An open letter to the prime minister (shareholder to CEO of country)

A letter to Dr Manmohan Singh

Dear Mr Prime Minister,

I am writing this letter to you out as I believe that you are the CEO of my country and since I pay my taxes (quite unhappily though), which runs the country I guess that makes me a shareholder and  I feel it gives me a right to bring up certain issues to you. Hence the letter.

I will first start with the functioning of your parliament which I guess is the headquarters of the office you run. I run an organisation here and though am a very relaxed person about rules of attending office on time, etc I cannot in the world imagine how you can have a parliament where your parliamentarians play truant many times and some even 100% of the the time and yet they are allowed to have their job. Better still they get paid for the same. May I know as to how you can spend my money to pay those guys who do not turn up at work? And the ones who do turn up, many of them do not work. I hope you understand that we as citizens pay your salary so you work and not come to the parliament and do nothing? You have a huge percentage of members who have not once whatsoever raised a question in the question hour or done any meaningful work. Yet we seem to keep paying their salaries every month. Honestly its not amazing that the country is in this mess, with such employees. Or should I say its amazing the country is not in worse mess even though it has such employees running the show????????? I do understand that as CEO you have a limited role in some of these cases but at least the employees whom you have brought in, can you not regulate them? And on the same note I would like to add, that I would want you to hire and promote people based only on their expertise and qualifications. I really do not want the first woman President, or the first dalit speaker, or the first sikh prime minister. I just want honest and able people to lead the positions. So if you could kindly refrain from using people’s birth as their qualifications I guess it would do us a world of good.

I would like to bring to your notice another working of your organisation which amazes me. I see many a times that your employees raise the issue of media regulation especially the television. Many times I have heard your information and broadcast minister send notices to television channels about the programs they telecast and the impact they have on children, our society, etc. I mean honestly speaking have your team members ever seen their delinquent behaviour which gets telecast on television daily? Have they ever felt the need to regulate that in regards to the fact that it would spoil the kids or the society. Seeing you guys fight, abuse each other in a place of work, one needs to regulate that channel more than any other channel ever. Why has your minister never brought up that topic? Have they not once thought the kind of impact it would have? Please as CEO can you ask your information and broadcasting minister to first check this telecast before they cast aspersions on others??

The other thing which worries me immensely as a shareholder is the blatant way you guys even in this economy increase your salaries and perks. I do understand that they are the needs and we need to pay you well to function, etc but have you ever calculated the amount of money we spend behind each of your employee? its Rs 2.66 lakhs a month? And time and again you guys increase the same, not once asking the shareholders if they feel like appraising you at all? As CEO of the country, I appreciate you telling the private sector to stop paying the eye popping salaries they pay their employees, but after seeing the salaries you pay your employees, I wonder why the same yard stick is not used to measure your employees?

Mr Prime Minister, I would also like to understand that every year in spite of the dismal performance of the Government I as shareholder have not taken away my faith from this country and moved to another (though honestly that is something which I am very much wondering now) but what have you given me in return? Have we in the last 50 years even made an attempt to improve the selection procedure of the employees we hire? I run an organisation and I ensure I do their background check, check their resume, etc before I even call them for an interview. Yes I too sometimes still choose wrong employees, but you Mr CEO seem to go wrong in the selection process itself. I see no criteria being given to choose your set of probable employees except the fact that they are interested. Also nepotism seems to be the ideal way of choosing the hopeful candidate? Can you please advise me as to why after so many years I still see no improvement in the same and how do you plan to address the issue?

Mr Prime Minister I would also like to talk to you about the various committees successive CEO’s of the country have set up to investigate various and countless crimes done by previous management. When I run my firm, I cannot in the world imagine how I can give a work out without first fixing a budget and a timeframe for the same along with of course the execution plan. But in your company, no matter who is in the helm of affairs the story remains the same. Tell me honestly, do you expect your shareholders to believe it takes 20 years to investigate a crime spending billions of rupees and to give the information which was anycase privy to all? Why may I know are we not changing the system?

The other matter which plagues me a lot is the prizes you decide to confer on sports personalities, namely cricket. Though I do understand that its a very entertaining sport and one which I personally enjoy but I see no reason to give special status to them using my funds in the company while you deprive the others. If you want to spend my money please make it equitable and based on certain criteria, else please do not. I have not invested my money for this.

The other point I would like to understand from you is what is your criterian for breaking the states and making it smaller ones? Is it cause of governance or just cause someone protests? And if it is the latter why not separate out the states which want to leave us? Or is it size matters? States can be separated but not the country? If not, I would like to understand what is the due diligence being done before you or your board take such decisions?

Before I end, Mr Prime Minister I would like to tell you that basically I find you a very able CEO and definitely much much better than any previous management we have had in a long long long time. Hence I felt, that maybe you would try and solve the functioning of this company before its too late and shareholders plan to leave you for other companies. Thus the letter. I do hope that the letter will be received in the right spirit and I hope very soon it will be a pleasure to invest here.

Warm Regards

A small shareholder

The 3 idiots…3 IDIOTS INDEED

An Award for the 3 idiots from the movie 3 idiots - Amir Khan, RajKumar Hirani and Vidhu Vinod Chopra

Dear Mr Chopra/ Mr Hirani/ Mr Khan,

I saw your press conference last evening and I felt that the 3 of you deserved awards for being the real 3 idiots.

I am sure you would like to know why I feel so and hence the explanation below:

1. Mr Chopra you asked a poor journalist to shut up cause he had not read the book, and had no right to comment. I completely agree. But then why did Mr Aamir Khan comment when by his own admissions, he has not read the book.  So do enlighten me Mr Chopra why did you not tell Mr Khan to shut up or even use him as your star witness?  Or are you the first idiot among the 3 idiots…cause by your own admission your witness has no clue about the case and yet came to testify. Pretty idiotic, won’t you say? So I hereby nominate you as Idiot 1 of the 3 idiots.
2.  Mr Khan, according to you, Mr Bhagat had told you that the book and script was not similar. Strangely Mr Bhagat claims he had not read the script and even if he had, how do you know that it was not changed in between?  Can you deny that it does not happen? Or did you ask Mr Bhagat as to wherein lies the difference? And since you are such a thinking man or intelligent man as you give us to believe, should you not have read the book before you jumped into the defence? And imagining that Mr Bhagat is lying comletely should you not have first read the book to verify the claim you made as you know verbal talks have no basis in such arguments. Don’t you think you behaved like the lawyer who went to fight a case without knowing what the evidences were? And since you had no clue about the evidences should we not as judges (the entire audience is a judge in this case) not throw you off the case, for wasting valuable time of the court? You seem to me to be the 2nd Idiot in the story of the 3 idiots who came to testify and fight a case without knowing what the evidences were or for that matter. So without any doubt the award for the 2nd idiot goes to you Mr Khan. I know how much you hate awards but am sure you would accept this graciously.

3. Mr Hirani – I am planning to make a movie on Munnabhai. The story will be mine, the plot will be mine, etc etc. There will be a 5% similarity to your original story that the character will be Munnabhai and Circuit and the 2 actors who acted will be same.  I plan to give you no credit for the same except write your name and say loosely inspired by you guys. Actually you guys gave me an idea. I will have Munnabhai fighting people like you who refuse to give credit to others when due. So let me change the inspiration to 10% but that’s it. Please do not ask for more, please, please, please. Ok 11.3% but that’s it. Not a percentage more. Why that number? Cause I felt so. Or do you have a maths to calculate the percentage of inspiration? Am sure you do, after all you guys quite convincingly spoke of the percentage of inspiration. So if you could kindly send me the maths behind the calculation, it would help me come up with an exact value? I mean how did you come up with 3 to 5%? I just want to be sure I have the maths correct, so that tomorrow when you say the same thing I will have my facts correct. Sounds pretty idiotic, right? And if you cry hoarse after it becomes famous, I will accuse the same things you accused Mr Bhagat for. Hope thats ok with you. No? Weird Mr Hirani, it seemed ok when it was Mr Bhagat at the receiving end? Or do you now feel in the hindsight, it was an idiotic thing to do and say? Well whether you feel so or not, I feel so and hereby award you the 3rd idiot in this entire 3 idiot fiasco. . After all the decision of awards depends on the jury / judge and not on the recipient.
In the end of this controversy I have just one thing to say to all the 3 of you. All 3 of you are the 3 IDIOTS INDEED. Am sorry for my language and please do not drag me to court (if you do I will say you doing all this for publicity 🙂 ) But seriously do you think if people are finding it similar, audiences are going to find your crying yourself hoarse claiming otherwise more idiotic?  And commercially speaking, I say you guys and specially you Mr Hirani and Mr Khan dipped your brandequity a lot cause what you did went against what you guys have always stood for. And I think commercially that would make a lot more difference, specially to you Mr Khan than had you convinced Mr Hirani and Mr Chopra to give credit where its due. And God forbid you go to a court, and it turns out by the same mathematical tools you used that Mr Bhagat was right, it would be even more idiotic, right? Anyway that’s your call.

Before I end, I want you to accept the awards I just gave out. Also I would be awaiting your humble acceptance speech on getting the awards and congratulations to the 3 of you once again. You guys have beat millions of Idiots to win this coveted title. Be Proud of it

Warm Regards

Priyashmita

PS : I would like to point out that I do not exactly feel that Mr Bhagat was not taking advantage of it being a hit film. Maybe he did sell the movie rights and was not smart enough to say, this is the credit I need. And now that the film is a hit he regrets it and that is what his blog says, without mentioning what rights he had in his contract. Fair enough. My reason for nominating the above 3 are only cause they were full of crap. Had they made one logical point like I am sorry I bought the rights and this is what the contract said, I would have admired them. But instead they were full of gas and the idiotic moral high ground which made me nominate and award them.