Choices, Life choices - A few weeks ago, I came across an interesting book - The Art of Choosing by Sheena Iyengar. A blind professor (of Indian Origin) at Columbia, she has devoted her lifetime on studying and understanding how people make different choices. There is a very interesting TED talk (www.ted.com) by her, where she explains beautifully through examples on choices.
The favourite example for me remains her experience in Japan, where she requested for Green Tea with Sugar in a Japanese restaurant. Japanese do not add sugar in their Green Tea and so the waiter did everything he could to not serve Green Tea with Sugar. When she insisted, the manager of the restaurant came back and said that the restaurant did not have any sugar ! However, when Sheena substituted her order with coffee, the restaurant promptly served it along with a sachet of sugar !
For me as well, the last few months have been one of introspection into what I wanted to do. When I left my previous organisation, I had a choice of either joining a PE backed retail buyout in India or going back overseas with a consumer goods multinational. Both by themselves were fantastic options - but honestly, the heart and the mind did not come together on either of these.
Patience is a wonderful virtue - and finally there did emerge an interesting choice - and I have gotten into Microfinance - I have joined this exciting new company called Spandana (www.spandanaindia.com) at Hyderabad.
With a consumer base of over 5 million borrowers, the company serves the underserved in 12 states lending to them as little as Rs. 10000 (US $ 250). In this role, I do think that the heart and the head have come together.
The move to Hyderabad is an interesting one - a city where I last lived in 1992 and we have our own house there. The city has changed irrevocably since then and I do find the Gachibowli area where I am located to be very well developed.
New horizons, new hopes !
