feeling of pride in the swelled heart for India being everywhere and Bollywood being it’s one of the important torch bearers.

An old colleague of mine posed a very tough question to me yesterday. She talked about a particular posting that was given to her during my tenure that, she felt on the hindsight, pulled down her career prospects leaving her far behind her other contemporaries in the rat race. She also candidly admitted that she could pose this question to me onlywhen I was no longer in the services consequent to my superannuation.

Frankly speaking, I couldn’t recall the event as there were several such instances where in my long tenure I had to take decisions that were unsavoury to the people affected by such decisions. But I distinctly recall her to be a good, intelligent, reliable officer on whom I would rely upon for difficult assignments. While expressing my inability to explain the rationale behind that decision, I advised her to move on because not only the rankings in rat race, rat race itself was temporary that was of no consequence once the tenure of an office ends. 

There are so many articles being published these days on the management policies, work life balance, PMS etc., but there’s something that’s beyond all these that’s sometimes referred to as larger or greater purpose. After bowing out of rat race after active participation for almost 4 decades, I think our personal beliefs, contributions, passions, families etc are of far greater importance than promotions and postings for which we toil all our professional lives.

Los Angeles Times Crossword ( LAX) that’s reproduced in Times of India, albeit with some lag, is something that I look forward to every morning. While most of the days, I am able to solve the grid largely ( 80-90%), I generally get stuck up in the quiz part of the crossword. Clues relating to famous personalities ( actors, directors, judges, parliamentarians etc having American context) are my bane as in the absence of regular follow up of US media, solving these clues is quite impossible.

We do have clues relating to Indian subcontinent that are mostly connected with our gods, yoga, dress or languages, but seldom have I seen an India related personality appearing as a clue apart from an occasional Nehru and Gandhi.

Therefore, I was delightfully surprised when today’s grid had a clue relating to an Indian icon, the answer bring Shahrukh Khan. King Khan, one of the most beloved Bollywood stars, who’s been conquering one frontier after another and who has reached the zenith of another frontier, where very few Indians and no Bollywood actor has reached – LAX crossword.

Congratulations King Khan! While you continue to delight millions of fans with your movies, today you have gladdened the hearts of if not millions, at least thousands of crossword lovers like me!