Aamcha CM !!

A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way…John C. Maxwell

John Calvin Maxwell is an American author, speaker, and pastor who has written more than 60 books, primarily focusing on leadership. And when our beloved Maharashtra State is getting a new, young leader in form of the Chief Minister popularly nicknamed as CM, it’s this quote came to my rescue to start my sharing! For many this is a common routine democratic thing as what’s a big deal, he isn’t our first CM & neither going to be last one, so what’s so important about it & what difference it’s going to make to the State as well to the real estate or to the society? That’s reaction of so many around & especially after the typical show laden oath taking ceremony; even for a while I also was made to think, is this rail going on the same track of the predecessors ? But for   Mr. Devendra Phadanavis it’s too early to comment as he has to even prove his Govt’s majority yet the talks of the huge rather mammoth task in front of him are on!

Two things I felt like writing to our new CM, one he is from vidarbha i.e. from where I myself have come & another is his age. One more thing which I never like to put forward is his middle class Brahmin background like me & many of our kind! Till now when Nagpur is referred, it’s only for Saoji’s mutton & that too such an extent that many of them from Pune & Mumbai used to think it’s a person named Saoji who rules Nagpur! Such was the state of vidarbhas main city & which is a Second capitol of State too! Well now we can say our CM is from Nagpur! So here it goes….

Dear Devendra,

Best part is in your form first time I am looking at a CM to whom while addressing you don’t feel like calling formality of Sir or Saheb or Baba or Dada or even Bhau, but simply Devendra, like one is greeting an old friend & hope you also are comfortable with it. I never personally believed in caste system but then I am in a field where I can afford that but in a field like politics where every single decision moves around caste, it’s surely a thing to be taken in consideration. By now every news paper & media has covered right from devendra’s childhood to his daughter, every detail has been wrote about & that’s what power & fame does to you; in one single moment nothing is private in your life! Yesterday only I was watching a movie based on martial arts & in the movie the master told to his disciples that “power is good only if backed up with responsibility to use it”! How true the quote is here as a common boy from streets of Nagpur & typical middle class upbringing has now control of whole State in his hand! Many a time we use middle class mentality but what it actually meant? As I myself have gone through that what I feel is it’s the upbringing mentality where all you are supposed to do is study & get a good decent job, where good & bad deeds are very clearly defined & no shades of grey are there! It’s very clear that you can become an engineer or doctor, lawyer or a charted accountant. Even fields like defense services are clear no no, & the word politics is a taboo! Social service is donating to orphanages or sending sweets to old age homes & that’s all. Elections are for voting & never to be contested, not even society elections are supposed to be participated in! And then you are from vidarbha a region which bounds just geographically to the western Maharashtra & never by emotions or attachment by mind. In this Maharashtra there lies many smaller Maharashtra’s which all were being ruled by some three to four districts, as all the power in Govt was allotted or concentrated here only. Nothing wrong after all this was a democratic decision by the citizen of this State only. Yet it has its own effect on entire development of the State & on this background you becoming CM is a shift of power center however one may denies it!

That’s what a middle class mentality is & sure you must be also having similar feelings. The journey which has started as s college karyakarta to opposition party leader has come to a complete circle. As today the war which you have been fighting in assembly for fifteen years with the ruling govt has won & now it will be you who will be in exact reverse role i.e. defending the decision which you will be taking as a CM. Deven, agreed the post you are representing does carries burden of hopes & expectations of millions but in your case its bit more; as years after years people especially common man of the State has been fooled on every front. I am not from any party so no reason for me to criticize any party & I firmly believe you can’t make every single person happy when you are ruling a State yet if you fail for making people satisfied at large then it’s certainly a failure as a ruler in general. Nobody expected free homes or good decent jobs where perks will be a personal car & cheap air travels & things like that. Over the period as a society we have matured a lot & current voting pattern has proved it. All what people expected from the govt is not to make them struggle for day to day survival. On one hand there is a class which can buy any car like BMW to Audi & travel at there will & on other side there are people waiting all night long in the queue for going to Nagpur for diwali vacations may it be railway booking or bus bookings! And always have to see reservation full board & buy tickets of private bus service at their decided rates! The road conditions all along the State; there was a time when I used to travel to Kanha forest en route Nagpur & when rough road starts we used to say “aala MP”  i.e. we have entered in Madhya Pradesh! Now exactly reverse condition is there as soon we leave rough patch we know we are in MP! This is what common man can see & feel by himself now.

This is just one dimension of the condition of State, looking towards the infrastructure its like looking through kaleidoscope i.e. the different angle you use to look at the picture the different it looks but worst each time in our case. Right from MSEB meter name change to 7/12 name change to property tax name change, even to have our own name on such documents makes life of a common man miserable. Law & enforcement  i.e. Police is the worst as right from the movies to TV serials they have been shown as in hand with every illegal personality & that’s what image of the force is in societies eyes. They don’t believe that they will get justices leave apart simple decent treatment they don’t get at police station is a fact! If this is the situation of law & order what can be expected from other fronts! People are not scared to go to “shamshan” in compare to go to any Govt establishment; such is a scene all around. People just don’t trust that there any work will be done without bribe or with comfort in any of the Govt establishments & I think that’s the main defeat of a Govt!  As what Govt is for after all if not to make a common man at comfort & ease? And on this front all are equal; right from a millioner in Mumbai, who wants to earn his money by abiding every law, to a farmer who wants to produce some grain out of his small piece of land at some remote part of the state, all are having same feeling about the Govt establishments; may it be case industrial permissions for an industrialist or distribution of fertilizers to a farmer! Every one of them is frustrated with their experiences in encounters with the Govt systems!

Deven, the day you & your team was taking oath a building fall down like a card house in so called Maharashtra’s cultural capitol i.e. Pune! Fortunately just by sheer luck of the residents, though just one causality happened, yet he too was only son of some unfortunate parents; but nearly twenty families have come on road in a single night. These families have spent their life time earnings to get a simple decent home of their own which has been gone forever now! And with that has gone their faith in any system which we call Justice or Govt! Do mind today it’s just twenty families but nearly millions of such families are living with this threat in their mind with a thought today its Ambegaon i.e. suburb in Pune where the mishap has happened, tomorrow their name also can be in news paper for similar cause! And what is their fault? They don’t have enough money to buy even a 1bhk flat with any of so called decent builder as it’s out of their budget & they have to surrender these death traps we call buildings? As I said no one wants a free luxurious home but surely no one deserves to live in slums or such death machines, that’s what Govt's job is! The state is fast becoming urban & no policy is in place to sustain this change. Cities are becoming like a big slum with environment aspect getting degraded every day & so is life of their citizens!

And one more thing was happening at the very same time, its Dengue spreading like epidemic in Mumbai & Pune. Now what a new CM has to do with thing like Dengue is a question people will ask. But it’s the sorry state of affairs which the spread of Dengue indicates; as with all the modern techniques at hand we can’t control breeding of dengue mosquitoes & thousands of people or paying for incapability of Govt’s public health department.  

These are just two indications of the sorry state we are in! Similarly every department has its own story to tell that how they have failed repeatedly in serving for very basic expectations of the common man, may it be getting a home or public health!

This doesn’t mean all is lost as we have very good & capable officers in every department but somehow collectively we are not performing; it’s kind of situation we had in Indian cricket team before one Mahendrasing Dhoni comes in the picture. We had individual talent but we failed to convert it in to a team effort. But one good caption can change the entire moral of the team & same team can be world champion, & with that expectation people are looking at you now! The good officers need to be supported & new ideas are to be welcomed which are for making the entire spectrum of society a better living place. The common man of this State don’t know GDP or Crores of rupees industries coming in the State as that is important but not than our day to day problems. It’s a five day test match & not twenty twenty where results are instant but then even the test matches are played as per the sessions & every session of game has its own importance keeping end result in sight. No one can win by playing all initial sessions a bad game & then wait for a miracle to happen in last session!

With these words I conclude, all I will say is no more you are just a nagpurian now you belong to entire state & even to country! Go ahead & make proud to all nagpurians as well to the state by making people of this state believe in the system which we call as Govt; as that’s the ultimate success which every past CM has failed to achieve! Our wishes are with you always!

--

Sanjay Deshpande

Sanjeevani Dev.

Please do visit my blogs to know about our philosophy at Sanjeevani ! (Click the links below)


http://visonoflife.blogspot.in/2014/10/know-your-neighbor.html

http://jivnachadrushtikon.blogspot.in/

Social Side of Sanjeevani ! (Click link below)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/65629150@N06/sets/72157627904681345/

For any of your complaints about city, log in at link below

http://www.punecorporation.org/GRS/Complaint/LaunchComplaintCitizen.aspx

Think Green, Think Life

www.sanjeevanideve.com

Know Your Neighbor!

You can have a good neighbor only if you are a good neighbor by yourself...Howard E. Koch

Howard E. Koch was an American playwright and screenwriter who were blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studio bosses in the 1950s for portraying communism through his plays. Well, on the background of cold war the above sentence must have been taken wrongly by the typical USA minds but it’s applicable perfectly to our flat culture today in India! What made me remember this quote is a small incidence happened in my own apartment building. Like any other society we too have a notice board in our building’s entrance lobby which usually displays hand written notices about water cuts & lift maintenance timings by our efficient society secretary. Recently while coming back from the work a neatly typed letter on the notice board caught my attention & I paused to read it as it looked like something different than a notice. It was a short note or letter addressing to all the residents by a family which was living on rental basis, a floor below mine & has just moved out to some other premise. They have wrote about wonderful experience of the apartment during their some four year long stay in our building & now they are moving at another place & they will miss the people here & thanked all residents for making their stay in our building, a beautiful experience! It was so simple yet touching gesture that I read it again & clicked a snap of that letter in my cell & thought of messaging the man from that family about the letter & then I realize that I don’t have cell number of the man neither the letter has their new address! I have met the family’s members hundreds of the time in the lift, in parking & in the lobbies at all hours of the day. I have shared weather talks & smiles on way down or up in the lift with them yet in all these years I couldn’t even asked them for their any contact number, the thought really made me feel very guilty rather shameful about myself; as what kind of a neighbor I had been to them!

This is the cause rather topic of our sharing as how much we know our neighbors? Those who are resident of Pune since their childhood, I mean the genre of my age who remembers famous “Wada or Chawl” culture of this city where every one used to know every one! There were no secrets in any home right from whose daughter is getting married with whom to which husband wife don’t get along & result of a boy appeared for Matric i.e. 10^th, was known to entire galli even before the parents knows it! Every smallest thing was shared around rather becomes public, such was the community living. People weren’t afraid in going to outstation & no safety doors or CC TV cameras were required in the homes for security. No need of keeping emergency alarm or some important phone numbers list was there & as it was era without cell phones so emergency number speed dialing was out of imagination! Terms like security services or watchman were unheard; all the security of entire mohalla or galli i.e. by lane was a lone gourkha, shouting “jagte raho” that too at night!  Even tenets also were considered as part of the community & treated with equal affection & respect. There weren’t any society formations needs or managing committees; no circulars were necessary for getting residents together & no notice board was required. Yet those were the safest times in term of security of the community in totality as every one used to watch everyone unintentionally! 

And why Pune city, all of us who have come from smaller towns have similar experience with our childhood as home wasn’t restricted to the four walls we resided in but it’s the entire surrounding which made our home! And that’s why this city was supposed to be the safest amongst all top cities in the country & trust me it wasn’t far back on time scale.

Agreed sometimes it was a bit irritating with no private life at all yet most of us who has experienced it will vouch that there was real fun & that was real community living then! But the concepts of life were different & sharing was the main object of life. And this sharing wasn’t limited to just commodity things like grocery or furniture but the emotions were shared too, which was most important aspect of that life! No problem was considered of any individual family & joy was also of the entire cluster. Festivals were celebrated together & so were any functions from the family. Illness of someone in family was matter of concern for everybody & elderly person’s as well small kids were responsibility of entire community! Here no one was left alone to face his problems; a real society without any necessity for a legal title was in existence!

Come to our present tense, recently one hording by Pune Police caught my attention, there was a big eye painted & the tag line said “Use your vison”, means be alert & inform any wrong thing you feel happening around to the police. With all due respect to good intentions of the police force I wonder with present mind set of the people i.e. me myself & my family, how many of them will ever notice any wrong thing happening around! As who has the time or attitude to look around? As such is the situation that we know everything happening across the globe on a click but we don’t know the name of the family which resides next to our flat! Why in next flat we rarely don’t know what’s happening our next room where our kids are busy in their own virtual world! This might sound dramatic but that’s the fact of modern times. Even if you see the advertises of new projects which are being launched, it mentions three side open homes with total privacy & no one will be able to have a look in your home or few of them goes to a extent saying “presenting no neighbor homes”! We have tall sky scrapers with glass windows & showing us 180-360 degree view of horizon but we can’t see who lives adjoining to us! And when we can’t see who lives adjoining to us then where comes the question of whether we knows his  or her needs or emotions, as who cares for it? We have our plush lobbies, privacy, interiors and gadgets connecting us to globe but do mind we have no gadget which can connect you with your neighbor! All one has to do for that is just take a step out of our own door & push the bell on adjoin door & greet him with just a gentle smile! Unfortunate as for many this one step seems to be more costly than round ticket of the world tour. And then we need twenty four hours security, cc tvs, safety doors, intercom to security cabin, different safes in our bedrooms & all sorts of modern techniques which are like a price we are paying for our no neighbor home! Agreed there are some odd societies or complexes which do have maintained the wada culture by having gatherings together but how many such numbers are there in comparison to the numbers of buildings around is the question I will like to ask?

Many will say what real estate can do about it? Is it not the need of the people itself which we are responding? We can’t build wadas or chawls & ask people to live in them today! I don’t say go back & start living in chawl or wada as it has its drawbacks & times have changed; but at the same time when we change it don’t mean leave everything behind & move on. Here role of real estate is very much important as we are developers & let’s understand the true meaning of developer! We develop societies so we need to know true meaning of the term society for that, if we want to stand to the tag we proudly carry along! What we call a society is not just cluster of buildings & its luxurious specifications but it’s the people living in those building which makes the society! It’s these people we should work up on while we plan & develop the buildings which we conveniently rather wrongly call societies! No one says build some thing with no privacy as in today’s carrier oriented rat race life everyone needs some calm & quite moments of his own but that doesn’t mean cutting off from the people you live amongst. 

Man is a social animal & naturally his residences we can’t cut off from other men! There has to be places right from the lobbies to corners to courtyards where we should provide spaces to socialize & most importantly right from beginning make them understand the true object of living in a society. We are not making some one live alone or ask to live on footpath but a perfect balance between both has to be strike & your efforts has to make known to the person who is your client. This I call making your customer know philosophy behind your creation; as unless you have a dialogue with your customer & make him aware about such aspects of life how he will be carrying it forward when he goes & live in the building you have created! Once the person who is going to live in our buildings understands essence of community living then many problems which we face today are taken care in advance. And they are right from security concerns to society monthly maintenance charges disputes, which are major day to day hassles of today's so called societies!

It’s on this front role of real estate is going to be very vital as what kind of society we will be building depends up on us only & for that need is to cultivate the culture which will get people together. There only lies the hope of a better society where the residents will be at real comfort & peace; as these are the specifications of life which no money can buy but we only have to earn it!

Sanjay Deshpande

Sanjeevani Dev.

Please do visit my blogs to know about our philosophy at Sanjeevani ! (Click the links below)

http://visonoflife.blogspot.in/2014/09/affordable-housing-some-ground.html

http://jivnachadrushtikon.blogspot.in/

Social Side of Sanjeevani ! (Click link below)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/65629150@N06/sets/72157627904681345/

For any of your complaints about city, log in at link below

http://www.punecorporation.org/GRS/Complaint/LaunchComplaintCitizen.aspx

Think Green, Think Life

www.sanjeevanideve.com

Transparency & Real Estate!

A lack of transparency results in distrust and a deep sense of insecurity…Dalai Lama

No need to introduce the wise holy man from Tibet as hardly there will be any who don’t know Dalai Lama! To my surprise I am using first time his quote , though he hasn’t meant it for real estate & he himself don’t need any builder as he considers whole earth as his home, yet when I read a news about transparency in real estate, I found his this quote as most apt for the topic! The news was regarding State Govt amending rules for real estate & no need to tell that was about how to nab the builders for making their deals more transparent as well holding them more responsible for what been in agreement. It was about the famous under making or forming Housing Regulatory Authority where all the builders needs to register their projects & will be regulated through set of rules or at least are supposed to regulate. Well, why it’s always the builders who come under the axe of any Govt is a question which often bothers me. Though as usual many will say, isn’t the builder’s worth of it? With due respect the real estate industry is already enough burdened with all kinds of known NOC”s, may it be Govt or semi Govt department. Does this regulatory authority is going to make any real value addition or just one more NOC, this only time will tell but what caught my attention is it mentioned of making the real estate more transparent!

To me transparency is an act which unfortunately in our country has become just a mere popularity gaining word! Right from politicians to top corporate bosses regularly use the term transparency to assure their voters or clients which in nut shell are common men! But we all know what it means as why one needs to tell that any particular body is doing transparent business? As if they are transparent in their dealings then let the end user decide it!

Since long real estate has been tagged for its non transparent dealings & if you as anybody & not just the customer, i.e. may it be contractors or vendors or even the professionals like charted accountants about the specie builder or more popularly developer then they will vouch for this fact. Nobody trusts a builder! Here many of the real estate people will object or get offended with this bold statement but if we want to improve then we need to accept our lacunas first! Had it not been the case then every media as well govt body would not have hell bend upon bringing one more regulatory body for the real estate! We have hundreds of other industries from Information Technology to Automobile & they too have their turnover in millions of crores of rupees & yet never such demand for transparency about their dealings with their customers has been made! This doesn’t mean all is well in every other industry than real estate yet somewhere the developers are lacking on front of the dialogue with their customers; at least that was the scene in first generation of developers.

Coming to present era of real estate a lot has been changed & the real estate people should take cognizance about this change which mainly has happened on two fronts. First is this is age of information & people are getting used to getting information about any deal they are entering in it. And second is the age group of the real estate customer has changed a lot i.e. now the average age group of real estate buyer is twenty five to thirty five & this younger generation is information savvy as well it understands all the modern age means of information exchange!  

Gone are the days when an elderly couple was used to walk in the office of the developer & behaving sheepishly like he is being obliged by the developer by selling a home used to sign whatever comes in front of him & felt relieved whenever he gets the key of his dream home finally! Now a day a customer wants to have value for his money & sometimes they do behave irritatingly but then that’s what this generation has been taught right from the beginning that never trust your builder. And so they are offensive on demanding everything about the deal from their first step in the builders office & if the builder is refusing to be open in whatever deal he is offering then that’s negative mark on the deal!

This is what real estate needs to acknowledge i.e. the age of information is here & lets accept it! I have come across many builders saying in private off course, not to educate the customers more than what is required. Here I have a different opinion; once you are educating someone then it doesn’t stop at your wish & will but at the wish & will of the student! And what’s there to be afraid of & more than that what’s the use if your are losing the customer along with his trust in this process! Rather with electronic media at our services we should be as open as we can as it doesn’t cost much in sharing the information now. At one click you can upload every single drawing to specification to noc’s you have got regarding your projects & in one single click you can pass on to the customer all this! And let’s look at it from the eyes of the customer towards the deal, for him its onetime thing & for the developer it’s a routine. Rather I am of opinion that real estate should share right from specifications to construction details everything a customer demands & even provide whatever he don’t demands, as that’s the best way to be in business now. We can have virtual site visits also now & uploading site progress on web as once a customer has booked a flat all his interest is regarding the progress of his work. And we can educate him about the workmanship also as unless our customer doesn’t know what is good & bad how we are going to explain him that we are good!

Another weak link about non transparency with real estate is the documentation, especially the approvals required for a project. Thanks to the home loan companies as now most of the legal documentation has been provided by the developer yet a much awareness is required about many other documents like various noc’s from different departments, mseb meters as well revenue title i.e. ownership documents which are equally important. We can make all these details available right at the agreement itself & upload time to time all the relevant documents on a web site of the project. This is the era where everyone has everything except the time & if that time is required to spend for getting some information about our own home then its most frustrating for the customer & this real estate should understand. We can even arrange a periodical get together at site of the customers who have booked flat in the project along with the contractors as well suppliers & consultants too! Let the customer know who are building his home & what they think about their job. And it’s not necessary that all the time you are giving information about just the project, you can write to your customer about achievements of your company or any particular law amendment regarding real estate or even current market rates of properties which are getting published in the news papers & even a news cutting regarding real estate can be shared via email! 

So many way sharing can be done with the customer; all this sharing will make him confident that, yes my builder speaks with me or is in touch with me! Even in management they says where there is dialogue there is smoothness in work & same principal is applicable in any relation; may it be at home or with your client!

After all what is transparency but an open dialogue between the people involved in a deal! And this has to be understood by both sides as any information is a weapon & it’s up to us what we are going to use it for? A deal or transaction is fair when any information regarding the same is exchanged for making that deal win win for both sides. This factor even the customers also should bare in their mind. Ultimately if you are thinking the builder who is going to build your home as an enemy then it’s not going to work. Always remember, “we get back what we offer to the opposite person” & if we expect transparency then we should offer the same! So if the builder is open enough & transparent & keeping a dialogue with a customer then as the customer should also treat him with same respect & open mind as well use the knowledge & information for understanding the home better & not just to point out lacuna's in the work.

If this simple funda of transparency is followed by all the parties involved in real estate then there won’t be need of any regulatory body & even if it’s there then no one will be afraid or offended by the same & I think it will be in the best interest of the entire real estate only!

Sanjay Deshpande

Sanjeevani Dev.

Please do visit my blogs to know about our philosophy at Sanjeevani ! (Click the links below)

http://visonoflife.blogspot.in/2014/09/affordable-housing-some-ground.html

http://jivnachadrushtikon.blogspot.in/

Social Side of Sanjeevani ! (Click link below)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/65629150@N06/sets/72157627904681345/

For any of your complaints about city, log in at link below

http://www.punecorporation.org/GRS/Complaint/LaunchComplaintCitizen.aspx

Think Green, Think Life