Racism & India

Right from the time, the recent racial(is it so?) remarks against Shilpha Shetty in 'Big Brother'(the U.K. reality show) hit the news(Read the Story here), every Indian has lifted a protest flag complaining that we are always at the fag end of the racial attacks. But before pointing our fingers at others, let us first examine ourself.

According to Oxford dictionary, the racism is defined as "Belief in superiority of particular race; antagonism towards other races"

Going by that definition,

Is not the still prevalent caste system(the National SIN of India) in India a kind of racism?
Are not the recent attacks by the ULFA on Hindi-speaking people racist?
Can not be the regular Shiv Sena attacks on non-Mumbaites be called as racist attacks?
Are not we treat the outsiders(who are also INDIANS) as second-rate citizens?
And who can forget this photograph?...

Even thinking about this has made my heart to lose all the happiness & joy. Oh! India, even after living for more than 50 years as a single nation, you are not able to integrate?


Please.. Please.. Before pointing fingers at others, let us think about us?

"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?. How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."
- From the Bible(NIV edition)


Not that i am trying to justify the racist remarks against Shilpha Shetty but let us remember we as a society also have our own faults. And acceptance(repentance) is the first step to correction(redemption).

- An Indian who is a part of this racist nation

Why Tirunelveli is "The City" of the world!!!

"In life, we meet a lot of people, but make friends with few... In those few, some touch our life in such a way, that their presence is felt in their absence too..."

Ya! You guessed it right. A regular SMS message from one of the umpteen number of friends of mine...

But................
This message was different.....

Reason:- It was from one of my very close friends who has been with me right from my school. He for some reason saw it fit to send this message. (He has never forwarded me a SMS before). To cut the story short, this message made me thinking. Made me to understand why wherever i go, Tirunelveli will always be my city of the world!!! It made me to think of the awesome friends that God has gifted me in my childhood.

Those of us who had seen the Microsoft Ad would accept that it is the people who differentiates the organizations and gives it the competitive edge. In the same way, it is my friends who differentiates Tirunelveli from the rest of the world. It is because of them, Tirunelveli will be The City of the World (at least for me). Each person was unique; Each person was different; And Each person was great;

Jerry, the creative
Thirumalaiappan, the interrogator
Dalton, the born leader
Karthick, the passionate(i.e. short tempered)
Veera, the helper
Raffic, the joker
Nishanth, the *** Doctor
Arun, the religious
Krishna, the mimicker
Balaji, the silent(to the extent of being dumb)
Sabeela, the match maker
Vivek, the nerd
Chock, the handsome(Always be our envy whenever we walk near a girls school)
And the list goes on....................................................

And importantly, the 'n' number of beautiful girls whom we never noticed!!!!

Figure - Aerial view of my school campus
[Rose Mary Matriculation Higher Secondary School, the Abode of State Toppers]

Ya! I know every school has its own Tom, Dick and Harry. But they did not have a Dalton, they did not have a Thiru, they did not have a Jerry, a Karthick, a Veera, etc.. Most importantly, they did not have a ROBIN!!!

Tirunelveli Zindhabad! Tirunelveli Vazhga!







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Think About the Newspaper U Read

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Right from my childhood, "The Hindu" has provided my life with a staple diet of current affairs (for knowledge and thought). "The Hindu" has been and always will be synonymous with the word "Newspapers" in my life. You never understand one's importance unless it goes off from your hands. Now living in a land, where i can receive my beloved Newspaper only a day late.. that too in the afternoon made me to realize how i have grown up on the newspaper.


NO! This post is not about Hindu. But about Indian newspapers in general. Indian newspapers have a rich and unique past. A Set of newspapers not formed for profit, not formed to provide people with news of what is going on in sports or business but to aid the nation's struggle for freedom. The history of Indian newspapers are dotted with such great personalities! But what had happened to the Indian newspapers now is a matter of great shame and sorrow. The Newspaper industry too like other industries has become so engrossed with profits. Nothing wrong in it. But changing newspapers into tabloids!!! God! How can I Accept that!


Why posting it here rather than writing letters to the editor?. Simply because the editors and reporters of a newspaper provide the news and other things we want, not the news they would like to see on the newspaper. If we want scantily clad and semi nude models staring at us every morning, they have no other choice but to provide them.

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Wrote this post a month back but did not post it.. Since i thought, i have to add some more stuff... On reading the recent Supreme Court verdict "Not Imposing a blanket ban on publishing obscene photographs and material in newspapers citing the right to freedom of speech and expression enjoyed by the press".. (Read the news here. Obviously a link to Hindu's Online version)
I thought i would post the things i wrote long before(without any additions or deletions)..
The crux of the post..

"Never forget - IT is because of Us the obscene materials are(will be) there today(tomorrow) on the newspapers"..

In Service for Sight

This post is on the request of one of my friends who asked me to write/post on any interesting material that we, the management guys(:-)) would come across. As someone who blindly loves his home town, it is natural that I post on the case which made my home town to appear in the map of one of the management books I study. If you are thinking about what I am talking about, just answer this connect question…

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Connect Harvard Business Case Studies, A Small Temple Town in Southern Part of India and Cataracts…

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It is none other than Aravind Eye Care Hospital.

Ø A role model for many hospitals and subject of study in many business schools

Ø A Hospital to which the Google co-founder and president (Products), Larry Page, flew down to look at the overall view of its functions.

Ø The only examination centre of the Royal College of Ophthalmology, United Kingdom, in the country

Ø Designated by the World Health Organisation as a collaborating centre for prevention of blindness

Its laurels are many.. But..

Until I was there in Tirunelveli, if somebody has talked about the Aravind Eye Care Hospital as an extraordinary and an exceptional organization, I would have probably laughed at him or her. For me then, it was just another hospital. I never knew its vision; I never knew its unique model; I never knew its achievements and Most of all I Never knew people in IIMs would know about it.

[Figure: Aravind Eye Hospital, Tirunelveli ...Cannot resist the temptation :-) ]



So what is special about Aravind Eye Care Hospital that it was published as a Harvard Business Case Study?

“With vision to remove needless eye blindness in India, Dr. Govindappa Venkataswamy started Aravind in 1976 as an 11-bed eye clinic in an old temple-city. Today it is the largest and most productive eye care facility in the world. Taking its compassionate services to the doorstep of rural India, Aravind's stunningly effective strategies vaulted barriers of distance, poverty and ignorance to create a self-sustaining system that now treats over 1.7 million patients each year, two-thirds of them, for free. “

Dr. Govindappa Venkataswamy fondly called as 'Dr. V'

USP of Aravind Eye Care Hospital:

Self-Sustaining Model:

The revenue generated from the "paying" patients offsets the cost of caring for the "free" patients. This type of cost shifting is nothing new. Then you realize that only about 30% to 40% of the patients are paying, and that paying is optional (i.e., a wealthy person can stay in the "free" hospital if he or she chooses). Aravind prides itself on being self-sustaining, i.e., no VIP donors, no government grants, and no bank loans. The technology is cutting-edge (all the newest phaco machines—the same models found in the United States, including the Alcon Infiniti).

Social Marketing:

“If Coco-colas can sell billions of soda and McDonalds can sell billions of hamburgers, why can’t Aravind sell millions of sight-restoring operations and eventually in the belief in the human perfection?” Ya! Aravind Eye care took the concept of social marketing to new heights.

To solve the problems in rural India, Aravind organizes camps to attract patients in rural India. If it finds someone for whom the operations are necessary, the hospital van picks them up and after three days are over when the surgery is completed, the patients return back to their home.

Management:

Aravind Hospital is a very good example of a well-conceived strategy platform. From 20 beds in 1976, it is now more than 2,500 in a four-hospital network.

Eye care is the motto, and patient's ability to pay is not focussed on. Cataract is concentrated on because "cataracts cause roughly 75 per cent of the 30 million cases of blindness in India". In 2002, it screened nearly 8 lakh patients free of charge and another 6 lakh for a fee.

The HBR mentions that the average ophthalmologist in India performs about 200 cataract surgeries a year, while "an Aravind doctor performs about 1,500 - an efficiency multiple of 7.5." How are they able to keep costs low? "In 1992, it decided to produce intraocular lenses in its own facility, Auro-Lab. It cut the cost of each lens to just $7, so by 2002, all patients were able to receive it."

There is also "the paying segment" which is important to nonprofits. In the case of Aravind, this segment subsidises the cost of free care, and also helps set the benchmark. "Paying clients set high demands on quality care, and those standards are used as a benchmark for non-paying clients as well."

It is not enough to have good intentions, because they say the path to hell is paved with only them. What is required is the application of the best of management tools and economic models to the delivery of service.

Dr. V by his single-minded focus and vision has shown us what is possible for a single person to achieve individually in the land where we live in. Is it not possible the same way for us also, to do something that the world would take note of?

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“Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute;
What you can do, or dream, you begin it;
Boldness hath genius, power, and magic in it,
Only engage, and then the mind grows heated.
Begin; and then the work will be completed. “

- Johann Wolfgang Goethe

Harry Potter & Me

After the post where i rambled about Mr. Hyde & me. This time the post is about "What that little boy from Hogwarts has done in my life?"

One of the advantages living in a small town is that when the world around you is filled with rage of that little boy with a lightening scar in his head, you are blissfully unaware of his fame, his courage, his love.. Blissfully unaware of tanking(!), unaware of muggles, unaware of quidditch, unaware of Hogwarts, unaware of Dumbledore, unaware of He who must not be named. Until my schooling, Harry Potter was just a name that used to appear as the last question in the weekly Young World quiz. I never even worried and cared about him until i entered the oldest technical institute of India.

In its portals, one of my friends introduced me to the magic world. First time i read it, i know i wanted to be in that world. I wanted to be "Harry Potter".. Then i realized that the book is written with the aim of touching that underlying wishes of every boy and girl who goes to school.

Hmmm.. Then every time something happens in my life i compared it to that life in Hogwarts.
So what are the things in Harry Potter that i would have loved to be part of my life too?

1. Gryffindor common room which brought different people together by the unique bond. the secret password, the door only a set of people can enter. For some one living in India who has never lived in a hostel that is separated to different houses, this was my major attraction of Hogwarts life. A place where everybody knows everybody. A place where people are bonded by nothing other than the house they belong to. A place where people become enemies just because of the house they belong to are different.

2. The bond of friendship that Ron, Harry & Hermione shared. Hey i am a believer in that statement by Dumbledore that "love transcends all magic". We all want someone to whom we can share all your secrets however bad they are. Someone who understands you completely.

3. The aura of "being special" and "being different". Being a wizard makes you different where you have no need to differentiate you among the rest.

4. Being famous and known by anybody. But still hating that fame, willing to give any price to remain unknown. We all put all our efforts to become famous and then are ready to give any money to remain unknown.

5. Harry potter penchant for breaking rules and still escaping without punishment.

6. Adventures that Harry Potter is able to have in each year.

7. Being a friend of a slogger like Hermione, so that assignments and home works become so easy.

Stopped with 7, since 7 is a complete number in Harry Potter books... In short, i love Harry Potter not because the book is good but because it takes me to a dream world which i still cherish to be a part of.