It will be unfair if I do not start this article by thanking all you wonderful people, I received lot of appreciation and encouragement for my last article. Few of you were very kind with your words of praise and some were very helpful and provided valuable feedback for me to improvise. The month of November 2011 was very eventful in many ways and I had opportunity to know & interact with some stalwarts of kokan region in Middle East, on a personal front had to travel to couple of places and of course few wonderful and memorable events celebrated with friends & family.
One of the evenings while I was out with my friends at a restaurant for dinner, we realised that the restaurant had a ‘Karaoke Nite’. Karaoke Nite offered an opportunity for the dinner to take the stage and sing songs while looking at the lyrics on the screen and music being played in the background. It was interesting to observe people from different walks of life were trying their hand at singing, few of them were really painful to listen too and then there were some who just simply amazed me with their voice and style. I encountered a gentleman who professionally was a CEO of an ‘engineering based MNC’ but sang some real good Rafi & Mukesh songs.
One such singer who caught my attention was a friend from the group who took the stage and sang some real wonderful old songs and then suddenly the next song sung by this friend was a famous Bengali number which seemed to be quiet popular as few people knew the track, the music for the song was composed by Bappi Laheri who is very popular in East India apart from Bollywood music scene. The point that caught my attention was here was a group of hardcore bankers who were out for a business dinner and amongst us we had someone who was so talented in field that remotely had nothing got to do with banking.
Curiosity kept getting better of me and I had a chat with my banker friends to know if there was any professional training or practice that was undertaken as the apart from me the crowd also was mesmerized by the voice and lots of appreciation & accolades were given to the singer. The discussion that followed amazed me totally, the singer friend had not gone through any professional training and was from a non-bengali background, the friend was just passionate about music and kept practicing the songs as and when there was time. I further tried to probe to understand the bengali singing part and I was told that my friend used to listen to the song on ‘you tube’ for picking up the accent, had the lyrics copied from the net and kept practicing the same till the song was close to perfection.
After the dinner, this incident compelled me to think that ‘if we are driven by our passion to do things that we like then nothing is impossible and that’s for sure’. Few thought which kept popping up in my mind were how can someone be so passionate about something which is not his / her profession and still be so successful in the same, the returns that the individual gets can only be non-materialistic but very prudent in life at times. The only answer that I could figure out was ‘its all about an individual enjoying what he does as the talent is either imbibed into him or his passion for the same drives it, and all this is purely over and above his choice of profession’.
On second thought I realised, we all have some or the other passion that drives us and keep us going in life. And the interesting question that figured in my mind was ‘are we aware of it’ or ‘can this passion be used for a long term benefit of us and our people’. If we had to find an answer it would be difficult to put the same in words, we all are driven by our commitments and goals in life. But however I realised that many of us on this platform have a common goal and the same seems to be ‘the progress of our region – kokan’ and hence I have seen many of us come together on this platform and progress with ideas / challenges which will surely benefit the region in long run.
For once, I felt that rather then sharing some financial planning through my article I should share some information about the future planned development of our regions and then leave the analysis to the great minds of individuals. It is also a worthy thought, to assess if by doing some planning from a long term prospective for our kokan region and is there a scope of tying the same with our long-term and short term financial goals of individuals and group. As it is known fact that most of the Long term Financial Planning is based on development information and calculated opportunities that will be available over a period of time.
The Government of Maharashtra has encouraged the development of port sectors and has adapted to investment friendly port policies and as a result of this we have upcoming ports like Dighi Port in Raigadh district and Vijaydurgh Port in Sindhudurg district. There are also some other ports that have been commissioned and the work is currently in progress at different levels. This development in the belt of kokan region will surely generate immense amount of work opportunities for the youth of kokan.
Just few weeks back I also happen to read that the ‘Science and Technology Park’ at Pune University has identified a region in Sindhudurg to build up country’s first ‘Oceanarium’ at the cost of Re 509 Crores. This is being done with the view to promote marine conservation and giving boost to state tourism and regional economy of costal kokan. This Oceanarium is being planned across 200 acres of land and creek of kokan region and has a time frame of 3 years for completion for the project to be implemented with involvement of international experts.
This venture has been cleared by the Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan and is expected to attract more then 3 million tourist to kokan region after its completion. The plan broadly includes creating a simulated sea along that of a real lake and beaches, an underwater studio for shooting and many other such international facilities. The Centre & Maharashtra government has already approved a huge chunk of payment for this project and the rest funding will be chanelised through private investors.
It can be clearly seen that plans being progressed to develop the coastal kokan into business or tourism destination in next few years. In addition to the above, one has to pass the kokan belt while on a road trip to the famous holiday destination of Goa. It will be interesting to analyse and assess, that does Ratnagiri district also have investment potential from a long term view. Ratnagiri also has some beautiful beaches which are virgin and unexplored as of now and lot can be done in the coming years. The question that will keep coming to our minds mostly would be ‘Can we as individuals benefit from the development which will unfold over a period of time’ and the answer could be ‘yes it has to’. As over all these years we have seen the progress leading right upto our doorsteps of our village homes (electricity, telephone connectivity, mobile networking being few examples) and has changed our life.
Here my thoughts or views force me to think that there is immense amount of opportunities in the land that we come from and the opportunities could be from investment prospective, helping contribute towards the development of our region as a tourism destination or even by simply being prepared to make the most of the opportunities that will arise with the future development. And here is where my thoughts of having alternate profession synchronies with the need of the hour and that is develop a vision for future.
The point that I am trying to make is that all of us today are successful individuals from different walks of life and posses expertise of our respective domain. Is it not possible for people like us to come together assess the opportunities that our soil and land offers, do a cumulative analysis of doing things on not individual levels but at a bigger levels in term of small or big groups and follow a defined focus which should be development and progression. Also this could lead to many-fold benefits for people involved and the benefits could be monetary or non-monetary. There can be many options that can be though of and developed over a period of time, but the element required are the same as my singer friend possessed or displayed during ‘karaoke nite’ and they are passion to do things, a clear defined goal and commitment towards completion of the responsibilities taken.
The best investment according to me is when an individual or a group comes together and puts in his time, expertise and efforts to extract benefits for self and people around. These kind-off investments can only be done in harmony with like minded resources, ensuring a detailed planning and a long term view to extract maximum benefits from this kind off efforts.
At this point I would like to leave this thought here and share with you wonderful people something that I read and also shared in the past with readers – ‘People who change after change are Survivors, People who change with the change are Successful, but it’s really the people who bring in the change who are known as Leaders’.
The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the IMPOSSIBLE.
Mr. Intikhab Chougle, is Ex-Associate Vice President with HSBC Group in India and has been a retail banker. He has been an active member in social service in Mumbai for promoting causes like ‘education for girl child’ and promoting medical assistance for old and deserving people. He has also traveled to US, Malaysia, Paris, a part of UAE market for professional reasons and has acquired vast market knowledge about investments and business approaches adopted in different markets.
He believes, it is very important that we must return back to the community what we have earned and learned from the society and hence is willing to extend his support to the people who would want to seek his expertise in setting and achieving their financial goals.
He can be reached on his email id intikhabchougle@hotmail.com
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