Gabbar Rocks

In the movie Sholay, Gabbar Singh is the villain.

Unlike the villagers, Gabbar tills no land or tends to no animals. He doesn’t do any back breaking work. He doesn’t work for anybody either. So what does he do? He is an extortionist. He offers the villagers protection from himself. And in exchange for the protection services, the villagers have to pay him in kind with the grains they grow. If they don’t pay him, then Gabbar the protector cannot save them from Gabbar the extortionist!

Gabbar has been working on his image. In stead of forcefully stealing from the villagers, he prefers that they pay voluntarily. This subtle shift projects him as a necessary evil rather than as pure evil.

In short, what a low life!

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The business world is filled with villagers but very few Gabbars. The villagers are okay, but when I see a Gabbar, I love Gabbar. Let me explain.

The hotel industry, for example, is a collection of hardworking villagers (hotels). They work hard to construct properties. They are obsessed about occupancy because if they don’t sell their rooms today, that inventory is gone forever. Then there are guests who are always demanding; they don’t care if you are short staffed or not. They expect the highest quality service at all times and if you don’t provide what they ask, they will take out their smartphones and write nasty reviews online harming future business. Yogi or not, you have to bend over backwards to please them.

Much of their fate is external. Demand is to hotel owners what rains are to farmers. Good demand like good rains can lift their incomes and help make up for many poor years.

And then there are the Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) like MakeMyTrip, Booking.com, Expedia and so on. They are the Gabbars. They don’t build properties like the villagers do or work hard to please guests or have to worry about occupancy and Average Room Rents and so on. The villagers are dependent on him to get guest bookings. The villagers may hate Gabbar because he eats up their hard earned profits sometimes as high as 30%, but Gabbar never lets them forget that without the OTAs, there will be far fewer guests and so they have to pay Gabbar just to stay in business. As we know, Gabbar is necessary evil. We also know by now that Gabbar likes to refer to himself in 3rd person.

While the hotels have to staff real men and women to do the job and pay them salaries, Gabbar uses no henchmen. No Kalia, no Samba. Just algorithms to match guests with hotels. In short, Gabbar gets his protection money without even moving a muscle.

Gabbar hates work. In fact he has told his CFO to abolish working capital. So in place of working capital you see funds provided by the villagers for running his operation. Accountants call this negative working capital, but for Gabbar two negatives (negative and work) make it positive news. Gabbar needs very little fixed assets. He has a few offices around the world. But the beauty about Gabbar’s operations is without much investment in fixed assets, they can generate more and more business.

Because of the splendid operations that Gabbar runs, Gabbar is impressed with Gabbar (himself in 3rd person again) and therefore wishes to rename his headquarters to Gabbar Rocks!

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So who would you rather be? The hardworking and humble but poor villager or the low life Gabbar who generates tons of free cash flow, enjoys life attending music concerts (by RD Burman) and dance performances (by Helen)?

In short, what a low life!

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Cheers!

Featured image by Ariete’s Art