Me, Elvis, Golf and Wine

My grandma started worrying about me when I adopted some habits newly. Her grandy (yeah, that's me) was watching programmes in unknown languages on TV. I heard her whispering to her friend (another oldie in my neighborhood) that I must have gone mad after 4 years of my engineering degree. This happened when I was doing my fourth year engineering.

Originating from a small town (well, my friends still call it a village. But I don't agree) I was not exposed to English pop music & albums at all. One fine day I made a decision that I should start watching MTV and Channel-V to gain my knowledge on English music. I call it as 'knowledge' purposefully because I thought getting such exposure would make me a good schmoozer. In less than a year from then I was supposed to join my first job, which would have people from all over India with different cultural background. That’s the motive behind my decision. I learnt the names such as Bryan Adams, Lou Bega, Backstreet Boys, Shania Twain and etc thru that exposure. I must say that to some extent my newly gained knowledge helped me in making me a schmoozer at various situations.

While I was extending my knowledge horizon on my English music, one fine day (it happened few years after my grandma started worrying about my habit) in Minneapolis, USA, an American was mentioning about someone called Elvis during her conversation about music. I thought Elvis was a new singer whom I missed to notice. So I shrugged my shoulder (just for style) & declared that I never knew who Elvis was. She gave me a satiric smile and asked 'don't you have Elvis in India?’. Then she taught me that Elvis was a very famous singer in the world a few decades ago. I must say that it was one helluva embarrassing moment for me.

Few weeks after that, at my work place a karaoke contest was organized and they gave a list of songs which participants could choose to sing. I saw a few of Elvis's songs in it among hundreds of 'unknown' singers to me. With my friend's motivation I made a brave decision to participate in that contest. I bought a music CD of Elvis with the songs listed in the contest and started practicing.

D-day arrived. I was surrounded with an intimidating crowd of 300 Americans, I saw raising eye brows in the first couple of rows when I went on to the stage, my vision started becoming blurry, I grabbed the mike, my face was brave & legs were shivering (as vadivelu says: building strong, basement weak), I opened my mouth, I started the first line 'You Ain't Nothing But a Hound Dog'. (Just try imagining Elvis singing a song with thick south Indian accent). I must say that I made people around me very happy that day. I saw all of them smiling (or should I say burst out laughing?). Also I gave them a great topic to chat at dinner tables with their family. I finished singing the song and walked with my chins up and real proud like a successful gladiator even though there are heavily bleeding wounds. People (read Americans) cheered and applauded and came congratulating me. Later, it helped me to make some acquaintances at my work place too.

Remember it was a contest. They gave 3 prizes ($100, $75 and $50 cash prizes). I lost it. But the very next day, I got an email declaring that I got an 'honorary prize' of $25 and a T-Shirt. Not bad, eh? So at last, my MTV, Channel-V exposure paid me back.

Mohanbir Sawhney, McCormick Tribune Professor of Technology, Kellogg School of Management says: "While Indian engineers are good at maintaining and testing software, it's about time they also learnt how to hold a glass of wine and swing a golf club. It will go a long way in building a global brand".

When I read the above excerpt in the last edition of Business Today I had the flashback about my decision to get exposed to English songs & how that exposure came in handy many times enabling me to break ice, to make conversation and to make acquaintance.

Conclusion: When India growth story is keenly watched by the world and when many Indian companies are going on M&A spree, it is imperative that Indian companies should produce executives who are not only competitive but also comparative with their counterparts in the foreign companies.

(Well, when my wife is okay with my swinging a golf club, she is strictly prohibitive about my holding a glass of wine. As a future executive and a corporate leader, I am fighting so hard with my wife to improve my soft skill(?).)

Health is Wealth

Insurance is a risky business. I feel that in India awareness of insurance is not that great. The importance people give for medical insurance is far lesser than that for life insurance. While they worry about what happens when they are gone, they fail to give adequate thought about the mishaps that could happen while they are living. The probability of dying in accident is much lower than getting severely injured but not-dying. Many people go out of job for a longer duration due to accidents or some chronic diseases. Just by comparing the number of people (who I know) having life insurance with that of medical insurance, it seems that people are more worried about mortality than the morbidity. I think it is mainly because of the unawareness of what a medical insurance is. Even today in rural areas insurance to them is LIC. That’s it.

To me, medical insurance is more important than a life insurance because it aids me during my life-time. I do not want to spend all my savings on medical expenses. Well, there are some life insurance plans which cover chronic diseases too, let us leave that out for this argument.

A recent news states that Health insurers in India have been paying Rs.125 as claim for every Rs.100 paid as premium. That has resulted in hikes in medical insurance premium. I believe that the main cause for this is that the number of people having medical insurance is far less. To my knowledge, salaried people who are working for some established companies have group health insurance. Apart from that may be people with good awareness would have medical insurance cover. That’s it. There is a huge crowd of people with no sufficient knowledge about medical insurance.

Only when large number of people gets medical insurance the premium will be lower as the claims pay out would be made break-even by the amount paid as premium.

As per a statistics from census bureau of US, the percentage of people without health insurance coverage in US in 2005 is 15.9%. I couldn’t get a similar data for India to compare. But I am sure that it would be somewhere in seventies or eighties. In US there is a constant crib about medical insurance not giving adequate coverage to all kinds of diseases (like the one comes in the movie John Q). Here in India, the case is entirely different.

As a business, I think health insurance companies in India have lot of untapped market. With a proper awareness camps and advertisements they can get a great business. I don’t even remember seeing TV commercials for health insurance.

I used to tell my friend 4 years back that I want to start a medical insurance company in India as it has a very good untapped market. I feel that this holds good even today. But starting an insurance company needs a great capital. Given a chance I would start a health insurance company and my primary market would be rural areas.

By the way, do you have medical insurance for you and your family? Click here to learn about various options you have for health insurance in India.

Klog

I came across this K-log (Kid Blog) of a 5 years old kid. The kind of exposure kids get these days are really amazing.

Cho Chweet....I enjoyed reading.

(I am sure that this kid will start writing on his own in a year. He has it in his genes...)

Giving Back...

Few months back I got a feedback from one of my colleagues that it was time I started giving back to the organization whatever I had learnt till then. (I was on a learning curve). Last couple of weeks I am hearing his voice echoing in my ears repeatedly, but on an entirely different note.

In corporate world there is something called CSR - Corporate Social Responsibility. When a concern is becoming big it starts thinking about contributing something towards the improvement of its region/society. I have not seen a start up or a company that is making losses talking about CSR. Only the biggies that are making good profits and have good resources talk about CSR. These companies take up some kind of social service activities such as adult literacy program, environmental cleaning etc.

When I was in school and college, I used to think a lot about social services. I used to console myself that I could not do anything because I did not have money and once I got into to a job and started making my dough I would start fulfilling my service desires. Then it was justifiable and in line with a company’s CSR policy (?!). Almost three quarters of a decade into making money (being on earning curve) I have not given back anything significant so far to the society. It does not have to be just money it could be of any form like my knowledge, my time, my advice etc; it could be to anyone but without expecting a favour in return.

Now I am using 'my busy life' as the scapegoat. :(

I keep getting my colleague's voice in this context again & again and grows louder day by day. I think it is time I started something pretty soon before I become deaf.

Or should I just call my psychiatrist to fix an appointment for my hearing voices?