Ashish MaanA Leader, Visionary and Perfectionist

Concept of Managing the Grey!!

Everyone sees and understands the two distinct colors – Black and White. The only color everyone cannot easily make out is the Grey. Whoever develops a skill of seeing and managing this color has the real brilliance. It doesn’t determine individual’s capability of recognizing the grey but being familiar with the fact that most of the challenges are hidden within this color only - also the mantra of success.

To make it simpler let me take another example, of Communication. As we all appreciate the fact that it is communication that decides individual’s fate in today’s world. The one who is skilled at interpreting and responding to a message correctly and quickly is the one who manages a show. Everyone feels comfortable in his/her presence. As I have discussed above, about the visible and invisible colors – Black & White and the Grey. Mostly we human want to be specific in communication however, due to time pressure and a perpetual fatigue we work with, we lose out on the critical threads needed for an effective communication. Though this unspoken and unwritten piece is only 20% to 30% however the intensity it contains is immense. We communicate 70% through verbal or written communication and anticipate from others to interpret it completely – with the gap of 30% of the unspoken and unwritten too.

The terms we use for both communications – spoken and unspoken – are explicit and implicit. We don’t feel happy if other person responds to our explicit communication only and the implicit is ignored. If this is the reality then we all can understand what is required to be hundred percent at our communication skills to make another person comfortable while communicating to us. We need to learn skills of capturing explicit and implicit threads of a communication to respond likewise.

Yes I mean it! We Indian believe in fun all the time…every time. In fact the Tourism department should change its slogan from “Atithi Devo Bhav” to “Visit India for anti-depressive therapy”.

Nope…am not out of my head…if someone could not observe it…it’s not my fault. Well, just rewind the event of past couple of weeks and you surely will have some idea of it. Or, one can analyze various socio-political even that have taken place in the past couple of days, weeks or months. You will notice contradictions between action and spoken words of various known politicians, film stars, sportsmen, media people and other individuals holding responsible positions in society.

Lemme begin with the current controversial issue of IPL, wherein Mr.Lalit Modi is facing allegation of many unethical practices in managing the IPL. It was terrible for me to watch everyone coming up so strongly against Mr.Modi. A day back it was IPL acting as a magic wand to help various sectors to mint money. Today, the entire nation is facing only one problem, how to save the face of Indian cricket. I asked a villager if he has any problem to discuss or share he looked at me with surprise and after a pause of 2 minutes he unload a sack of problems on me. Amazing…there’s no cricket in the problems he shared with me. It prompted me to re-visit my previous studies around Indian culture and related problems. Even today approximately 60% India is part of village. They are far away of mall culture. They do have televisions and mobile phones however, they still are concerned of their basic needs e.g. growth of crops, government subsidies, water and electricity supply in to their villages etc. Cricket is the last thing they would ever think of. This is the reality we are living with but our politicians are more concerned over the growth of one game – cricket. The funniest thing is our Agriculture Minister is more active in resolving issues around cricket than the issues of his domain. These money chasers don’t find any fancy in developing the life of the poor countrymen. They instead are more competitive in showing up their muscle power in making the cricket popular in the world…as if the Britishers had given us the independence only on the condition of keep on looking after the game they originally had conceptualized.

The contrast is huge…we are chasing a bubble of hoax pride. In spite of our best information we are unable take a pressure of applying our own wisdom. Why?…perhaps our self confidence is shaky that’s the reason we believe in handy wisdom coming in my way from a handful of people who are set to keep on influencing the psyche of the society.

When it came to decide what all can we export, our honorary parliamentarians decided to export the values and ethics. They also thought of few other commodities to be exported to other countries like value of words…professionalism etc. Perhaps the needs of all these practices are more in the overseas countries than here in India. It’s really funny to watch our politicians struggling to find right word to express themselves. Sometime they sound so childlike that I feel ashamed of being looked after by them. One day couple of them was reacting over the issue of IPL as a mud of corruption. One of them has still being prosecuted on couple of million dollars scam. Another guy was so vocal against the woman bills in the parliament. I now have started finding lots of reasons to laugh. I don’t think country on this earth, which have produced so many jokers sitting with responsible positions. That’s the reason I find my country with a culture capable of curing depression.

I still can recall my memories of 1999, when I first time landed in US. Over a month stay in Seattle, I was deeply impressed with the professionalism of that country. But, at the same time I was deeply hurt to see our fellow Indians religiously following various US rules e.g. traffic rules, environment specific rules, rules around keeping the city clean and hygienic etc. They must have never followed all these rules and regulations back home.

Our politicians are morons that I know…but are we not responsible for helping them do away with their own set norms? Let’s ask to ourselves. Else, UPCM will continue grabbing the public lands – without bothering the instructions of the Supreme Court. The cricket board of India will continue ignoring all the government policies by stuffing everyone’s mouth with money. The Judiciary, Law-n-Order and other critical rules will surely be ignored by the individuals having money in the pockets.

I’m so much in terrible mood today if I may request to a true Indian to allow me state something on his/her behalf here. I will not do the following unless I am given enough evidence of the similar rules being imposed over people with power and money and Survival of the Richest doesn’t hold true in Indian contest:

1. If I may take a liberty to start ignoring Indian Revenue Department’s policy until the industrialists/celebrities and politicians start conforming to the same policies
2. If I may take liberty of not paying the electricity bills and other taxes e.g. house tax, water tax etc. until our dear politicians be religious on paying these taxes on time
3. If I may take liberty of trespassing into any public property or area to satisfy my own whims and fancy till the time our politicians are not stopped firmly for obeying the instructions of our utter most judiciary of India – Supreme Court. It appears our politicians are left un-controlled…they appear to have the entire country bought over
4. If I develop and impose my own rules and regulations in and around my locality and even force the police to help me impose my rules and regulations over the neighbors until our dear politicians stop misbehaving with the authentic house owners of their localities
5. I must be allowed not to be penalized by the law and order even if I commit an unacceptable fraud…till the time our gagsters continue contesting as representatives of our pride nation as politicians…and representatives of our religious sports completely go beyond all the norms and policy

I woke up suddenly…my heart beat was nervously pouncing …I found me completely drenched in sweat. It was one of the rarest moments of my life. I never felt so frightened even in toughest days of war during my service days.

Believe me the most abusive term that boils my blood is “Common Man”. I realized that I was in dream wherein I was being abused by someone with the same term. That shook me badly.

Handful of white dressed demon of my country have coined a new term for us to be kept proud of our being most important wing of this country – Price”less” Common Man!

This man is so commonly available to service 10%-20% powerful people of 1.25 billion country on any price which is too less to honor the dignity of this Common Man.

Interestingly this common man is the only breed following and practicing the values of almighty to keep him happy. Isn’t it cool?…this is where this common man looks adding some price to it – though this price is just a perception and in reality it doesn’t offer any tangible benefit to this C…cooooo…..mmmooon…..mmmmm…annn!!!

But despite all this, the common man is the hot topic everywhere. He is discussed in rallies, on TV shows and in every coffee lounge. He is discussed and fought upon to be snatched to be exploited through his emotions.

I’m sure I can’t stand to this term at any cost. I’m not a common man…! Oh Come-on! I have not risk my life for this country for so many years to be rewarded by these selfish lunatics.

Common man today is so dumb that he doesn’t get affected of anything. What if he’s asked to take responsibility of carrying the effigy of desh prem on his shoulder alone. What if he allows to be molested with the ever increasing price of vegetables and grains? What if his wards are not allowed to take primary education without paying extra and illegitimate money to a school other than the legitimate fee every month? What if he is made responsible to contribute from his small salary the load of developing his area/city or country?

You know the reason of this numbness? It is a fabricated strategy! He is blind folded with the stinking and crippled social practices. He has been made responsible to take care of such cramped measures. He is asked to sacrifices his for his motherland when a terrorist attack frightens us. He is remembered for a week to be ever forgotten. He is made deaf with the creamy obnoxious speeches that are written for these actors to perform at the time of casting his vote to act as ladder for greedy netas to enter parliament. This poor common man – don’t how long will he be able to walk like this – deaf and dumb!

Please don’t ever dare to call me a COMMON MAN! I AM A MAN!! Who can listen and also knows how to make his voice be heard!

Friends!

As you know, I am a philanthrope. Now, after this self declaration by me, you may conclude that I am rather a ‘self-proclaimed’ philanthrope. However, I don’t mind, because I think all philanthropes must allow such liberties to their friends!

So here I go, cutting the crap.

There are many things I hide under my hat. The ‘hat of philanthropy’ I mean. In fact, the moment I put it on, my head assumes a U-235 critical balance, holding back an explosion. It seems there is a bombardment of thoughts inside my brain biting my conscience.

And one thing I have been chewing upon off late is the way our media is today. More so, the way we are responding to how it is and the daily updates it ensures to keep us ‘sensation savvy’.

What can be a fitter instance of this phenomenon than the ND TV Imagine Syamwar of our own, err…our very very own Rakhi Sawant. Addressing her with such love, because it is exemplified in the way we have responded to her ceremony, and in all the nail-biting painstaking waiting we have endured for the D-day, the day, she chose Elesh Parujanwala – her groom in waiting.

A shallow dive into the numerous blogs, websites, newspapers, magazines, no wonder political magazines too, and yes, most prominently, all the news channels is more than enough to give you all the inside-outs of this impending matrimony.

And if you eavesdrop the chitchat around this swyamwar, you would even doubt if there is any marriage in the pipeline! (Rakhi I am sorry to use such mechanical terms for your emotional affair). For, according to extrapolations done on many a blogs, we must either wait for a ‘Break off’ breaking news, or if things went well ‘for a while’ then a Rakhi re-swamwar very soon – timeline left at the mercy of your imagination.

Of the numerous blogs, while many are able to satisfy their gluttony with the newsy bit Sting claims Rakhi Sawant’s swayamvar is fixed, others have gone a step ahead to say “she is not going to marry off any contestant, and poor Elesh has already been communicated about the fact. He has been paid a hefty amount to keep mum.” Peace be upon him!

Alas! What we have missed in claiming our bite of the saccharine Rakhi sequences, are ugly, dry, moron, wry, and of bad taste hard news. August 2, 09 when media dosed us with Rakhi, we were allowed only glimpses of the development that Maharashtra Government would challenge in Apex court the special court’s decision of dropping the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) invoked against 11 accused in 2008 Malegaon bomb blast case. Chief Minister Ashok Chavan’s statement, “We would initiate MCOCA against those involved in terrorist activities irrespective of caste and religion of the accused,” failed to make much of news. Neither there were questions raised on the decision of the special court to drop MCOCA against the Malegaon accused while the stringent Act has been indiscriminately used against even the farthest suspects of ‘Jihadi Terror’ in the state.

What we missed also included that Jharkhand has been declared draught-hit and that many more states are in the draught like situation which is mostly the result of seasonal imbalances created by human deeds.

What we did not debate included that Mamta Banerjee having driven Tata Motors away from Singur is contemplating her own industrial plan for the abandoned site in Hooghly district – a clear breach of trust for the farmers she claimed to have fighting for – their land remains ‘forcibly’ acquired and unreturned.

Nevertheless, we missed much more, meanwhile we lose more, let’s sing Rakhi!

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The types of assistance Setu provides include

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Strengthen human values, reduce poverty and promote cooperation

Seeks to encourage changes that improve people’s lives, honor, their aspirations and enrich the wider society with a lasting impact.

Strengthen and increase the effectiveness of people and organizations to find solutions to problems of poverty and injustice

Work mainly by making grants or loans that build knowledge and strengthen organizations and networks within our broad goals