Someone sent me this via mail. I really liked it so now you can read it here..

Old Version

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant’s a fool and laughs & dances & plays the summer away.

Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.

The grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold.

New Version

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant’s a fool and laughs & dances & plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.

NDTV, BBC, CNN show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.

The World is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be that this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Arundhati Roy stages a demonstration in front of the ant’s house.

Medha Patkar goes on a fast along with other grasshoppers demanding that grasshoppers be relocated to warmer climates during winter.

Amnesty International and Koffi Annan criticize the Indian Government for not upholding the fundamental rights of the grasshopper.

The Internet is flooded with online petitions seeking support to the grasshopper (many promising Heaven and Everlasting Peace for prompt support as against the wrath of God for non-compliance).

Opposition MP’s stage a walkout.

Left parties call for “Bharat Bandh” in West Bengal and Kerala demanding a Judicial Enquiry. CPM in Kerala immediately passes a law preventing Ants from working hard in the heat so as to bring about equality of poverty among ants and grasshoppers.

Finally, the Judicial Committee drafts the Prevention of Terrorism Against Grasshoppers Act [POTAGA]“, with effect from the beginning of the winter.

Arjun Singh makes Special Reservation for GrassHopper in educational  Insititutions & in Govt Services.

The ant is fined for failing to comply with POTAGA and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government and handed over to the grasshopper in a ceremony covered by NDTV.

Arundhati Roy calls it “a triumph of justice”.
Lalu calls it ‘Socialistic Justice’.
CPM calls it the ‘revolutionary resurgence of the downtrodden’
Koffi Annan invites the grasshopper to address the UN General Assembly.

Many years later…The ant has since migrated to the US and set up a multibillion dollar company in silicon valley.

100s of grasshoppers still die of starvation despite reservation somewhere in India ..

As a result loosing lot of hard working ants and feeding the grasshoppers, India is still a developing country……

Really, there are already too many of them. If you aren’t 100% sure that you are going to be successful in what you are trying to do, then please don’t waste your money, and time of all of us. Spare your investor’s money who don’t understand a single word of what you are telling them.

Messing a Startup or Starting up a Mess

You maybe spoiling what you already have

I hear this a lot: “I am going to start an IT firm”, “I have started something with my friends”, “I am setting up a backyard office” and blah blah. Out of all that I have seen, most successful of new startups are those who start maybe alone or with a bunch of like minded intelligent friends. But those who just saved some money and then hire a development company to realize their visualizations, are mostly a big fail. At times I see some sound minds, who are great at consulting opening up small service provider companies, with all good intentions; but end up with frustrated clients and spoiled reputation.

Starting up in India doesn’t mean you can afford to be cheap

In India, communication is a lacking factor and we must accept it, that we are not native English speakers. Even though there are many people who understand technology very well, communication becomes a big hurdle and they can’t be used well. Clients from all over the world keep complaining, that they have hard time communicating to their outsourced consultant in India, which only makes work hard to be done. Many a times, there are various IT companies who get to design a product or service for western countries, but due to lack of knowledge of western culture and unwillingness to research on the same, they end up making something which doesn’t really meets the clients needs, resulting in rework, extended deadlines and client’s frustration.

Many people think of starting up a company in India to be of great advantage in terms of cheap labor. Yes, that is right, but make sure that your services are reasonably priced so that you can maintain the quality. Many entrepreneurs assume, that they are pretty clever at what they do, and don’t need an equally clever staff. They think they can spoon feed every task to every employee, but my dead friend, if you think so, then I think you are not aware of height of dumbness of people out there. To run a successful company, employees need to be just as intelligent as the management. You can’t afford either of them to be dumb, not good for you, neither for your clients. Some great person said, “One great programmer is equal to hundred good programmers”.

Research before you startup, unless you are Paris Hilton

No offense with Paris Hilton, she is hot and what she sells, she don’t need to do research on that; and even if she fails, well, she will still have a lot more than what you have ever seen. But you must do research before you start a company. Research about your audience needs, find your competitors, analyze their market shares, set up some goals, mark some deadlines, structure a budget, know what kind of employees you need, where can you find them. Do you need big investment, or you can work with your partners and experiment your ideas first. What is the least that it takes to do your best? You are spending money, spend it wise.

You are starting your business, but creating jobs for others; Make it stable

Its great that you have left your job now and are planning to start your own business. Now you can probably work according to your own timings and don’t have to be answerable to anyone. But did you realize you are creating jobs for some people who will work with you. Do you think that the kind of people you want to work with, will also like to work for your small startup company in their right minds? Does your product have enough potential which they will also be able to see for a promising future and long term career commitment? Are you sure that you will not run down your company and have enough backups to secure the jobs of your employees? Failure is not the end, but people don’t forget.

I didn’t mean to discourage ambitious people with this post, just wanted to discourage ambitious people with crappy ideas. Believe me, even I have got many crappy ideas in my mind, but lets accept it and don’t make a fool out of us and waste everybody’s time and money, and probably save it until we are hit with some really bright idea?

Lets not talk about glory and all.. am talking about being a developed nation.

Decades back, western civilization invaded Japan. Leaders of Japan united to fight against imperialists and scared them away. A small country fought against world’s most powerful nations and successfully saved itself, where glorious India fell before Britishers and was slaved for over 300 years. Japanese thought and realized that they should adapt what is good for their civilization and people. They honored the global culture, accepted it and became a part of it. Their leaders didn’t fight among themselves that Western Culture is killing Japanese Culture and its a threat to nation and stuff. They successfully preserved and mended their culture with modern era. They became developed country and people of Japan have world’s best facilities available to them before most of the other people of the world.

Where Indian politicians keep fighting to save the language, save the culture and blah blah blah. What’s the use? There are so many things which are totally country dependent, which money can’t buy. Broadband, 3G, latest tech etc. we are lagging far behind.

I just wanted a nice stereo bluetooth headset, and in whole Mumbai, they haven’t got a single fresh piece of Samsung SBH500, and that model released back in 2007. Forget about latest versions, they haven’t yet released in India. I regret… I truly regret.

We can see many people and politicians standing to discourage westernization of India. They call it sinful and they want to preserve Indian traditions and languages.

I find it ridiculous.

We can’t switch to new unless we leave the old. Languages and traditions, are not compulsions, they are a kind of lifestyle and medium to make our lives systematic and easier. They are supposed to help us flourish, we are not supposed to help them survive. Now that we have a newer and better way of doing something, it doesn’t make any sense to stick to the old one, just to show respect. Anything which is easy, fun and adaptable, people will choose it. They say Sanskrit is perfect fit for computers? But I can’t imagine how will it fit onto a keyboard? Being fit for computers is not enough, it must fit the users too right? Users are more important than computers, right? Right! Sanskrit has had enough time to be world’s popular language, but people rejected it, English succeeded. Because that is easier.

This is Globalization, not Westernization.

..and if that is too hard to understand.. then..

Dear Key Opinion Leaders.. please STOP telling us what is right for us. If you want to be helpful, show us options, and we will choose many or one or none.