Can Status Quo, ever be the other name for God?

Can Status Quo ever be the other name for God? 

I ask that, as most seem to be following that & with great faith. 

The inherited customs, conventions, protocols, and policies go on & on. 

Status Quo is actually the other name for Devil. 

Decision-making builds character. 

Good decisions, good character. Big decisions, big character. 

There is God in great character & thus so rare.

The capacity to take decisions is now almost lost in our modern world.

Individuals have been replaced with committees for check & balances. In the bargain, what we have achieved is the opposite of the intent. We wanted less of wrong decisions, instead, what we have is - more of no decisions. 

The Brexit referendum waz an outcome of just that, where the learned British parliamentarians left the all-important decision on the ignorant guy on the street.

It seems to me that at the very kernel of all decision making, there is either greed or fear or indifference but seldom any courage of conviction.

Decision-making, esp. for public good is complex & thus esoteric in nature.

One cannot hope to resolve it with a committee. 

Ah committee !

Committee is a "group of people who individually cannot do much, however, collectively decide, that nothing can be done !"

All big public decisions are not only open to be challenged today but are precedence setting & likely to become future citations and reference points. 

So, even when problems are born today, their proposed solutions could have far-reaching consequences in the future. 

Thiz requires that such problem solving decisions be taken by the visionary, who are willing to let go the immediate personal gain for future security of the many. 

It requires for people in high position to be wise, brave & take risks. 

Who that person is, cannot be decided by democracy. 

Enter Narendra Damodardas Modi !

As a student of leaders, the 'DeMo by NaMo' is worthy of affectionate praise. Hiz capacity to take a solo decision, as huge as that & talking directly to the citizens of India via TV during prime time, shows us how tall a leader he is. 

If he had set up a committee, notwithstanding the secrecy issue, the pygmies would have told him all the reasons on why it can't be done. That done, he would be almost bound by their advice & the decision to DeMo would have demised.

For decision, one needs - intent, idea, & implementation.

Nobody can cast a doubt on the giant's intent. 

The idea of demonetization is not hiz, waz in discussions for the last few decades, but none before him had the guts. 

Implementation can be discussed & debated till the cows come home, but the flaws if any, seem small compared to the colossal decision the Modi-man haz taken for a better India.

Bolo Bharat Mata Ki ..... Jai Okay Please 🙌🏼🇮🇳

For this media, "Love all" makes a lousy score to report

When George Bush introduced Dr. Manmohan Singh to his wife Barbara, he purportedly said "Meet Dr. Singh the Prime Minister of India, a country with the highest number of Muslims in the world, but not a single Al Qaeda operative there."

Fast forward to our current times and the world is a different place and how !

An Indian government with Dr. Manmohan Singh as it's head, has been replaced with one that is christened as - the Modi Sarkar. Narendra Modi is known for what he is, but courtesy domestic media, not so much within his own country. And he will surely not need nor get the Al Qaeda referenced introduction & nor would that be fair. Modi is a man of his own, an assertive Indian government is being groomed under his strong leadership.

And of course we also have amongst us the likes of Dr. Zakir Naik, who sell hate soaked in religious bigotry to supposedly over 15 million of his global followers. Some among them are applicants for a job at the ISIS, an organization that not long ago declared the formation of the outlawed caliphate called "Islamic State", just about after the exit of Dr. Manmohan Singh in 2014.

As opposed to the soft & accommodative Dr. Singh, Modi is perceived as a strong man, especially against terrorism. On global forums, he is heard advocating that "Terrorism is the single biggest challenge for the world."

On the other side of the globe we have a Donald Trump that's running for the American presidency with a constant anti 'Islamic-terrorism' rhetoric.  Regrettably Trump's perspective, built around sensationalism, works well. Since today's popular mainstream media has gone topsy-turvy, like tabloids, it chases news that gives it the maximum eye balls and not necessarily relevance. Trump is thus getting far more coverage than Modi, both within America & across the world. He is fast influencing the western nations' value system, which now speaks less of what it is & more of what it is against.

That should not have been the case with India, but unfortunately, she too has succumbed to the media's pandering. The Moditva Doctrine is not common knowledge & so can easily be misunderstood as Trump's echo. The twist in the irony is that Modi was labeled a 'Muslim-hater' by the politically motivated & compromised Indian media & so Modi, the then democratically elected Chief Minister of Gujarat, was denied a visa to enter the US, even without ever being proven guilty in any court of law. It was an abject and an unprecedented travesty of justice, which was largely buried by the Indian media & so bypassed the attention of some of the most educated but yet politically unconscious Indian masses. If elected, Trump wants to allow entry of only non-Muslims into America. So on the face of it, both leaders should be natural allies.

Well they are in fact, diabolically opposite.

For a moment let us accept that Trump is right i.e. less of Muslims equals more of peace. But then India with the largest Muslim population in the world, with their strength of over 200 million in India or almost one in every five Indians, should make this nation the most dangerous place in the world - but it is not. Most attacks on India are from infiltrators from Pakistan, as apparently they cannot find die hard "fidayeen" fighters across the length & width of India. Having said so, we have now seen shoots of home grown Indian Muslims, who have become subscribers to the ISIS ideology. For reasons best known to the media houses, that terrorist organization is regularly introduced to the general population through the media updates of their daily atrocities. The ISIS makes the Al Qaeda that Bush referred to while introducing Dr. Singh, look rather pale.

Notwithstanding, India is still the safest country in the world, at least if we choose to view her through an American lens that for convenience & simplicity conjoins the Muslim community & terrorism into a single hyphenated phenomenon i.e. the "Islamic-terrorism". Considering their vast strength in numbers, even if a chunk of Indian Muslims were truly to be influenced by the terror marketers, at best we would have a disaster on hand & at worst a mayhem.

So even when a giant nation like India is largely peaceful, the question before us should really be - can we then discount the ISIS influenced Muslims, as mere fringe & simply call it an aberration among just a handful of misguided youth?

No. We should not ignore them, no matter how small it's impact today.

All & especially the Muslims themselves, must first accept that there is a problem within their community. The terror attraction is a manifestation of their inability to reform with time & that can happen to persons of any faith, irrespective - if they remain frozen in the past.

For most Muslims, religion even today is not about a personal spiritual experience in solitude, but the faithful are expected to visibly practice the rituals in a manner that makes their religiosity a central life theme. That gets further rekindled at the almost mandatory weekly Friday mosque's mass congregations. As a result, Muslims encounter many modern day requirements that cannot be compatible with their daily mandated religious routines. Being accommodative, would attract scorn from the community peers or make them feel incomplete Muslims. Thus most cannot convince the world at large that they are beyond & larger than their self imposing religion bearing identity. In a fast globalizing world where cultural assimilation is an expectation, interdependence a maturity and gloss & glam a norm, their inflexibility to adapt to the order of the day renders them somewhat unemployable & their school of thought as obsolete.

Not willing to bow out as misfits in the fast paced modern society, some staunch Muslim community leaders have lately been instigating a retaliation, rather than reform. These so called leaders don't seem to resonate with the likes of say Abdul Kalam the former president of India or the Khan trio Bollywood superstars or A R Rehman the master music composer or Bismillah Khan the instrumental music Ustad or Sania Mirza the tennis ace or Azharuddin the cricket captain or IH Latif the ex-air force chief or Ahmedi the ex-justice at Supreme Court - to just name a few of the Muslims, that have negotiated with their personal space to reach great heights & become entire India's favorite. It is not even in their reckoning that this makes India perhaps the most unique country in the world where a minority community has achieved so much & in so many spheres. For them, the heroes to emulate are perhaps foreigners like Osama Bin Laden or even Burhan Wani, a Pakistan declared "martyr".

Some parents too get influenced and so fail to teach their children, that there is solace in societal achievements and not in being a claimant of perpetual victim-hood by it.

At such a delicate time, the ISIS has now confidently raised it's head and is demanding that the faithful to Islam must not wait to be affected in order to retaliate. It wants the Muslim community to become aware & focus on the minutest ideological differences that exist between the Muslims and non-Muslims and eliminate all and any nonconformity, including the neutral or benign.

They are in fact the echo-in-action, to the hollow war-on-terror cry made by Bush at the UN, who had reportedly thundered "Either you are with us or against us". To some, the ISIS brand of terror appears mesmerizingly attractive and an opportunity to subjugate the world to the puritanical Muslim way.

Now when a population with a particular belief - say, any explosive idea (affinity to the ISIS kind of terrorism being the case here) goes 'unopposed' from a very tiny fraction to about 3% of people, the tipping point may not be far. Studies show that the time taken for a radically different idea to take grip of even just that 3% of the population is very difficult in the beginning i.e. it takes 90 % of the time to reach that threshold number. From there on however, to move to a higher critical mass % of population, it will take only 10 % of the time, after which that idea can no longer be ignored as it would become trend setting. So if it is going to take 9 years to radicalize 3% of the Muslims into motivated terror elements, it will take just 1 year to reach a higher damaging number, after which the entire society would have to deal with them on almost a daily basis.

This should explain where the ISIS itself came about from, so suddenly & out of nowhere. In reality, it is not as sudden as it feels. For years it was simmering in the back burner unnoticed, but after the forced departure of Saddam Hussein, there was a local leadership vacuum & that problem got compounded further by the American bombing. It has now came out in full force to actually form a caliphate of its own.

Thus, even when home grown terror is next to negligible in India, the opposition to the concept of terrorism should be early on i.e. radicalization of the Muslim youth, no matter how significantly insignificant now, should not be allowed to transcend unopposed and definitely not among the young Muslims with impressionable minds.

This is where it gets tricky. We must keep in mind that the approach to opposition of all & any type of terror network must be prompt & yet in an evolved manner, using soft power which involves all the stake holders, especially the peaceful Muslim majority, who have the most at stake. If not done that way, you are no different than the agents of terrorism themselves.

The means to get to the objective are as important as the goal itself.

The acerbic, blunt & direct Trump-ism or the war-on-terror through remote controlled drones, may produce the sounds & sights of halting it but in reality, it is still akin to allowing a poor concept to perpetuate unopposed. The reason is, if anything, bitter criticism of the Muslims by painting them all with the same black brush is playing into the enemy's cards. In fact that only strengthens the resolve of the terror group leaders, who may no more need to distort facts to portray a fake & a supposed grim picture to prospective young Muslims in order to coax them into joining and participating in a 'them-vs-us' mission.

Donald Trump's jibes or the no-hijab law in France are perfect examples of achieving the exact opposite of the intent, by adding nobility to an otherwise heinous ideology. The routine incitement through insults of Muslims & their prophet is alienating & silencing the vast number of Muslim liberals, presumably, also scared of the Muslim radicals. These Muslim liberals are being driven away, who otherwise would have been as good partners as influencer, in positively countering the dark shadow of ISIS on their own youth, that is stealing away their future.

Americanism & the western culture at large with it's overbearing 'my way or the highway' attitude regularly line up battery of university professors on CNN or BBC with fancy titles like "Middle East expert" or "Islamic scholar". These TV regulars severely fail to understand the brewing angst in the post-Saddam Muslim world, when they ridicule & attack the region, it's people & their faith. They fail to capture the fervor which is emanating from a deadly concoction of two extremes, that from of a sense of - super despondency due to social ostracism at hands of modernity on one end & ultimate hope in some make believe Islamic salvation on the other.

So below the surface of it's sophisticated view points that are enveloped in euphemisms and conveyed to the world through its global media footprint, the entire western world is no different - it provokes more than it convinces. The western bravado is in fact giving a helping hand to a mission that otherwise was attempting to defy gravity. It would have easily died under it's own weight, as the call by ISIS for killing all non-believers, including the moderate Muslim families with their women & innocent children in tow, is repugnant to the human senses, irrespective.

One's strength is in knowing one's weakness and avoiding it. Attempting to match madness with insanity is America & it's allies current weakness, but they just don't seem to get it. They are in pursuit of that race to the bottom.

So how does one reverse this crazy war? The solution lies outside the military 

establishment.

If a frail man in a loin cloth could push back an expanding empire with the greatest armory at the time, it was due to his cutting edge insight into the human behavior & applying the same on fellow humans.  The concept has been tested again & again and even successfully imported in America itself, when it manifested & unleashed itself through Dr. Martin Luther King, who won the 'white hearts' for the cause of race equality, using the Gandhian principles of humanism in practice. Nelson Mandela too won over his oppressors, when he "shocked them with compassion."

These innate human endowments are valid across geographies and peoples and are timeless. If ever there was a need to embrace them by world leaders, it is now.

Universality got established, when we take the example of how Modi in India recently made a huge breakthrough to resolve one of the oldest insurgency problem that India faced. In Nagaland he signed a peace accord with the Naga tribes, without redrawing the state's border ( the long demand of the insurgents ). He made a deal that involved creating an institutionalized mechanism that allowed dignity & autonomy for the Naga tribes living across in Manipur. In fact, Modi had announced a few hours before he signed the accord, that some great news will be shared by him. As expected, the Indian media however was not interested in giving it the due coverage, as there is no profit to be made in peace, besides the TRP enhancing Islamic hue was missing.

So when one is so very vulnerable, the odds are so against you, what have you been left with besides attempting to convince the other side, to appeal to his higher moral values & make him drop his arms?

History ignored, who will tell the Americans that in spite of their grand military machinery, they are still weak & helpless? America is supposedly the leader of the global civilized community of nations & so it and it's allies must still - follow all the rules, respect human rights, maintain minimum civilian casualties and yet face full media scrutiny. Breaking the rules, wins it no friends & in fact exposes it's hypocrisy. The Islamic State and it's ambassadors are invisible & spread across the world & are not shackled by such self imposed restrictions. It was bound to be an asymmetrical war from the day it was so thoughtlessly called out by Bush.

The situation since, has got further exasperated by the media, that is relentlessly cooking up stories, by pouring the Arab oil into the fire that prepares the western world's bacon.

As a consequence, today we have a very peculiar situation at play. It's a vicious downward spiral with the following routine :

* Some modernity afflicted Muslims will indulge in a terrible act;

* Irrespective if it is true or not, ISIS will claim that it is it's doing;

* Some leader in the opposition or running for a post will hurl insults at the Muslims in order grab attention;

* The liberal Muslims will be embarrassed & defend with a "Islam is a religion of peace" argument;

* For the sake of law & order, those in office of authority will attempt political correctness & endorse the stand of the liberal Muslims;

* The TRP seeking media will play to the gallery as that earns it the maximum sales i.e. the photos of post attack aftermath will be pasted on front page, the angry reactionary statements by politicians will make for bold headlines, the knee jerk policies will be debated and either under reportage of those suggesting to make calm or condescending undertones of peace makers will make it to the weekend editorials;

* All that will collectively make deeper gashes in the relationship among all the players;

* More jilted Muslims will embrace radicalism;

* The next terror attack will ensue as a consequence & the cycle repeats.

The end result is that "hate-all" creeps in & media like an inert catalyst, will never be a suspect for the exothermic reaction that it actually aids.

All the parties will be the losers, the media being the exception as it shall continue to poke one & pinch other to seek out profit from pain. To add insult to injury, media which peddles misinformation entwined in half truths that are full lies, will claim pretentious nobility. It will skillfully suggest that it is not the creator of the dark picture but merely holding a mirror in front of the society, which is reflecting an attitude gone bad. Anyone that tries to curb the media will be attacked by the naive 'freedom-of-speech' crusaders.

At such a time we have a statesman in our midst, who is also a visionary, in the name & nature of Narendra Modi.

He is a powerful thought leader, not the one to be drawn into a mud slinging matches & ignores the cacophony, including personal attacks. He exhibits great patience & temperance in dealing with such matters. The Moditva Doctrine's approach on what is now being labeled as "The Muslim problem", is yielding dividends & results are note worthy.

The Moditva Doctrine :

A) Be tough on terrorism - He certainly wants a united global response & wants tougher laws to deal with the menace of terrorism. He does not mince words, in fact he has severely criticized the United Nations Security Council after the Brussels attack, for not waking up to the reality. He admonished that "United Nations has a documented definition, consequences & ways to prevent war, but has no structured response on terrorism. If UN does not soon come up with a suitable response, it might risk of becoming irrelevant."

That toughness is "directed at Muslims", is a figment of a perverts imagination & supported by the media. That has in fact been the oppostion's narrative all along, who are pandering to the "vote-bank politics" of appeasement to the Muslims on one hand and selling fear of "RSS controlled BJP" on the other. In an interview, when a foreign journalist asked Modi about his "Muslim bashing" speeches, he replied "Have you heard them, or have you just heard about them?" He further added "I am in the public eye for over 40 years. I have written on a host of subjects & have given innumerable interviews & perhaps delivered more speeches than any other Indian leader. Kindly, research & then make your opinion."

Modi was painted as a Muslim-hater, but the reality is that according to the UPA commissioned Sachar Committee to evaluate the well being of the Muslims across India, the Muslims prospered the most in State of Gujarat under the leadership of Modi, when he was the chief minister there.

B) Define terrorism - Modi is going about doing his job tactfully, appealing to the vast Muslim majority in the most subtle manner. He fully realizes that the issue must be dealt with utmost care as it is an emotive issue. To draw an analogy, we are trying to diffuse a high intensity time bomb and one wrong move could be crippling.

He has been saying the same thing as Trump and is yet so very opposite. Far from propagating a false notion that "All terrorists are Muslims", Modi was the first global leader to clearly delineate religion from terror. At his maiden G20 summit, without ever using the words "Islamic-terrorism", he called out for a need to go to war with those who are "against humanity" & that he has been repeating at every possible opportunity. He has removed hypocrisy from the hyper Islamophobia hype. His definition will make all accountable, not just the Muslims.

C) Engagement of the Muslims - He is seriously attempting to bring back the vast majority of disengaged Muslims for peace, back into the center fold. As a symbol of significance, he even addressed the Sufi forum at the Vigyan Bhavan in the capital & reminded the Muslims, that of the "99 names of Allah - none stood for violence." He took special efforts to remind the Muslims who they are and frankly that should shame most of the current crop of Muslim leaders. He touched upon their history as he reminisced about the entry of the Muslims into the Indian sub-continent, which was peaceful and is as ancient as the first millennium BC, when he presented a gold-plated replica of the Cheraman Juma Masjid from that era, to King Salman Of Saudi Arabia.

After all, the right way to engage the Muslim youth is to first show respect for their community at large. It is definitely less for the others and more for the Muslim elders themselves to stop their young from being wrongly influenced and securing their own future. One can only face one's future with confidence if he or she is first made to realize & shoulder the responsibility of continuing a peaceful, prosperous & purposeful past.

The Results of the Moditva Doctrine are note worthy both domestically and internationally. Modi is well recognized in the political circle for his freshness & boldness but the sold out Indian media seldom highlights the same in that manner.

To give a few examples, not withstanding the years of status quo on Pakistan, at the very start, Modi demonstrated that he is a non-conformist & risked inviting Nawaz Sharif for his swearing-in ceremony & later visited him unannounced.

On the domestic front, Zafar Sareshwala who once took Modi to the International Court of Justice for the 2002 riots in Gujarat, is now his greatest goodwill ambassador among the Muslim community. One of India's most prominent journalist M J Akbar was so impressed with Modi, that he joined the BJP & is now a spokesman for the party. Asifa Khan of Gujarat, who formerly worked for the All India Mahila Congress, is now the BJP's face in Gujarat & elsewhere, especially in the electronic media & Hindi TV channels.

World over the Indian diasporas of Muslim faith greet him warmly.

Modi was recently awarded the highest civilian award by Saudi Arabia, the epicenter of Islam. That makes him the first Indian leader to be conferred such an honor but sadly, the media forgot to showcase us that.

It may not be out of context to mention that the social liberals in India don't seem to understand the gravity of the situation at hand & are living in a fools paradise. They get fooled by the local media, that delivers news that is less insightful & instead more communally incite-full. They are using the liberals to push even the politically neutrals to the right of center. That done, media is laughing all the way to the bank, with the polarization of the society getting firmed up. It plays cheerleader to these so-called liberals, who are more than eager to hog the limelight by offering them a voice, often out of context. The liberals sadly get taken & join the manufactured pseudo "intolerance debate". They import Americanism & conveniently fail to understand the Indian secularism, where the law typically does not keep an arms length from all faiths but attempts to make a handshake with all. Thus, the liberals unnecessarily front issues such as the beef ban, while not even seconding the issue in favor of uniform civil code & triple talaq tragedy or speaking up against the irresponsible statements of the Hindu fringe, while keeping mum against the Muslim mainstream leaders out of fear; are examples of their irresponsibility.  They challenge ghar-wapsi but turn the other way when those following tribal religions, who lived next to Hindus for centuries, get converted en masse by NGOs financed by foreign money. As a result, many of the Hindus who are relatively indifferent to the religious preferences of their own or others in day to day matters, get infuriated and turn right wingers.

For a peaceful society one needs to understand the following 1) That faith is a fact beyond the reach of proof or reasoning, 2) That the security of any minority is in the goodwill of the majority, 3) That the civility of the majority is in its ability to accommodate the minority & 4) That media's freedom is a right but it's responsibility towards the national integrity is paramount.

Media however has failed the Indian state, it is time that it's freedom is curbed. If "Jaan" in Hindi means both life & information, then : Media to hai jaan ka dushman, hai hai !

Believe it or not, for a sustainable solution, in India at least - it should be Modi & Muslims vs. the media.

Go ahead and get 'tip-sy' !

Once upon a time .... some school days friends & yours truly had gone to this high nosed snob end restaurant.

* For starts - the 1st beer was served warm and as it reluctantly lay on my table...it turned a bit cold on me ... thankfully !

* The waiter who took the order could not recall, who among us was - vegetarian, non vegetarian or an in-between gravy-tarian.

* We inadvertently ordered more 'uppams' than we could ever eat-ems ...he did not admonish us that he is not trained enough to tell us so.

* For ends - finally arrived the Bill...it was actually a disguised Bush ... & made a huge deficit in our personal economy.

The "service charge" ( euphemism for tips ) on it, is a trap ....for as the saying goes "An innocent & his money are soon parted".

Tips should be dispensed voluntarily by the king-ish customer but waz extortion-ingly included in the invoice, thus hurting as much my inner voice, as my already diminishing regality :-(

Mustering courage, confidence & conscience, I still proposed a 5% monetary tip.....breaking away from my rather principled life's stance of 'better to reward the deserving, rather than help the needy'. I would have actually liked to reward this guy with some advise on hospitality instead - which he so much deserved. However, I know that waiters are paid less in lieu of tips that they receive.

That 5% was promptly deemed by my very own sons-of-a-batch school friends as, either me having been global-financial-crises stricken or me having turned into a miser.

Did I say - I know that waiters are paid less in lieu of tips?  Yes.

The story behind the story:

I had discovered a university within a university.

The 1st paid job that I ever did in my life, was that of a part time waiter.

I got an opportunity to work at a fine dine restaurant called "Barons" at the University of Houston, Hilton Hotel. It usually attracted the high net worth customers like corporate folks or parents of students visiting the university campus. That experience taught me more about business, than perhaps what any business school could have.

That exposure during my formative years, helped me many years later in leading my company. There should be no growing-up without doing a job, no matter how menial or trivial. In strange ways, it unknowingly gives us an experience that tends to benefit us many years later.

One of the key features that I learned then, was that I had to adjust and accommodate between the customer (the obvious target), the kitchen (the factory) and the bus boys (or support staff - who clean & re-set the table once the customer leaves). 

How different is it today for anyone at the helm?

At the time, the minimum wage in Houston, Texas was USD 4.35 per hour. However, since it was deemed that customer's voluntarily tip servers, they could be paid a lesser amount. The assumption being the gratuity shall compensate for the shortfall.

Thus, for the job as a waiter, I earned USD 2.01/hr. Compressed between or rather stretched apart by the moods and tantrums of the chef (earning USD 9/hr) and bus boys (earning USD 4.35 / hr) and the demanding customers (wealth usually brings along it's conjoined twin arrogance); I used to feel that my job was not worth it. Well, it was not, at least not in the beginning, but then eventually it grew on me and became enriching.

As a server, I was actually just a messenger between what happens in front of the kitchen door and behind it, and was yet expected to be the smiling face of the restaurant and maintain customer relationship so that they keep coming back. At first, I had thought that it would be easy, then I thought it was unfair, but only much later, I realized, how heavy that responsibility was, and it was actually a fantastic opportunity.

I must explain that as a postman of sorts, a waiter often gets undeserving beatings from customers - the insipid cuisine created by chef or a missing fork by the careless bus boy, was not the waiter’s fault, but was nevertheless always vented on him or her. A waiter has no authority (read luxury) to explain whose fault it is. He or she is simply expected to resolve the issue with a smile-and-sorry to the customer.

'Customer is the king' was an axiom there.  It was always perceived as the waiter's fault and so as the visible face of the organization, I was expected to mollify the mood of His or Her Highness.

Having the requirement to handle hard cash and credit card transaction, I was expected to be even more responsible than the chef or bus boy.

When the pressure was too much, I was expected to assist the chef by fetching the condiments from the back-room shelf or even slicing the lemon, etc.

Then on selected days, I was to be a back-up for usher cum cashier i.e. when the assigned person (earning USD 12.00 / hr) must suddenly rush to the restroom to fix his neck-tie or take a small break to quickly comb his hair, just so that he or she looks impeccably presentable. 

To add insult to injury, I even had to clean up if some kid knocked off daddy's precious beer mug. I slowly learned to do that while smiling at the child's mom, just to reassure the lady that the apple of her eye was still as adorable.

To add injury to insult, at times I was expected to also assist the bus boy (technically my junior in status & my assistant) in clearing or joining the tables if a huge party of unexpected guests showed up, ouch!

And don't forget, for all this I got paid a measly USD 2.01 i.e., below the minimum wage, but still legal for waiters in the US, as waiters were expected (not guaranteed) to get tips. Frankly, such expectation may be from the government, but I knew that in real world, I somehow had to ‘win’ the tips and earn my bread, even as I served it.

Not knowing the daily take home but keeping that challenge of somehow winning-the-tips in mind, I kept the job.

After about a year plus of service, I slowly learned to move away from bearing the burden with a grin, to serving with a genuine smile. Some days, I made just a little bit over USD 2.01/hr and some days even USD 10/hr, but on most days, I called it a victory at USD 6.0.

Since law of diminishing returns strikes fast with fast money, slowly, even the tip factor began to diminish. I then 'evolved' to love my job as it gave me an opportunity to be in my own element. Each new customer was a chance to meet a new person - be they good, bad, ugly, or mad. The everyday suspense & surprises in the earnings and learnings from ‘my’ customers was a given.

I began to feel lucky. Each customer that came in was more work for the chef & the bus boy.  For me, it was a chance to serve, learn and earn.

So, I learned that good days and bad days is only in the mind, that should not be the only thing to determine the fate of my mood. To assert mental stability in the face of various vagaries of life was important. It meant that I had to engage with all three entities i.e., the chef, the bus boy and the customer.  No matter on which side of the kitchen door - status or hierarchy don't count much; what counts is that they all should like you and smile back at you. Sure, any job can be tough or mundane, but why not make it challenging & interesting!

The tips eventually became a by-product and just one of the many reassuring indicators on my control panel.

The chef feeling ‘my’ pressure each time a customer was in a hurry, the desire of every bus boy to be assigned to work ‘under’ me and regular customers demanding to the usher that they be seated in that section of the restaurant, which is allocated to me, was far more rewarding.

Some customers at times even shared an experience, a personal tragedy, an incident, or joke with the ‘small’ person - a mere waiter. I was sometimes touched by what they shared and sometimes I know, I touched them. Dignity of labour does go a long way.

I realized thru experience, that people with high status are also emotional humans and so am I, and so we can connect irrespective.

To rule the world, one must serve it!

Yes, go ahead and get 'tip-sy' i.e. don't forget to tip those waiters, for they too give us tips, even as they serve!

World economy is not moving, needs a bit of de-oiling !

Economists are rattled as price has dropped from over USD 100 to below half that price for a barrel of Brent crude oil, in such a short time. The ponder is, where will it go from here?

Some may recall that the beautiful Columbian singer Shakira had sung a wonderful number during the 2010 FIFA world cup, the song was captioned Waka Waka. If she was to sing a theme song for the oil sector now, and trust me the industry can do with a bit of glamour, she would surely be chanting VUCA VUCA, instead of Waka Waka.

VUCA is an acronym for Vulnerability, Uncertainty, Complexity & Ambiguity !

The global churns have elevated, if I may, VUCA ( which has it's origins in the military ) to describe a difficult war strategy, to our peace time commercial world. It is used to describe the inability to cope with or predict almost anything in the context of global business & more so in the oil sector.

The past RBI Governor Dr. Y V Reddy had once said that "In India it is not only difficult to predict the future but it is also difficult to predict the past". That's because our data collection methods were always questionable then. However in the global context, in fact tables have turned & today India is at least seen somewhat as a stabilizing factor. On the other hand, the world outside of India has become difficult to predict, even in the present !

So did it all fall from the sky?

It is Einstein who once said that "The only reason for time, is so that everything doesn't happen at once".

It surely looks like it's all fallen out of place together, but in my humble opinion, the imbroglio was building up.

For the sudden drop in demand for oil & many other commodities, I am not referring to or addressing to the suspects like - the 8 year business cycle, the fuel efficient cars that have been entering the market, the soon to flow sanctions free Iranian oil or the challenge posed by the American Shale producers. Sure, they do add to the pain but I am going to list out the intangibles that have been silently building up that have led us here, to the sorry situation at hand.

The 5 factors that are undoing the global order are: 

A) De-globalization - It is said that before the global financial crises of 2008, oil was traded 30 times before reaching it's destination & price of oil which had reached it's peak then, was predicted to even cross USD 200 a barrel.

Since 2008, the world had never truly recovered. Data by CRISIL shows that trade used to grow at a speed, twice as fast as the GDP i.e. we had a frenzy economic activity and that dropped drastically vs. GDP in 2009 i.e. just after the infamous Lehman Brothers moment. Trade growth rose again briefly in 2010 due to the combined efforts by the leaders of G20 nations & yet again fell in 2011 to just match that of the GDP growth. Since then trade growth has retarded to just about keeping pace with GDP, from earlier being twice that of GDP.

It may be interpreted as the desire by most nations, not withstanding the promises made at the G20, to slowly shift inwards or sourcing more domestically to perhaps protect local jobs through imposition of both tariff & non-tariff trade barriers on imports. Also the losses in stock markets in that era may have led to a consumption behavior which was more need based & less speculative.

B)  Financial jugglery - Much of innovation had since last few years moved away from science & engineering & into finance. 

To keep up growth at any cost, practice of artificially low interest rates was followed by unbridled money printing as a reaction to the the financial crises. That had to bring in long term volatility. Today when the American Fed talks of increasing the the rates, it automatically infuses fear of money being sucked out from the global monetary system. Further, the US dollar also gets stronger & making it that much more difficult for say low margin oil producers to get finance. On the other side of the world, export dependant emerging economies have been engaged in competitive devaluations in currency, adding to the trust deficit.

On another level, country allocation are becoming less important & thus portfolio investments directed towards the BRICS nations lost interest in favour of huge unlisted companies or 'Unicorns'. Also disruptive technologies like the "FANG" or Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google took the shine away from the conventional industry !

C) Unprecedented wear & tear in democracy - All time high partisan politics among the democratic nations is not only slowing down even the most basic progress & reforms, but polarization across the aisles is leading to an unprecedented acrimony between political parties. The same haz been undermining the expected decorum in both national & international posturing & public discourse haz been finding new lows, hurting investor confidence that much more.

Of interest to those in the oil sector, so while out of sanctions Iran may soon be adding to the oil glut, 47 senators from the Republican party in the world's first democracy wrote an open letter last year to the Iranian leadership, that should they win, they might abrogate the deal made by the current Democratic party led US government & reverse the time clock.

Unable to demonstrate maturity through unity in the nation's functioning or policy making, the burden remains on respective governments to do growth spending, as even cash rich foreign & private sector investors remains weary. As if that was not enough, world over there is an anti-incumbency fever & so to retain power, populist trends have risen and financially prudent ones have taken a back seat, adding to the already stressed debt situation.

D) It's increasingly becoming a leaderless rudderless world - Over the last decade what we have seen is a financially bruised, war fatigued & morally drained America on one side & on the other side we saw a China - a supposed new rising leader, but with no followers. China began posturing aggressively with each of its so many neighbors it shares it's border with.

Notwithstanding the trade agreements, financial aids or sanctions that are arising more out of political compulsions rather than needs, even institutions like the United Nations, the IMF & the World Bank are being undermined. Thus today it is not only a multipolar world out there, but also a multiple opinionated world, with no acceptable leadership to set the tone right. 

Just note the unfolding of super complex relationships emanating from animosities or alliances in & among the different players like the Syrian Govt, the Shias, the Sunnis, the Kurds, the Saudis, the Arab league, Iran, Israel, Turkey, Russia, America, the Al Qaeda & now the ISIS - it would make any soap opera look pale. Most of the players are warring in hot or cold against or amongst each other with interests in & around the oil rich regions of the planet.

Even to the severest critics, all the chaos, at some level should make the OPEC unity of the past, appear more as an institution that waz made for stability rather than one that arose out of greed for petro-dollars. 

E) Last & the loudest is the free (mis)information age - it was JFK who once said that "The greater the knowledge we have, more our ignorance unfolds". He was referring to the space, but it seems, we are spaced out right here on planet earth. A recent PEW survey of leaders, on the 'Top 10 global trends' revealed that misinformation was among them & it is indeed a worrying trend. We will be entering our 5th year when about a 3rd of the rich nation youth now gets more information from the www that they tend to live in, rather than say from their parents, teachers, uncles & aunts.

Our opinions are becoming adulterated & popular trend driven & these then become pressure points on those that attempt to govern. It is said that if there is anything true about India, it's opposite is equally true. The same can be said about future market & pricing on oil, gas, refining & petrochemicals. All one needs to do, is to go on the web & the person will find plenty of editorials & opinions with adequate data points & seeming facts to predict that by the end of the year, oil will be at USD 20 a barrel on one side and USD 100 a barrel on the other side. 

The problems are not going to run away & definitely not in oil industry. In fact there is worry expressed by some, that just like the financial crises that had it's origins in sub prime real estate finance, the problems in the oil & gas industry could once again spill over into the financial sector.

To understand the pulse of the oil producing nations, just note that today the oil is trading at around USD 35 a barrel. A Rystad industry report says that the approximate break even for countries like Kuwait is USD 10, Saudi Arabia is USD 15, Iraq is at USD 20 & Iran at USD 25. Norway at USD 37 is on the edge. Russia & Venezuela are at around USD 50 are troubled & Nigeria which waz a rising star, has fallen as it needs USD 70 to stay buoyant.

The Indian economy is oil import dependant and so will benefit.

The Modi government's policy seems to be standing on 4 stable pillars 1) Make In India, 2) Invest in infrastructure, 3) Reduce subsidy or leaks in the system & 4) keep it clean. The savings in oil imports due to better roads & elimination of long transport vehicle queues due to GST at octroi collection booths or interstate check posts, will surely help some of that. The government haz already targeted to cut the oil import bill by 10% over the next few years. With the latest HELP or 'Hydrocarbon exploration licencing policy' on incentivising the exploration sector aggressively & in parallel raising the bar from BS4 to BS6 for emission norms, shows the government’s deep commitment, as much towards our energy search, as the environment.

Global oil & gas companies have all given a downward revision in investment & the mega players are likely to undershoot their capex by 15% but in India, ONGC has gone in the opposite direction which gives us a harbinger of things to come. In the short turn expect more brown field investments, shift towards down stream - those that can process high value Naphtha lighter products should gain. Refineries in Singapore & India's RIL with favorable Nelson Complexity Index are already benefiting immensely. LNG & so also regassification investments will rise. However in the long term, grass root plants will also come up.

Einstein had once philosophized that "A perfection of our means & confusion of ends seems to characterize our age" & on a global scale, that seems very much relevant today, with India being the exception.

In conclusion, far from making our's the best world, we have made it into a problematic PEST i.e. the Political, Economical, Social & Technological variables that are thrown up due to the global vagaries, makes it difficult for one to know what information is reliably valuable & what is just trendily in vogue. India being the saving grace.

Having said so, the wise man had admonished us against jumping to conclusions & instead had advised "Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted" !

It's time to stop worrying about tomorrow. Shri Einstein also gave us a clue on how to deal with our future & like an Indian spiritual guru, had recommended "Don't think of the future - it comes soon enough."

Que Sera Sera !