The Tricycle we must balance !

The Male Trinity are :

Brahma the Creator, 

Vishnu the Nurturer,

Shiva the Destroyer.

The Female Trinity are their respective consorts :

Saraswati with Knowledge, 

Lakshmi with Wealth, 

Durga with Strength. 

At the Creative stage of any organization - you have ideas i.e. Knowledge is your key asset. 

Later as the organization grows, you need Wealth to keep Nurturing the business. 

And finally, for renewing, reinvention & rejuvenation, you need all the Strength to Destroy your very own -  else the business itself dies.

The Male Trinity represents the actual visible action, the Female Trinity representation is the intangible source that nourishes them. 

Without her, he is completely incomplete. 

The indestructible crucible of the entire Eastern spirituality is "Change" & that is a constant !

For change, you have to destroy the old paradigm.

Thus, Shiva the destroyer is worshipped much more than what the nurturer Vishnu ever will be.

And the creator Brahama is almost not worshipped at all, as is revered for only a fraction of time's tiniest unit. 

Destruction of the feeling of achievement is the essence of human progress. 

It is what the Western management is now beginning to learn.

Now, they claim that eventually, a man reaches the maximum level of hiz incompetent self. 

With each promotion he sought, the man feels incompetent in the higher plane. 

However with his capability, he overcomes that incompetence. But on doing so, he finds himself at once dissatisfied - his lust for that position is instantly destroyed & becomes restless to seeks next higher level. 

This goes on, the cycle of promotion and almost at once resultant shortlived joy of success & instantly followed by the angst arising  from greed to achieve more - till he keeps rising and reaches his level of final incompetence. 

Now when he can't destroy success anymore and begins to enjoy it instead - he feels not incompetent. 

He basks in the past not realizing he's becoming a prisoner of it.

He begins to feel comfortable !

At that stage, begins his own personal destruction. 

The world views the man on the top as most comfortable  and competent !

But the man on top must perpetually wear the uncomfortable crown of incompetence - else his days are numbered.

At some level, the man started at the lower most level of nothingness & ends where he began, as if to discover it for the very first time. 

Then sum total of his life is a brilliant nothing.

About time we cheer the leaders we elect!

The more a prostitute sells her services, the more customers she gets, and the worse her reputation becomes.  

A politician is elected by us. His job is to practice politics. The more he does it, the more he is vilified!

Same difference!

Let's expose our hypocrisy. 

Why Do We Celebrate Some and Mock Others? 

Let's look at a cricketer or a CEO. 

In a match he watches two things at once: the scoreboard and a ball that can swing or spin off an uneven pitch. And he still has to score runs.  

We understand how hard that is. So we reward him with cheerleaders, stadium ads, and million-dollar endorsements. The better he plays, the bigger the rewards.

It’s the same for a CEO. He juggles shareholders, stakeholders, and market dynamics. For that, he gets pay, perks, prestige, and bonuses. More the business, more the goodies.

Now one look at Politics and our hypocrisy is seen. 

The moment voting ends, the winner is sworn in, and we declare our democratic duty “done.”  

Then for the next five years, we start demanding miracles.

But a politician’s job is harder than a cricketer’s or a CEO’s.  

He has to do everything at once:

1. Deliver welfare and stay connected with the public.

  

2. Manage Parliament  because good intentions can be killed by parliamentary arithmetic.

 

3. Make policy that is constitutionally sound, socially acceptable, culturally compatible, economically feasible, technologically viable, parliamentarily passable, legally defensible, and geopolitically prudent. All at the same time!

It’s like solving a Rubik’s Cube that never ends. Fix one face, and another gets scrambled.

To make it worse, even the most powerful leader must still depend on the people below him.  

While cameras and criticism stay on the top, it’s the low-level officials who actually run the country’s lifeline, possibly through indifference, bad interpretation, or poor implementation - all that can derail public welfare.

This is the bureaucracy, a hardened block - obstinate, inflexible, powerful, unelected, often selected by the earlier regimes. 

Individually they look ordinary. Collectively, they’re extraordinarily intelligent but often show zero common sense.  

And when things fail, the anger falls on the elected leader, not on them.

So, even as the cricketer or the CEO becomes a demi-god, the politician becomes the devil.

It should bother anyone with a robust sense of fairness:  

A politician stays away from home, works long hours under media glare, operates inside rigid rules, cedes power to career bureaucrats, trades popularity for tough decisions, needs opposition support for national projects, and is still expected to deliver! 

Ouch!

And how do we repay him?  

We lampoon him in cartoons, make him the butt of jokes, roast him in stand-up comedy circuits, and assume he’s guilty until proven innocent.

In the final reckoning, Karma 101 strikes: We get the government we deserve!

The time has come to free our minds.  

Let’s start by giving a free hand to those we ourselves elect.  

Because right now, we only see the power they have but not the weakness of those in public offices.

Wouldn't that be fair?

Modi 1.0 : the Performer-In-Chief !

The oxymoron of the season is that Indian economy was found sputtering in the recent past just before the election & yet India delivered a historic win to Modi - unprecedented pro-incumbency !

So even as almost all Indians go about celebrating, should we worry? More so since Modi did not unleash high intensity reforms and so India's growth rates remained below potential?

Well one can worry in the absolute vacuum, just like the media folk like to - but not in reality.

At the onset, we must understand where India was when Modi got first sworn-in on 26th May 2014.

India's ranking in the World Bank monitored Easy Of Doing Business index was a shameful 140 on 190; now it is 77, huge leapfrogging over a five year period.

India had then also found itself in the disgraced The Fragile Five economies list. Today, in the expanded The Troubled Ten economies list, India's name is absent.

The global rating agencies too have upped India's grade. 

Finally, Indian banking system was on the brink of a collapse due to the all time high non-performing assets, where most loans to corporates were given away in an undeserving & unqualified ad hoc manner, rendering the system to be soaked in corruption. 

Today, because of Modi's strong arm tactics, there's a beeline among the corporate head honchos to return the money or face loss of company ownership. And yes, some have lost their companies.

Sure, Modi did self-impose ( some dubbed it as self-goals) tough measures like a) Demonetisation (rendering 86% of printed circulating cash as trash if earned illegally or to be exchanged for new notes if legitimate ) and b) GST.

Both of these resulted in withdrawal symptoms and so did act as major speed breakers as bulk of India worked in the informal economy. 

But in view of the above two blows, while many lost money, some were grudgingly forced into the formal sector.... & are now learning to pay taxes. 

That also resulted in the obviously unethical coming together of 22 opposition parties - a motley mix of arch rivals under the banner of "Mahagathban" or the great collaboration.

Notwithstanding the hardship & the counter view presented by the army of opposition parties - most Indians understood that the said two measures were good for the economy in the long run.

The world agreed too !

India earned it's highest Foreign Direct Investment & Foreign Portfolio Investment ever, pumping it's reserves to an all time high. At the time of the results coming in, the Indian stocks are found to be at an all time high.

So even when last election quarter showed a big drop in the corporate earnings, the government yet had a windfall tax collection - a clear harbinger of the things to come. The number of new tax payers have also galloped their way in.

Considering the pain, the Indian public has demonstrated an unusual and rare human trait & endowment i.e patience & maturity respectively - missing so much in that "of-for-by the people" system of electioneering.

They actually voted in a guy, that imposed austerity of sorts, took away money from many and imposed tight measures. 

Unlike Venezuela which also tried some things similar & failed, India saw no riots nor strikes - otherwise typical of developing nations in such times. 

Looking outside, in the last 5 years, we see not one country in the world where the animal spirits have been unleashed & economy is running on all cylinders fired up to the max, even when it wasn't suffering as much as India was when Modi ascended to the prime minister's chair.

So let's get it straight - 114 countries were growing at a GDP growth rate of 5% or higher, until the global financial crisis that hit in 2008.

Notwithstanding the promises at G-20, all major countries came up with lose monetary policy to spruce up their economy and covertly began looking inward to protect jobs at home i.e. slow poisoning globalization. 

The IMF's regular downward revision & good natured euphemistic language since the last few years gives us a clue - global economy is definitely crawling it's way closer to a recession.

Today, less than ten nations are growing at 5% or higher growth rates. 

China's GDP growth of about 14% at one time i.e. prior to the global economy collapse in 2008 to now less than half of that over a decades time can always be used as a bell weather as she is, unlike India, largely integrated with the global trade. 

Her forex reserves are down - already lost over a whopping USD 1 trillion from it's peak. 

Every leader in the world wants local manufacturing and for that, the inducements are a plenty - the obvious being lowered taxes. The Trump induced trade war is a manifestation of the reality. 

For most part India has ducked the slowdown trend - that's a huge achievements considering where she started five years ago and what it was suffering from. Modi did not allow the Indian economy to happily slide into the slow but sure IMF's trap and then do things as dictated by the external lenders - he saw it coming and did what he must. 

That's leadership 101 !

Also, Modi delivering a clean corruption free term is a welcome change. Modi 1.0 was in a consolidation phase, Modi 2.0 should do much better, as unlike the first term - in about 24 months he could have a control of the upper house too, allowing him to free the tiger, caged until now.

Mai aisa kyun hoon?

A moral person will not kill.

A soldier, guided by ethical duty, may kill in combat.

A person with principles uses both morality and duty as foundations for action and judgment. Thus, a soldier may kill enemy combatants on the battlefield, but not treat captured prisoners the same way; in fact, he feeds them and gives first aid when they are wounded, including an honerable funeral if the person dies in line of duty!

We all begin life Idealistically. 

As God’s children our minds are a clean slate, and humanism feels natural. Then experience reshapes us. We learn that the world is tilted - duniya sachme tedhi hai, and that trying to walk perfectly straight on a crooked street makes us stumble.

Our “lens” - the way we see and want to fix the world is fabricated by our past: our lineage, surrounding, and experiences. 

From that lens, three broad responses typically emerge: 

Idealist A (Centralist)

Some people cling stubbornly to that childlike moral straightness. They assume the world will follow the standards of fairness and equality. When faced with war or real conflict, they collapse: their idealistic offerings are unprepared for harsh realities. They fail to get it that they've left the kindergarten behind. Now, treating unequal as equals is itself unfair. 

Often seen as impractical or misfits, they remain correct but ineffective, achieving far less than their potential.

Idealist B (Left of Centre)

They decide that the system itself is corrupt. They believe elites have compromised morals and dominate unfairly. To fix injustice, they favor bottom‑up upheaval and are willing to sacrifice some morals temporarily to mobilize the disenchanted. 

Their aim is to destroy the existing order and rebuild a new ethical system. Short-lived revolutions often follow: they burn the old faster than they can create the new, and outcomes sometimes contradict their original ideals.

Idealist C (Right of Centre)

They conclude that they have had a raw deal due to the system that takes them for granted. To bring change, they require power. 

They rise within the existing order, adopt its principles where useful, and then when they get hold of the levers of power, they show their true colors, and begin reform from above - pruning what weakens the system and consolidating authority. 

They build disciplined institutions and enjoy long‑lasting structures, but their centralization can marginalize and silence the weak. 

All three share a common goal -improving the system, but they differ in means. 

Each has strengths and failure modes: 

Category A often produces mediocrity as personal correctness is without any social impact with everyone else racing ahead of them, which in some cases leads to frustration, even despondency, and in extreme cases they become self‑destructive.

Category B can mobilize change rapidly, but extreme versions resort to mass violence; history shows revolutions and persecutions that cost millions of lives.

Category C creates durable systems; in excess, it breeds belligerence toward dissent and can justify extraordinary measures, sometimes overriding law in the name of a greater good.

One thing is certain: Utopia does not exist. 

Across scriptures, history, and the present world, you will not find a single society untouched by sin, injustice, or violence.

Socrates was made to drink poison, Jesus was crucified, Galileo was condemned to spend his life under house arrest, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, Gandhi was eliminated, and Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered.

History reveals a recurring pattern: societies often punish most severely those who challenge established norms - whether philosophical, religious, scientific, political, or social.

The method changes with the age, but the resistance remains constant.

Why?

Morality has little chance of either instant acceptability or long-term survival on its own.

Whatever is on offer, it has to be skillfully offered in a manner that suits the existing sociocultural context and realpolitik conditions before it can be found acceptable by the general public. 

Those who were killed, may have been right, but were obviously deemed unacceptable to whoever - thus, their offerings can be considered as beyond the prevalent knowledge, context, or even impractical on a societal scale.

We can conclude that depending on where one is on the timeline or moral scale, one needs to be appropriate before being right.

And so history offers mixed examples: radical leaders who destroyed as much as they claimed to save, and reformers who suspended norms to preserve a nation.

These are not merely political classifications; they are attitudes toward life, living, and liberty that one believes can be imposed through institutions and administrators.

Ask yourself the fundamental question: Main Aisa Kyun Hoon?

Which lens shapes your decisions - moral purity, revolutionary change, or principled consolidation?

The Black Man in a White House - a journey

The world was transfixed by one man: Barack Hussein Obama!

His rise began during the 2004 election and soon grew into a global story - not simply about American politics, but about the prospect of the first African‑American president of the United States. That destination he eventually reached. 

But the victory itself, while historic, tells only part of the story. The deeper elements of his journey - how he captured public imagination and overcame entrenched skepticism are themselves worthy of admiration.

By the mid‑2000s, American power had begun to look reckless in moral and ethical terms. The nation that emerged triumphant from the Cold War had lost goodwill through a string of scandals and policy failures. Osama bin Laden remained at large despite massive resources. President Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky had eroded trust in political leaders, and the U.S. launched the Iraq War without United Nations approval. The subsequent “war on terror,” driven by George W. Bush, proved costly and poorly defined. Then came the financial meltdown following Lehman Brothers’ collapse and the largest bailout in history. Public cynicism toward career politicians ran high.

It was into this dark backdrop that Obama stepped onto the stage. He quickly became a focal point for the world’s hopes. International observers, unable to vote but free of partisan bias, cheered as he spoke. 

At first glance, Obama seemed an unlikely contender. He was a slender Black man with an unfamiliar name and a Muslim middle name at a time when America was embroiled in conflict with parts of the Muslim world. Born in remote Hawaii, with limited political experience, little wealth, and no political godfather, he barely registered on the national press radar. Yet he used his gift of speech, intelligence, and an affable dignity to outmaneuver opponents. 

Only two major rivals remained: Hillary Clinton and John McCain - both formidable.

Hillary Clinton brought familiarity, experience, and political clout. As former First Lady and a long‑serving senator, she had the resume of someone ready to become the nation’s first woman president. 

John McCain offered seasoned leadership: a respected bipartisan figure, Vietnam POW, and proven patriot - qualities voters prized amid wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a resurgent Russia. McCain’s simple slogan, “Country First,” captured that mood.

The Democratic primary offered a pivotal moment. Struggling financially and under pressure, Clinton reportedly suggested Obama withdraw in exchange for the vice presidency. Obama refused and prevailed, leaving Clinton politically and financially depleted.

Obama then focused on McCain. He built a refreshing, reassuring brand that positioned him beyond the usual political mold. He surrounded himself with talented strategists who sweated the details. Even cultural gestures mattered: when India’s Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw died, Obama promptly sent condolences, winning favor among NRIs who might otherwise lean Republican. Sensing public disdain for career politicians, Obama converted grassroots anger into a positive force. His one‑word campaign slogan was “Change" - captured the yearning of a nation. 

He also refused donations from large lobby groups, relying instead on small donations that made supporters feel invested; grassroots fundraising helped him raise roughly $650 million, about twice McCain’s total and far more than Clinton’s exhausted campaign. 

Obama’s campaign offers a leadership case study: he chose innovation over security, stayed authentic, showed grit and restraint, learned continuously, listened actively, and spoke with eloquence and conviction.

When the votes were counted, Americans, by demanding change - put country first. Voters chose character and vision over familiar identities and made history: they sent a Black man to the White House!

The rest is history, and the moment remains a triumph of the human spirit. 

Barack Hussein Obama - Yes He Did!