Many years back I was told by the scion of a large industry house down south that it was a matter of shame that while the Japanese, Chinese and the Koreans always go back to their ancient corpus of knowledge at times of crisis or faced with a dilemma, Indians would fall back and rely on American and English books of management. This was seen clearly as a sign of what came to be known, thanks mainly to many historians, "colonisation of the mind". I am all against the concept, who in their right minds would like to be colonised at this day and age.
To back to the ancient Indian wisdom when faced with crisis was easy for me being trained in Indian history and having actually read some of those classical beauties. Life for me has become much easier since then and I can not resist sharing some of those philosophies with you. 1. No salary rise for 3 years? Open the Gita: it tells you "serve with love without hope for reward [sounds very biblical too]
2. Dont fear if you are blamed to be ostentatious: Open Charvaka "As long as you live happily, if need be borrow and buy ghee" Sounds dangerously like the hedonists of ancient Greek.
3. Tax Raids: Don't be demoralised. Arthashastra prescribed taxing prostitutes [I guess that would have been the service tax] Our Finance Minister has not come anywhere as close
4. Fear of taking risks: Open Mahabharata, five young men of decent upbringing chose to gamble with a professional gambler to get a kingdom and at the end they were successful... but at the very end.
5. Fear of backbiting: Get used to it. Read Mahabharata again.
6. One of the corporate tricks is not to take any decisions: Like Narasimha Rao was supposed to have done when he was the prime minister: Who did he learn that from? Of course Bhishma Pitamaha, Dhritarashtra and other seniors who just sat and watched while Draupadi was being de-sareed.
7. Non-nepotism: Remember Rama asked his wife to go through the fire test. You can do the same to your nephew at the interview.
8. Finally, gender Equality: At least 5 Dharmashastras devote 20 per cent space to the same subject "how to control" women. What does that mean? Since ancient times, women were not controllable by men... So why try it now?
Tathastu...
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)