bequest test

When you are about to stop living, thinking of having to leave your life's work as a legacy to anyone else can be very haunting, can it not. Specially if you have tended to this all your life with meticulous care and have been a reasonable success at it. I dont know, maybe if you have gazillions saved up in the swiss banks then maybe you could be re-assured that a large fraction of it will be put to relevant use. But for the common man it is a daunting task - one of the worries he/she will probably take their last breaths with. Is there a way to convince them ? The only way I see is for them to accept the fact that it was never theirs and that their work is done and they dont have to worry about it anymore.
How about the pressure this puts on the beneficiaries ? Ah thats the price you ought to pay to see the cattle egrets fly back home while you sip coffee and ponder why you are here.

friend<

life throws bad stuff at you, but if you had good people around you, you would be able to take it well and move on.
The problem is when you dont know how to surround yourself with good friends.
Is this a problem everyone faces ?

Yoko Ogawa: The Housekeeper and the Professor

http://www.oldmustybooks.com/2009/01/29/yoko-ogawa-the-housekeeper-and-the-professor/


Yoko Ogawa made mathematics alluring with this delightful book about a mathematics professor, his housekeeper and her ten year old son.  None of the characters have names, though the son has a nickname (Root), given by the professor.  Interestingly, the protagonist, in my opinion, is the Professors short term memory.  After a devastating accident, the professor only has 80 minutes of short term memory.  This means, every single morning, the Housekeeper has to re-introduce herself to the Professor before she can go into his house.  One would think there would be no way to build a relationship with this sort of setback. This book shows its possible.

Rajan : "My lack of imagination is so glaring. My image of the professor was a much more disorganized, unhealthy and weak. The lady too wasnt a young japanese girl as shown here. I think I was using my Indian sensibilities."

Dalit in the Boardroom | Outlook

 

A team of technical and financial experts is advising Saroj on the revival. MK Gore, Managing Director, says investors have poured Rs 154 crore into the company. While Saroj holds the majority stake in KTL, many from the powerful sugar lobby in Maharashtra also hold equity. "I have secured substantial funding from friends and associates, including a Gujarati non-resident Indian in the UK," she says.

Saroj, who hails from Akola, had her first brush with Mumbai's shanties when she moved to the city as a child bride, at age 12. She abandoned the alliance and was taken back to her village. Driven to despair by her wretched circumstances, she attempted suicide, but survived. "At that very moment, I decided that if I have to live, I would achieve something, and live life on my terms," she recalls.

Determined to make it big, she returned to Mumbai a few years later and stayed with an uncle. Working in a hosiery company, she eked out a living earning a meagre Rs 2 a day. But it was in the rough and tumble of Mumbai's underbelly that she acquired her raw aggression, determination and earthy approach to conducting business.

http://business.outlookindia.com/inner.aspx?articleid=2675&subcatgid=386&editionid=73&catgid=1

Interesting how people can rise like this in business. When you stay in Bombay for a month or so you can clearly see that people with patience, energy, guts and the will to lower a bit of their moral standards can make a lot of wealth.  I wonder if someone can or already has studied this phenomenon about the effect of big cities on people's abilities and achievements.