WEEKEND LIGHTER: INSIGNIFICANT INDIVIDUAL
WEEKEND LIGHTER: INSIGNIFICANT INDIVIDUAL
(June 4/5, 2016, No. 23/2016)*
Weekend
Lighter is posted every Saturday @mgwarrier.blogspot.in
*Posted on June 4, 2016 from Mumbai.
I
Opening
Remarks
Back
in Mumbai on June 2, 2016. The stay in Kerala for three weeks was useful. Just
made my mind blank and observed people and places, attended functions and
travelled from place to place. The insignificance of the individual was
striking.
II
Recent
responses
June
4, 2016
Restore
trust
This refers to the report
“Government unhappy with public sector banks’ recovery record” (Business
Standard, June 4). The message sent to banks by Finance Ministry, just before
the meeting of PSBs convened by FM scheduled on Monday, June 6, looks
ritualistic. Beyond admonitions like this by publishing scary statistics, it is
time all stakeholders of the Indian Banking System (private sector banks
included) sat together and seriously deliberated about measures needed to
restore the health of the institution of banking which has a major role to play
in promoting economic growth.
Post-independence, India
has been lucky in ensuring sustainability of major pillars of governance
conceived in the Indian Constitution. These are legislatures, judiciary,
executive and the institution of CAG. Among regulators, Reserve Bank of India(RBI)
the financial sector regulator has played a significant role in nurturing the
banking system by effective participation in institution-building and
preventing bank failures. At this stage of development, health of public sector
banks with more than two-thirds share in banking business need to be restored
in national interest. Here, RBI and PSBs need legal and moral support from GOI.
Such support is additional to the role being played by GOI as ‘owner’ and will
include:
i)
Level playing field for PSBs in the matter
of recruitment, training, career progression and remuneration package for staff
as compared to major ‘successful’ private sector banks.
ii)
Board being professionalised.
iii)
Transparent incentives and disincentives
for executives and middle management professionals. Their survival and career
progression should be dependent on performance (now they are not)
One wishes, this time, FM
and his executives spend more time listening to CEOs of PSBs.
Coincidentally, June 6,
2016 happens to be the 50th anniversary of rupee devaluation. Let
this day of sixes heralds a new era in India’s banking history.
M
G Warrier, Mumbai
May 30, 2016
A poem in prose!
This
refers to Shiv Viswanathan’s “Ode to a nameless friend” (The Hindu, May 30).
Read this wonderful poem in prose with great interest. One is first tempted to
appreciate the selection of words and the skill with which the writer conveys
his thoughts. The writer dwells on ‘straydom’ with the ease of someone who has
experienced it!
World
over, ‘stray’ humans, in thousands, share life with stray dogs, and that too
bereft of a ‘level playing field’. Pets along with the luckier humans live
their lives in castles, totally unaware of the anxieties and uncertainties
outside, except when occasionally someone from outside trespasses their
‘boundaries’ or one among them ventures out in search of fresh air.
The
celebration and the embarrassment in the pizza story narrated are real and
accurate in description. Wish some who are sleeping, wake up and read this
‘Ode’.
M G Warrier, Thiruvananthapuram
May 31, 2016
Needed, political will
This
refers to the article “No country for the old” (The Hindu, May 31). In my
article “The Last Resort”( Included as
‘Post-Retirement Life’ in my 2014 book “Banking, Reforms &Corruption:
Development Issues in 21st Century India”-Ref:Page 122)
published in April 2009 issue of ‘Be Positive’ I had observed asunder:
“As regards the resources necessary to meet
this challenging effort, only the lack of political will to canalise the men,
material and money now being engaged for purposes like luxurious celebrations
(mentioning here the examples of the efforts to find the beginning of universe
or scientific research in uninhabited parts of planet earth or in space or
development of weapons for massive annihilation
may divert the discussion to controversial areas, which is not my
purpose!) and wars towards creative and positive purposes at least until the
basic needs of every inhabitant of mother earth is met is standing in the way.
Agreed, this is a great hurdle, equal in dimension to the greed which results
in accumulation of wealth by individuals, families and nations through
unethical means. But, if you and I start talking about it frequently and
without fear, change is not far away.”
This
article confirms my view.
M G Warrier
III
Leisure*
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A Surprise
Lesson from Squeezing an Orange
Dr. Wayne
W. Dyer:
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|
I was preparing to speak at
an I Can Do Itconference and I decided to bring an orange on stage
with me as a prop for my lecture. I opened a conversation with a bright young
fellow of about twelve who was sitting in the front row.
“If I were to squeeze this
orange as hard as I could, what would come out?” I asked him.
He looked at me like I was a
little crazy and said, “Juice, of course.”
“Do you think apple juice could
come out of it?”
“No!” he laughed.
“What about grapefruit
juice?”
“No!”
“What would come out of
it?”
“Orange juice, of
course.”
“Why? Why when you squeeze an
orange does orange juice come out?”
He may have been getting a
little exasperated with me at this point.
“Well, it’s an orange and
that’s what’s inside.”
I nodded. “Let’s assume that this
orange isn’t an orange, but it’s you. And someone squeezes you, puts pressure
on you, says something you don’t like, offends you. And out of you comes
anger, hatred, bitterness, fear. Why? The answer, as our young friend has
told us, is because that’s what’s inside.”
It’s one of the great lessons
of life.
What comes out when life
squeezes you?
When someone hurts or offends
you?
If anger, pain and fear come
out of you, it’s because that’s what’s inside. It doesn’t matter who does the
squeezing— your mother, your brother, your children, your boss, the
government. If someone says something about you that you don’t like, what
comes out of you is what’s inside. And what’s inside is up to you, it’s a
choice you have to make.
When someone puts the pressure
on you and out of you comes anything other than love, it’s because that’s
what you’ve allowed to be inside.
Once you take away all those
negative things you don’t want in your life and replace them with love,
you’ll find yourself living a highly functioning life.
Thanks, my friends, and here’s
an orange for you!
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*Source: An email forward from
Govindan received @Exrbites Group.
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