Future of Office Space Market

With Office Space Rentals falling steeply and supply of Office Space from 2009 onwards far exceeding the demand & demand projections for the next 3 years indicating in advance high Vacancy rates it must be a difficult task for businesses to strategise for present and future developments. This is an effort to understand the Market dynamics and evolve a Market Strategy for developers for future development.

Business

The main drivers for growth of the Office Space Market in India have been the IT, ITeS, Consulting & BPO (domestic & outsourced) which require large office spaces to operate. Based on the latest FICCI – Ernst & Young study the commercial office segment shall require an additional space of 367 M sq ft by 2013 out of which 256 M sq ft would be required by the Indian IT & ITeS sector.

Indian IT ITeS sector

The main source of revenue of the Indian IT / ITeS companies and those of the MNCs which operate from India are outsourced work from US or Europe. In order to understand the sort of work that we receive here in India, let us understands the two major reasons for outsourced work:

1. To reduce cost by outsourcing to companies which operate from cheaper locations

2. To concentrate on the core business and have some company manage the non core functions

Thus there is a forever pressure to reduce cost for the parent companies which forces the outsourcing companies to work on low margins. In order to maintain the low margins these companies need to have a ‘low cost’ operating model. Further, for outsourced work, there is a huge competition in the market with all IT/ ITES companies wanting to have a slice of the pie and also move up the value chain in their delivery model.

The top two cost drivers for such business are cost of employees and cost of office space and cost of operating from the same and thus there is forever a pressure to minimise both of them.

Supply

All business houses have realised that operating manufacturing facilities from metros is an unviable business proposition due to the multiple Tax and other Duties that is levied by the government. Most of such businesses have already moved out or are in the process of moving out thus freeing up prime spaces in the metros for use as IT/ ITeS Office Space or for future development. Government bodies holding large land masses in the metros are also hiving of such land to unlock their value. This has also released large areas of land for future development.

With property valuations and lease rentals sky rocketing from 2006 onwards many developers and small builders have invested in construction of large office spaces. 2010 is going to see the biggest supply of office space in India since most of the projects then are nearing completion.

Demand

The demand for office Space went down during 2008 – 09 due to the global melt down, however with the US & UK market getting back on its feet and Indian Private and Public sector companies investing in multimillion Dollar IT systems the demand for IT/ ITES services is back with a bang and it would not be long before we see the industry getting back to its usual average annual growth rate of 20%.

Product Characteristics

In real estate the top two attributes that determine the value of a property are Location and Location. With government investments improving the infrastructure of major cities, locational advantage enjoyed by the Central Business District over Suburban Business District is fast decreasing and so are the valuations and rentals. It may be premature to prove the sanctity of the statement but it may not be far off, when we shall have a situation where they will be within 15 - 20% which was in multiples of three to four in 2006-07 and decreased to two – three in the last one year.

Commercial Office Space comes in a few variants, namely Bare Shell, Warm Shell and Fitted- out. It has been increasingly been observed that there are takers for each of the variants in the market with Bare Shells being preferred by the BPOs, Warm Shell by the Indian and foreign IT companies and Fitted-out by the Multinational companies falling in the BFSI segment. Recent trends show that more and more developers and going in for Green Building certification which helps to reduce operating costs and works as a Marketing tools to project ones commitment to environment.

The major point in product characteristics is that it is increasingly becoming difficult for developers to project clear differentiation in product characteristics or attributes. Product differentiation is difficult and product innovation can easily be replicated by the market. Further, most of such Office spaces are managed by Property Management Teams of International Property Consultants who have standardised the process of service delivery and Developers fail to create a differentiation even in services.

Branding

Commercial Office Space market is a B2B market, characterised by decision making process based on the service delivery and products. However with Products and Services in the Commercial Office space market tending towards commoditization especially in Micro Markets, due to similar offerings from developers, there is a growing need for Product / Service innovation and Branding of Property to create a differentiation in offerings which shall help to generate leads and create an opportunity.

Front Offices and Offices of Key Business personnel are preferred in Prime Business locations – CBD / ABD for company image and to remain in the proximity of similar business or customers, however Back Offices can be located in Suburbs away from the City Centre and do not require a Branded Property charging a premium and increasing the cost per seat in the process.

Agents / Broker / Consultant

Most Occupiers who work on the Lease model are associated with Tenant Representatives from International Property Consultants / Local Brokers & Agents who guide them through the whole transaction process of Leasing of Space. Thus they play an important role as key decision maker in such transactions.

To conclude….

The bubble that was created due to the demand supply mismatch of Office Space, sky rocketing rentals across major cities has busted and the effect of the same is being felt now. Occupiers had planned bullishly and developers had invested in projects in order to cash in on the high rentals prevalent then without trying to gauge the competitors and that led to the oversupply and lower than expected demand in the market resulting in significant drop in Rentals. With Lease Rentals dropping sharply and with high vacancy rates in properties across all the cities developers will be very cautious before investing in any new project. The market is expected to see some consolidation and expect only the major players with pan India presence or holding large land in Prime locations to be in Business.

Occupiers are taking advantage of the present Market rentals, renegotiating existing rentals and consolidating their offices from multiple locations. Developers with existing / in progress development and with scope for future development to accommodate future expansion options of Occupiers consolidating their business are gaining in the process.

The way forward, it is expected that the Occupiers, after such consolidation shall look to partner with the developers for their future Office Space requirements, and developers planning their new developments after considering the requirements of existing Clientele, thus both gaining in the process. Developers shall gain by additional Office Space off take / assured part occupancy of New Developments while Occupants to gain by operating from a single location and pre-committed rentals which is always expected to be lower than the markets rates. Thus developers shall look to grow with their existing Clientele and bring in fresh Clients only as a measure of reducing Business risks.

Need a Change

I have a question for all those who watch the game of football with passion and interest and even for those who don’t follow it so closely.
Do we follow the football season only to see the big clubs like Manchester United (Man U), Barcelona, Real Madrid or the Clubs from Milan win all the major trophies, Liverpool, Chelsea, Valencia, Juventus, Porto, Bayern Munich and others forever competing to be right there at the top and the lesser known clubs fighting to stay out of the relegation zone. Or do we watch the game expecting some good competitive football being played, coupled with some breath taking displays of players dribbling skills, stunning free-kicks and saves, creative passes and timely tackles and blocks. Even a diehard fan of Man U like me will admit that it gives me equal pleasure to watch the free flowing attacking football of Barcelona on display as much as the more strategic display of total football by team Man U.
The next thing we need to understand is: are we ready to accept: a lesser followed club like the Hull City, or a West Ham United winning the English Premier League (EPL). A live example of a similar situation is in 2009 Formula One season: Brawn Team in its debut season on the circuit has left all the big names like the Ferrari, Renault & McLaren way behind. The leaders list has seen the likes of Hamilton and Massa swapping places with Jenson Button and Barrichalo. Button is leading the list, midway through the season with 75 points while Massa has 11 and Hamilton 9 lying at 10th and 11th position. Has that had an effect on the viewership, only TRPs can say but surely it must have had. I am sure not many of us who never missed a single race last 3-4 years, are still following the game with the same level of zeal.
Personally it’s difficult to accept, the club I follow, see loose but I am tired and bored to see the same names at the top of the points table be it in any sport, Football, Formula One or even Basketball (LA Lakers has again won it this year 15 in total). The Club competitions seem to move towards matches like: India verses Brazil in football, or a Singapore verses Australia in cricket.
If we try to understand the reason for Club games becoming famous was the proposition it brought forth for the viewers: players from different nationalities coming together to play for clubs beyond nationalities and providing an opportunity to see the best talent playing side by side to produce the best results in terms of quality of the game. This also gave an opportunity for the billionaires an opportunity to own clubs real life, have a say in team composition and formation: a dream for any avid sports follower. There is no denying the fact that it had lived up to its expectation: the biggest example of it is the quality of football in EPL or La Liga being far better than in the World Cups. However with time it has become a money spinner for the clubs through television rights and team sponsorships. This has attracted the billionaires of the world who are ready to spend any amount of money to build the best team, wooing the best players from all over to play for them. This has helped the players who have opted to have games as their career. But, only a few good clubs performing well or having the potential to be there at the top, have been able to attract investors, others haven’t and this has increased the gap in spending between the top teams and those lying in the middle or low down. This has resulted in congregation of the best talent in a few clubs which has a deep bearing on the outcome at the end of the season.
The second problem as I see it: a Rio Ferdinand or a Vidic playing for Man U have had equal or even more contribution to the success of the club this year than that of Ronaldo, Rooney or Tevez but they are not even valued at half of that of Ronaldo. If the reason is: Ronaldo is a forward and scores goals while Ferdinand is a defender, then there is something seriously wrong in understanding the game and this would surely have an impact on the moral of these players and effect their contribution and commitment to the team game.
What to do then:
Let us look back to our very own just concluded Indian Premier League (IPL) which is the latest Club game that has made its place in the World Sports calendar. IPL has provided a cap on the spending that teams can make for signing players. The interest of the players was also taken into consideration. The players were graded based on their performance in World cricket and a minimum price was fixed for each grade. All the teams participated in an auction process to bid for the players and each of them had an equal opportunity to get a mix of established, emerging and new comers because of the spending were not related to the size of the pocket of the franchisees. The result is for all to see. All the teams have a balanced side, having the capability of beating the other on its day. The success of it has been that we had 4 different finalists in the two seasons of the tournament with this year’s finalist being those at the bottom of the table last year.
Formula One had put a cap on the total spending to help the participating teams who were affected by the recession to reduce the undue advantage that some of the other teams would have gained who were unaffected by recession. The big teams like Ferrari, Renault or McLaren, who are affected by this, have threatened to revolt and not participate in future seasons of Formula One if the rule prevails. But one thing that it has done it has removed the monopoly in the racing circuit of a few of the teams. We get to hear new names on the podium.
Thus it’s difficult to prescribe a solution for EPL considering the trouble that Formula One is facing, but definitely the administrative body of EPL and other governing bodies of Football clubs in Europe should take steps necessary to reduce the gap in spending of the clubs, which will increase the competitiveness of the league. If something is not done immediately the interest and fan following that it generates now may go and EPL end up as one of the many Club Football leagues being played around the world.
I would like to end hoping that Real Madrid, which has signed both Kaka and Ronaldo this season, fails to deliver as a team, otherwise with the existing team that Real has, it will take home all the big trophies without much sweat.

Deserve, Aspire & Achieve

It was last Sunday, I was having a chat with my child hood friend over the dinner table, and she started telling me that I shall get a life partner like the one I aspire for. I was so happy to hear that, I mean who wouldn’t.
But my next expression was why, She said,
”If you deserve something and then strive for it, and you will definitely get it”.

We need to deserve before we aspire....a take away for life

It was just another day in office and I was frustrated as usual. I was expected to do something that I thought even my higher ups would find it difficult to accomplish. But that’s life and sometimes you need to accept it as it is. This triggered me to think of what is that I could have done differently, in order to attain the same outcome. I could think of a few options but found none of them to be without its fair share of risk. It seemed that the decision was not to identify the correct solution, but to identify the solution with the risk that rightly matched with our risk appetite, not so easy exercise to do after all.
Life had taught me a lesson.....

So whenever I try to see myself in a position of importance I always try and analyse whether I deserve to be there, in terms of knowledge, expertise and experience of handling a similar situation earlier. If I don’t then, I should not aspire for it. To aspire for, is not just to have something but to deserve it and do justice to it . This brings me to the point that we all have aspirations of making it big in a very short span of time. We all aspire for profiles at work where we can apply all that we have learnt as students, but do we ever look back and analyse whether we really have the knowledge and expertise to do justice to the work that we crave for. Just the other day I met my friends over dinner when, in one of our discussions one of us was talking about having to wait for 10 years to be in a position to take the big decisions in her company. My immediate reaction to it was “can’t wait for so along’’, only for me to admit immediately that: yes it’s a difficult job and even my boss is unable to do justice to that. Patience is a virtue, but I am unsure why our generation has lost it.
When I look back, I realise how foolish I was to react......

Our aspirations should always stem from our capabilities and not from our fantasies

Does that mean we stop aspiring.....
The relationship: to deserve, then aspire and to achieve, seems unidirectional, but does that mean we stop aspiring!
Let us try to explore the possibility of a bidirectional relationship.....
We all dream, dream about what we want from life, what we want to do in life. To fulfil our dreams, we aspire. Our aspirations serve as the destination to reach and we do, all that is required, to build our capabilities and expertise, to deserve to achieve our goals and aspirations. This brings us to the point that the seed for all our efforts to built capability and expertise generate from our goals and aspirations and there exists a cyclic relationship between to deserve and to aspire. We aspire, build capabilities and expertise to deserve to aspire and then achieve, only to set higher goals and aspirations and follow the path of developing to deserve, then aspire and finally achieve.

Life is all about being realistic in terms of our strengths, setting goals which can stretch us that bit without creating unnecessary stress, achieve and in the process carve out an unique place for ourselves under the sun

To conclude.....
Most of us who have joined the corporate world after college, must have realised by now that our aspirations of an ideal quality of work may be too farfetched and many of us must be thinking of or tried to curb their aspirations to fit themselves in where they are, what they are doing, only to see themselves happy. But every time we do that, we should remind ourselves: it’s good to be realistic and be happy with what we have, but it’s our aspirations that shall be the seed to develop ourselves now, to deserve to aspire and finally achieve what we are all here for, in the future.

LOVE

It has been some time I had been thinking about articulating my thoughts about the present subject which may help me in clearing the clutter and confusion that exist around it.

My confusion…..
Ever since I have experienced ‘Love’ in all its dimensions like Love for self, Love for parents, Love for brother, Love for friends/sweetheart, Love for football, Love for Calcutta, etc, I have seen the levels of Love and quality of energy that gets associated with it. To elaborate on the aspect of confusion that it encompasses: I am confused; whether to call it an emotion, a feeling or a desire. Yet I recognize its presence and its magic which reveals through joy and happiness and tends to increase in-times of adversity of the loved ones.

What is Love…..
I look at ‘to Love’ to be a quality that helps to transmit and radiate a positive energy in the form of joy, harmony, peace and strength, in good times as well as to fight adverse circumstances. It is beyond the expectation of reward or appreciation and is independent of the thoughts, feelings, and actions of others. It brings in a sense of responsibility, and an ability to make wise choices beyond emotional attachments. It helps to identify and communicate weakness in a way to bring a positive response, and also helps to discover ones true self and identify strengths to help one to strive and attain their goals. It helps to overcome ones ego and try and make one understand that there is a world beyond me and mine and show the way to overcome and transform ones resentments, vanities, illusions, and other blocks, to their own joy.

How I Perceive……
It’s like nature which is boundless and goes beyond religion, caste, colour and economic background that divide the world into multiple fragments. Like nature, it’s free and for all to enjoy and cherish in this materialistic world. Like the vagaries of nature it also inflicts pain in rejection.

What does it mean to me…
Love to me is not about helping others or taking care of them but it’s all about trying to make one realize the potential in oneself and help one build oneself mentally and psychologically so that one can fight the odds of life now and in future, to become self reliant. This provides maximum help that can be rendered to an individual i.e. to help himself and does not make one feel indebt to anyone.

Understanding dimensions of love…
This brings me to the next question; how do I differentiate and priorities between the different dimensions of love. Well it’s very easy to differentiate between the human and the abstract, but I don’t have a clue to differentiate between the dimensions of love among humans. I have been put to test on numerous occasions on a personnel front, to decide my priority and I have always gone by my instinct of being by ones side who, according to me, needs me more.
The most interesting and often discussed among all the dimensions of love is that we share with our friends and sweetheart. Unlike the others it’s that human love that evolves with time from a baby in its infant to an adult in its maturity and we get an opportunity to experience it right through from its start to its maturity. This makes the experience of being in love so exciting.

Expression….
One important thing in love is to be able to express it. I belong to that school of thought who believes in action and not in words. Thus, I believe in, to express my feelings through my actions. A mother does not need to tell her child how much she loves her; it is expressed through the love and care for her child. Same is in the case with ones siblings. But, what about friends? The intensity of love is different and it evolves with time. Thus, it becomes extremely important to be able to express ones feeling in this regard. I am at a fix. Even after being through all the permutation and combinations possible in life, I have failed to understand, what is the right way or mix to express ones love that speak more than the words. I conclude with a hope that it won’t be far off, when life teaches me the same through an enriching experience.

I Dream to live without Terror

The future as I see it...
Air Land and water: the terrorist have used all the three, hijacked an Indian Airlines in its flight from Kathmandu, proving our inability to deal effectively with a hostage situation ( proved earlier as well), fought a gruelling war in Kashmir, showing our inability to guard our borders (easy to give an excuse of being inhumanly cold and difficult terrain but what about other options guard our borders), attacked the Parliament House, showing poor intelligence and now unleashed terror through the sea route, once again showing our incapability of guarding our coast (remind of 1993 blasts) .

Now what next!!!.....really can’t imagine but the LeT and AK will come out with a new strategy to unleash terror, may be attack two cities at the same time.
But when......very easy to answer. When they are ready with their new plan since other resources are a plenty and no security system in place in India (trained personnel, money and political backing)
Extent of damage and terror..... Well obviously more than we can imagine in proper senses.
So where are we leading to..............?

My personal ordeal......
Let me try and understand: what is the effect of these ‘acts of terrorism’, on the masses.
When I heard of the incident on the 25th of Nov at 10 30 pm. the first thing that went through my mind was “thank God, it was not a Saturday or a Sunday”. I think many of us would have had the same reaction need not to say why.
I have received lots of phone calls from my family and friends, enquiring about my well being and how far away were I staying, form the scene? I always felt good that there are still people who love me and care for me.
But as I keep explaining the same I feel, it shall never be the same for me in Mumbai. Whenever I have seen a terrorist attack on the TV I have always wanted to be at least once in such an emergency situation but today I don’t feel the same any more.

The present situation reminds me of the scene in a Hindi movie, “Mumbai Meri Jaan” which took us through the thought process of the hero, ‘Mahadevan’ who was a travelling in the same train which met with a bomb blast 2004, and could not garner enough courage to board the same train the next day, after the blast.
I know the same thing shall not happen to me; I travel in trains. I shall still visit the restaurants located at Kolaba Causeway, be at Marine drive, visit my friend who stays at Kolaba or visit the Taj Mahal and Oberoi Hotel whenever I get a chance. But the difference shall be that whenever I am reminded of this ‘war of terror’ unleashed on Mumbai, I shall feel unsecured and look for cover against a probable firing. Sadly enough this is what the terrorist wanted to achieve in their endeavour: they have been successful.

Failures in present crisis.....
It has been some time now that I have been trying to understand what makes us so vulnerable to terror attacks. The terror attack that ripped though Mumbai this Nov ’08 had answers to all that.

Let us revisit a few of the facts that have come up in course of the terror attacks.
· Lessons from previous terror attacks have not been learnt. The western coast being used once again, for entry into the city with heavy arms and ammunition.
· There seems to have nothing significant being done with the fund allotted for securing the coast line.
· There have been coordinated terror attacks in Delhi, Gujarat and others in recent times.
· The Maharashtra government had been informed about the possibility of a terror attack.
· The RAW and the IB were aware about training camps in marine warfare for militants in Karachi and the same had been communicated to the state government and coast guard well in advance.
· Though there are emergency plans in place for such terror attacks but they all seemed to prove inadequate under the present circumstances.
· There was complete lack of coordination between the centre and the state in this case of emergency and this is reflected from the fact that it took about 8hrs for the NSG commandos to start operations that too without proper brief about the sieged building.
· More such information is still coming in proving the inability and lethargy of our leaders and systems to react in time.
· When the case gets solved we shall have more striking revelations about this terror attack.

Well what we common people saw was a high level of fire fighting with no visible signs of implementation of pre-existing plans to counter such acts of terrorism. It has been oft repeated on the television during the deferred live telecast of the operations that the state administration was caught unaware; you don’t need a journalist to tell you that. It was so obvious for any common man, following the operations.
A country that has been the target of the terrorist from 1982 with coordinated attacks ever year did not seem to have an emergency plan in place. We are a nuclear state, going to send manned mission to the moon by 2015 yet we cut a sorry figure to the country men as well as to the world population about our unpreparedness towards such emergencies. The terror strikes could have taken any country unaware but what after that. We have seen contradictory communication coming from the centre and the state, playing the blame game, creating utter confusion in the minds of the common man. We may say, how does it affect the operation or how does it matter to the common man.
Well it creates a sense of insecurity in the hearts of the country men as well as the world. The insecurity arises due to lack of coordination and the feeling that the systems and administration in our country cannot take care of our security; creating a sense of helplessness. We all understand that unless the world comes together to fight terrorism and remove its roots that lie in our neighbouring state, we shall have frequent such attacks but the administration should in-still some confidence in us that they can stop such fidieen attacks to happen, or in-case it happens will effectively be able to deal with it.

Leave aside in-stilling confidence.......
Failures of the past......seems purpose of learning history not taught to our leaders
In the past they have shown our incapability to handle hostage crisis with and inability to take informed decision about the after effects of releasing terrorists.
We have seen political parties, instead of coming together to fight it out together have tried to gain political mileage in elections. They are doing the same this time as well.
Considering the statements about, information had been passed on to the state leadership about the chances of such an attack from the sea route to be true, it has again been the Indian beaurocracy that has taken so many lives.
Finally even after having terror attacks rocking our country across regions in recent times, it is only after a terror attack of this magnitude and nature unleashed on Mumbai that made our country’s leadership to think of decentralising the NSG.

What we can do......
It is much easier to find flaws in the system than to propose some corrective measure. Let us not fight the symptoms rather identify and fight the root cause. We should all realise that we cannot stop terrorism in the world, it is a global problem and the whole world has to come together to fight it. Our objective should be to create a country so strong from within in terms of Intelligence and security that the terrorist stop thinking about India as a target and look for other nations.
This can only be done by developing a strong intelligence network like the CIA or the Mossad and a culture that supports acting on intelligence reports.

In this context I would like to remind one and all that, as our constitution is an amalgamation of the constitutions of US, UK and many others; why can’t we learn something from them once again and others.
We have seen the outcome of our country’s nuclear and space program which was outside the control of the politicians. Let the central leadership take a leaf out of the book and have an independent mechanism to take care of the security in case of any emergency.
India investment in defence is the maximum in terms of % of GDP so we should concentrate on optimum utilisation of this investment. than call for more like; to create infrastructure for the Coast Guards to monitor vessels moving in and out of the Indian waters or sailing within it which would help them to combat infiltrators.
All phone calls to and fro Pakistan and may be middle-east to be tapped, even if it means personal and political talks are recorded. It may intrude into the privacy of individuals but we should all remember that no one is above the country and the security of its people.
There needs to be a clear policy in case of hostage situations. I am confused at this stage since I have come across two contradictory statements with regards to dealing with hostages in the present time both coming from top officials dealing with the present crisis. One talks about killing the militants or catching them alive, while the other talks about saving the life of the hostages utmost priority (not sure what was the brief given the commandos).

We should also remember that it isn’t the only responsibility of the centre or the state to take care of our security. We as citizen can also contribute to the cause by reporting anything that looks fishy however insignificant they may be, doubly checking the identity of anybody new in the locality and many more.
The joint meeting called by the Prime Minister of the country to all political parties can be the first step towards developing a mechanism to combat terrorism or emergencies created by them.
I am not an expert in defence or terrorism but as a citizen when I can think of so many strategies to combat terrorism and instil confidence among the country men then there must be many more.
If someone feels that conditions can change dramatically; to him my answer is a big no. We need to be patient in this regard and have confidence in the leadership at the centre whoever it may be; may be keep ourselves ready for a few more of such attacks.
Mumbai has limped back to normalcy; it has no other option but to do so; but things shall never be the same as before.
I would like to end saying:

I prefer to face a gun at point blank, rather forever, stay in a state of terror thinking of it to happen

Marriage

Marriage
When I see my friends tying the most important knot of their life with their sweet hearts, I thought of articulating my thoughts about this “interesting relationship”.
I would like to start with a small story. It was at Marine Drive in Mumbai where I met my childhood friends Niru and Nobo who have had a love marriage, arranged last year. Since we met just after Niru’s birthday I asked “Nobo who gave the treat on Niru’s birthday you or him”. She replied spontaneously, “there is nothing like you and me in marriage it is always US”. The reply left me spell bound and taught me a great lesson in life, which I shall take forward in life.
I would like to share with you all, what my father had to say about marriage. He advised me, saying “marry somebody from a different profession”. It did not take me long to realize the merit in his statement. Sharing a profession can be healthy for a relationship, like couples have similar educational background, which helps them to understand each other, relate to each other and share similar values, but it can also lead to competitive impulses, leading to unrest in the relationship. From a financial point of view, being from unrelated profession is a hedge against industry downturn like the one in the financial or realty sector today. But ultimately its all about recognizing each others requirements, needs and unique individual talents and complementing each other than competing, which makes a relationship work smoothly.
I cannot but resist myself to get into the debate of love or arranged marriages. It is a common perception that you are at a disadvantage in arranged marriage since you haven’t spent enough time together in-order to know each other better, but it gives one a chance to choose the right person and parents the opportunity to check the background and financial stability which is extremely important. Couples in love, spend lots of time together before marriage, which creates an ideal platform for couples to know each other, develop a compatibility and understanding among themselves. But the real fact is that, the time is best used to impress each other, behave, talk and wear according to what the other person likes. The real colour comes out after marriage. Further, expectation levels still remain the same after marriage yet the energy and willingness to meet the expectations disappear.
I consider ‘getting married’ equivalent to Entrepreneurship. Let me try and explain why I feel so. Research has shown that around the world the success rate for entrepreneurs is as low as 18%, which marginally increases to 20% incase you have failed once before. If we look at marriage I find it no different. Though the divorce rates in India are pretty low (less than 10% in Urban and less than 1% in Rural India) as compared to the western world, yet researcher claim that only about 30% of the marriages are successful while the rest have left couples unhappy, many of whom who stay separate or divorced. Yet we find so many people trying their luck out, in entrepreneurship and marriage, all of whom wanting to be a part of that elite group who fall in to the category of being successful but end up getting disappointed and frustrated with the outcome. The only difference between the two endeavors is the social stigma attached to separation; low in the case of an entrepreneur while extremely high for a married couple in present day Indian society.
Thus we can conclude “Great Achievement and Successful marriage involve great risk”.
To summarize:
It is not about spending time together that makes a marriage successful but it’s about taking an informed decision, understanding and respecting each other's feelings and showing empathy, responsibility, commitment, love and concern.
Before moving on to write my next blog, I would conclude quoting an old saying, “dilli ka laddu jo khaya wo pachtaya, jo nehi khaya wo bhi pach ta ya”……. to ‘is se achcha khake hi pach tao’.