Business lessons in the rainy season

(c) www.morguefile.com

Rain dripping from your window sills, a melange of bright coloured umbrellas passing through the street, a rainbow bridging two seemingly far points and earth's sweet smell emanating from the first downpour of the season – it's what makes the rainy season so special. In spite of the mud, filth and deluge I love the season. As the rainy season comes to an end, I am reciting few lessons that I learnt during the wet, drippy days.

Pond herons and the bamboos
Aim for the tallest, highest and strongest.

I have a pond in my native village. The northern part of the pond is surrounded by bamboos and Indian Rosewood (Dalbergia sissoo) trees. During my village stay I spend an enormous amount of my time on the pond's embankment. And when I am there, I am engrossed in observing the birds coming to drink water and fish in the waters. In the evenings, I see hordes of pond herons flying back to their nests on the bamboos. It's interesting – they build nests on tall trees and bamboos, and while resting they prefer to perch on the bamboo tops.

This must be the reason – it's easy for them to land on the bamboo and tree tops while flying. The pond herons convey a simple message to us – always aim for the tallest, highest and strongest.  

Crabs and fishes
Don't waste time pulling others' legs, instead leapfrog.

Once I collected almost dozen crabs and few fishes from a freshly ploughed field in a small bucket. Not to let the fish die, I also added handfuls of water to my catch. While I was on the way to home, almost all the fishes had jumped off the bucket and I had just a single fish left in the bucket. However, none of the crabs had escaped.

When I reached home and tried to pull out a crab from the bucket, two more crabs clung to it. I left all the crabs in the bucket and observed them. Once a crab started climbing up the bucket, another clung to its feet and both of them were again back at the bottom of the bucket. None of the crabs were able to climb out of the bucket in my half an hour's scrutiny.

They offered me a valuable lesson – never waste time pulling others' legs, instead leapfrog if you want to succeed.

Eagle and fish
Set your sight on the target, forget the fear of failure.  

There are four public ponds in my village. All of them have been leased out to traders by the villagers for fish farming. The traders harvest the fishes at least twice a year. During the fishing, the whole village gathers at the site. Children run alongside the fishing nets to collect the fishes that jump out of the net, and men and women wait for their share of the catch. Each household gets at least a kilo of fish as a token of their ownership over the ponds. While the people are busy catching fish, eagles hover in the sky in search of a chance to catch a fish that escapes the net.

The eagles are such precise creatures that they keep on flying hundreds of feet above the land looking for a chance to pounce upon a fish escaping the net. And I have seen many a times, they are successful in running away with big catches. The moral is – set your sight on the target, forget the fear of failure.        

Fishes and the water-flow
Rise against the current.

During the rainy season the paddy fields are full of water and fishes. While draining away the excess water from the upstream fields to the downstream fields, the farmers put handmade traps between the fields to catch the fishes. The fishes are simply swept away by the running water and get entangled in the traps. There are fishes which never come near the water flowing downstream. However, if you observe carefully, there are fishes which flow along with the current but swim back as and when they approach the trap.

That's the way we should be. We should take risks but stay away from being a foolish risk-taker. And if possible rise against the consequences and come as a winner.