Idly and Leisurely Enjoying Boracay Beach

We are familiar of the work ethic. “Work ethic is a set of values based on hard work and diligence. It is also a belief in the moral benefit of work and its ability to enhance character. A work ethic may include being reliable, having initiative, or pursuing new skills. Workers exhibiting a good work ethic in theory should be selected for better positions, more responsibility and ultimately promotion. Workers who fail to exhibit a good work ethic may be regarded as failing to provide fair value for the wage the employer is paying them and should not be promoted or placed in positions of greater responsibility.” (Source: Wiki)

Hard work, diligence and productivity are highly-praised as important values and virtues the modern man must possess.  That’s why this philosophy has driven man to work even harder and longer making s/he workaholic.

The Bible is replete with praises for diligence and denounces slothfulness and idleness:  Prov. 10:4 A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich.  Prov. 12:24 The hand of the diligent will rule, while the slothful will be put to forced labor.  Prov. 12:27 Whoever is slothful will not roast his game, but the diligent man will get precious wealth.  Prov 13:4 The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied.  Prov. 19:15 Slothfulness casts into a deep sleep, and an idle person will suffer hunger.   Prov. 21:5  The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty.   Pro. 22:29  Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men.

Also, the apostle Paul in 1Th. 5:14 urged the Thessalonians to admonish the idle among them.   Apparently some members of the Thessalonian church are sloth, lazy and idle — working not at all, busying themselves with other men’s matters, and living upon the church’s stock.  He reproves them for their sloth, exhorts them to work with their own hands, to do their own business, and with quietness eat their own bread.

So perhaps it comes as a surprise to you that I titled this article The Beauty of Idleness.  It looks like I am contradicting the plain truth set forth in the Bible.

But, what kind of idleness I am referring to, that is beautiful and beneficial for us?

I remember an old but familiar proverb that states “All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.”  This famous quote is from Howell’s Proverbs, written by  James Howells (1594 – 1666), a 17th-century Anglo-Welsh historian and writer.  (Source: Wiki)

This proverb simply means that without time off from work, a person becomes both bored and boring. It is not good to work all the time. It is not healthy for someone to work all the time and never play. You need to get out and have fun.

Taking vacation leaves, even sabbatical leaves and periodic time off from work in the course of our working years is proven to be beneficial to our whole being.  Introspection (the process of looking inward and examining one’s self and one’s own actions in order to gain insight) and the “contemplative habit of mind” requires an idleness in which we become lighthearted, playful and able to engage in free chosen activities, which are at the same time constructive and satisfying.

Man Playing a Banjo

In my own experience as a busy pastor, even a day off from my daily routinely duties of caring for the church afforded me an opportunity to leisurely and idly pass the time away.  Breaking the monotony of work by engaging ourselves into some kind of activity is always refreshing for our body, mind and soul.  After the times of idleness and just loafing around and leisurely savoring our lives in introspection and contemplative thinking and engaging ourselves with lighthearted and playful activities, we would always come back to our work with renewed enthusiasm, zeal, zest and gusto.  Such times as these, they enrich our creativeness, productiveness and effectiveness in our work.

In the Old Testament, God gave Israel a very special law regarding the land — a commandment to allow the land to rest from active agricultural production every seventh year.  It was called the “land Sabbath.”  Observance of this seventh year rest for the land allowed the land to rejuvenate itself.  It prevented the exploitation, and forcing and abusing of the ground.  It allowed the land to re-gather its strength and fertility.  But the land Sabbath was also a benefit for man, the tiller of the ground.   It gave the farmer an opportunity to devote his time to repairs on the farm, fences, barns, or even time for travel, education, and to do future planning.  It was as well a “Sabbatical year” to pursue the study of God’s Word in a more active way.

That’s why there is beauty in idleness.  What the Bible condemns is “walking in idleness” or our way of life is spend in idleness.  But the occasional interval of idleness or just loafing away time is one of the ways we can have abundant life.  Jesus came that we may have life and have it more abundantly.  And God richly provides us with everything to enjoy, including idleness.  Idleness then is one way to spice our frail lives during the days of our earthly pilgrimage.

I often wonder about the connection between walking and thinking. You hear of people under pressure pacing their office or study. But does it help? There are historical precedents for how walking somehow galvanises the thinking process. According to legend, Aristotle would walk around the Lycium Gymnasium in Athens as he espoused his ideas to his followers. This group of followers were eventually labelled the Peripatetic school, derived from Greek words peri (around) and pateo (to walk or tread). (Thanks Daniel @
http://discoveringurbanism.blogspot.com/2009/01/walking-and-thinking.html
)

If I am struck by an idea, I leap up and walk around. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve gained insight into, or come up with solutions for, issues while walking. But, and here is the proviso, not just any kind of movement of the feet activates the cogs of the brain. Walking through polluted city streets, elbowing your way through crowds, trying to remember what’s next on your list and ‘have I forgotten anything – oh damn, I should have done x first and now I’m going to have to go all the way back …’ is not conducive to contemplative thought. At least, not for me. Contemplative walking involves the ability to be able to mentally let go and let the mind wander. To stop trying to control every thought and let your mind travel its own paths as your feet do the same. This requires walking in nature – or something close to it. A park, a reserve, leafy streets, the bush – anywhere where you can avoid human made noise as much as possible.

I also find I need to be alone, or at least with someone who is comfortable walking without talking. By alone, I mean without human company. Walking my dog is both companionable and peaceful. It is as if the peace of the walking environment filters into your soul and helps to still the mind, leaving it free to roam at will. I’ve walked when emotionally fragile and bawled most of the way, but have ended up in a different state to the one I started with. Not necessarily a big shift, but perhaps a tiny shard of enlightenment. I’ve found solutions to problems, been inspired by ideas, and asked new questions. Yet never have I set out on a walk with a conscious decision to tackle a particular issue. I wonder if it would be counter productive to do so?

It seems to me that we may not give our minds the credit they deserve for being able to function outside of our conscious control. I love being able to just let it all go and not have to think and deal with anything. There is the old adage that you should never make a decision until you have slept on it for three nights. The reason being that during sleep your sub- or unconscious mind is working away at the issue. Of course, it is implicit that you then trust your own mind to help you come to the right decision. So, walking and sleeping are two cornerstones for contemplative thinking and empowering your own mind, which, in turn, are essential aspects of health and wellbeing. So why is it that they are so often relegated to positions of relative unimportance in our busy modern lives? What will be the long terms effects of ignoring our need for time for contemplative thinking and for plentiful sleep?

Perhaps the answer lies in the Latin term Solvitur ambulando: it is solved by walking.

The Inaugural season of the Karnataka Premier League was just around the corner and Bangalore Provident emerged the winners. Based on the perfformances that I have seen and observed over the tournament this is my eleven and some of the special mentions about the emerging young players to watch out for.

• Sudhir Rao ( Mysore)
• Arun Kumar( Belagavi)
• Manish Pandey( Belagavi)
• Amith Verma( Bangalore Rural)
• Sunil Kumar Jain( Bangalore Rural)
• B.Akhil(Captain)( Bangalore Rural)
• Vinay Uthappa (WK)(Belagavi)
• Vinay Kumar(Belagavi)
• Sarfraz Ashraf( Bangalore Rural)
• David Johnson(Belagavi)
• Stuart Binny(Bijapur)
• Anand Katti( Bangalore Rural)

Special Mention for youngsters to watch out for:

• Sarfraz Ashraf( Bangalore Rural)
• Sunil Kumar Jain( Bangalore Rural)
• Bharath Chipli(Mangalore)
• Jonathan Rongsen(Mangalore)
• Amith Verma( Bangalore Rural)
• David Mathias(Bangalore City)
• Adithya Sagar(Mysore)
• Rahul Bhatkal( Bangalore Rural)
• Anirudh Joshi( Bangalore Rural)
• KP Appanna( Malnad Gladiators)
• MR Darshan(Malnad Gladiators)
• Gaurav Dhiman ( Bijapur)
• Ryan Ninan( Malnad Gladiators)
• Anirudh Joshi( Bangalore Rural)

Men Royal Challengers should recruit immediately or could add value:

• Sarfraz Ashraf.
• R Vinay Kumar.
• Anirudh Joshi
• B.Akhil

For sometime now my colleagues have been talking about this very utility and its features. These guys are big movie buffs, they talk about epic movies and downloading them from the internet every now and again. they speak of movie names which one could not have thought of in dreams too. Since I’m not so fond of movies I always was ignorant about these petty talks. But I always felt that I was lacking behind and wasn’t up to date with my knowledge about this very internet utility. So for once I happened to catch up with one of them at the coffee corner. This is the very own guy whom I make fun of saying when is he releasing a new movie – because he is the one who is the source of all new movies for the team. He is a team grown film distributor.
My first question to him was “What all movies can he download?” His answer was all of them which are shared over the net. Also of any language that we want. I didn’t concentrate much on the technical of it. I was not interested. He also answered me not only movies but ebooks etc etc, the rest I heard but didnt listen. that was enough. So I thought to try out this to download some ebooks for myself. May be the design patterns and one of my personal favourite “Head first Design Patterns”. Here are the steps he directed me to.

Steps to use torrent and download stuff.

1. Go to http://www.mininova.com and search for whatever you want. To speak further these are called torrents and could be searched in many other sites too. This will display a list of all the torrents hosted. You can also use http://www.utorrent.com to search for torents.
2. You need to download one of files of your choice and an appropriate one of course. And it will be stored on you machine with .torrent extension – say x.torrent.
3. Now you need to go to http://www.utorrent.com and then download the Free Download file given. Its only a few kilo bytes and shouldnt take much time. This will give you a utorrent.exe on your system.
4. Install this executable with all the instructions that it asks.
5. Now open the µTorrent application from your programs or the shortcut created on your desktop.
6. Click on the add torent button and choose the file you earlier downloaded .i.e. x.torrent.
7. Now the download starts with all the statistics displayed for you.
8. After the download is complete you can open the file directly by right click and also it gives the option to view it in the downloaded folder.

This is how I downloaded the design patterns books for me. And this really has so many resources that I could imagine.I’m seriously thinking of downloading some very good epic movies for myself. Hope this helps.

Recently I’m worried too much about my future. Somewhere I feel I’m lacking the vision in life. I do not have long term plans for life, neither personally nor professionally. This is really a fact which I put off every time. So I thought of addressing it soon – this was contemplation during my vacation. Design patterns is one this that has been eluding me for some time. I have lost count of the number of times I have kick started this but crashed somewhere during the track – never finished it. So I already have a somewhat idea of what it is. But still I feel I’m a dummy. So I picked up this book called ‘Design Pattern for Dummies’ in fact I downloaded it from internet as pdf.

So today I started reading this. To make sure that I do not stop in between I want to make myself accountable for reading this. So the continuity continues. Need to put it in blog – as simple as that, but need to see if I’m serious about my future.

About the book to say it truly I downloaded it from the uTorrent client. I also tried Head first design patterns but the book is too huge some 600 odd pages. So decided to pick up the dummies. I have gone through some 35 pages – so far the book uses very simple English and seems to be up to the point. The diagrams are simple the pictorials are simple – of course that’s one everyone needs.

To start with a few pages the book seems to advertise itself in comparison with self. Why should you do this when this is for dummies? If you are a leader you need to set your own example – show that you are unique; don’t get into dirty business by comparing or blaming others. Then there is excessive repetition of sentences saying someone has solved our problems before and we just need to refer to them. This was certainly unnecessary – might be the pre decided space holder. Apart from this there are wild references to patterns that still haven’t been introduced yet. If the book is for dummies – think that the reader is a fool rather than assuming he knows or has heard of patterns already, seemed paradoxical. The author particularly mentions that he only assumes reader knows novice Java. In spite of this the future references seemed irrelevant. Foretelling something which you don’t know introduces abstraction and takes the reader away from reality – brings in assumptions and not to say confusions. Since I have heard or know some of them I may not face such confusions. Advantages of knowing everything superficially but nothing particularly.

Eliminate lines and scars(so called ageing lines) on your face.

Very recently a new controversy is making rounds around the media, Who was responsible for the partition of India? All this started with a book written by Mr.Jaswant Singh about the life and ideologies of Mr.Jinnah. I haven’t read the book but I can make out from the headlines that are around – the author has raised a question saying Jinnah was not responsible for the partition of India, and that much of the blame needs to be taken by the Indian counterparts who were the leaders when India was formed and the parted partitions were named Pakistan and East Pakistan(now Bangladesh). No doubt partition for any organization be it be country, company or family is not good for anyone. It breaks the emotional bond and integrity and creates hatred. It disturbs the economic ecosystem of the organization – I mean jute growing farms went to Bangladesh after partition and Jute mills remained in India, same with sugar. Today your neighbors become tomorrows enemies. And that is what has happened with us. I still can not understand whose damn had that Idea of dividing nations based on religion, who ever did it he is an idiot for sure, and didn’t have far sightedness. The same thing continued in India too when states were divided according to linguistics. We have faced more problems than developments.

But we are in 2009 60 years after everything has happened and now why is the silly debate of who made history. Can history be changed by nay means – I don’t understand. If it were to be change then there are more horrible incidents in the history of this great nation, we could change the invasion of British rather that not give us a chance to have this debate at this point of time, simple no British no Partition. In that sense lets put the blame on British hadn’t they invaded us and looted our wealth, there would be no question of partition. But having said that still can we change this – BIG NO. So why the discussion about all this something which the gen X or Y doesn’t even know about who the leader across the border was. To be frank I got to know about Mr.Jinnah only after this incident.

The greatest disappointment came from our watch dog of democracy the opposition party of India, BJP. It fired its good old loyal party worker for more than 30years saying since it had an ideological mismatch. How can an ideology change in a year. I do not have any loyalty towards Congress party but it sucks when people do like. By all means all are junk fellows. Never to forget BJP was the party that wanted to win elections on a promise saying they will build a temple. Hold on – yes temple rather than bridges,metro rails and top class infrastructure. What better can be expected? – nothing more. One of the alliance states also went ahead to ban the book, saying it will create hatred of a leader among the people. May be they didn’t want our children to grow hating the iron man of India. But why the ban? If there is something that needs to be banned right away is the reality shows like “sach ka saamna”, “splitsville”, “Roadies” lets not forget the “svayamvar” fiasco – These are much much more derogatory to the absolute norms of our civilization than the book, and more since television reaches a broader audience that a book. These programs are nothing more than aphrodisiacs – do our children need to be aware of these things rather futuristic awareness. Is the chief minister listening? The great irony is all these things are happening at the expense of public money. Alas are we paying for historical discussions or future building.

Such discussions are still going to thrive in our society until all this old population phases out from activity. There is a retirement age for everything not these guys. We still cannot understand we have two 80+ highly respected but at the helm of our countries decision making. They dont know if they are going to be alive next year and you expect them to make decisions for future and set a roadmap for children(no great grand children). This is something too much to expect.

I guess we all have repect for the people who fought bravely without worldly pleasures for the sake of independence of our nations. But did they leave us the free state to discuss things like who was responsible for what in history – certainly not I think. For a moment we all should stand up and salute our brave freedomers. Lets make sure we keep our ears shut and move on with the game of lifes.

62 years on after republic the case still isnt resolved!!! The argument continues coffee or toffee!!!

This is an excerpt from the wikipedia.org.

There are two principles that any definition of democracy includes, equality and freedom. These principles are reflected by all citizens being equal before the law, and have equal access to power. Additionally, all citizens are able to enjoy legitimized freedoms and liberties, which are usually protected by the constitution.

Fine to put it in a succinct way every one in the country is equal. Now United States of America is a country which preaches democracy – and admired for being the country if not fully but close to being perfect to follow democracy. But unfortunately authorities of United States of America were involved in the following two incidents.

1. Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam – beloved former President to Indiia – frisked and made to wait inline for checking by continental airlines staff in India.
2. Mr. Shahrukh Khan – bollywood celebrity – frisked at Newark airport and made to wait for an hour.

Every country’s government wing the execution will have the right given by constitution to search, frisk of course with dignity the immigrants.

Now how a frisked individual behaves is upto him and no one can change his opinion. By all means its a question of undermining ones dignity so its quite natural that any one will feel bad about that. But this is where we need to change our perspectives. For someone it might be a question of dignity but for someone who is checking its about exhibiting professionalism. Of course there are no excuses for not performing professional duties properly. And for all others its a question of a nations security, a question of life and death for the people, a question for the elected government to take care of its citizens well being. So why should somebody crib for getting frisked. Any well education responsible citizen of any nation will not do so – and would consider his duty being equivalent to the right to vote, the right to get checked. That is what our beloved former president did. So this is where a change in perspective is required from every responsible citizen (I cannot infer if celebrities are responsible or not) of any country in particular India, since we as a nation are at the cynosure of terror attacks every now and again. So next time some airport authority wants to check and recheck and make sure you are not one of those practicing severe vandalism – lets please cooperate. So lets just be pure gentlemen or ladies for sometime and sidle our dignity for the sake of nations security. If somebody from any nation thinks he is above all this – the next thing that should happen to him/her should be to deported to a jail without any second choice.

The thing that is most worrying about is the way our elected parliamentarians behaved, the American air officials were verbally ripped apart for practicing utter professionalism. What a great myth? Amazing I recall somebody calling this “Do you know who I’m” syndrome. Our honorable minister of civil aviation went on to threaten to sue at both instances. Seems the gentleman is more worried about this fiasco than Air India drudgery. May be he wants to add a new keep performance indicator(KPI) into the security officals score card – to remember all the names of Indian celebrities who are above law – did I mean it, atleast that was what expected froom the officials I guess, disgusting. Our government on a serious note uttered taking this matter with the government of USA, wait I’m hearing it correct – are we taking a matter saying “please do not question our celebrities” or “how dare you frisked our celebrities”, what a disgrace? Are we going to America to say this instead of going to them and say to stop their aid to terror accomplice neighbor. Are we going to tell America to show lineance in practicing democracy, compromise the security of its nationals – just because Indian celebrities are BIG, guys its high time please put on your thinkinng caps. Am quiete sure this would have qualified for joke of the year. It was nothing but a game to gain brownie points from the fans by being sympathetic about the fiasco. What was our government thinking when making such statements – are Indian celebrities bigger than the homeland security of 300million or more Americans, including Indian diaspora which was also the victim in 9/11 attacks. Alas how better can we educate our people not to vote for these politicians. The only optiion that would have remained for a level headed responsible citizen is to bury them alive.

The greatest disappointment to me came in the form of the way our media handled these issues. At both the cases it was shear lunatic ism at exhibition, aired live 24/7. If there is one thing that needs to be done in the running of Indian democracy is to tighten the screws of our media. They just blew the issue out of total proportion. The biggest sin that they committed was to lineate the incidents portraying them to be directed towards a particular community. Wasn’t this against democracy – no one complained. Can we stop such horrendous things happening in the name of free press. This is called creating news out of anything. Lets please clarify things to these guys terrorism is an act against humanity, and any circumstances that lead to serious consequences should be dammed. Please do understand there are more serious issues to cover and worry about. Our media is forgetting that they have a role to play in educating the people and take them forward into future. this is the time we need to look beyond caste creed and religion. Because its the question of some ones life?

Now as human beings do we need to be so careless and insouciant about existence of life on Mother Earth?

One fine Saturday after skipping two of them due to vacation, I went to the temple and a big surprise awaited me – an old, aggressive, heavy voiced lady had arrived at this place. She too was selling sesame seed mantles. Instead of the cosy stool and table she had floated a gunny bag on the floor. She had positioned herself beside the pathway to the temple entrance and anyone who enters would have to pass by her, and anyone who wanted to buy mantles from the old man too had to pass by her. I left my sandals and went to buy the mantles with the old man – the lady shouted twice in a heavy pitch “Rs.5 gentleman please buy”. It was a surprise – and I became aware of her marketing skills. But since I was used to buying them from the old man I continued and brought them from him. I felt I was a bad customer. But the other devotees were not as dumb as me – they were buying it from the old lady. To add to this the lady also sold nice fragrance jasmine flowers and essence sticks – that were offered to god. In a sense she sold everything that was needed for a devotee to visit the temple I guess. The following week I again visited the temple – this time the old lady had started another service, safeguarding the footwear of devotees. This time she had brought a girl child, think it was her grand daughter, to accompany her in business. As it was the norm in the temple one side of the pavement was meant for leaving footwear( and the other side for holy flame), Her grand daughter used to visit the devotees on the footwear side of the temple and persuade the devotees to leave their sandals beside her grandmother. The old lady charged a nominal service fee of Rs.2 for the safeguarding. But the old man still sat in the same cosy place – I assume he was observing. This continued for a couple of weeks, seemed that the old lady was doing good business. And once during my visit I noticed that the lady had added one more service to her kitty. The devotees who brought mantles had to return back the lamps(container) to the old lady or old man for that matter after lighting the mantles in the flame. So while returning the lamp the old lady used to offer the devotees a black towel to wipe their hands – this is because the mantles were dipped in oil and the oil most often than always would have spilled on the lamps too and it was quite natural extended to the hands. The devotees would gleefully accept the offer and return the towel back. Of course she didn’t charge anything for this service. I thought this lady is here to stay and is very competitive. So now the lady had to offer three extra services than the old man, selling mantles, flowers, sandal safeguarding and towel. But the old man remained in inertia. The following saturday on my customary visit to the temple after leaving my sandals I went ahead to buy the mantles – but a magical surprise awaited me – the old man was missing and the old lady stays put. This time I brought the mantles from the old lady for a reduced price. Initially I just thought he might be absent and could return the following week, but he never turned up for two or three weeks or till date – he hasn’t. The old lady had sent the him out of business through her marketing skills.

The lady might not be aware of all the researched, tried and tested methods of market rationals – but she did them unaware. To analyze what right she did to establish and grow her business – here are some of the things that come to my mind.

1. The positioning of her establishment – As I said she had positioned exactly on the pathway to the entrance of the temple and en route to the old man. So it was a high frequency place. This proves that how much ever thought process, research and development, quality consciousness you add to your product – if you are not in a right place to sell it, its as good as nothing. I feel the presence of a cafe coffee day on the commercial street makes more sense than having one in channa pattana, though today both of them have one. This reminds me on an article that I had read some time ago – it was an interview of the McDonald’s chief executive – to a question put by a reporter about what is the actual recipe of a McDonald’s hamburger. To that the CEO had answered his main business was not to make burgers but he was into real estate. Yes identifying the exact establishments for his chain and setting up fast food shops. So very true with the old lady. Hats off lady – you are nothing less than the CEO of McDonald’s.

2. Pricing of the product – If the price is not affordable rather more aptly a competitive price in the market, every ones going to give a second thought. This reminds me of a concept of a balance between the number of items that you sell and the price. The more sold at a less price will always have an edge over less sold at high price. Because the reduced price will always look attractive to the customer. This is the same principle that has taken Narayana Hridayalaya to extended heights. Read through the following link.

http://www.tinyurl.com/lbeoey

3. Advertising – I feel this is as important as producing your product. If people are unaware of a product no one is going to buy that – as simple as that. On the pavements of the temple when the old lady shouted her price and called them towards her stopping people from going towards the old man – she was advertising. When the grand daughter went around the temple asking the devotees to leave their footwear beside her granny she was doing a sales campaign. I don’t feel technically advertising and sales campaign are two different things though my MBA friend argues with me. I just feel they are two different methods of luring customers to buy. I remember Vodafone spending millions on airing zoozoo ads. The old lady called the shots right. The old man stayed put.

4. One stop destination to all services. – The old lady sold all that which was required for a normal devotee to visit the temple – flowers, mantles, essence sticks, safeguarding of footwear. So the customer was blessed at one place he could get all the things. This is nothing but the success story of Big Bazaar in India or WalMart in North America or Aldi in Europe. Of course these establishments also follow the principle of sell more at less price which I mentioned in the pricing of the product. The old lady of sleepy Bangalore follows WalMart business model in disguise – very impressive.

5. Value added service to the customer. – This reminds me the story of a cucumber seller at Chennai airport which was doing rounds some time ago. Wherein the author summaries that customer is god and emphasizes the fact to give more to the customer than whatever he pays for. This is how business’s need to grow and hold on to the existing customer base. My granny tells me that she has seen child care centers in Wal Marts – though she is unaware that its charged or not. But having such an additional service attracts customer whether he customer pays or not. This is what the old lady did when she started the service of extending the towel to wipe hands. At least I accepted it gleefully though I usually carry my own hand kerchief.

6. Inability of the old man to stay competitive with the market. – Last but not the least to the success of this old lady our old man was also a big contributor. Yes this old man didn’t change his business with time and customer needs. So he went out of business. This reminds me of MTR going out of business during emergency unable to stay competitive in pricing when they could not change went out of business, but now its a different story that they are back with a bang. 
http://www.tinyurl.com/lbs4c9
.

I still continue to visit the same lady, she continues to offer the same services to all her customers. Her grand daughter is not to be seen these days. She still shouts her price of mantles and flowers – don’t know why when theres no competition, may be to add new customers. But the price of the mantles is now Rs.8 – ooops. The price of flowers doesn’t matter to me since I never buy them. I still buy mantles with her paying the inflated price. But never take her safeguarding service. Having seen the marketing skills of this lady I thought to key in this blog and analyze her skills and techniques from a sales man’s perspective though I’m not one. I’m still awaiting to see if the old man or some one come out with a similar strategy to hit back at this old lady.

But amidst all this drama my faith in Lord hasn’t faded.

Earlier this Wednesday morning I heard the news quoting ‘Luis Felipe Scolari’ would take over as new manager at Stamford bridge. Hmmm Quite Surprising. My god this was the worst last thing that can happen to Brand Chelsea.

But surely it’s again a Gamble. Phil does not have club management experience in Europe. And Roman wants to conquer Europe with a Latin American. Football surely is not oil business. But this will make Roman spend some nights with oil in his eyes.

Analyzing Phil’s personality – he is for sure animated, may be an astude tactician, shouts hard at players on the side lines, doesn’t know English – hmmm big problem, he doesn’t have that grace possessed by his predecessors, Jose and Avram. He is raw he is rugged he is aggressive he looks incomplete he is father of controversies etc etc. Looking at the Portugal team he manages currently – somehow they play physical football – which is obvious from the World cup 2006 match against the Dutch side, they play some sort of a ragged game, squeeze results. There is no flair in their game which can be seen in French or Dutch football. And for sure Roman wants a flair in his teams football, which I don’t think Phil will bring to the Bridge. He always roams around in those track suits. Whereas a English coach requires more discipline – which for sure Phil lacks. The fans of Chelsea want to respect the club, this is surely take some respect of it. Phil is not a media man. Which Jose and Avram for sure were. This might be a big problem in the build to brand Chelsea. Apparently Guss Hiddink/ Frank Rijkaard would have been a better choice. Overall I feel he is not a gentlemanly figure.

Mr. Roman you called it wrong again!!!

It was September 2007 when the ever arrogant, aggressive and self proclaimed “Special One” left Stamford Bridge with a grim face. To step into his shoes the glum faced bear built Israeli by name “Avram Grant”(AG) stepped in – it was a surprise. AG didn’t have a professional qualification to be a top manager. One of the English press had headlines “Avram Who?” – Perhaps they wanted a more media centric man rather than the one have coaching abilities. I guess Owner had taken a gamble. But AG stood by. AG did the job silently. The style of football changed. Results started to come Chelsea’s way. The aggression had gone by and was replaced by silent football. The old media spice was missing. The other teams were no more accused of football idiosyncrasies – which were routine under the old “Special One”. Suddenly the media room at Stamford Bridge had gone silent. AG had emerged as the media and fans “New Special One” – Owner’s gamble had almost paid off. Yes but till the brink stages of every competition. Its May 2008 AG had to leave. He had to leave because of the club’s quest for excellence. There were many reasons

- English media – they want spice in everything

- The pitch, goal post and bar of Luzniki stadium

- The late equalizer of Emilie Heskey.

- The giant killer’s Barnsley

Whatever may be the reason AG was never projected as the man to take Chelsea into the future. He was not the personality. Every football pundit felt this. Finally it came AG was fired. He didn’t accept his previous position as director of football. Anybody who wants to be a leader should have done this. Being a football director meant taking a back seat. The outgoing of AG might have created a void at Stamford Bridge. But AG leaves with his head high.

Now the decision to sack AG was perfectly justified from the club management’s perspective. They want immediate excellence; they want flair, flamboyance and attacking football at any COST. AG was considered a defensive coach – as it was justified by his glum and silence. The both would not resonate.

From a professionals point of view for AG it established him as a top flight club manager who had done things within 8 months – which no one had expected. Chelsea finished 2^nd from 8^th where they started under him. The champion’s league final was a special one of course. Surely it may not be leaps he has taken the club to the next step. He was inches close to become a historical name. But AG never had the CV – now he has got one. His managerial career has taken off at the age of 53. Hmmm amazing but surely AG is the one most benefited from this deal. He left Stamford Bridge without a statement. He is a gentle man.

There seems to be a new concept called short term managers in English football as many as 9 changes from top 20. Surely Job security and English club managers are not going hand in hand any more.