Warrier's Collage on Sunday February 2, 2025

Welcome To Warrier's COLLAGE On Sunday, February 2, 2025 : Good Morning I'm aware, many of us are still carrying yesterday's Budget in our minds. So, Collage is not adding to the burden. Happy Birthday to all readers having Birthday during this week. Happy Birthday and Ayurarogyasaukhyam to C V Subbaraman, Mysuru who celebrated his 91st Birthday on January 29, 2025. 🙏 M G Warrier A Point to ponder : Shared by Vathsala Jayaraman, Chennai A donkey was tied to a tree. One night a ghost cut the rope and released the donkey free. The donkey went and destroyed the crops in an adjacent farmer's land. Infuriated, the farmer's wife shot the donkey and killed it. The donkey's owner was devastated at the loss. In reply, he killed the farmer's wife. Angered by his wife's death, the farmer took a sickle and killed the donkey's owner. The wife of the donkey's owner got so angry that she and her sons set the farmer's house on fire. The farmer, looking at his house turned into ashes, killed the wife and children of the donkey's owner. Finally, when the farmer was full of regret, he asked the ghost as to why did it kill them all? The ghost replied, "I killed nobody. I just released a donkey that was tied to a rope. It is all of you who released the devils within you which resulted into everything bad that occurred thereafter." Today's media is like that ghost. It keeps releasing donkeys on a daily basis and people react & argue with each other, hurt each other, without having a second thought or applying common sense In the end, the media dodges all responsibilities. So, it is our responsibility that we do not react on every donkey released by the media. Preserve our relationship with our friends, relatives and community. B Media Response 1 The Hindu Business Line Letters February 1, 2025 Profit-Wage Gap This refers to the report "Re-regulation is key to boosting India's growth : Economic Survey " (The Hindu Business Line, February 1). Beyond giving a background for the rationale for budget assumptions and projections, Economic Survey 2024-25 has gone a step further, looking at the expanding possibilities of Budget Exercise. For example, expressing the concerns about growth and earnings and wages mismatch. This is a thought that should worry Boardrooms of Indian corporates in the coming days. Perhaps the thought is loaded with possible answers to some of the top management concerns. Like rising attrition rates, talent drain and imbalance in the wage structure. Unlike in the past, the free talent pool created by unemployment situation and poverty is not available today for hiring and firing. So, retaining skills and talents within institutions and sectors may become a greater challenge, if adequate timely attention is not extended. M G Warrier Mumbai 2 The Economic Times Chat Room January 29 , 2025 Trump's New Trade Policy This refers to the report "India, US Work on PM Modi's Feb Itinerary" (ET, White House Diaries, January 29). Remembered the days preceding Modi's first visit to US as PM and the expectations expressed by corporate leaders in India then. Some job Visas for indian aspirants to work in the US topped the wish list. From the US soil then, Modi responded by offering to ease Visa norms in India for those who wanted to do business in India. In his third consecutive term, PM Modi is still having the upper hand. World is waiting to see how he responds to the US request to buy more America-made security equipment. The distance from US-dictated terms of trade to the present "mutually beneficial and trusted partnership" has been covered during the last decade by policy consistency and perseverance by Team Modi. The imbalances in White House due to internal political reasons are unlikely to adversely impact the India-US bilateral relations consciously nurtured by the two countries over time. M G WARRIER Mumbai 3 The Hindu Business Line Letters January 28, 2025 Turning idle gold stock into a performing asset This refers to the report "Gold's yearly return at 8% since 1971 : WGC" (HBL, January 28). For Indian households which still consider solid gold in any form as a "Store of Value", this should be a piece of soothing information. What about the estimated domestic gold stock belonging to India waiting to be accounted and mainstreamed to become a productive asset playing a proactive role in the nation's economic development? Has NITI Ayog made at least a rough estimate of the percentage of this gold stock that can be standardized and converted into income earning assets? If not, will the Finance Minister at least make a one line mention in her Budget Speech on Saturday expressing Centre's intention to look into the possibility of turning a part of the country's yet to be accounted surface gold stock into productive asset without change in ownership? M G Warrier Mumbai C Life Kazhakam Days Our family (Manakkal in Onchiyam Village) was one of the two families entrusted with Kazhakam duties in Vellikulangara Mahadeva Temple : https://g.co/kgs/Qr9pgvG There was also a Nambissan family sharing the Kazhakam responsibilities in the temple. The Puja responsibilities were with my father's Illam(Kannamkulam Illam, near Payyanur) and one of the members from that family used to stay in a house close to the temple. The third responsibility related to "Vadyam" during Puja and Seeveli (auspicious Pradakshinams after every major Puja during the first half of the day and in the night before closing, with the temple priest performing routine rituals and Marar and Warrier/Nambissan accompanying with Chenda Vadyam and Kuthuvilakku respectively) which was with a Marar family. Kazhakam duties included providing flowers 🌸 and garlands for the Deities in the temple, cleaning premises inside the temple, cleaning Puja and Naivedyam vessels and brass lamps, as also lighting lamps outside Sanctum Sanctorum inside and in the east and west directions outside the temple, mostly in the evenings. My duty in the temple was mostly in the evenings and that too during weekends and vacations (1952-59, when I was 10 to 15). I didn't enjoy the job in the temple as my boss, the Namboodiri who happened to be my cousin was not very considerate and was very strict in supervising me on duty. Occasionally, after closing the temple in the night some of the temple staff used to go for a night movie show in Jayabharat Talkies in Vatakara which was a 5 km walking distance from the temple. Subject to availability of 4 Annas I used to join the night adventure. Response from Sreedharan Iyengar, Ex-RBI : "What a coincidence! Thiruvarur in Tamil Nadu, near Thanjavur where presently I am staying has a village known as MANAKKAL within which in about 4 kms there is a temple for Lord Shiva having in this temple's compound, YAMA's temple and the place is called SRIVANCHIYAM. Your nostalgic memories about temple duty must have yielded all the pleasant life that you are bestowed with your sincere and dutiful services that you had rendered to the Lord! Nice to rewind the past and this habit would put you on a very healthy life and even more when you visit your native place! We should all grateful to our elders who taught us the path of a strong belief in spirituality! May God bless you with a robust health and enjoy ruminating the past days!" D Book on my table Does He know a mother's heart? By Arun Shourie This book was published in 2011. Arun Shourie had published 20 plus books by then. I bought this book after reading Shourie's "Preparing For Death" recently. Amazon Review : Amazon Review of Arun Shourie's 2011 book : How can extreme suffering be so commonplace if there is a God who knows everything, who is all-powerful and also compassionate? How do the scriptures of our religions explain the existence of suffering? Do these explanations stand up to examination? Does our experience testify to a God? Or do the two demons- time and chance-explain all that we have to go through? In a devastating dissection of the scriptures-laced with accounts of the suffering and pain that he has seen at first-hand-Arun Shourie tells us why he has eventually gravitated to the teachings of the Buddha. And what lessons these teachings hold for our daily lives. Your neighbours have a son. He is now thirty-five years old. Going by his age you would think of him as a young man, and, on meeting his mother or father, would ask, almost out of habit, 'And what does the young man do?' That expression, 'young man', doesn't sit well as he is but a child. He cannot walk. Indeed, he cannot stand. He cannot use his right arm. He can see only to his left. His hearing is sharp, as is his memory. But he speaks only syllable by syllable . . . The father shouts at him. He curses him: 'You are the one who brought misery into our home . . . We knew no trouble till you came. Look at you-weak, dependent, drooling, good for nothing . . .' Nor does the father stop at shouting at the child, at pouring abuse at him, at cursing the child. He beats him. He thrashes him black and blue . . . As others in the family try to save the child from the father's rage, he leaps at them. Curses them, hits out at them. What would you think about that damned father? Wouldn't you report him to the police or some such authority that can lock him up? Wouldn't you try everything you can to remove the child from the reach of the father? But what if the father is The Father-the 'T' and 'F' capital, both words italicized? That is, what if the 'father' in question is 'God'? Why do the reaction and answer change for so many of us?