Why India's Infrastructure is Crumbling?

The infrastructure in India is crumbling in almost all megacities. We have adopted the chalta hai (feeling helpless) attitude towards this and waiting for a bigger disaster to happen. The look and feel of most major cities in India is now filth and dirt. Is this called development?

Roads – 5 kms take 90 mins to travel; roads are like surface of moon and poor quality is now an acceptable norm. Even newly built fancy highways and bridges (Atal-setu) are of poor quality and cracking. With 30mins of rains in any megacity in India, roads are totally blocked. There are countries where rain is much more than India but have not seen such poor infrastructure of roads.

Water & Air – getting clean air to breathe and clean water to drink is a dream now. No big city or any city in North India is worth living without Asthma or bronchitis. Not everyone can invest in air purifiers (and that too is not a solution)

Food - the food we eat is risky and chemicals infested. Inspite being a agriculture country, we get such sub-standard quality food. 

Rail – overcrowding and delays are regular and hygiene is extremely poor. Even the new Vande Bharat trains have so many issues of quality. Railway stations in Metros are so difficult to reach. One of the worst example is : New Delhi Railway Station

Air travel – most airports are stretched and overcrowded; all flights are delayed and airlines are struggling (inspite of booming business with almost 95% + occupancy). Its a pain to travel now.

Medical – government hospitals are crowded and do not have basic facilities and hygiene and private hospitals and doctors are minting money

Education – still primitive form of education – focusing on marks is being promoted in garb of transformed education and there is no focus on building skills and vocational abilities. Still there is supply-demand gaps and places like Kota are flourishing and young kids dying due to pressure.

Is Government responsible for all this? For Infra yes – but for many others its the basic civic sense of people is the key driver. People are largely driven by self, fear, greed and materialistic things. Efforts to build community and go beyond self is rare. By saying India will be a trillion dollar economy will not help anyone and it will just create a hype but the struggle of basics of living remains.

Inspite of doing our duty as citizens and paying all taxes, we are still struggling for a basic simple life. 

There is no initiative about managing or planning POPULATION GROWTH of the highest populated country and infra will further crumble if planned and sustained initiatives are not taken. There will be chaos and fights for basic necessities such as clean water and clean food.
 

In real sense we do not control anything!

 

Saw this quote somewhere - “It makes no sense to worry about things you have no control over because there's nothing you can do about them, and why worry about things you do control?”

Over the years the focus of life has been to manage things which were in our control as we do not control others.

We don’t control other people, the weather, the economy or politics. We don’t even control our own bodies. We get issues, get sick, get old, and there’s little we can do. Except worry and think about it constantly. We drive ourselves nuts!

Then someone shared that we can control only our thoughts and ourself. It was insightful and I tried my level best to believe in this and practice it.

I made a point that whatever may be I will never hurt anyone intentionally or even un-intentionally and no hatred for anyone at all. I tried to remain positive in my thoughts and started practicing and initially it was helpful.

However last few years I realised that in real sense we do not control anything; not even our thoughts or actions. Inspite of being positive and always caring for others, the world was taking advantage of me and there was nothing I could control.

So there was a sense of helplessness and despair.

The power of almighty or destiny is much beyond all of us and we are doing good things as defined by destiny but all the wrongs are our own karma and we can not blame almighty for the same.

The feelings, thoughts, actions are just part of a larger self and the larger world. So we are just a drop in a large ocean and one day this drop will cease to exist. The only thing we can do is to go with the flow and do our karma ; living every moment as its last.

The plans made; the success, the money, the things and the people around us are as temporary as we are. They will keep on doing their karma (at times hurting you) and you will just do some of yours.

The living to Death is just a moment ( a millisecond) and thats the unknown to every human (we have made all scientific progress but this is beyond us). The purpose of life on this earth keeps on changing and its all dependent on circumstances and situations.

I have seen so many people changing and many times shocking. Probably my expectations from them were wrong and they were always internally something else and were projecting an image...I feel happy that I was able to keep only one thing with me - the sense of not hurting anyone and helping people whenever I can..

Honestly, I don't think in this life I will get clarity about self or people around us as last few years have been very enlightening – both in positive and negative sense and probably the people around us will keep on doing their karma and life will give more positive moments in time to come...whatever time is left in this life !

Courtyard Gurugram Downtown by Marriott-Amazing experience !

The hotel is a great addition to Gurgaon many years back. I stayed in the hotel many times and stayed again recently. The hotel was always quite good and willing to listen to feedback from guests for improvements.

Some of the great experiences this time (end June 2023) included:

1. A very warm welcome by everyone in the team – starting with the door man to bell desk to front office (reception). The team was quick and responsive and welcoming.

2. The buffet breakfast is class-apart, probably the best in North India. This is about the spread, variety and a great team to make it nice (inspite of large guests at one time)

3. The managers are not just sitting in their offices and are roaming across the areas to understand the realities – this many hotels miss. Meeting guests casually and capturing their feedback gives immense data points for enhancements and its invaluable. 

4. The rooms are nice and cozy and housekeeping staff is always willing to help.

5. Room service of food is prompt and up to the mark as per the requests made (again this is important as many guests have specific needs for food)

6. Gym is nice and so is the pool. Internet is great too.

The leadership of the hotel is willing to listen to views of the guests and together with their team act on the suggestions or feedback received. The team is working together to make it a great experience for everyone. 

The only challenge I found were very limited English movie and entertainment system – probably the management can have a relook at that as they have many guests from outside India.

Rest all is amazing and great. Keep up the good show - thank much.

Where are we now !

 

Someone said “Change is the only constant”. Sometimes the purpose of life comes from change – it’s all about the joy and happiness one’s life has brought to self and to others.

The so called development in past so many years have been crazy. Its not to say that the world was better before the advent of social media or the fancy electronic gadgets. I thing its all due to the desire of humans that innovations like these happened. But inspite of these “great innovations” the loneliness in the world has increased drastically. So much so that even people share their feelings and moments just by “emojis”. 

The social media based on psychological human desire to “feel appreciated” has led to complications. The thin line between reality and fake has been diminishing and at times it is giving a false sense of being. The real world and real feelings are not felt or shared.

Friendship is replaced by friends for benefit.

The childhood which was a time to be innocent, enjoy the outdoor games, be free and explore has been taken over by gadgets and TV (with its extremely high and volatile content). Even the parents are providing the gadgets out of peer pressure and whole meaning of childhood fun is getting lost. There is so much pressure of “getting degrees” for kids and children that the real learning is not happening. The kids are just running towards the adulthood and are not getting time to understand “who they are”.

Various studies have shown the dramatic negative effects that excessive use or overdose of social media affects the mental health of users, especially the teenagers who report a rise in the incidence of depression, stress, and anxiety.

Then the rat-race continues till very late in life – when people start asking what’s the purpose of life and wish the time can be reversed.

The relationships are largely impacted that compromise on moral values is considered as fun and normal. The real relationships between friends, spouses and families are deeply impacted. People are just “busy” and not clear on what?

Just read a post by someone who was going for her Kidney transplant operation and she was totally on social media to share her photos and write. The whole purpose of life is becoming over engrossed with fake-ness and the real pleasure of life are coming from unreal things. 

The vacations and holidays are more to compare and post pictures on social media that relax and re-energize. The desire to have more and more is leading to greed and the gap between rich and poor is increasing consistently.

The whole world talks about global warming and environment – but rational individual actions are missing. The challenge of fresh air, water and basic necessity of life is still a challenge. There is lot of sympathy but very rarely empathy.

Although the life expectancy of humans is prolonged but in real terms people are not healthy – issues are both physical, emotional and psychological. The real happiness is getting lost in desires to fulfill as a competition with others.

So is it that the past was much better? I may sound that everything bad is happening. However, the intention is to just re-iterate the facts that sometime and not too late everyone needs to ask “what is the real purpose for us – individually and together” – we owe it to us and to our future generations.

Covid was just one instance of eye-opener for everyone where the struggle was for “living”. Hope we do not forget as the uncertainty of future is always a reality. The loneliness of humanity is increasing so rapidly that world is really facing a big crisis much sooner than people can realize. The political world will always keep normal people busy with issues which are troubling their lives (divide & rule, wars, legalities, scarcities, lies and many more). The change is so rapid

So WHO should start this – it starts with YOU, ME and all of us. It calls for introspection, reflection, thinking and then acting ! and that too immediately.

Human Connect - now or never !

 

The life in last couple of years have been unpredictable and challenging for most across the world. Though some of the rich grew their businesses a lot but they also had challenges of people. As someone said – “Death is an equalizer – it does not differentiate between rich and poor ” !

The humanity has transformed and the change was not planned for and it was sudden and rapid. It was a period of anxiety, fear, loss, physical and mental discomforts and humanity got a rude shock.

It impacted many relationships badly and lead to realizations of human behavior which was shocking at times and broke many hearts. The times changed and the scars for some were everlasting. I was speaking to someone as he mentioned “the world can’t see the pain behind my smiles”. Some of the behavior in this covid period was shocking and extremely painful for many (people did not realize that their short term mistakes leave a permanent scar in people’s life- trust is lost forever). 

"Whether it's friendship or relationship, all bonds are built on trust. Without it, you have nothing."

It transformed people who were working in organizations and many had chance to ask themselves what’s the purpose of their life and many of them started pursuing a different passion/career.  Work from home, which was viewed initially as a great relief for people turned out to be a stressful experience for many. Organizations are struggling to bring back people to offices. Many of them closed down their physical offices and saved money. However, the reality is that people expectations changed and many times there is mismatch between what organizations expect and what talent wants.

The management gurus came out with many jargons – Great Resignations, Quiet-quitting and many more. The effort is to generalize the change; however, the change is different for different people and it needs individualized attention and thoughts. Each human has to be viewed differently and supported. The state of confusion still prevails (its almost end of 2022) and may continue for some more time. There is a strong need to build trust in relationships in organizations (also in homes).

The challenge of loneliness has increased manifold. The world is shattered and people are anxious and many times acting without thinking. There is a greater need for human connect (artificial intelligence is ultimately artificial and can not replace human feelings) – social media is as flaky as possible (many times full of myths and unreal information). Companies are again profiteering; governments are busy playing politics. So everyone has to build the human connect with people around them on their own and build a community of positivity. 

The world can only survive when we are able to understand humans and support each other well and create a bond (whether its for organizations, teams, homes, families, communities and nations).

Deep human connection is ... the purpose and the result of a meaningful life - and it will inspire the most amazing acts of love, generosity, and humanity ~ Melinda Gates

Why marking, grading and Rating system is wrong in India?

I still remember how one parent pulled up his daughter for getting 94% marks in grade 12th in Delhi and saying, it will be difficult getting admission in the “prestigious colleges” in Delhi university as the cut-off for the “prestigious programs” is almost 100%.

I was shocked and surprised and the kid was left speechless and almost in tears as she has put her best efforts and was feeling that everyone will praise her for what she achieved. This is the worst thing to hurt anyone’s self-worth and self-esteem.

The way examination and marking system has been evolving over last 20-25 years have been very hurting and painful and the assumption is that any intelligence of child is directly related to the marks he/she gets. The expectations of people in society is anything less than 95% is not worth and anything less than 90% marks is just an average performance. 

The whole system is so bad that students, parents, teachers and society at large is just running a race to get 100%. This is totally wrong as “perfect” is not right and possible and there is always scope for improvement and learning. The assumption is that the kids who get 100% are perfect. This creates a sense of either superiority or inferiority complex in children and also creates FEAR among many of them, rather than having a desire to learn and apply learning. 

The focus has been increasingly on bookish knowledge than application of knowledge or skill building. So anyone great in arts, sports or culinary arts etc. is looked upon as not-intelligent or a weak student. The real challenge is that even teachers are fed-up with this system and there are so many teachers and school leaders who make changes at their own levels but then parents force them to change to the “typical exam and marks based system”. 

This is so ingrained in the society that even the rating system of services provided by many companies including UBER, Zomato etc expect that the best rating of 5 should be given to all providers and anything like 3 or 4 is a problem. The assumption is 5 is perfect – again there is immense scope of improvement possible in the services and there is nothing perfect. 

I asked my friends in Europe and they shared that they hardly find any Uber driver with more than 3.7-3.8 rating as the normal rating for anyone doing their job as per define criteria is 3 and someone going extra-mile is rated as 4 and the rating of 5 is rare.

In India, every driver or Zomato delivery person will request you for a rating of 5. I have personally seen some drivers rated as 4.95 and the service has been extremely sad. When I rate them as 3 or 4 – Uber asks; was there a problem??? 

Many times the problem is of UBER or Zomato or other service providers and here you can’t rate them or raise complaints easily. Reaching out to Uber and many other service providers for raising a complaint is extremely difficult. The process is so complex that you get fed-up. So they just want that every driver or delivery person should be rated 5 but no rating for these companies. This is extremely stress and fear driven system and must be stopped.

The reason I wrote this note is to highlight how much pseudo-fear we are creating in everyone for marks and ratings and grades. The exact definition of intelligence or excellence is so skewed that the society is being created of either 100% or Rated 5 and below that is a problem area. The whole focus is on a herd mentality. No one realizes that each one is unique and special with some qualities and that should be nurtured.

The real herd mentality can be seen by so many Edu-tech unicorns who are valued in billions of dollars in India and who are just focusing on “getting you perfect marks”. They are adding fuel to a Fire – which is engulfing India’s talent and society negatively.

I really wish and hope that we “TRANSFORM” education fully – not just by making small changes as suggested in the New education policy.

Please let each child live, learn and enjoy their unique gifts and strengths and lead a happy life and remove FEAR as the only motivator of performance. FEAR is the most dangerous factor in a society

May God bless us all and remove the FEAR!

Jalebi & Life....

The thought that MY building lift is better than the other one I had gone to a friend’s house – triggered many more thoughts…

What is this all MY – MINE about and what all affinity to things. When me, myself is a temporary creature on this earth. So in a way I am not owner of anything; I am just a traveler.

Although, I have never (never is a strong word, should be carefully used) felt attracted to things (or to say for last 15-16 years or so). As I had great desires of buying good phones and may be cars before 2006.  

So do I become a saint if now I like experiences better than things or I like doing things for others and making a difference to others’ life and that gives me more happiness than buying “stuff” for me.

I do like traveling and that’s one thing where I like to spend money. Ok..Ok – yes I like Jalebis too.

The learning of last 15-16 years has been immense. The journey is full of amazing and outstanding experiences of meeting some great people – these include age of 3 years to 90 years; people from all walks of life; people in different continents; some great leaders; some great teachers; some great players; some great entrepreneurs; some great drivers; some great handy-men and many many more kids from who I learnt everything about life. This learning is so enriched that it gives me ability to work with any age or any person from a child to a CEO or a head of a state.

In these many years I also assessed and coached many leaders (including 100 of CXOs) and the surprising part was I was the learner in this whole process whereas the assessee and coachee felt that they are learning a lot. What a double edge sword it is- learn while you earn.

The crisis of Corona (Covid) has transformed every one globally – the impact is still happening and will continue for some more time. The only thing which can help right now are the “positive relationships” we have around us and how we are able to contribute meaningfully to others (keeping ourselves safe and healthy). I speak to almost 4-5 people on average as a practice for many months now. The reason is that people are not having anyone to talk to..or to share feelings with. The conversations could be with anyone – clients, team, driver, watchman, shopkeeper, auto guy, amazon deliver person, zomato guy, my favourite Jalebi wala, friends, relatives ;-) 

I feel we all have come to earth to do our karma and we do it to best of our abilities. In addition, if we can do anything meaningful for someone else and bring little happiness and smile to them, we have made some difference to humanity. 

One more thing, I find is that I never feel I am very busy as I always tell everyone I am always free. I feel its all in the mind and may be God helps me to find time.. The only gift we can give to others is TIME. It DOES NOT always cost money to help others.

There are challenges and many of us have much more than others. However, most of the people reading this are blessed as we have a house, food, internet, mobile/laptop to read. There are so many, many more whose challenges are much bigger than us. Just think !

So if I don’t eat Jalebis in one week – how I can help someone with their basic food needs.

The difference of needs and want ; necessity and sufficiency; greed vs need.

So enough of gyaan… either you find a good jalebi wala and eat it or help someone ! 

Its up to us how we want to reflect back on our life at an old age – Either saying..Yeah I tried or I wish I could have! 

God bless you all, those who made an effort to read..my sweet (Jalebi thoughts). Love you all !