Sunday, December 12, 2010
Parama Pada Sopanam Game
Parama Pada Sopanam means Steps to the Highest Place (where Parama Pada means highest place and Sopanam means steps). This is a traditional version of the popular game of Snakes and Ladders. The game was believed to be symbolic of a man’s attempt to reach God. The ladders represent virtues and the snakes represent vices. The snakes carry names linking them to stories from our epics. Done on a 2 feet by 2 1/2 feet canvas the game is attractively designed and appealing. All the snakes in the games have names such as Bakasura, Kumbakarna etc. which are representative of certain vices.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Sunday, January 10, 2010
India's three most famous management consultants
CHANAKYA is India's third most famous management consultant. The most worshipped is Krishna because he was also a philosopher. He guided Pandava Trust Ltd., which was a garage enterprise of five brothers, for 14 years and had no venture capital support. Krishna produced a superb report and saw that it was implemented. He led Pandava Trust to global success. Krishna was also history's only online management consultant; he was always in touch with reality wherever it happened. .
The second famous consultant was Krishna's rival in the Mahabharata war for market supremacy, Shakuni. He guided Kaurava Pvt Ltd, a family enterprise that had grown into a large corporate and feudal empire. Kauravas not only refused to subcontract to the Pandava start-up, but also had the enterprise evicted. Shakuni was not a philosopher; he had no long-range vision. That is, he had an extensive database, good software, and knowledgeable deep links, but he lacked wisdom. Information and knowledge are insufficient tools unless backed by wisdom. So Shakuni and his clients lost the market war.
Both these consultants are so far back in India's past that they are almost mythology. India's first modern management consultant was Chanakya, in the fourth century B.C. He was humiliated by Nanda, the boss of the then largest corporation in northern India - Magadha Inc. Incensed, Chanakya vowed to destroy Nanda.
He looked for a start-up or a skilled youngster who could be trained to take on and defeat Nanda. He found Chandragupta Maurya. Eventually, Chandragupta defeated Nanda and took over Magadha Inc. and expanded it considerably under Chanakya's guidance. Magadha Inc. was also the first Indian enterprise to have a tie-up with a foreign multinational - the Greek empire which had been launched by Alexander the Great. Chandragupta clinched the deal by marrying a Greek princess of the Seleucid subsidiary of the Greek empire. This Greek beauty brought the five-yard saree into India.
Chanakya was the world's first hands-on consultant. That is, he implemented the ideas that his brilliant brain was generating by becoming Magadha Inc.'s chief executive officer, or prime minister. He was what may be called 'a practising theorist'. He invented 'realpolitik', a word that was coined almost 2,000 years later in Bismarck's Germany. Chanakya was machiavellian much over a thousand years before Niccolo Machiavelli was born and lent his name to skullduggery in relations between empires, states and businesses.
Chanakya's magnum opus Arthashastra, or "How to Make Friends and Enemies and Win Empires", has remained a best-seller over two millennia. But, like most literary classics, everyone has heard of it; few have read it. To corporate bosses and foreign ministry bureaucrats, Arthashastra should be what MP3 is to youngsters. Alas, they haven't shown much zest in downloading it.
The second famous consultant was Krishna's rival in the Mahabharata war for market supremacy, Shakuni. He guided Kaurava Pvt Ltd, a family enterprise that had grown into a large corporate and feudal empire. Kauravas not only refused to subcontract to the Pandava start-up, but also had the enterprise evicted. Shakuni was not a philosopher; he had no long-range vision. That is, he had an extensive database, good software, and knowledgeable deep links, but he lacked wisdom. Information and knowledge are insufficient tools unless backed by wisdom. So Shakuni and his clients lost the market war.
Both these consultants are so far back in India's past that they are almost mythology. India's first modern management consultant was Chanakya, in the fourth century B.C. He was humiliated by Nanda, the boss of the then largest corporation in northern India - Magadha Inc. Incensed, Chanakya vowed to destroy Nanda.
He looked for a start-up or a skilled youngster who could be trained to take on and defeat Nanda. He found Chandragupta Maurya. Eventually, Chandragupta defeated Nanda and took over Magadha Inc. and expanded it considerably under Chanakya's guidance. Magadha Inc. was also the first Indian enterprise to have a tie-up with a foreign multinational - the Greek empire which had been launched by Alexander the Great. Chandragupta clinched the deal by marrying a Greek princess of the Seleucid subsidiary of the Greek empire. This Greek beauty brought the five-yard saree into India.
Chanakya was the world's first hands-on consultant. That is, he implemented the ideas that his brilliant brain was generating by becoming Magadha Inc.'s chief executive officer, or prime minister. He was what may be called 'a practising theorist'. He invented 'realpolitik', a word that was coined almost 2,000 years later in Bismarck's Germany. Chanakya was machiavellian much over a thousand years before Niccolo Machiavelli was born and lent his name to skullduggery in relations between empires, states and businesses.
Chanakya's magnum opus Arthashastra, or "How to Make Friends and Enemies and Win Empires", has remained a best-seller over two millennia. But, like most literary classics, everyone has heard of it; few have read it. To corporate bosses and foreign ministry bureaucrats, Arthashastra should be what MP3 is to youngsters. Alas, they haven't shown much zest in downloading it.
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