Of my life and milestones and millstones

My birth a milestone
my upbringing a millstone

shifting to Delhi a milestone
getting up rooted from anand a millstone

Reading business autobiographies as a 12 yr old a milestone
Never learning how to hold the cricket bat correctly a millstone

Celebrating my school's birthday a milestone
landing up in shorts for the party (boy that was embarrassing) a millstone

Becoming the youngest member of "Veni vidi Vici" my school quiz club a milestone
Beating sid nair my close pal for that a millstone

Becoming the felicity house vice captain in Std xi a milestone
Never becoming the teacher on the teacher's day in std xii a millstone

Joining engg on an NRI seat a millstone
Becoming the secretary of the lit club in undergrad and passing with distinction a milestone

Finding a lovely soul mate a milestone
Losing her to Uncle Sam and marriage a millstone

Being 'Stuck in the middle'&' Top of the normal curve ' in post grad a millstone
Making the best friends of my life in GH 3 a milestone

Becoming a cycle hawker salesman in orissa a milestone
Seeing the abject poverty of my state a millstone


They say a man who has not failed has not tried anything in life.
What the heck shall take all the millstones for reaching the milestones.

Orissa's Tibetian Connection

After the collapse of the Tibetan resistance movement in 1959, Tenzin Gyatso fled to India, where he was active in establishing the government of Tibet in exile.

In order to rehabilitate and look after Socio-economic Welfare of Tibetan Refugees in exile and with an aim to bring all Tibetan refugees in communities large enough to preserve their language, tradition, culture, and national identity and to secure food, shelter, medical care, education and means of livelihood so as to achieve self-sufficiency the dalai lama with the help of Govts of India, Nepal and Bhutan created settlements for all the Tibetan refugees in India , Nepal and Bhutan.

In the mid 1960s, the Indian Government offered several areas of land throughout India where Tibetan refugees could settle together and protect their distinct culture and way of life. The state of Karnataka in the South formed the largest concentration of Tibetan refugees worldwide, today totalling around fifty thousand.

There are 120,120 Tibetan refugees living in India, Nepal and Bhutan.There are 53 Settlements: 35 India 11 Nepal 7 Bhutan.

One of the 35 indian settlements is in orissa.

The Phuntsokling Tibetan Settlement, Chandragiri, Orissa was conceived in 1963 with an initial Population of 2479 and has grown to a present population 3360on a Total allotment of 1859 acres

This settlement is situated at a distance of 80- kms. from the west of Berhampur at a height of 3200ft. above sea level. The cooperative runs handicraft centre, dairy and a poultry farm, a mechanical workshop, an elders Home, and horticulture. It also has a dispensary, a Tibetan medical centre, creche, school and a monastery.

Which probably explains why momos in berhampore are better than momos in bhubaneshwar and vizag and why i encountered so many tibetians in berhampore while peddling fmcg products in up country orissa as a part of my training.

Now when i go back to the same place as an Area Manager( which would mean a car to travel) i shall visit this tibetian monastery in orissa.A population of 3300 also means many more customers which are always good.

So now lets check if we have peneterated this tibetian settlement.

Trivial Pursuit

One smart short cut way to become a better history quizzer is to read the lyrics of the song 'we didn't start the fire ' by billy joel.

We Didn't Start the Fire is a song by Billy Joel that lists 120 well-known events, people, things, and places from his lifetime, from 1949 to 1989, when the song was released on his album Storm Front. Joel explained that he wrote this song due to his interest in history. He commented that he would have wanted to be a history teacher had he not become a rock and roll singer. (this intro is copied from wikipedia).

check out theese two links...

http://home.uchicago.edu/~yli5/Flash/Fire.html

http://www.teacheroz.com/fire.htm


happy reading

India's Sam Walton

A few days back i read an interesting post at http://alternativeperspective.blogspot.com/.

The post talked about the two India's , one two which we the yuppies who blog and jog belong and the other india which supports our lifestyle costs.Yup the ball boys at the tennis courts, the maid servants and bais who cook our meals, the neighbourhood dhobi who irons your clothes. This is the india we would not like too much to think about.

I had commented then about how this invisible india also constituted the bulk of the sales force of all the FMCG majors operating in India. Theese invisible souls despite being the provider of the vital last mile advantage had still not been able to get enough bargaining power to qualify as employees in either the fmcg companies roll's or their distributor roll's.

And how i was happy that finally the distributors were having difficulty in getting people to do the same work and were being forced to increase their wages.

A few days later Mr Kishore Biyani (of pantaloon and big bazaar fame) talked about the India 1 and India 2 on an interview on CNBC. His hunch was that the next big boom in retailing was to come from the vast untapped potential of India 2.

I hope that the indian business community are able to get innovative business models running tapping this long forgotten people , who also belong to india.But what is really interesting is the conceptual clarity with which he could explain his hunch. And our desi sam walton was equally comfortable discusiing branding, retail analytics and all the buzz words consults can come up with.And to think that he started by selling cut pieces of clothes.

His intw and his logical explanation of his hunches just devlops my hunch that big bazaar might conquer the retal sweepstakes game. Perhaps now would be the rt time to buy into Pantaloon.

5 things to do in b'lore

Big cities generally suck. Unless you discover smaller things in them. After a few disappointing weeks , when bangalore simply failed to live up to its hyped up image, doing theese 5 things in b'lore sure made one weekend easier.

1. Brunch Buffet at LakeView Milk Bar, MG rd
2. Browsing and buying books @ Blossom's
3. A visit to Lal Bagh to view the indian version of crystal palace
4. Dinner at Mavalli Tiffin Rooms ......and to think that India's largest RTE company started from this quaint food joint
5. Death by Choclate at Corner House

Maybe , the coming few weeks will throw upa few more interesting things.

P.S. : The Salesman has temporarily settled down for a few weeks as an in-house consult.