Chhauri -

She passed away yesterday, about 8:30 in the morning. May her soul rest in peace.

So where are you from?

Do you ever have to face questions that irritate the shit out of you? This is such a question for me. I have to go the bathroom everytime I hear this question. Not that I mind telling people where I am from originally, but it's that often time the person that asks this question does not really care where you are from originally. How do I know, well they kind of lose interest in while I am talking and shift their eyes around, and I could be speaking about the weather on top of Mount Washington for all it mattered, they wouldn't notice.

Also, those who are polite enough to listen to me with some attention, do not know where or what Nepal is and it's not easy to explain my country to people. We have no marker in history.

How do people deal with this question?

And I really do not know where I am from originally - Some years ago we treaced our ancestry to Gorkha, and before that? Who knows - which specific amoeba we all came out of. Next time someone asks this question I will ask them back! But well, I do not have that much courage for confrontation, so I rant here!

Dashain Revisited

"Hindumatrako Mahaan Chaad!"

I think to myself, my head groggy with last night's drinking. My hands are folded in a Namaste, an array of Idols in front of me. I see the empty scotch glass from the corner of my eye, last nights ice-cubes have melted, and mixed with the remnants of the amber liquid that they were washed on, give off a slight stink this morning. Funny, did not seem to stink while I was chugging in down last night. I also see a used condom wrapper, carelessly tossed away in the exitement...... And here I am, a puritan, observing the customs, traditions of my forebearers - that has been followed to the letter by my forefathers for a millenia (and hopyfully by my progeny).

I slowly and cumbersomely read the mantras that I printed off an email that my father sent to me last night. Words that I do not know the meaning of, sentences that I can barely decipher. A rush of memories follow, my grandfather helped me through all this a long time ago. He did explain what all of it meant, and it really was simple to understand at the time. But everything has become hazy now. But still, some of the explanations come back, even after all the upteenth glass of scotch that I have downed.

Does God mind? I mean, I live a life so far away of what the scriptures preach, I should not drink, not eat beef, should say my prayers daily, should have a thread around my body, should perform all the ceremonies in a certain way - or else it becomes impure - like pouring water into sand...... And then, some say that God lives inside of you - if so, by definition, God knows what you think, can differentiate between what you say and what you mean to say and what you feel inside..... Then what is the point of all the rituals? The Idol is not God, by the same amount that a my photograph is not me........

Oh bother, I forgot to light the candle, I mutter silently and light the candle. We could not get barley seeds, so the jamara has to be corn seeds. Orville Redenbacher's instant quality popcors, buttery and light at the same time. I think as I put the seeds on sand from the river outside that my wife brought along last night on the little almunium baking sheet (maybe designed to bake a chicken, another thing that puritans should avoid!). (Over the next few days I would anxiously look every morning to see if the seeds sprouted at all).

The cat slinkers past, lookin g curiosly at me, What does she think, I wonder.... What's wrong with the human servant today - got up early, washed himself and is sitting in front of a litterbox. Oh boy, that would give anyone a heart attack if she thinks my jamara is in a litterbox and if she decides in the morning that it is too cold to get out. "Ho Mirli Meow?" I say. She moves her upturned arrogant little nose and gingerly steps into the warm bed. She has the life, fed when she wants, loved and doted by everyone and can sleep whenever she likes, whenever she likes.

I finish my pooja and get up, late for work. I have to commute for an hour and half to work and a car that's held together with duct tape, literally.

So I pray to the God, for World Peace? No, the World can go to hell for all I care, and it is too if you believe Bill, Glen, Lou and the like. But I did pray for peace for myself, health and happiness of my family and, well If you are reading this, for you too........

A Tale of Two Wolves

I wrote this article for Business Vision magazine published by KU MBA students, and a cousin of mine asked me to write something for the mag. I hope I am not infringing on their copyright by republishing it here..... It's not as polished as it could have been. As lazy as I am I wrote this over a period of months and maybe, as usual, lost the original thread of my thought.... But it is what it is....

A Tale of Two Wolves

Here is my song for the asking
Ask me and I will play
So sweetly, I'll make you smile

This is my tune for the taking
Take it, don't turn away
I've been waiting all my life

Thinking it over, I've been sad
Thinking it over, I'd be more than glad
To change my ways for the asking

Ask me and I will play
All the love that I hold inside

- Song For The Asking - Simon and Garfunkel

This is a tale of my experiences running a small start-up company in Kathmandu, at the turn of the century. I have tried to share the things that I learned from that experience. For what is a (wo)man but not a sum of all their experiences.

I graduated Kathmandu University School of Engineering in the heady days of the “Dot Com Boom”. Looking back now, I suppose the boom had already started to wane. As the myth went, “the age of Internet” had dawned. Old ways of conducting business affairs would change forever. Buzzwords like “web pages”, “HTML”, “ASP”, “paradigm shift” were flying around in multitude. I had graduated as an Electronics Engineer, but was attracted to this new fangled concept of the Internet. Well almost everyone and some were jumping into the bandwagon, I was pretty tempted to, and so the whole saga began.

Being an engineer, especially an electrical, electronics or computer engineer, severely restricts your job options. The only places that you can go for a job are the NEC, NTC, Rashtriya Computer Kendra and a whole alphabet soup of acronyms. And even if you get into one of these institutions, the only work that you can do is either maintenance or overseeing of existing equipment or if you're really lucky and can pull some strings into management, rather than any type of design work. The other option is to go into teaching. To say the least, teaching in Bachelors level with only a Bachelors degree as a qualification is weird, you always end up feeling inadequate.

So I got together with a bunch of like minded friends, and we decided to do something different. After all, we were all qualified engineers, had taken classes on economics and entrepreneurship along with our regular technical classes. We were very interested in computers so we decided to start a company which would provide computer business solutions. We were so naïve; starry eyed kids.

The first order of things to do was to get finances for the office. We soon learnt, that starting business in Nepal (or wherever else for that matter) is not a trivial affair. We do not have a concept of venture capital. Money is easy to come by if one has family sources. Banks will rarely finance any business venture unless one can come up with substantial collateral or show some sort of political "reference" - in which case it does not even matter if you pay off the debt that you took on in the first place. So, as was the custom, we borrowed off some money from our parents. It was not enough that they out us through college, but we went ahead and shamelessly asked for some money. Well, whatever they thought about the success of our endeavour, we did raise enough money to buy a couple of computers and set up an office. I'm sure I speak for all of us involved in the project, that we owe a debt of gratitude towards them.

We had to decide on a name for the firm, so after a couple of rounds of beer and momo's in the Bakery cafe, we settled on a name. We also came up with a sort of business plan. Even though it was half baked, it was a plan nonetheless, as opposed to not having a plan. And so Two Wolves Computer Solutions was born. We went ahead and registered the name of the company - no small feat indeed. Registering companies in Nepal is no small feat. The laws are anachronistic to say the least. Company registrars office did not have (and still does not have) a concept of the Internet, let alone e-business. There are no laws that can be used to define services delivered across the Internet. We were not sure if the service that we would deliver would come under the VAT umbrella, we did register for VAT though - to this day I'm not sure how that works. We got help of an accountant to make sense of our books, but that is another complicated aspects. We were to learn that businesses in Nepal usually keep two books, one for the officials and one for the business owner to understand the inflow-outflow cash relationships themselves. One has to map entries in between two books. And that at times is not a conformal mapping.

The initial plan was to concentrate on website development, and we'd also try and attract some business with software development later on. A friend was proficient in website development. We were able to get some server space off someone that we had met online for very cheap rates. With this amount of money we could undercut the prevailing rates on the market. And once we had built some name recognition for ourselves, money and work would be plain sailing. Or so the plan went.

But we were to learn the lessons of entrepreneurship the hard way. These are some insights that I had, some we realized early on, some has come with hindsight, thinking over things and analyzing past events. One has to learn by every event in ones life, and that is how one progresses. This is by no means a 101 in entrepreneurship, just some experiences that I had.

1. Brand Name

We had the office st up, brand new computers, some sample websites that we had developed and so we started looking for clients. We were technically sound, I still believe we would have given existing competitors a run for their money both in terms of the value of our product and delivery of our services. But we learnt the first lesson at this point. And this is where that anyone running a start-up must realize how uphill the battle really is. Whenever we went to local businesses with our products and services, they would listen politely (sometimes not) and then take the brochure and we would wait in our office for the call. We did get some calls but not to the extent that we hoped. Thinking back, the reason was that no-one was willing to trust an upstart company. For all they knew, we could be just a f;y-by-night operation. That is the reason why brand name is important. Think about it, you go to buy a soda in the grocery store - there are a number of brands - but you pick up a can that you've picked before, that's the safe bet. And for an new company to get it's foothold in a market that has been dominated by old and more experienced, mature players is difficult to say the least.

2. Networking

Not only in Nepal, but in other societies that I've seen, this maybe is one of the single most important parameter for success. A proper network is important. Not only for running a business, but to get into schools for higher education, to find a decent job, to progress in life. And I suppose this is so because we live in a human society. One's identity is the company one keeps.

The first trickle of work that we got our way in Two Wolves was through friends and family. People recommended us to someone who had a business and needed a web-site. And then the client would recommend us to someone else. It then becomes important to keep up good relations with the client. Often times, people end up thinking of relations in local domain, in terms of a time frame. Once the job is done, then well, one can forget the client. And this is one of the major mistakes businesses make, especially in a developing economy like Nepal. Word of mouth does spread quickly, and if the word is negative, well then, it spells doom.

3. Customer Relations

"The customer is always right" - If you want to run a successful business, of course without resorting to corruption and playing by the rules, then print that quotation out and stick it in your office. No matter what degree you have what you have learnt in school, what gizmo you can use to dazzle the competition, if the customer is not satisfied, then all your effort is as good as sour milk poured down the drain. And this point is directly related to point number two. Good client relations is another way to form strong networks that may bring you bigger and better work down the line. The client should feel that the sole purpose of running the business it to satisfy the customer. Unfortunately, in Nepal one generally observes the customer treated as a nuisance - I've seen this happen in small businesses like food services to large businesses or even service agencies. Remember that the money is in the customers pocket. It does not cost extra to be proficient and make the customer happy, but it pays extra!

4. Quality of Product and Services

Never compromise on quality - for either products or services. Start-ups are always pressed for time, pressed by management issues, pressed by financial obligations. There are bills to pay, salaries to provide, services to buy, equipment to be purchased and this goes on forever. On is often temped to finish a task quickly, without giving is the careful consideration that it requires. And that is a mistake. A mistake by a huge margin. Shoddy products and services not only hit the bottom-line, but will form a dent on point 1, 2 and 3. Do not under-quote yourself when letting the customer know how much time you will need for a particular job. If you overstretch yourself, then the quality is going to suffer and that will hurt the long term prospects of the company. Further, negative reviews, comments and words are more sticky than positive words. You never want to be associated with anything negative.

5. Time Management

Which brings me to the fifth point. Time management is probably one of the greatest issues of modern life. One who has the key to proper time management, has the key to reach their full potential. Again, I stress the point of never overstretching oneself. In issues of time. If the client is expecting a delivery on Tuesday, then Tuesday it is. Business world is not as forgiving as other fields. Once you make a negative impression, all excuses are going to be similar to the - "dog ate my homework" excuse that a kid would make to the teacher - and it does not matter if the dog really ate the homework, a responsibility was not fulfilled.

6. Money Management

Remember being a teenager, never having enough money but still have to impress your girlfriend (or boyfriend, as the case may be)? Well for start-ups, monetary issues are of the same sort. You will need to tighten your belly. We worked without really well defined salary. We would of course take our "cut" when we had surplus money, but we did not have enough to go around. Prioritize, bill payment come first, then paying the salary of the staff, last comes the bacon that you're gonna take home. You must learn to cut extra spending, find plugs in your money bucket. Money management is especially difficult as we do not have the concept of venture capitalism or even have banks giving out loans for short period of time in an event of emergency cash flow. Of course, networking and better client relations would help in situations like this, but maybe it would also help if banks would change the way that they conduct their business.

Once we had a cash flow problem in Two Wolves, and we went to the bank where we conducted our finances to see if they could provide a short term loan. The asked some form of collateral (which we did not have) and an interest rate of about 28%. We would have been better off if we had gone to the local loan shark! Fortunately for us, a client made a timely payment and we were out of the pickle, but things like this happen, and the only way to deal with them is with better planning and better management.

7. Personnel Management

You are the boss of your own empire, however small, however insignificant. A surefire way to ruin a business is to keep the workers unsatisfied, unmotivated and underpaid. There are several ways to do this, act as royalty, do not listen to even good ideas, do not pay attention, show favouritism, foster politics in workplace and the list goes on and on. But the key to being the best boss is not only to hire the right person for the right job, but also to keep them motivated. Make employees feel that they have a stake in the success of the business. Raja ko kaam, kailey jala ghaam - Now why and where did that come from? Analyze that!

And so my friends, this old wolf takes his leave. I hope that my experience will at least serve as pointers for you as you graduate and move along your chosen paths. If not, then I hope this has been a good read. Now, the world is your oyster, go grab it and have fun while at it.

Good luck!

Confused ---

OK, this comes after a major barbecue that we had last weekend. Among all the usual, tonnes of meat and potatoes, corn, mushrooms, salad, beer and coca-cola, we also had a vegetarian friend among us. We of course did not eat him, but the reason why he became a vegetarian is interesting. His is an ethical objection to eating meat. He thinks for one, modern farming and animal rearing techniques are too cruel (in the West). Also, in countries like ours, we do have the practice of animal sacrifice, in the name of religion, but most of the time, it's for food. Lately I have read and heard a lot of objections about the animal sacrifice part of our culture in popular media Now, I respect this guys objection to eating meat and well, have nothing in particular to say against it, it does a number of moral questions for me.

Well, I'm confused on two levels. First, I'm not an anti-animal rights guy. I like animals as well as the next guy - maybe a little bit more. I am a dog person, I am the guy you see in the road with a bumper sticker that says "dog's rule". I am also a cat person to some extent. I maybe am the crazy persons who has a gut reaction against Michael Vick and thinks that this guy should be locked forever or maybe put through the same grueling things that he put his dogs through.

On the other hand, I love eating meat - not dog meat mind you, but any other kind. I like my meat medium rare and prefer to have at least a portion a day. I love my barbecues, steaks, dumplings, roasts, and I have even tried rabbit meat - and it does taste good. I have no qualms eating the cute bunny or the frolicking lamb or even Gau mata.

So does that make a hypocrite? Well, maybe not. I suppose it is not really my choice what I eat. One cannot really put morality on survival. Humans evolved this way. If you put a moral weight on food, then well, those who say that they do not eat meat because the worry about suffering of animals ar ethe hypocrites - they should not eat anything, all you eat has been a life form sometime or the other, they should not take medicine because it kills bacteria, which is a life form and also they should not swat the mosquito sucking their blood. It seems to me, that people often take the easy road of pontificating when what others do are a little different. (hah! the last paragraph is tripe - I started this a long time ago and as usual lost the original thread of my argument. If anyone bothers to read the shit that I put out here, any comments/expansions are most welcome)