Sunday, April 14, 2013

'Last Minute Specialisation: The Sutras'; What Cyprus may have learned from India


Last Updated : 28 March 2013 at 18:35 IST
If I recall it right, it was an event organised by a European business group in Delhi. Meticulous in planning, and professionals to the core, they are known for their punctuality and eye for details. This time around, the firm decided to leave the event management to a crowd of Indians belonging to the said Inc.
As per the plans, the event was scheduled for a Monday. Preparations were to begin on Saturday of the preceding week. It so happened that the Indians who were assigned the task dilly dallied with the tasks for quite a while that nothing substantial happened until Sunday, the penultimate day.
The Europeans fretted and fumed; the event was an international one and could make or mar the image of the group. And alas, things are in tatters! It so happened that an old hand who had considerable experience working in India looked at his watch and in an attempt to calm down his peers said, “There are twenty four hours left. Let's see!”
A blitzkrieg followed. A flash here, some sound there, smoke...and lo, the stage for the event was completed three hours ahead of schedule.
It would have been funniest, if one of those Europeans stayed back and decided to study 'Last Minute Specialisation: The Sutras'
Come on, we Indians have exhibited this skill when we organised the Common Wealth Games. Even as the Common Wealth Games authorities were not the least convinced of this, Indians were and they proved they could do it in the 11th hour.
Even as the games progressed—the peculiar attraction was an army of good monkeys manned by humans to stave off a band of bad monkeys—the Indians missed to see its prime skill-set slowly slipping out of their pockets and sneaking into the backpack of one or the other European gypsy. It must have laid dormant for a while in Europe until after the London Olympic Games. From there, it must have spread to various parts of USA.
Then came the fiscal cliff!
And we saw American Congress employing in letter and spirit, the principles behind 'Last Minute Specialisation: The Sutras'. When the sequestration came, we saw that they did not do their home work well and alas failed! We saw the skill set being applied in Europe when it came to Greece bail out. And on a latest note, we saw it getting implemented in Cyprus where Anastasiades clinched the bailout deal in a masterly way.
'Last minute specialisation: The Sutras' has the following caveat:
Other than regular Indians, only politicians are genetically pre-disposed to master it: be it US or European! 

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