In
South Indian temple walls one often finds a character called Bhringi
looking adoringly at Shiva dancing. What distinguishes Bhringi from the
rest of the followers of Shiva is that he looks emaciated, just a
skeleton in fact. And he has three legs, not two.
The story goes that Bhringi was a devotee of Shiva. One day, he came to
Mount Kailas, the abode of Shiva, and expressed his desire to go around
Shiva. As he was going around, Shiva’s consort, Shakti, said, “You
cannot just go around him. You have to go around me too. We are two
halves of the same truth.”
Bhringi, however, was so focussed on Shiva that he had not desire to go
around Shakti. Seeing this, Shakti sat on Shiva’s lap making it
difficult for Bhrigi to go around Shiva alone. Shiva, determined to go
around Shiva took the form of a snake and tried to slip in between the
two.
Amused by this, Shiva made Shakti one half of his body — the famous
Ardhanareshwar form of Shiva. This was God whose one half is the
Goddess. But Bhringi was adamant. He would go around Shiva alone. So he
took the form of a rat, some say a bee, and tried to gnaw his way
between the two.
This annoyed the Goddess so much that she said, “May Bhringi lose all
parts of the body that come from the mother.” In Tantra, the Indian
school of alchemy, it is believed that the tough and rigid parts of the
body such as nerves and bones come from the father while the soft and
fluid parts of the body such as flesh and blood come from the mother.
Instantly, Bhrigi lost all flesh and blood and he became a bag of bones.
He collapsed on the floor, unable to get up.
Bhringi realised his folly. Shiva and Shakti make up the whole. They are
not independent entities. One cannot exist without the other. Without
either there is neither. He apologised.
So the world never forgets this lesson, Bhrigi was denied flesh and
blood forever. To enable him to stand upright he was given a third leg,
so that his legs served as a tripod.
The idea of mutual inter-dependence is a consistent theme in Hindu
mythology. There is no one; one is a sum-total of two. The same
principle applies in the business world. It is a lesson that Ranbir was
taught by his father who ran the magazine business for 30 years before
retiring.
“Son,” said Ranbir, “Remember, you do not exist without the organisation
and the organisation does not exist without you. Remember, your
production team does not exist without your distribution team and your
distribution team does not exist without the production team. The
marketing team does not exist without the sales team and the sales team
does not exist without the marketing team. The strategic arm does not
exist without the operating arm and the operating arm does not exist
without the strategic arm. One does not exist without the other. Without
either there is neither.”
Unfortunately, the reality in most business houses is that the two
complementary arms often become competitive. Each arm wants to prove it
is more critical than the other. As a result there are silos and
inter-departmental warfare. The harmony represented by Ardha-nareshwara
was being lost. Arguments were about whether Shiva mattered or Shakti.
More critically, who is Shiva and who is Shakti.
The Rishis represented the two halves of the universe’s male and female
form to indicate mutual inter-dependence. But society engineered gender
politics. The same is true for business houses. Anyone who has a bird’s
eye view of the business knows the criticality of each and every arm.
But those down below have an obsession of valuing one arm over the
other, like Bhringi, creating imbalance to the peril of the organisation
