This post is slightly inspired by my recent experiences in dealing with some rather unreasonable people.
There has been a major talk about the change in our country however why is there still so much oldness in this new India?
It all starts with the basic Indian mentality. Honestly, we value rules/regulations as much as a turtle values an algebra book (in short, we don't value it at all).
We have plenty of rules in this country, but not enough people who are willing to follow those rules unsupervised.
You see so many people even in this very day and age, who look around at a red light to check if there are any cops around and if not, they look for that gap to pull a quick one and jump the red light.
Yet these are the same people who would openly point fingers at the Govt or would try to find someone to blame when something major happens.
I had 3 recent incidents where I literally pulled my hair out of utter frustration. Let me talk about the strangest one as if I talk about them all, this post wouldn't end.
I recently rented out one of my commercial properties to this guy (he operates a huge restaurant). I work online and basically market abroad. So I haven't had much of an experience doing REAL business in India. So I recently got into this space.
Okay, so let's first name this guy Mr. Unreasonable (this name suits him the most and you'll know why soon). We did a standard court agreement for 9 years with the lock in being at 3 years. Which means he can't leave the premises before 3 years and if he does the security will be forfeited and he'd have to pay the rent for the entire 3 years before vacating.
He calls me after 4 months and says that his operation isn't profitable and wants me to bring the rent down by 50%. I nicely denied this and said in case he wants to vacate, he may do so by entertaining the agreement he has with me.
Technically the agreement states that he can only leave by paying me the remainder of the rent for the entire 3 years plus the security deposit of 6 months will be forfeited.
We met face to face along with the builder of the mall and after a long enough discussion I noticed something interesting.
It all started with him threatening that he won't pay this even though there is an agreement which very quickly mellowed down to him almost begging me to look at his situation and waive this.
I clearly was thinking win-win. So I directly asked him alright Mr. Unreasonable, what exactly are you looking for?
He said - Please waive the lock in terms which means I can't pay you the rent for 3 years and you can keep the security deposit at the moment and deduct it month by month for the entire time the shop remains vacant.
However, if I get a new tenant then I should refund the rest of the security deposit to him.
Which means if I get a new tenant after 2 months, then I could deduct 2 months rent and pay him back the remainder of the 4 months. So he pitched this himself and after thinking long enough, I said YES to it.
Here is where it starts to get interesting now.
He agreed to this in front of 3 other people and we agreed to do a written agreement on this a couple of days later.
I magically get a call from him early morning on a Monday with him saying - Oh you know, I was thinking. Why should I let you keep the security when I am not even staying there? Why should I give you free money?
I literally felt an internal earthquake take place at hearing this and spent a good half an hour explaining how this is exactly what he wanted, how he shook hands on it and now he is acting as if this never even happened in the first place.
What happened next is rather weird but interesting and I won't add anymore to this post, however, I guess you guys get the point I am trying to make.
This hasn't happened just once but keeps happening over and over again only when dealing with Indian people.
This exact thing actually got me thinking. As Indians we don't have a win-win mentality. We rather have a win-lose mentality. I am not saying 100% of Indians are like this but I am talking about the majority.
This very concept leads me to the subject of CHANGE. As a country we are trying to change ourselves from outside in. We are trying to implement laws, make rules etc, but there is very little change taking place in our basic psychology.
The change has to take place inside out. I doubt that any Govt, body or even an organization can bring about any change unless and until we work on our basic belief systems, mentality and how we operate in a day to day basis.
I believe we are the only country where you'll see 3-4 cars competing for that single empty lane with all of them trying to get through before the other.
We are the only country where you'll see a couple of cars pulled over in the middle of the street, causing a massive traffic jam with both the owners fist fighting over a tiny little dent they caused each other.
So what do you guys think? Can any Govt ever change us when there is very little work done on the way we think? I believe we are still extremely old even though we claim to be new.