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Those were the days
I was on the treadmill in the gym in Hyderabad when my Nokia phone rang. I answered the call and it was the Visa Officer from the Saudi Embassy in Delhi. I couldn’t hear him thanks to the deafening music in the gym, so I got off the treadmill and went out to talk to…
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BC to AC
The world AC (After Corona) will be the beginning of an Age of Entrepreneurship. A world where working from home and being self-employed will become more and more popular. Large corporations have learnt the lesson from the Covid lockdowns that people need not come to a central place to work. They can work well at…
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Horses, rocks and palaces
On a side note, today when I talk to people about parenting, I think of my parents and the parents of our friends, who didn’t think twice about allowing two teenagers to take their horses and go off camping all night in the bush. I would go off for weeks to the farm of my…
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Horses, friends & the AP Riding Club
‘Horse riding’ was a bit of a misnomer really and it should have been called character building. Our Ustaads didn’t just teach us riding. They taught us character, manners, discipline, commitment, and responsibility. They didn’t achieve this by ordering us around. After all, they were instructors in the Riding Club. And we were not troops…
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Every choice has a price tag
There are critical incidents when as a leader you must take a call. At that moment you are alone. You believe in the depths of your heart that you can succeed. You know in your gut the real challenge that you must face. You are afraid, but you don’t show it. You take the first…
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Motivation = WiiFM
In my tea planting days, one of the things that I was very proud of was my knowledge of and relationship with my workers. I knew them all by sight, most by name and of many, I knew their family connections as well. They, in turn, treated me more like a tribal chief cum family…
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The joy of tea
The Anamallais are also home to the Gaur (Indian Bison). Since they have plenty to eat in the rain forests of the Anamallais, they grow to huge sizes. As they live in thick forests, their horn span is not too wide, but the animals themselves grow to enormous sizes. There was one particular bull that…
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Intro to the Anamallais
The biggest learning for me in this entire incident was the difference between theory and practice. I knew from all my reading and talking to experts that even if you get to the stage where you are facing an elephant which snorts in warning, all you need to do is to start moving back slowly.…
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Mango Range but no mangoes
Mango Range was an interlude in my career. I was marking time and waiting for some positive change to happen, and in the meanwhile I enjoyed myself. It has long been my philosophy to live one day at a time and to try to create as much happiness for myself and around me as possible.…
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Jack Welch, Built to last
My friend since 1994, Carla Fischer, posted a picture of a GE Appliances Blender on LinkedIn with the caption: My parents were given this GE blender 58 years ago as a wedding gift. Today, it made my protein shake like a charm. As we lay Jack Welch to rest this week, I can’t help but…