​As we enter a New Year – 2021 – what can we expect in the next 365 days that may significantly affect our lives? The typical New Year Greetings for 2021 will certainly need some serious tweaking! 

In about a week’s time, this Covid-19 virus would have been with us for about nine long months. We went through a series of hardships and several lock downs and restrictions throwing normal life out of gear. And today we see some signs of respite and in many towns, normalcy is returning. More importantly and worrying too is that people have no serious fear about this disease. How long is this going to last. Is this monster of a virus waiting stealthily to attack us again with a vengeance. Let us see

​Luck is part of everyone’s life. Yet no one wants to say “ I was  lucky”, but would always prefer  to say of others “He was  lucky”. 
 
How often has exceptional business performance been derided as simply the product of good luck or unexpected windfall market conditions 
Lady Luck often gets credit for others’ success.  But if one were to carefully analyze the situation, one may find that luck has little to do with the successful result.  What matters are the actions taken by the lucky person and those they wisely chose to avoid.

​At a time when large parts of the world were steeped in intellectual darkness, this country was home to some of the not so well known giants whose teachings and writings are even today a source of eternal knowledge and inspiration. Ancient literature of Indian origin have expounded profound wisdom on many aspects of human life.  

Far better it is to dare mighty things,
To win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure,
Than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much because they live in that great twilight that knows not victory or defeat.
 
Teddy Roosevelt

​If the aspirations of our young, energetic and educated citizens have to become a reality then our economy should continue to grow at a fast pace. But it cannot grow without energy. The growth potential and the dreams of the younger generation of the emerging economies like that of India look short lived and aborting as its engines of development are threatening to stall, starving for fuel.

​This is not an amusing thought and I reflect on this through the wisdom and sagacity of my once upon a time illustrious neighbour. In the mid sixties and at an impressionable age, I was fortunate to have the Late T.M.Mahalinga Iyer (TMM) as our neighbour. TMM was a mischievously sarcastic scholar who could handle the English language, law and music with such ease and perfection that lady luck didn’t consider him “average” and was jealous of him. He was not elevated to the bench. He lived a 100+ years and left a lasting impression on me and some others. He used to say “If you were to put a coconut, mango, tapioca, jackfruit, yam, banana, cashew, onion, and a cabbage in a basket and shake it up, can you draw an average?” That is TMM’s India for you.