O wherefore, Nature, didst thou lions frame?

One of the most memorable things about my college life for me are the english poetry classes taught by Mr K Chandramohan. All though I hardly played truant in college, these classes were a great reason to resist such temptation if any. While he taught us a variety of poetry, the most notable of all is the Degree second year class of Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's dream, Merchant of Venice and Julius Caesar.
For me, examination orientation was never focus of these classes, they were a magical way of taking me to context of the poetry as if it was happening in front of me. The sound of the bell marking the end of the class and Mr Chandramohan's style of not even completing the sentence he was speaking and walking away once he hears that was a big disappointment. The only hope was his next class in the next week.
I have quoted some lines from midsummer night's dream below for all Shakespeare aficionados and the blog header takes you to the site which has the complete play. 


Verses 2115 -2150


Sweet Moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams;
I thank thee, Moon, for shining now so bright;
For, by thy gracious, golden, glittering gleams,
I trust to take of truest Thisby sight.
But stay, O spite!
But mark, poor knight,
What dreadful dole is here!
Eyes, do you see?
How can it be?
O dainty duck! O dear!
Thy mantle good,
What, stain'd with blood!
Approach, ye Furies fell!
O Fates, come, come,
Cut thread and thrum;
Quail, crush, conclude, and quell!


O wherefore, Nature, didst thou lions frame?
Since lion vile hath here deflower'd my dear:
Which is—no, no—which was the fairest dame
That lived, that loved, that liked, that look'd
with cheer.
Come, tears, confound;
Out, sword, and wound
The pap of Pyramus;
Ay, that left pap,
Where heart doth hop:
[Stabs himself]
Thus die I, thus, thus, thus.
Now am I dead,
Now am I fled;
My soul is in the sky:
Tongue, lose thy light;
Moon take thy flight:
[Exit Moonshine]
Now die, die, die, die, die.

About some exotic flowers and the person who grows them

It is very interesting how me and Padmaja met. It is probably what she calls as serendipity. We both were associated with a particular upmarket super market that was recently set up in January 2010. While we (All & Motley) were only registered as vendors for Fish and Shell fish and never supplied to this client as the market information was that the payments cycle is troubled, Padmaja, verbally contracted for a space in the store to sell her exotic flowers. Please read exotic in bold, italized, underlined and in capitals. She owns a brand called "Ohana" which is a very famous name in Bangalore as far as flowers are concerned. Her store and office are at the Leela Galleria next to the Hotel Leela Palace Kempenski. Imagine whose who of India and foreigners buying flowers from her.... like James Cameron.

One day i walked into this particular departmental store and there she was standing and talking to her staff. Even before i met her, i was a repeat customer of their exotic flowers so her staff told her about me. Naturally I was introduced to her. Padmaja is a US citizen and spent considerable amount of her life there and that is one common topic between me and her considering my stint in US, apart from her flowers. We met the next day for coffee and I unsuccessfully tried to persuade her that Hyderabad needs more of such wonderful flowers and gave her the references of all the 5 star hotel and mall contacts. I was expecting her to jump at the opportunity to grab business. I was wrong.

Padmaja never cared about that money that she had to earn paying bribes (which is prevalent in some hotels to get a flower's contract as a matter of fact any contract). In fact she never cared so much about money as much as what she cared about flowers. She went on sending flowers to the super market in Hyderabad, even though she was not receiving the payments. It is only later that I realised, that her business activity is more to do with her passion for flowers, than the money involved in it. She owns a farm in Bangalore, where she grows a lot of the flowers that she sells and some she imports. I asked her, why she was not pursuing her payment in a vigorous fashion. She said, she simply cannot do it. It is only after a very long pursuit and failed attempt to recover the money completely, did she stop sending flowers to Hyderabad. Needless to say, I miss those flowers terribly.

In the first week of August, I was in Bangalore on business and visited her home and store. It is only after I saw her home did I realise that cultivating and offering exotic flowers is not a business activity for her, but it is a way of life. The way the home is decorated, the articles she chose for the home, her garden, the trees, plants and flowers each one of them is a manifestation of the aesthetics of the person who manages them. That person's zest and passion for life and beauty. Just when I thought I have overcome one of the seven deadly sins namely,Jealousy, Padmaja made me feel terribly jealous of her and envious that I do not own a home like hers. What you need to be able to run a business like that is not just money or a robust supply chain of flowers. I guess it takes you to be a different person, some one who has the ability to appreciate the beauty of the flowers even when you are not making money on them. All though she never told me the reason as to why she supplied flowers to Hyderabad for so long even when she was reasonably sure that she would not recover the money, I have enough reasons to presume that, it is for those few customers who appreciated and bought her flowers.

Later I went to her store and was very happy to see her flower collection and display. Please click on this Blog post label to visit my Picasa web album. I am sure you would agree with me, that these are the best flowers you ever saw, unless you live in Netherlands.

Padmaja runs an e-commerce site at http://www.ohanaflowers.com/
You can order flowers and have them delivered to your dear ones.

INFISH 2010

Hey, thought i will post some pictures of INFISH 2010,  an exhibition in which my company All & Motley set up a stall. Please click on the blog header for the pictures.

For starters, let me introduce what this is about. National Fisheries Development Board (NFDB) is an apex body under ministry of agriculture, aims at promoting fish eating culture in india apart from setting up retail markets and cold supply chains. As a part of their motto to improve fish consumption they organise a fish festival every year in July in Hyd. 

Fish cold supply chain is the most captivating business that we (All & Motley) is currently in. In a very short period of time, we have set up a supply chain from 7 ports in east coast (Including, Orissa, Vizag, Kakinada, Vodarevu, Narsapuram) and 1 in west coast that is Mumbai and have gathered a clientèle of about 10 customers including all the 5 star hotels in the city and super markets including SPAR, Metro, Hyper city.  If you are an avid fish eater and happen to visit SPAR, please note that all the fish that you see in the display is supplied by us, same is the case with Hyper city mall also.

In fact, Fish business is so promising that we have re assessed the portfolios that we want to be in and are liquidating our interests in all other businesses to concentrate only on fish. The fish industry in India is currently at an 8% growth and no other industry is growing at that rate. This year we intend to expand to Delhi, Bangalore and Pune.

I hope you would enjoy the pics, drop me your comments.

Move On

"True Ravi. We have to forgive ourselves to live and carry on with life. There is something I want to tell you out of my experience. Life continues, irrespective of who stays with you or who leaves you. We have to go on putting things and people behind. But we should never forget those who gave us our life. We should never forget those who made you the person you are. Which is why I thank you Ravi. I am, what I am now only because of you. I have learnt to live life the hard way. I have learnt to take up challenges. If not for you I dont know where I would have been today. You are the best and the worst thing that ever happened in my life.....Thank you for everything."

I have received the above comment from an anonymous visitor on my blog today morning in connection with what i blogged two and half years ago. Incidentally that was the last time when i blogged. The comment made me reflect on my state of mind, belief and value systems at that point in time which made me realise how they have changed over the past two and half years, which changes my whole perspective now towards what i wrote then."

What I wrote then is here "Women always made me wonder about their ability to love so consistantly and unconditionally, even when they are hurt, when there is no hope, when their beloved is falling apart, in times of turmoil, trauma. As far as myself, I am just learning to forgive myself, again and again and again and again, over and over. I realise that is so essential to be able to live and carry on with life. Forgive thyself."

I hope none of you are taken aback when i talked about changing value and belief systems and if anyone of you were that is purely due to the pre programming of an illusion that you have not grown out of, of an unchanging value and belief system all through your life. Wake up and smell the coffee beans.

While I still believe in the first part of the statement about my wonderment towards women's ability to love unconditionally(?) during highs and lows, the bad news is I do not believe any more in forgiving myself for anything. What i wrote then, was only reflective of my mood and what i perceived to be a wrong thing on my part and hence the forgiving thing.

I have realised in my life that there is nothing called right or wrong, nothing called a commitment, promise or word given. There is only one thing, which is "Ones own priorities", towards which every human being works and in this process everything else they have said or did contrary to what those priorities demand becomes null and void. Priorities are physical or emotional, whatever they are this rule fundamentally prevails.

I agree to what the commenter wrote about leaving people and things behind and moving on in life, although my perspective does not have any sadness attached to it unlike the author's. There is no reason for melancholy in moving on in life for the sheer reason life is too precious to be lost in gloominess in the memory of someone who becomes so unimportant the moment you meet someone (and you WILL meet someone, trust me :))who will suddenly make your life into motley colourful. It is not some kind of prophecy that you WILL find someone but truth, for the sheer reason that we all try to find happiness in our everyday and every step of life and in that process we will discover or stumble on that person.

The later part of the comment, about me being the reason for whatever that person is today and me being the best and worst things (what an oxymoron?!) in his/her life is a little premature. I do not know what i have done to make that person feel so grateful to thank me for whatever i turned him/her into. I think what we are is an innate thing and influenced by multiple things in our life over a period of time. Its kind of hard for me to comprehend that someone can have such a metamorphic change on someone else that you owe everything that you are to a single person. All I can say is looks like you have not seen life after me kiddo! MOVE ON!

Back Again.... :)

I am back again...

The reasons for not blogging for almost two years is not because I have been extremely busy, but literally because I had to start working unlike the leisure I enjoyed at my previous work place. That reminds me of what an earstwhile colleague of mine commented knowing my consistancy in blogging earlier. He simply said, " that means you do not have any work at office" It was actually true.

Life had changed so much since I blogged the last time, considerably pertaining to certain aspects........

Work - Have been able to achieve my dream of becoming a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt with the world's most respected company, General Electric. This has changed the way I look at a lot of things, work, business and personal.

Business - It had developed substantially, used to operate one outlet of Hyderabad House. We have expanded it to four. Formed a different business unit called as All & Motley. www.allandmotley.com , with diverse business ideas and interests.

Personal - This has been a greatest learning. Women always made me wonder about their ability to love so consistantly and unconditionally, even when they are hurt, when there is no hope, when their beloved is falling apart, in times of turmoil, trauma. As far as myself, I am just learning to forgive myself, again and again and again and again, over and over. I realise that is so essential to be able to live and carry on with life. Forgive thyself.

Joules Logo - The Final One

Most of you would be expecting this blog to be about how the House Warming Ceremony went on, but sorry to disappoint you, I haven't got the photographs of the ceremony out yet, looks like it is going to take some more time. The picture that you see above is the finalized logo of Joules. (Planning to register it) There is a great amount of hard work and brain storming that has gone into finalizing the logo. Let me share it with you.

When we received the first batch of sample logos to consider (the ones that I shared with you), we were in a kind of confusion and didn't know what to actually look for in the logo. We were thinking that the logo should actually convey the message or the concept of Joules to certain extent and then the tag line should qualify it further. We spent couple of sessions seriously thinking as to what the logo should have and then after an exchange of few emails, we had clarity as to what we should look for in our logo or in fact any logo.

The purpose of a logo is primarily branding or representing our business and secondly to create recollection value. Look at the logo of Nike, the tick mark doesn't talk anything about shoes, nor does it convey any message, but why does our sub conscious mind relate it to Nike when we see it. The reason is the way the logo has been projected to represent the brand or otherwise simply branding and secondly, how quickly does our sub conscious mind relate it to Nike is dependent upon the extent of recollection value the logo has which could be anything from the uniqueness of the logo to the colors used in it. A couple of examples could be the Golden Arches of McDonald or the blue and red combinations used in Domino's logo.

Having agreed upon the above concept, we have decided to choose a logo that is simple, straight forward coupled with good color combinations. Off all the twenty odd basic designs we had, we tried to identify the best one basing on three parameters. One is which one of them appeals the most to a layman or common eye, secondly what color combinations should be used and why and finally what should be uniqueness in the logo which could be used over a period of time for brand reengineering.

We selected the above logo that you see for the following reasons. The font of the logo is Vag round and it is an appealing one and the design is straight with out any esoteric fundas into it which would require someone to apply brains to understand. We decided to use Green colour because in food industry it represents fresh and energetic food and the second color which is Saffron has been used because of its recollection value and finally the uniqueness of the logo is the cut that you see in the alphabet “J”. The idea is that over a period of time our advertisements would only carry the alphabet “J” with its cut and that would represent Joules.

Coming to the tag line, I felt the earlier tag lines that I designed didn’t have the punch that they need to carry, in a brain storming session me and Sridhar arrived at the one we finalized, “Count Your Calories”.

A lot of industry has been made to design the logo and the entire credit goes to Jitender who designed it for us. He has trenchant understanding of the concept, what a logo should have and what it shouldn’t and above all why and commendable patience.

Please let me know what you think of it.

House Warming Ceremony - You Are Invited