Of Sand Dunes, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Mukesh Ambani

We all have heard of shifting sands. The desert is an amazing place. As the wind blows in a particular direction, dunes shift as sand is carried by the winds and dropped on the other side of these dunes.

As in deserts, in Life too, things change. We need to see the winds of change and work with them to take us forward. As these dunes move by using winds, so must we in our Lives.

We all have heard of the significant changes taking place in Saudi Arabia. As technology unleashes itself on fossil fuels, we will see the demand for such fuels coming down significantly. This will not happen immediately, but over the next 15 years, we will see a shift to more renewable energy sources. The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed Bin Salman or MBS as he is known, has harnessed that wind of change. He has realized that as the Kingdom’s major source of income comes down significantly, he needs to shift the economy of the Kingdom to other sources for income.

MBS realizes that he first needs to take the country out of some of its social structures and policies to free up the society and also ensure that people from other countries feel safe and happy to visit Saudi, do business in Saudi and also live in Saudi. He has unleashed some significant changes. Of course, there will be detractors who say not enough is being done and the pace of reforms are not fast enough. But, to shift a country away from a social structure that it has got used to for decades now, is not an easy task. It takes years but MBS is making a sincere effort. As he puts it, “I am not doing anything new. I am bringing back our old customs and practices.” The moral policing is getting defanged and the Crown Prince has sent a clear message that there is zero tolerance for religious extremism. As society changes and the country gears up for integration with the rest of the world culturally, MBS hopes that he can modernize the economy of the country and steer it away from its massive dependence on Oil.

Closer home, such a massive change in social structures and habits has been successfully done by our Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. NaMo brought in the Swacch Bharath (Clean India) movement and implemented it to phenomenal success. The way the country, its citizens and corporates have responded is amazing. Slowly, but surely, the country is changing. It will take many more years but the winds of change are visible. The dunes in the Thar Desert are not the only ones shifting in this great and old country.

However, I have to give it to Mukesh Ambani for reading the shifting sands years ago. He floated Reliance Jio and went after the Digital Market years ago. He realized the shift out of fossil fuels and his business empire, Reliance Group, had almost all of its income from the Oil to Chemical Business. The best part was his timing of the fund raising for Reliance Jio. The move to enter into the Digital Space was amazing and today over one-third of the Group’s revenues come from Reliance Jio.

It is essential to see the shifting winds of change. As in the desert, even in the seas, the clever sailors ensure that they change the direction of their sails to use the wind to sail in the direction they want to. To move forward, we need to embrace change in our own Lives.