Vijay Mallya ,Kingfisher airlines and me....

Just reached kerala after a "fly with good times " Kingfisher airlines flight from mumbai   .  But i know according to the newspapers it is not a good time for Kingfisher airlines which is neck deep in debt  .  There are  even rumours that it may close down  .  As a  frequent flyer  i must admit  ,among the airlines as of  now kingfisher is one of the best  . They ,according to me , give the  best service currently . 
                                                                                   Now coming to the issue of the  bleak future of kingfisher airlines and whether government should bail them out   , i have  an  entire  different opinion  .  Kingfisher airlines is an airline which is a part of the airline industry in india and  just one of the many companies in the business map of india   .And in the world of business it is the survival of the fittest  .    Also , majority stake  of the company is with Vijay Mallya the chairman who  owns numerous highly profitable businesses like the famous kingfisher beer business ,  even formula one team  .  To even think about the india government bailing out  his airlines  is against  the taxpayers of india.  This potential bailout  money  which is in the tune of  close to a few  thousand crores is required  for  more essential  development activities in a country like india  .  Though  we have so many  great  things in this country  here we have also farmers who commit suicide due to unviability of their small business (farm  )  . There is no one to bail them out when their business (farm )  incurs a loss .  And being a socialist  country  a farmers business is equally important  as that  of a  business like  airline  .  Adding to this is the issue that  Vijay Mallya  has a lot  of money to spend on even luxury cars , and sports teams  .

                                               This crisis  bring to my mind  the great  entrepreneur Captain Gopinath  who  founded Air Deccan  who  put the middle class indian to the skies  and who remains the real hero in the aviation industry  . 

price for romantic love

                                                                   Will you give up your powerful status in your soceity , the status of your job , the money  etc etc in favour  of  a romantic love which is against everyones wishes .  Yes you know what i am getting at  ... the topic of countless movies the success of the movies show that  this is an "ideal  "  most people have . But  like all ideals how many  of  us are ready  for this in actuality  .  The reality  can be seen in pages of newspaper where reality is honestly portrayed . Marriage "market  "  where even the salaries are spelt out in figures so that there is no confusion in choosing the best bride /groom .  Even in love  marriage  these days  many people say girls and boys have  become more "sensible  "  in falling in love only after checking  the basic "economic and social data  "  .  I am  not saying all this is good or bad  .  Or rather i have  no comment about this in the present practical world  .

But  that  doesnt  make me from admiring  some people who truly gave up everything  for their romantic love .  For  even nowadays there are some people who  truly  go for their true love .  Today  i was just checking the internet  on the emperors of india and there he was an Emperor of India during the British times and the King of England for the shortest period (less than an year ) . His name was King Edward V111  ,  who  abdicated (gave up the throne  after just an year of his rule ) for  marrying  a commoner Wallis Simpson . With the highest standing  in  British soceity as the head of the state and access to all the riches of  the  "land where sun never sets ---the british empire "  he would be considered foolish  by any standards .  After his abdication till  his death  at the age of  78  he  lead a life with this commoner away  from britain  .  The british monarchy never accepted his wife though he was made Duke of Windsor .  It is like getting promotion from CEO to senior executive   . Please check out wikipedia if you want to know more about this couple .

Now my little thoughts on this issue  ... Lets face it  .. Each one of us is different . Some of us value  money  , some of us power , some of us status  and still there are some who give priority to love  . All of us value all these things but  the  priority  varies highly between individuals  .  Watch around you and we can see what i mean  .  But  the point is after a honest self check  we should all  try to  make our goals aligned to  our priorities  . And though there many leaders whom we can look upto in the  first three categories  ,  remember  King Edward VIII  and  his  wife  if  you are searching  for  a leader  in the last category  .

Disclaimer  :  On  a lighter  note  i  am not  promoting running away  /eloping  or  making  extreme decisions like the King  .  But  understand yourself and think in what proportion you want money-power-status-love .
And need not  feel  guilty if  its skewed towards the former three  ---thats part of being human  .

Too philosophical or  enjoyed the blog  .. let me know by your comments  . 

little thoughts on match fixing

Todays news when i switched on the TV was about Kumble making some allegations of match fixing in cricket  . 

                                              Cricket was never my favourite game . But some time in the past i sometimes thought" if" i were interested in cricket i could have spent around 10 hours glued in front of TV and never got bored . For there was  always a cricket match on TV in the good old days before animal planet , discovery and star movies became just a channel change away . I am referring to the Doordarshan era when daytime TV only had cricket in it   .Those days the the minority who hated cricket used to say it was a game where 11 players played  and 11000 fools watched .  (i never hated or loved it btw). But now with each day churning out  the match fixing plots getting public i dont know whether i should agree with the joke or not . What is the fun in watching the game when it is rigged ?  And that too for hours

                                                   Most of the cricket players used to get  very large amount of money legitimately   for the games they played and when there was not a single audi car in the public domain  it was in one  of the cricket games , a worldcup  where the man of the match  got an Audi  car as prize  . I remember it was ? 1984  . That was good and legal .  Nowadays they also  get  money in millions from their many endorsements of various products in advertisements too .  I am not against talented players making money . But  in a country where many people live below the poverty line when some of these people inspite of getting a lot of money  legally do such activities as matchfixing to get "extra cash"  they should not go unpunished . For i once again yearn for the time when i felt jealous for the people who could enjoy continuous 10 hours of  a game .

born free --Elsa the lioness

                                                         

                         Each time i read about  a  book about animals the more  i respect  them and the people who go out of their way from the "normal " life  to live  in their midst  . The current book i am reading is Born Free a book written by Joy Adamson about her experiences in caring for a lion cub named Elsa . In the book which is a must read for any animal lover she recounts her day to day life  from  the days when Elsa was a few weeks old  to  her  growth into a full grown female lioness weighing more than 150 kilograms . Joy Adamson wife of senior game warden George Adamson got the cub when it was a few weeks old  . She nurtured it  and  it lived in their camp in Kenya , africa . Though brought up in human company gradually  they introduced it to the wild and Elsa started hunting on her own starting with small baboons and gradually larger prey .  Inspite of her fierce hunting tactics whenever the lioness came to visit  them it  used to show its affection .  Even for me an ardent watcher  of animal planet channel it was new information that  many of the behaviour of  lions like killing prey by suffocation is instinctual because Elsa the lioness since it was brought up by Joy and George Adamson didnt have its mother to teach her how to kill prey .  Similarly  right from young age she used to stalk and even challenge large animals like buffalo many times its size . 

The two things i have great respect or admiration after reading half the book is
1.  the lion which with a single swipe could break the neck of many animals including humans never attacked Joy or George Adamson (its parent equivalents  )  .  This  becomes all the more important as after about an year  most of the time it was in the wild hunting  and returned  to the camp for some time  .  So much for the "wild animal instinct "  .
2.  Joy and George Adamson for bringing up a lion fearlessly and often the lion used to sleep "unchained " in their tent  .  How many of us could do that  ?  Just  like you and I  go to the shopping mall  looking carefully both sides when crossing the road  these people lived in the wild bush  country all their lives walking , working , camping in the african wilderness. They could have lead a much "normal life "  living in London or Paris sipping  tea  and going for safari vacations  .

                                                Now , the surprise and tragic ending  many years later  .  The book was written around 40 years back  ,  both Joy and George Adamson died much later in 1980s and both had tragic deaths  .  Elsa died long back  so they  were not killed by Elsa the lioness . George till he died used to take care of many lion cubs and  Joy  many cheetahs and leopards .  But they were not killed by  any of their wild pets nor by wild elephants/crocodiles/hippos .  They were killed in separate incidents nine years apart  Joy  by  her    ex -domestic servant   and   George  Adamson by poachers  while he tried to save a tourist  from them   .  So the question  remains who is  more dangerous  ---man or animal  ?