An Idea is Only as Good as its Execution!

Let us not pretend that the government was prepared to handle the implementation of an operation of such huge scale.

When everything you do post implementation is reactive rather than being proactive, it sure as hell shows a lack of planning!

No doubt the thought behind the idea and the idea in itself was noble. But its execution has been lacking big time. Where I come from, we consider an idea to be only as good as its execution.

When people tell me it is OK to compromise and suffer for 51 days. We are suffering for a cause which is greater than ourselves, and make pseudo-patriotic statements like "Today's pain, tomorrow's gain" and such other utter bullshit, I tell them, It is not OK to suffer. Because, when you willingly suffer you are just surrendering to the circumstances. You are being a coward and you don't have the balls to stand up against something that you don't like.

If you support this policy then you should really enjoy standing in the sun outside a bank for 3 hours to exchange your currency. You should support the fact that uneducated farmers will be cheated of their honest earnings and probably lose their life's savings just because they did not have a bank account. You should support the fact that your Bai will lose the money that she had saved to get her daughter married. You should support the fact that unscrupulous people are cheating uneducated laborers openly in the market by exchanging their currency at a commission of 20%. You should totally support these aftereffects.

You CANNOT support an action without supporting the consequences of that action.

The only silver lining to the entire situation has been that the executive machinery has been arriving at decisions really fast. That is commendable and really encouraging to witness.

I know a lot of us love and idolize Narendra Modi. It is very difficult to criticize someone we love. What Narendra Modi has achieved in the last 2 years probably only a handful of people in the country would have achieved the same. True. That does not mean that he can be exempt from criticism. That doesn't mean that he can't be wrong.

It is high time that the government owned up and accepted that they royally screwed up the execution of a brilliant idea. You know you have not done a great job when you have to resort to calling the para-military to maintain law and order!

Banks to mark customers with ink to avoid repetitions

Master stroke or Populist propaganda?

Everyone needs to calm the fuck down with the Old High Denomination currency withdrawal scheme!

No doubt the move was ballsy, and announced very abruptly, targeted towards eliminating / reducing black money, but was it really a masterstroke or an exaggerated sensationalism by Modi Ji?

Consider the following situations:

1. In case you are a small business owner and you have to make CASH payments of more than Rs. 2,000 to your vendors / suppliers during tomorrow and day after – you are royally screwed!
2. Let’s say you run a restaurant and you need to procure inventory for your kitchen which you normally do from the local wholesale subzi mandi – you go to the vegetable vendors and suggest them to do cashless transactions – the looks and stare that you would get from them would be truly legendary.
3. You are a below / just above poverty line laborer / daily worker, you are illiterate, you do not have a bank account or a smartphone, you earn 4,000 – 5,000 rupees per month. Your employer has paid your monthly salary in 500 rupee notes – you have no idea how badly screwed you are!
4. You are travelling from let’s say Guwahati to Kozhikode in a train (it takes around 60 hours to complete the journey). You have boarded the train today with all OHD notes. By the time you reach Kozhikode the currency you have with you has ZERO worth, the ATMs are not allowing you to withdraw cash (because ATMs will not work till 11 November), you don’t even have the money to go to the nearest bank or post-office – Yes, you guessed it right. You are screwed yet again! (Before all of you start shouting Uber / Ola – FYI, they do not have services in Kozhikode) – Cashless transaction my foot.
5. You sell fish let’s say at Lokhandwala or HAL or Chittaranjan Park, you have no idea what is going on around you. Some Bong babumoshai has given you a lengthy lecture about what is to going to happen, which you have conveniently ignored (because, come on, that dude lectures you every day – he’s a Bong, that’s his passion). You do have a bank account, but it is in fucking Kottayam, and you have accumulated cash worth Rs. 2 lakhs in the last one week which you need to spend to buy your next lot of inventory. Wait! You can’t do that. You have to leave your means of livelihood, get the money deposited to your bank and then travel to Kottayam to withdraw that money!

These, are just five random situations that normal people like me can find themselves stuck in because of the OHD notes withdrawal scheme.

More than 80% of India’s black money is parked in overseas accounts in any case. Yes, this will cause a serious depreciation in the remaining 20%, true that. But at what cost?

Bold move, accepted. Something like this will be a great boon for our economy, accepted. But what is the need to create an emergency like situation? Is there really a need for this marketing gimmick, such sensationalism?

Entrepreneurship = Relationship?

It’s all about being desperate without acting desperate.

I have been an entrepreneur for around two and a half years now. I have realised one thing among many other things over this period. Entrepreneurship is a journey of desperate thoughts but not desperate actions.

What does that even mean?

Entrepreneurship is a lot like being in a relationship. It is not a surprise that most successful entrepreneurs have been die hard romantics as well. Loving is a risky business. There is always the possibility of hurt and rejection. In order to experience love, you will risk being hurt. In order to find success, you will have to risk failure.

You must have heard from various sources that life is not complete without experiencing love. I am pretty sure most of you out there have been crazy about someone at some point in your lives. If you haven’t experienced anything like that I suggest that you stop reading this memoir of a die-hard romantic and ask that person out that you have always meant to.

Do you remember that first time when you asked someone out? After you did it, wasn’t the feeling exhilarating? Just like those crazy people who say that you should experience LOVE in your lives, I say you should experience being an entrepreneur. The feeling is as enriching and fulfilling as being in love, and at times more rewarding as well.

Yes, I have been in love, a couple of times at least. Interestingly, I run two different businesses as well. Just to clarify, I am not in love with the businesses that I run. I love my work but I am not in love with it. As hard as it may seem to believe, I have been in love with two different women. Just like love, I can’t tell you what entrepreneurship really is, I can only tell you what it feels like.

Now, go back to the time when you successfully asked someone out for the first time. Just consider the few moments before the actual execution – the ideation phase in operations context or the design phase in SDLC context. (Just to make my explanation easier to visualise, let us imagine this in a traditional chauvinistic Indian context of things where the guy asks the pretty girl out. No offence to the LGBT community or my ultra-feminist friends). Let’s say you are the guy (no offence, again) and you have been attracted to a particular member of the opposite gender for some time now. You have an intuition that the feelings might be mutual but you can never be sure in an Indian scheme of things where there is so much competition. So, you make up your mind to ask her out. You make elaborate plans about how you would implement it. Hold this thought and snap back to reality. Look at this plan or idea objectively now, preferably from a third person’s perspective.

Does your plan seem stupid and naive?

Sadly, it does.

Does the plan seem logical?

No, it doesn’t.

Does your plan seem a bit too desperate?

Of course, it does.

Yet, when you had executed this plan some years back, you were successful at it. The sole reason why you were successful was that you felt so strongly about the idea that your desperate thought had transformed into passionate action. Even though the source of the thought was desperate its implementation was perceived as passionate by the recipient. You believed in your idea so much that your actions were not considered desperate. You did not have an ounce of doubt in yourself.

When you consider starting your own business, you end up experiencing almost identical emotions. The source of your idea is always a desperate condition. Either you are really desperate to change your situation in life or you desperately want to solve a problem that you share a strong connection with. Your idea seems stupid to the people around you. Your business model does not make any logical or statistical sense. Yet, you go ahead and implement it. And if your belief in the idea is as strong as your love for that member of the opposite gender, you end up becoming successful more often than not.  

Of course, starting a business does not guarantee that you will end up running it successfully as well. Just like getting into a relationship does not guarantee that you will stick around with each other forever.

Running a business is very similar to being in a committed relationship. Having done both, I can definitely vouch for that. In both, you will experience moments of emotional outbursts. You will go through phases of intense self-doubt. You will have to face a lot of scrutiny and criticism. You will complain a lot about the lack of personal space. You will hardly get any time to yourself. More often than not your family will not support you. Your friends will laugh at you. You will definitely face external competition. Nothing will make sense to you. You will feel like giving up every day. Yet, you will continue to struggle on. You will somehow stick around and not give up. Somehow, you will make it work because, be it your relationship or your business, it would be the most beautiful thing that you would have ever experienced in your life.

You will end up being successful as long as you are desperate to be successful and do not let your desperate thoughts to be perceived as desperate actions. That’s why I say experience love at least once and give entrepreneurship a chance in your lives. You will definitely find your lives to be worth living. You have only one life, make sure you have a lot of stories to tell your grand kids.

Playing safe is not an option if you want to experience the best that life has to offer. Starve your fears. Decide to live beyond anxiety and doubt. You will have to make what you want greater than what you fear.