Learning by Crisis

Every year like clockwork my business goes through a period of crisis and I emerge from it a changed man, and hopefully wiser and stronger than before, though sometimes I think I also emerge more jaded and cynical from it. The first year my business had a crisis, I ended up selling my bike and switching to a cycle. A bullet was too expensive to run, and I needed the cash for paying rent and salaries. So bad was my cash situation that I was on the verge of closure. I did not have money to pay salaries and rent. So my kind and sweet little brother who was working in an MNC with a decent salary at that time decided to buy it from me (at a much higher than market price). That was a life changing decesion for me, and it made me a slim 30" waist atheletic man from an obese 40" wiast fatso. Maybe what I learned from that episode was the importance of being lean and self sufficient. I learnt to manage very well with just a cycle as my means of transport.

Then the second crisis hit a year later and I learned how wasteful I was being and how I was being overly idealistic in my expenses. I was spending money on a guard (for safety of my employees) an office boy (for cleaning etc.) and was paying a very high rent for a spacious office. I was so badly hit by those expenses that I thought I was going to have to shut shop. I was overdue in my payment by more than 2 months, but luckily for me my core employees stood by me and supported me and encouraged me and I came out of it wiser about controlling costs and having learned the value of frugality. 

The third crisis is hitting me currently. I am two months overdue on salaries and am not able to see any way out of it. I am again thinking that I am on the verge of closure, or maybe changing my business model to shut down our retail centre which is sucking in a lot of money. I don't know how I will emerge out of this crisis. I do hope for the best, but at the same time I am constantly worried. Am not able to relax. Have all but stopped watching movies, have cut back on all leisure activities that require me to spend money. Have stopped coming home in the afternoon for a leisurly lunch and an afternoon nap. I instead work through lunch and take a nap in the office itself. I am worried, but I now as I write down my past experiences, I also feel a calmer. I've survived similar crisis before, I'll survive this one too. And hopefully will come out of it wiser.

But will I come out of it older? with more of my innocence lost? With some more cycnisism in me? With less of my youthfulness? I do feel significantly older since this crisis started. I feel like I've aged 5 years in just 5 weeks. I've not been able to exercise as much as I would like to because I am spending all my spare time on work. Maybe that is also making me feel less youthful. But I do hope that these crisis' change me for the better and not for the worse.

The Last Trek

I normally like to travel during Diwali time. I hate the smoke and pollution in the city and normally it is easy to take holidays at that time as business is slow. In the diwali of probably 2004 or 05 when I was running a business with my friends, I decided to get away from the city and home and friends for a holiday alone. I was travelling alone probably because I had no significant other in my life, and because I was running my business with friends, so I wanted to a break from them too. I had no destination in mind except for a desire to go trekking. I had heard that there was trekking around rishikesh, so without any firm plans in my mind, I just boarded a bus for rishikesh at night and at 5am in the morning, I was at rishikesh. There after some enquiries, some people told me to go to uttarkashi for trekking. And I again took the next available transport to uttarkashi which was a shared sumo. On reaching uttarkashi, I roamed around a bit, asked around about trekking and received some vague answers. Then I decided to take up a room in a lodge there for the day as it was around afternoon by that time. But I did not want to stay in the main town, so I started walking on the main road going out of town.

After walking a while I came across a forest dept outpost. There I again asked about trekking and he told me about a village where I could stay for the night and start trekking the next day. I again took a shared jeep to the point where the proper road ended and the way ahead was through a kachchi road winding through the mountains. By this time it was almost 5pm. I asked some people the way to village and how much walking was required etc. They told me that I should be able to make it to the village before it becomes dark (of course they were assuming I could walk as fast as a pahari) and I started off on the path. It was a rocky path going up and down the mountainside. There was a fork in the path somewhere in first half and I took a chance on which path to follow. Soon it became darker and darker till I could see the stars and the moon in the sky, but I could not see the village at all. At this stage I really stared panicking and it was one of the few times in my life I talked to god and asked him to help me. I was not even sure I was on the right path. what if I had taken the wrong path? This thought kept going on in my mind. initially I could see some lights in the distance and the path seemed to be going towards those lights, but then the path turned away and that was when I really started panicking. Of course in the back of my mind was this thought that "its ok, in a worst case scenario I will spend the night somewhere here in the path. I have a shawl to keep me warm." But naturally I was afraid.

I was also afraid that what if I fall or something due to the darkness. But in the end I saw some lights in the distance and as they came closer I realised that I was nearing civilisation and I felt so relieved. The first person I saw, I asked him if this was a village and if I could stay the night here. He told me yes and I was so relieved.

So anyways I slept there that night and the next day I set out on the trek. The trek was everything I had imagined it to be, high peaks, dense forest, a waterfall on the way, complete silence. Undoubtedly beautiful. I spent that night in a camp in a place so high that the water had frozen overnight. I naturally hadn't planned for anything that cold, and I was shivering all through the night in a sleeping bag the trek guide had provided to me. It was a really uncomfortable night and I was really glad to see the sun rise the next day. And to make things worse, sleeping bag had bed bugs and I had to visit the doctor when I came back to delhi.

The journey back to delhi was no less interesting. I had almost run out of money at the end of the trek and this was the time when ATMs were not so freely available and I was anyway out of a job and hence was living on limited means. I was again afraid that if I don't find a way to get back to delhi, how will I stay the night here because I had just about enough money for the journey back. But by some stroke of luck I managed. The last cab out of Uttarkashi was supposed to be at 5, and I reached there at 5:30. Luckily for me there was an oppertunistic driver who was willing to make the late trip at a higher cost, though he agreed to charge less from me after I told him I couldn't pay him so much cos I was out of cash. Once in Delhi, the bus cunducter for the bus from station to home also agreed to take only Rs.6 instead of usual fare of 10, and that was the last 6 rupees in my pocket. I literally arrived home with empty pockets! But it felt great to have reached home under such circumstances. It gave me a sense of confidence that I can survive even in the toughest of conditions with almost no money.

That was a learning experience for me in many other ways too. The most important learning I had was when I was climbing the kucha road in the mountain at night without any hope of ever reaching civilisation. I was scared shitless and didn't what would happen. I even prayed to God for helping me out of the situation in the back of my mind, even though I don't believe in praying to God. But when I finally reached civilisation, I realised that when one is facing tough times, the thing to do is to just keep on going and eventually you will see the light :) And I always think of this whenever I am going through a tough time - that this too will eventually pass. I also learned the importance of following the flow of the universe. I just went from one place to the next without any definite plan and eventually ended up where I wanted to go and learned the things I needed to learn. And although the trek was beautiful, what I really felt the most during the trek was not peace but loneliness. I wanted to be with that someone special with whom I could share the beauty and the peace of that place. I have not been on a trek since. I also realised that I no longer want to rough it out so much and I prefer some creature comforts like a clean bed and a bathroom at the very least! So now although I still love to travel, I travel more to places where my friends are staying so that I can meet up and stay with old friends in comfort while also getting the experience of travelling at the same time.

Is there a God?

Once upon a time long long ago I used to believe in God, though not very strongly. At that time my prayer used to be" Thank you for everything God, help me help myself"

Then as I grew physically and mentally, I began to question religion and God and declared myself an atheist by the time I entered college. During my MBA that belief was only reinforced by reading Ayan Rand. Though I also started believing strongly in spirituality thanks to Richard Bach, and I wrote about my beliefs on God when I first started writing this blog (http://woman-lover.blogspot.com/2006_03_01_archive.html)

But now it seems that my beliefs about God are still undergoing changes. I am going through a very tough time in my business. I am literally with my back to the wall. I can so easily end up shutting shop, I am so precariously close to the edge of darkness. And in this time of difficulty I find myself calling out to God to help me. I don't do it consciously, but I know that somewhere in the back of my mind I feel helpless and am asking God for help. But I also feel like I shouldn't be asking him for help. It is a sign of weakness. It means that I don't have enough faith on my own abilities. I also criticise myself for double standards. When I am successful, I do not remember God and attribute my success only to my own abilities. And when I am in need, then I change track and start believing in God. I really don't know, maybe the hard times I am going through is God's way of reminding me of his presence? But then, didn't I chose these hard times myself? I knew what I was in for when I quit a stable job for starting business.

Is there any use of praying? if I am destined to succeed, then I will. No amount of praying can change the inevitable. But still, I pray when I feel particularly terrified. Why?

Is there a God? And the answer is I don't know. But more importantly - should I believe in the presence of a God? Is it a belief that will make me feel stronger? Or is it a crutch to help me face the storms of life. Is it true what Karl Marx famously said - religion is the opium of the masses. I don't know. But I do know that I am no longer disdainful of people who are religious. There was a time when I used to pity the poor fools who delude themselves into believing that there is a kind and just God and everything that happens in this world is due to his will. But I can empathise better with them. I can understand where this desire to believe in a God stems from.